The Hobbit brought me back...

hieronymous · May 22, 2025, 08:17:24 PM

To this subforum at least!

I kinda snuck back in, but I don't think Hobbits would go for that - or maybe that would be more in the tradition of Bilbo?

The hobbit in question is my 1970-or-so Les Paul Triumph - put GHS Precision Flats on when I got it worked on a couple of years before the pandemic, have an idea to put a set of Pyramid flats I ended up with on, but better do some recordings first!

Moog is in preparation for Drone Day 2025 - this Saturday! Gotta get back into the groove of my synths!

Dave W · May 23, 2025, 12:44:53 AM

Very nice. I say leave the GHS on, they sound fine.

ilan · May 23, 2025, 03:32:22 AM

Loving it.

Basvarken · May 23, 2025, 05:51:07 AM

Lovely. And welcome back Harry!

Ken · May 23, 2025, 07:08:44 AM

That bass sounds great, as does your playing! I agree with Dave. Leave those strings on.

4stringer77 · May 23, 2025, 07:25:58 AM

That's a thing of beauty, both visually and sonically. The tone has some starfire vibes so I get why you'd want to give pyramids a try. Either way, purple silks look good on that bass and I think pyramids are purple silks too. Thanks for sharing.

gearHed289 · May 23, 2025, 08:15:59 AM

Nice one Harry!

doombass · May 23, 2025, 05:19:56 PM

Sounds great, no need for a strich change.

BTL · May 24, 2025, 09:48:34 AM

Very nice, keep the strings.

hieronymous · May 26, 2025, 02:55:47 PM

Thanks everyone! Memorial Day Weekend is one of my busiest of the year work-wise (though I get actual Memorial Day off, which is nice), so I forgot I posted!

Also forgot to post this, which was actually what I was thinking of posting originally:

Andy Fraser was one of my favorite bassists as a teen. I had the second album, Fire & Water, Live!, and Heartbreaker (Tetsu Yamauchi was another fave). Never managed to get an EB-3, but it's fun scale-wise appropriate with the Les Paul.

And I don't disagree re: the strings - I think these are great, and do like the purple color. Before I think I had La Bellas with red silks. I got the Pyramids because someone said they would fit on a Starfire, but they do not fit my Guild M-85. One upshot is that I ordered the medium scale set direct from Pyramid and got to correspond with Max Junger - he sent some cool stuff like stickers and a history of Pyramid strings booklet. I'm going to record more with it - other Free bass covers I want to do, and a drone piece inspired by the recent Drone Day and a possible place on a compilation album...

hieronymous · May 30, 2025, 07:15:10 PM

I posted another Free/Andy Fraser bass cover:

In the Ride On Pony one, I had it on the bridge pickup but it was still putting out tons of bass (not tons of sobs)! This time I used a Trickfish Signal Filter using the hi-pass to cut some of the super lows, so I used the neck pickup this time.

Today I had business in San Francisco and stopped by Amoeba Records. Picked up the 2002 expanded release of the Free Live! album - I had it on vinyl as a teen in Tokyo in the '80s, didn't know until recently about the added tracks - 7 in total - listened to some of the original album and some of the additional tracks - sounds great! I think I still prefer the studio versions, but it's fun listening to live recordings of them too.

ilan · May 31, 2025, 03:07:08 AM

Sounds great my friend! I'm really impressed by this bass.

https://www.trickfishamps.com/shop/signal-filter/

Never heard of this one before. Can it clean up a mudbucker?

Basvarken · May 31, 2025, 04:50:47 AM

Great playing Harry. Those Andy Fraser bass parts are always fun to play.

In my opinion you don't need a Trickfish to tame the low end of this bass.
The Les Paul Bass has plenty of options from itself. It has a Bass potentiometer that you can dial all the way to 0. Plus if you use both pickups you can dial it out of phase.

ilan · May 31, 2025, 10:10:28 AM

Quote from: Basvarken on May 31, 2025, 04:50:47 AMIn my opinion you don't need a Trickfish to tame the low end of this bass.
The Les Paul Bass has plenty of options from itself. It has a Bass potentiometer that you can dial all the way to 0. Plus if you use both pickups you can dial it out of phase.

But can it clear up a mudbucker?

hieronymous · May 31, 2025, 10:24:46 AM

Quote from: ilan on May 31, 2025, 03:07:08 AMSounds great my friend! I'm really impressed by this bass.

https://www.trickfishamps.com/shop/signal-filter/

Never heard of this one before. Can it clean up a mudbucker?

Unfortunately, I don't have a mudbucker-equipped bass these days, so I can't test it. One potential issue with the Trickfish pedal is that other than the cutoff frequency, everything else is preset and not adjustable. A cheaper alternative to experiment with might be one of the Broughton audio pedals (further down this page: https://www.broughtonaudio.com)

Quote from: Basvarken on May 31, 2025, 04:50:47 AMGreat playing Harry. Those Andy Fraser bass parts are always fun to play.

In my opinion you don't need a Trickfish to tame the low end of this bass.
The Les Paul Bass has plenty of options from itself. It has a Bass potentiometer that you can dial all the way to 0. Plus if you use both pickups you can dial it out of phase.

You got me! To be honest, I have long been biased against passive tone controls. It's only the past 5 years or so that I started turning down the tone knob on my P-Bass. I think I had a similar bias against the bass knob on the Triumph - will experiment with that! The tone selector switch is another thing to experiment more with - I usually go with position 2 but that is pretty bassy as well.