Bass players have a choice of either a combo (All-in-one) or a stand alone bass cab. Either way, the cab (and the speaker within it) are the final link in the bass guitarist’s sounds chain. But how do you choose a cab? What do you look for? In looking for a source of sound advice (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) my thoughts turned to one man, and I managed to track him down…

I first met Mark Wright of Accugroove several years ago. I was so impressed by Mark’s knowledge, passion and the quality of the bass cabs his company makes, that I purchased one. the Tri 110 is still a central part of my rig today.

Mark is passionate about quality bass sound, and is a keen player himself, so I was very pleased to catch up with him… Here is the Q&A from the interview: [More...]

I want to introduce you to two Carols. One juggles motherhood, bass playing and a world other other things and still manages to write the enjoyable “On She Lives” blog, the other is Carol Kaye, legendary session bass player. The connection? Carol has a great series of posts from an interview with Carol Kaye that provides one of the most complete insights into here life. If you don’t know about Carol Kaye, you should definitely read them. [More...]

Eminence RN

I seem to be on a run of acoustic bass stuff at the moment! Don’t panic, there’s more solid bodied stuff coming up, but I just couldn’t resist mentioning the Eminence Bass. I’d never seen one of these puppies before, have you?

I originally found the german page, and tested my European language skills to their limit. Thankfully I found a version of the page in English, which confirmed that there are two models: The ‘standard’ model, and the ‘RN’ model, with a removable neck.

So, here’s the deal with the RN: You slacken off the strings, pop them out of the bridge, strap them to the neck. Undo a screw to release the neck, and ‘tada!’ you now have an upright bass that fits into a Smart car (if you haven’t seen one, it is to the BMW what the mouse is to an elephant… roughly… tiny car…). It weighs in at around 40 pounds (that’s including the flight case!!!). Watch this QuickTime movie showing how to the Eminence comes apart.

It is pretty much full scale length (41-3/8″), and has quite a pleasing tone. Maple neck and Ebony fingerboard are standard fair, so no corners cut there. The body is a narrower than a traditional upright bass, but it still looks the part and is made with spruce. Oh, and there is a five string model too, which comes in just shy of $4,000.

If you are after more about double bass, then check out the double bass guide –  here - well written by Jonas Lohse, it’s full of great acoustic and double bass news. I’ve added it to the blog roll… Back to the speaking German bit, which is where I started after all. If your German is better than mine, check out http://www.kontrabassblog.de/ as well!

Happy slapping!

Jazz Bass with Moses neck

I’ve been messing about with Graphite the last few days (as well as sorting out some exciting things for the blog in the next few weeks). More specifically I’ve been playing with a Moses graphite neck on a 4 string jazz bass. A good lesson in the effort required to customize a bass. A process best left to a professional (if you know any good bass luthiers, let me know).

As it happens, it all went very smoothly. The bass is still shiny new, but now with added punch, sustain and power. Moses make a range of replacement necks for basses (see electric bass necks on their site). They have been used by a fair few players over the years. [More...]

Well, after the 2 string bass, which I thought was a one of a kind, here is another one! Special thanks to Thumbrella for bringing this monster to my attention:

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Fresh into my inbox this morning was the International Institute of Bassists newsletter (on-line here). I first came across the IIB a few years back, when I was at BassQuake in California, USA. I still have the IIB t-shirt, which is looking a little old and faded now. The IIB itself has aged considerably better!

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