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In Reply to: This got me hooked. posted by footstony on February 26, 2007 at 15:38:57:
--played by ear too but now hands weak/funky and joints shot so can't really play anymore so basses sit. That's a beautiful W-horn and I like those things for bass. I beleive besides luthier Bill Fitzmaurice, Tom Danley also played bass.Best wishes,
Freddy
Follow Ups:
Hi FreddyiYes, I still play, not in bands like the old days but every so often with CD’s, daughter on guitar and friends.
That looks like one of them ‘Lunamum neck jobbies is it?
Never played one of those I have to say although I like the idea.
That yours?In the way old days I bought an EB-0 from a store, with my mom signing for the payments and such. Took forever to pay off too it seemed.
I bought a good copy of a les paul recording bass later in the 70’s, that was before the Gibson lawsuit stopping such exact copies, anyway it was my favorite.At this point, I don’t remember where the EB-0 went, the band broke up finally, I had to sell the les paul copy to fix my car and playing music was over..
That is until about 15 years ago, I was daydreaming about the old days and for some reason associated the cone reinforcing process I used on the Servdrive cone assemblies and it dawned on me that I might be able to fix a cracked guitar neck the kind of the same way.
I bought a couple Junkers off E-bay for really cheap (having cracked or full broken necks) and experimented.Anyway, after I got the hang of it, I found an EB-3 in sorta decent shape but with a cracked neck and bought it. After fixing, it has become my favorite, especially played through a compressor, it has a percussive sound like nothing else.
In the following years I found a Tobias 5 string neck thru (nice looking with a cracked neck) and a real Les Paul recording bass (with a cracked neck, broken headstock, thick layer of filth, lots of scratches) which is still in process.In the way old days I had a couple different W bin also for gigs.
The best sounding was the “beast”, it was a minimum (hand power saw)cut design, was 23 7/8 by 23 7/8 by 49 1/2 tall.
Thinking “cheap”, I made that one out of ¾ particle board (read 96 lb /sheet)and there were no corners or handles.
It was loaded with four Heppner 12 inch drivers, beefy (heavy) for the time.
The flat black latex paint was especially flattering once it got good and worn, particle board doesn’t travel so well. People also aren't that careful with things they are swearing at so it got pretty beat up looking.
On its last job, we were playing at a Frat house party in a big, deep basement near Northwestern U.
There were lots of happy Frats to help tote the gear, eh, pretty cool.
Looked like a good party, made seemingly serious eye contact with a couple of females in the audience but they were long gone when we quit.
Hey, now that it is 2:30 AM there were very few Frat boys, well moving much anyway.
I packed up my bass, lifted down the head and thought about the long flight of stairs and the “beast”, that it will take 4 people to get it to the top and how tired I was.
There were some people that hung around the band, one of these guys really liked the hugeness of the beast or something. I said, hey, you want the beast?. He said sure man, I said ok its yours, why don’t you come back and get it later.
Anyway, not a noble finish I suppose.
Is that your rig in the photo?
Best,
Tom
hey Tom - I've a pile of metalnecks - but due to miseries and weak hands not even a cord anymore.. they were odd but very resistant to acoustic feedback and no real dead spots.had a recording bass too and remember how beautiful plus the sound of its lower Z pickups than the mile of wire on EB. EB were/are great but never owned one - Gibsons like Thunderbird bass would fall over and snap at the headstock. The 'lumimum necks survived slips although later Kramer had the body notched and fitted tightly to keep the neck from rotating on a fall but that usually induced a hairline crack at the joint.
those Acoustic Control 115BK's are more my Kollection.
re: women - yeah - sometimes the ones we went home with were the downfall (for both parties in my case)
1992 5 minute to write bad attitude 4tk song with poor fretless bass lead instead of guitar
Loved the look of them! Apparently Paul of the Beatles also like them as per the look alike Hofner he used.
Great tune, Freddy :-). The first thing that came to mind was that must have been Frank Zappa doing his version of country music.
I sure like your K-horm bass bins, if I still played I would have liked to try them except for hauling them around. I started out playing tenor but my younger brother played better than me and 'bumped' me from our wedding/jazz group so I switched to bass. Started with a borrowed full upright but quickly got tired of manuvering it in the car so I got an original Fender Jazz Bass. Because we played weddings and jazz lounges we were constantly changing venues in a weekend so I opted for smaller more portable amp/speaker combos such as Ampeg and others. Went though several and ended up with a Yamaha B115 head and scoop bass horn. A bear to bring up and down stairs but it sounded great. Like you, after a few thousand gigs, carpal tunnel, arthritis, and age caught up with me and now I only play with the 'greats' on CD's at home. Played from age 14 to 45 and it fueled the 'hi-fi', high effeciency fever and stills continues to set the standard by which I judge systems. Lots of my musician friends are audio nuts .. I think it comes with the territory, they (and I) just don't know how to do anything else with their spare time. I remember the first New Year's eve that I was on the dance floor instead of the bandstand ..weird!
re: premature old age with carpel tunnel progressing into - uh -death ---I think its fluoridation (half-kidding) - my hands lost color and shoulders shot - perhaps partly from mr. evil sandman & reflux. Somehow some folks have strength with severe arthritis.a bit larger rear-chamber coupler than 115BK might be a cool thing as 115BK's cutoff is awfully high at around 80Hz half-space with only 1.8 cubic foot rear chamber. Karlson types work well around certain limits and imo can beat "some horns" in a certain range if enough power is put into the things. Short-path W-bins werw fun for bass to get lotsa energy and hollow sound - haha
hope you're having some fun. I never touch basses - tried to learn from listening to Ray Brown and everything worked well til about 44 years of age - bases sure need cleaning & polishing.
Freddyi,
I only touch the bass on average once a month but pick up the tenor sax daily (I think I could 'bump' my brother today) as the hands hurt less on the tenor and it exercised my hands keeping them as limber as they can be. Ray Brown is one of my bass CD gig buddies but only the ballads or easy tempos. It's been so long since I played weekly that I can't play any uptempo or even read .... somehow the connection between between my eyes, brain, and fingers has been lengthened by a magnitude of 100.Your right the B115 doesn't go that low, however, for jazz and weddings it produced a nice tight bass that was not annoying. We did some occasional top 40 lounge work and for that the 115 was lacking.
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