The Last Bass Outpost

There is something unusual that happens when you take smaller pickups on a bass and move them to the extremes like on a 4005. The mid scoop of a Jazz Bass becomes a more weird, mids-y comb filtered sound.

Time to break out the Humbrol model aircraft paints and get busy!

We will just ignore Ian Anderson's right hand technique on the flute there...

This appeals! Not the right time in my life to be buying any instruments, but in a virtually acoustic band this would be a nicer alternative to a small format electric upright bass.

No one knows what it's like
To be a cheese curd
From Wisconsin
Behind blue eyesssss

I know it was the fashion of the time, but my Rivoli was painful to play on a short strap. So many Brit Invasion bassists played Rivolis on short straps, with the right elbow and wrist of the picking hand running at some horrible angle to compensate.

Quote from: Dave W on July 18, 2024, 11:10:10 PM
Not sure this is a Gibson.

Looks like an EB0 with an extra mudbucker at the bridge.


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An interesting brand that, from my experience, didn't get a big foothold in the UK. Some budget guitars were available (those Les Paul copies with the scalloped body edge) and a few other things, but they were rarely to be found in shops. This would be circa 2005 or so, so I associate them with Nu Metal as a lot of their guitars were black or gunmetal grey.

The sustainer pickup is popular still, so hopefully somebody picks that up and continues production.

Looks like it is hiding dodgy 1970s routing decisions.

Don't Finns go to the toilet together to keep the conversation running?

I know Wigwam from their earlier incarnation with Pekka Pohjola on bass. Their album Fairyport is pretty nice. Keyboard-driven prog rock with a toe dipped into 20th century classical Impressionism (maybe?) and slightly odd English-adjacent lyrics and pronunciation. The version I have somewhere has a bonus track of them playing their song 'Losing Hold' with a grandiose intro lifted from Sibelius's Finlandia, albeit radically harmonised. Not bad for Finnish teenagers. 

This later clip suggests they became a bit of a Barclay James Harvest deal.

Some absolute schlager musik from the Tremeloes there.

Hard to tell about the bass as the dark areas of that footage are incredibly dark. The airborne violins appearing in frame every time that pitchy Mellotron notes appears is a deft artistic touch.

Is one of the necks shimmed, or is the opposite neck leaning forwards?

My gut feel with Eastwood is that they are $180 guitars with $780 pricetags because they copy the outline of obscure 1950s prototype guitars or 1960s catalog guitars. The hardware, fit and finish has felt a bit budget-y on the ones I've tried.

Tiny Tim and Joe Meek is a lot of craziness for one small thread to take.

There is something uniquely haunting and other worldly about Joe Meek's recordings. Vocals often sped up just to the edge of sounding cartoonish and unsettling, making the drums also sound frantic and edgy. Then layers of eerie echo and reverb added on top, all squashed into one dimension with heavy compression. Definitely the soundtrack to somewhere else that only Joe had the map for.

I gather Tiny Tim was trying to do some sort of important work and make an important statement behind his own slightly eerie and unsettling delivery.

Quote from: ajkula66 on June 30, 2024, 05:54:46 PM
Clapton was the weakest link in Cream - IMO - but actually ended up sounding good on many occasions because the other two pushed him across the borders of his own limitations.

After Layla he was just outright boring. Once again, IMO.

I feel that Clapton was uncomfortable in Cream, knowing that he was getting accolades for gluing together blues licks from generally overlooked blues masters. Perhaps due to his slightly dysfunctional upbringing, there seems to be a yearning in him for authenticity and a sense of genuine identity that plagued him; trying to work out what he actually wanted and who he was, and Cream wasn't helping. Being praised for something that didn't feel right. Instead he seems to have wanted to become Robbie Robertson, playing rootsy music while dressed as a farmer, or he was fascinated by somebody like JJ Cale who had a fully formed sense of artistry but who could also melt away anonymously into the crowds.

Back when I owned a 4003 bass, I reckoned it sounded like a classic Rickenbacker bass even unplugged. It had that mid-scooped sound with a rock solid fundamental and treble sizzle. The Rickenbacker pickup placement and design, perhaps mostly by accident, enhance the best elements of the tone that all that maple, plus the through-neck, impart.

I think that particularly in basses, the neck rigidity accounts for a lot of character in the tone. I currently own two Fenders with fairly rigid necks and they sound good. I've played a 1977 Stingray that felt completely rock solid. There was no flex or give in the neck at all. I've made a few parts basses with MIM Fender necks and the worst could easily be flexed by hand, dropping an open E down to an Eb by pushing the neck forwards.

I don't think that pickups can compensate for a body wood and construction type that either promote or rob certain frequencies in areas of the sonic spectrum. Putting Fender-like mids back into my 4003 would have required careful EQ, multi-band compression etc, rather than simply chopping a Dimarzio Model P into the "sweet spot".