Here’s all sorts of bass-related stuff. Technique, gear, rants, bassists, blah blah blah.
GEAR.
OK, gear. We gotta talk GEAR, because it’s BASS, and BASS has some awesome GEAR.
The very first bass I got was a 1966 Fender Precision, with OHSC and a Fender MusicMaster Bass amp – I think it had a 10 inch speaker – for Christmas, 1978. My mother paid $700 for the whole setup from Leon Rhodes, an Opry and session bassist in Nashville, and I was set for life.
Along the way I picked up and sold a Steinberger L2 in the 80s and a blue Jackson/Charvel bass, and I had a purple Fender fretless Jazz bass (MIM, which is Fender lingo for Made in Mexico. Here’s a secret: MIM basses are made in Mexico by Mexicans, and MIA [Made in America] are made in Los Angeles by Mexicans).
I never had a lot of money to buy any guitars, so I have never owned more than 3 at anytime in my life (including now). I am sort of halfway on the lookout for an ESP LTD B1006 or 416SM (not the RB series – fanned frets look cool but I can’t imagine chording on one). They’re very hard to find – I came across one about 4 years ago and KICK myself for not getting it then. (SEE BELOW ! GOT A B1006 – 3/30 2021!!
Back to the vintage P.
When I was 18 my drummer and I decided to refinish my roadworn and beat all to hell P Bass. We stripped off the sunburst and then I chickened out before we took it to a body shop to have it painted hot electric pink. Yeah. So we put a stain on it to seal and I kept the P Bass until I switched to 6 string basses in 2012, when I no longer played it and it sat in its case for about a year, then I decided to sell it because 1) A bass like that should be PLAYED, not sitting in it’s case; and 2) I will never go back to playing 4 string basses.
My first 6 string bass was an ESP LTD B206SM, which was an awesome feeling and sounding bass. The neck was wide but had a flattened profile, making it easy to play. It was the first 6 I played that was easy for me. Usually 6 string basses felt bulky, unwieldy and slow, like I had to work way too hard for every note. Not this bass. It is the first (but not the last) 6 string I would call fast, easy to play and fun. The ESP LTD B206SM is a 6 string that feels goooood.
Next I got an ESP LTD prototype, a B336-SR, red six string beauty. Unfortunately, I bought that bass off of a seller on eBay and it had a neck issue that was never disclosed; basically the neck was a banana. It was playable, but some upper notes were buzzy and clanky. No one was able to fix it, so it went as part of a trade (worth about $100).
I wanted to get a Bongo 6 HS but when I tried them, I found the string spacing at the bridge to be too wide, causing me to miss a lot of notes with my plucking hand – not good. So I forgot about the Bongo and came across the Yamaha John Myung Signature II bass guitar – the RBXJM2.
I wanted to get a Bongo 6 HS but when I tried them, I found the string spacing at the bridge to be too wide, causing me to miss a lot of notes with my plucking hand – not good. So I forgot about the Bongo and came across the Yamaha John Myung Signature II bass guitar – the RBXJM2.
Fantastic. The bass is an absolute shred monster. I purchased another one as a backup/practice bass of the same color, got matching cases, had them stung with the same strings, setup by the same tech, outfitted with the same Frefx – they even have the same straps, straplocks and batteries changed at the same time.
In 2018 I bought my second fretless, an unlined Carvin LB76f bass guitar. I love playing fretless and will be including it more and more in videos and recording.
I don’t like any surprises with my bass – I don’t want to have to think about the instrument at all while playing. It should disappear completely while playing it so that all I am thinking about it the next section and where my hand has to be. Anything else is sure to cause me to screw up – any stray thought at all and TRAIN WRECK.
It’s a reason I enjoy playing really difficult pieces as opposed to simple ones – I bore easily. I have musical ADD. If the music isn’t constantly changing and filled with challenges, my mind drifts and TRAIN WRECK. Simpler songs tend to do that to me… the difficult ones do not give my mind the chance to act up.
As for future guitars, I would like to own a graphite neck Modulus Q6 but they are very expensive and I probably won’t be getting one, oh, and a Rickenbacker 4080 6 or 12. And I’m not going to get one of those for the same reason.
