Cornflower Fields

What a nice and dreamy track from Patrik this morning – couldn’t resist, just had to play along a little:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

Thanks to Patrik and to Wikiloops for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening πŸ™‚

Strutterdumpf (Acoustic Reggae)

Awesome Reggae template from Mr. Baer and from Rich, so I added my upright to their fabulous tracks:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

As always, thanks to my friends and to Wikiloops for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening (or adding something?) πŸ™‚

From my heart to yours

Awesome tune from Mike, Alex, and Peter – so I just had to dust off my upright, and play a bit:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

As always, thanks to my friends over at the ‘loops for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening πŸ™‚

Far too sober…

Martin’s original title for his template was: “Red Wine Motown”, but since no one here drinks I could only play Sponge Bob with my bass a bit:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.
7e6_5234360-sponge-bob-on-bass
Sponge Bob on Bass, MΓΆrfelden-Walldorf 2022

As always, thanks to my friends over at Wikiloops for all the fun, and thanks to you for listening πŸ™‚

Tube preamps for a “P”

In my last post I wrote about a 200 Watt tube amplifier, which is of course overkill for anything you might want to do at home, or in a studio. In a studio, even James Jamerson went directly into the console, but these guys had some very nice custom-built DIs and preamps for that.

And yes, a preamp – preferably with tubes – and a Precision bass will give a tone which has that proverbial “sits in the mix” quality. Listen:

Monique Bass Preamp, Noble Preamp, Demeter VTBP-201S, J-B15, London S-PRE. Tube bass preamp 2/3

And yes, pricey stuff, this, except maybe if you can build it yourself. But that tone!

Edit: I’m currently reading through a thread in TalkBass about this, covering several years. I’m almost halfway through now (arrived at approximately May 2020, so two years left), and so far, the following preamp seems to be the sweet spot, with the best sound and features, and costing about half of a Noble preamp which you saw above. Listen why this makes a difference to a very good audio interface (Focusrite Clarett, a bit more costly than my Scarlett):

Low End Reviews – Arkham Oracle

That’s a nice one for sure… and if you like Vulfpeck, watch it through to the end πŸ™‚ And here is a review of this Arkham Oracle from Chris Tromp (who is also on TalkBass).

Another example of a great sounding (and played!) “P” bass. With that “Monique” preamp again, which costs more than my fretless P and the upright together:

Nate Mendel funky demo

Nice bass, and cheaper than some other American made models… the bridge looks cool as well πŸ™‚

And another one, this time a Reggae tune, over a preamp made in Russia, with no further processing:

Steel Pulse – Chant a Psalm (Bass Cover)

What a nice tone, and what a nice tune, and awesome playing. Cool.

Oh, and here is a very good comparison between a really good combination of compressor and bass preamp, and one which costs much less. Both are good, but I hear a huge difference (which could also be influenced by the first being a bit louder as one commenter also wrote)… but that second setup has a digital bass pre with a tube device somewhere in front of it, while in the first both the compressor and bass pre used tubes. Big difference IMO… that first one sounds like money, and like a studio recording, the second one not so much…

… and after reading the whole thread now, I think that at least two of User “scubaduba”‘s top 5 choices would also be mine – one is from Canada, and one even from Germany…

But in the end, I probably don’t need any of these… but thanks for reading, viewing, and listening anyway. For me at least, that was a fun journey πŸ™‚

“The amp that sold the most basses”

Last Saturday, I was at our local music store in Frankfurt, and I spent more than one very pleasant hour with Marco, their chief bass salesman.

And before I left I told him that it has been very clever of him to have me sit down in their custom shop room with my fretless Squier, and that he had me plugged in into this:

Sadowsky Audio SA200, via Talkbass

He told me that their boss wanted to replace “that old amp” with something more recent, as it’s not made and sold anymore, but Marco opposed and told his boss that this amp sold more basses than any other – and I can attest to that, when I played it over some Glockenklang cabs or so, it sounded absolutely brilliant. And it definitely sold that Squier Fretless to this ageing player who once owned an Ampeg SVT full stack (with two “fridges”). Play a Precision over a good old tube amp, and all you will say is: “Sweet…” πŸ™‚

Btw, thanks to Marco for a really great time, and because he always gives out very good advice. That’s exactly the reason why I will always go and buy there, and not order anything from bigger and more distant stores…

The wolf I am 🐺**

Found that wonderful piece from Arno and Peter, couldn’t resist to add a few low notes to it:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

As always, thanks to my friends and to Wikiloops, and thanks to you for listening πŸ™‚

Cat in a sunbeam

Welcoming Shi back from her holiday trip, I uploaded this today:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

As always, thanks to my friends at Wikiloops, and thanks to you for listening πŸ™‚