Ok...so I have a number of basses with mudbuckers that I love to play. Mid 60's Rivoli's, late 50's EB-2's, early & mid 60's EB-O's, EB-3's and one nice 1967 sunburst EB-2D. They are all stock save for some locking studs wich help immensely but don't change or mod any of the basses.
Among the things I do musically is my teaching practice. I have been doing that for 18 years or so. I have a nice private teaching studio in the downtown are of my city...near a few schools & colleges...a nice set up. there are seven appartments in my building along with a couple other businesses. So when I moved here three years ago I set up my teaching station with two chairs facing each other. Each chair has a headphone jack and each chair also has a "Tactile Sound Transducer" from a company in Colorado called Clark Synthesis...they are essentially amazing butt kickers. The idea was to be able to set myself and my late afternoon/early evening students up with headphoes and then supplement the cans with the extended bass and actual physical sensation of low end from the transducers in each seat. I also have a small 12 channel console and some self powered monitors for daily use. A big stereo power amp gets signal from an aux send and feed the low end transducers in each chair.
WEEEEEELLLLL...yesterday I was sitting with an older student who loves his basses. I was playing the EB-2D on full mud through the powered mons and also the butt kickers...really kicking I mean. i sent another aux send to a distortion unit that I folded back into the mains and the low end transducers in the chairs. This sound was amazing...huge fat but with this attitude and growl from the distortion. I was being creative and ripping through some heavy lines when my student sitting acroos from me said "ER...UH...Chris...your butt is smoking"!!!!
Sure nuff...there was a ton of smole coming from my nethher regions. Turns out it was the Tactile Sound Transducer belching smoke. It was still working but it was pooring out smole. I quickly turned of the beast...shut down the power amp to the transducers and looked underneath. yep...there it was coming out of the plaxce where the wires were coming out of the transducer.
I was so takin' with the girth and power of the sound that I hadn't noticed the smoke until my student made the comment.
I called Clark Synthesis and spoke with Bill (owner?) I described what happened and we went through a couple diagnostic checks...turns out the transducers are filled with what's called a Ferro-Fluid for cooling and heat dissipation...I had BOILED THE FERRO-FLUID and subsequently it over heated and burned up.
Bottom line is MUD RULES and exceeded all operating parameters of this device. A great recipe for fun...a little quailty distortion and lots and lots of pure MUD!
There ya have it ;-)