Amps, So yeah, I’m a Trace Elliot head. It was sometime in the late 80s and one of the last times I’d ever see my friend Tim. He was in my three piece band (sort of, he stood us up more than once in the 3 piece prompting impromptu unplugged/unhinged live sets) and another band that gigged often. I went to see them at a bar in Nashville off Nolensville Rd. Anyhow his bass player had a full brand-new Trace stack. Two big cabs (probably both 4×10’s) and a UV-lit head, I could not tell you what model – but it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I had to have it. My wallet did not see it that way.
I had used amps by Peavey, Fender, and Gallien-Krueger but I’d always wanted that TRACE.
I joined a prog band here in Chicago back in 2007 with a crappy Crate amp when they bought me a Hartke 2×10 and a 1×15 cabs as a Christmas present – WOW! I bought a GK 400RB to drive them, added some Behringer compression and a parametric eq, plus a Roland VF-1 effects until and I was set!
Flash forward to 2011. I bought my first Trace Elliot amp – an AH500X with flight case from a guy on Talkbass.com. A local guy was selling 2 Trace cabinets – a 4×10 1048 and a 2×15 1528 (both red stripe). Below is the full stack – the Trace Elliot 1528 2×15 on the bottom, the 1048 4×10 on top of that, the AH500X Series V dual mono amp, each separate channel driving each cab, blended together with the crossover settings and configuration on the back of the head. On top of that is an AH250S Series 6 head, eq’d for upper frequencies. I bought it for $65 off of Craigslist, the only issue being that the eq volume slider was sticky. I paired it with a (get this) $60 4052h Bright Box, sold to me by a guy off of Craigslist who wanted to sell it and some junky head together, so I convinced him I’d give him the full price and he could keep the stereo. The only issue is one of the drivers had come loose in thecab. I sent it off to British Audio Service, and $85 later, have a minty Bright Box to top off the highs.
Since then I’ve added a Trace Elliot 4052h “Bright Box” and a second Trace Elliot AH250S head, and run a dual mono amp setup – one signal goes to the AH500X, which is eq’d for the lows and mids into the 4×10 and 2×15 cabs, while the other signal goes to my AH250S into the Bright Box – and it is eq’d for high frequencies.
and an AH250S driving the Bright Box.
My big rig, named “Heavy Duty Judy,” breaks things. The band next to ours came to rehearsal to find their shelves knocked from the wall because of the bass. They nailed them to the wall, so the bass knocked everything from the nailed up shelves. They gave up.
I also purchased and have since sold a 4×10 Trace 200 watt combo amp and have no plans to buy anymore Trace amps… but you never know!
Effects. My first effect pedal was a Boss bass eq that I used with my P bass and an old Peavey TNT 130 for years. My next effect purchase was a Boss ME-50b multi-effects pedal, but I never liked it as much as I thought I would because it seemed difficult to use and setup (for me, anyways). So I bought the next model up (GT-6B), but wound up selling it as well and went with separates.
At one point I probably had the biggest set of Markbass effects pedals on the planet: Markbass Compressore, Distorsore, Chorus/Flanger, Superbooster, RIverbero, and Mini-Distortion pedals on a custom pedalboard.
I kept that for a few years and then recently decided to go back to a single multi-effects unit, and bought a TC Electronic Nova System. It is primarily for guitar, but works great for bass. Being a split signal guy.
I send one bass signal to the effects unit, while a second bass signal goes unaffected out to the amps. I eq them separately and blend them with a small mixer on my board, and I get two mono signals to feed to my amps or DAW.
The signal chain is bass -> tuner -> ABY box -> channel A goes to the TC Electronic Nova System, then right and left out to channels 1 and 2 of my mini Mackie mixer, where it is eq’d further. Channel B goes straight from my ABY box to the mixer channel 3 where it isn’t eq’d, and I blend the affected and unaffected signal on the mixer.
After everything is blended and eq’d on the mixer, one channel goes to one channel out on my pedalboard and then to my amp or USB interface, and the other channel goes from the mixer to the left channel of my pedlaboard and then out. So I’ve got one signal coming in, splitting, then being sent out dual mono blended clean and affected signals to my two amp rig, or stereo inputs on my Scarlett Focusrite 2i2.
Well the Darkglass plugins I just bought (May 2018) from NeuralDSP are game changers. Both Vintage Plus and B7Kultra V2 virtual pedals for $100. They work great in Garageband – and have given me my new go to sound.
Which means that my gear will be changing to accommodate the sound in live situations. I’ll be getting rid of some things and adding some other things -noticeably a laptop computer and USB interface and maybe a bluetooth foot pedal switch to get this sound live.
It’s a combination of the bass, the Nova System and the effects I get through GB that have given me THE tone I’m looking for (check out my music videos – Yes – Machine Messiah). So big changes coming up, but not sure when.
December 14, 2019
I have some new gear to post about – a Darkglass Vintage Ultra v2 pedal (an always on thing for tone and overdrive) and some bass pedals – a Roland PK-5 midi pedal and a Roland JV-1010 synth.
I’ll be spending all weekend playing with these – and there’s more to come!
Well here are my Roland PKI-5A bass pedals with the JV-1010 synth (I need to get a classic 80s synth card for the Oberheim in Tom Sawyer!). These are amazing pedals that allow me to give an extra push to he low end when needed. I use them on my bass cover of Dream Theater’s “Pull Me Under”) and plan on using them elsewhere. Now I need another Trace amp rig to run these through… the green and black never stop.
In addition to the Darkglass Vintage Ultra V2 and bass pedals/synth, I purchased a TC Electronic “G System” – the big bad flagship – in beautiful red. I ran the Darkglass in the preamp channel of the G System:
Isn’t she lovely?
I used it for about two months, but it wasn’t a good fit for me, so I sold it to buy another TC Electronic Nova System, an Electro-Harmonix Tri-Parallel Mixer (three independent channels with 1 unaffected channel), a Brimstone Audio Crossover Distortion XD-2 and a cheap stereo out pedal (“The BLENDER” – far cheaper than I realized when I bought it on Reverb, that died unexpectedly one day and went straight in the trash), and my cheap-o earplugs:
I eventually sold the Darkglass pedal as it did not have the flexibility of the Brimstone pedal for tone and as overkill as an overdrive, so I will probably get a Darkglass Harmonic Booster or Hyperluminal compressor and a Vintage Ultra or B3k distortion/overdrive – oh, and a blender from SaturnWorks.
In the meantime, Ernie Ball has FINALLY, after literally YEARS of waiting, a John Myung Signature Bongo bass, that I MUST have.. More to follow…
March 21. 2022.
Well well…there be gear here!
Let me start with my newest bass – modified ESP LTD B1006 -the bass I said I really wanted (see above!)
I bought it on Reverb from a seller in Portugal. It has several nice mods, including a brass nut that let’s me adjust the string height of each string individually at the nut. The took out the pickup been knob and instead put in a 5-way switch, allowing me to choose the neck pickup alone, the bridge pickup alone, both in parallel, both in serial and off. Finally the original pickups were replaced with Nordstrand Big Singles which are thunderous. I may have it modded still by adding a second battery to my preamp as there is some distortion from the bass with the pickups and tone knobs all the way up. The EMG preamp will support 18v and there is room in my preamp cavity (it’s adding two wires, but if I do it I am sure to do it backwards and fry the whole thing, so I’ll take it somewhere).
It’s a great bass and fun to play. Very rich and deep tone, sounds amazing – coming soon to a video near you!
Because I live on the third floor and am not a 20 year old bodybuilder, I cannot schlepp classic heavy Trace gear up and down stairs for auditions, jams, etc. I need something portable for those situations and gigs, so I picked up an Elf and a 2×8 cab, with a 1/4″ to Speakon cable: Here is my ESP/LTD B-1006 and my Elf rig:
Now I can carry a rig up and down the stairs easily and I use the Elf head with my bass pedals/synth – the synth plugs into the Elf, which lives on top of the synth – and the Elf connects to channel one on my Electro Harmonix Tr-Parallel mixer. On the mixer, I adjust the level, tone and phase of the synth, blending it into my overall mix with he bass guitar.
I also saw someone with a Trace Elliot MP11 preamp and foot switch for $1800 on Ebay, and as much as I have wanted one I could never justify spending that. Then I saw a guy on Facebook who had a pristine MP11 preamp, so I jumped on it:
Next, lurking around Facebook Trace Elliot groups I went back and found a thread from a guy in Oklahoma selling his pristine foot switch. The thread sorta died, no one seemed to jump on it although some back and forth happened. It died like a month earlier. So I figure what the heck, why not ask on a zombie thread if he ever sold it Turns out he did not, so I bought it from him:
Now, I needed a cable. The four wire cable they use with the XLR on both ends is a lot like a power cable, but it isn’t. I had a custom cable made for me with a right angle adapter and it did not work.
I also had trouble with noise just when using it from time to time, so I sent the whole thing off to British Audio in Nashville (who are about a block from a house I lived in in Nashville for about 3 years lol)
They fixed the foot switch cable, cleaned it up, repaired a few things and sent it back. BAM!!!
The foot switch has a place for the fluorescent “Trace Elliot MP11 Footswitch” logo, but nothing was there. So I rigged up an LED in the same spot where the factory light would have gone had one ever been there, ran a cabe out the back and it looks awesome.
I have a working, fully functional, MP11 preamp with functioning proprietary cable and backlit working MP11 foot switch. 🙂
About this time I came across a guy on Facebook selling a Trace Elliot 4052h Bright Box for CHEAP. I contacted him , he told me a driver was loose and I bought it immediately. I got the Bright Box, covered in telex (my other 402h is covered with Trace rat fur) and tightened up some screws and tested it 0 it works perfectly. So now I have two 4052h Bright Boxes.
I needed a place to put the whole thing together, and I needed a case for the MP11.
So I picked up a 4u 20″ deep road case, a Furman PL-Plus 8c power conditioner, and a Royce SX-21 Crossover:
My master rig plan is to have three pedal sections in front of me – the PK5 bass pedals and synth and Elf amp will be on my right, the Trace MP11 glowing foot switch will begin the center, and the effects pedalboard will be on the left.
The bass signal comes into the tuner, then the Tri-Parallel Mixer. From there the signal will split and be passed clean through at full volume because I like to have the pure bass tone to be the primary part of the overall tone. Channel one will have the signal from my Elf amp, sitting atop the Roland JV-1010 synth, itself on top of the Roland PK-5 pedals:
After the first channel on my Parallel Mixer taking the signal from the V-1010/Elf, the next channel is my dirt channel with the Brimstone Audio Crossover Distortion. I’d like to add some more dirt in the future to increase my options, but for now it works, Channel 3 is for modulation, featuring the Markbass Chorus/Flanger. I’d like more modulation effects here, but my basics are covered.
All four channels – channel zero being the loudest – the unaffected bass signal, followed by channel 1 with the bass synth pedals, channel 2 being dirt and channel 3 being modulation – leave the Tri-Harmonic mixers (where I have adjusted each channel’s individual send/return volumes, their phase and their tone to balance everything at the pedalboard level).
They go into the MP11’s front input, mounted in the rack. From the MP11 preamp, the signal goes to the Royce SX-21 Crossover, where split the one signal from the preamp into two signals, set the crossover point between those signals and set the output levels for both high and low output.
The high output will go to my Trace Elliot AH200 amp, bypassing the preamp, with both channels going to both Bright Boxes. That’s my high end, and it is set by the crossover.
The low signal, as set by the crossover, will go to the AH500X, again, bypassing the pre, driving the signal to both my Trace 1528 2×15 cab and my 1048 4×10 cab. The stack will be (bottom to top) p 1528 cab, 4u rack with preamp, power condition and crossover, 1048 cab, AH500X amp and AH200 amp. It will be flanked by two 4052h cabs, turned vertically and set on speaker stands next to the rig.
I cannot wait to set it up for a demo sometime…. BOOOOOOMMMMMMM
For now, I set the system up and instead of running the output to the two power amps/cabs, I ran them both to my Focusrite and recorded/jammed (not the silhouette of one of the kids in the background).
WOW:
I also sold my main Yamaha bass, keeping my backup Yammie which is now my primary, bought a three-bass stand and now keep them in my living room where I can get to them easily, meaning more actual time with a bass in my hands, which is a goooood thing.
Things have changed…
Back on March 26 I decided to list my long desired ESP LTD B-1006 bass for sea or trade on Craigslist and Facebook as it was pretty clear it was bothering my hands and exacerbating some pain I was feeling in my fretting hand. Within a couple of hours I traded it for an Ibanez BTB776PB 6 string beauty with OHSC, an Electro-Harmonix “Preacher” model bass compressor and cash. Now I have much less hand pain a beautiful, great sounding, easy to play bass. It will be used on my new UK cover, Nevermore, which I will begin recording soon.
RON TAVALIN 