Random bass

I suppose I have to do this sooner or later. Here's a track I recorded.

Gear:

Fender Squier 5 string Jazz Bass, defretted by yours truly.
Korg PXR4
Audacity for some post-recording cleanup.

I made this whole thing up on the fly; there were three tracks:

1) the "drum" part: basically a muted slap of the fingerboard
2) single notes
3) "7" chords (1,3,b7)

Random bass Read more...

Ribbecke Halfling For Sale

With a serious bit of sadness, I've finally made peace with the fact that it's time to sell the Halfling.  Breaks my heart to see this instrument go; I hope it goes to a good home.

It will be available on Bass Northwest's web site (http://bassnw.com/) by tomorrow.  You can also contact me if you are interested in purchasing.

I realized as I was getting ready to write this that I never did a full blown blog post about the Halfling (one under construction one was all). Shame on me!  This is one of the most unique bass guitars that I've ever seen; the tone, workmanship, and looks on this guitar rival any boutique, high-end guitar/bass. To make up for not doing a full post, here are some pictures of this very, very beautiful guitar.

Read more...

Great customer service

Those of you following my build on Facebook know that I'm building a fEarful 12/6, which uses the Eminence 3012LF speaker. After assembling, I noticed that the speaker had a bunch of distortion, and found a hairline crease in the cone.

Called Eminence, got an RMA number, and shipped off my speaker with crossed fingers.

They called today, and he said that the speaker looks fine, sounds fine, and the crease I saw was probably a casting mark or something. Uh-oh, I'm thinking.

"But we'll get a new speaker right out to you."

Nice. Read more...

The Alembic at 6 Months

So, I picked up my Alembic roughly 6 months ago. I can't thank Mica, Susan, Valentino, Ron and the craftsmen at Alembic enough.

Pictures after the jump.












Aesthetics:

Simply put, this is the most beautiful bass I've ever seen. All of the elements work together, the Coco Bolo, Vermilion and Purpleheart, the Maple and Ebony. Amazing.

Playing:

The neck is just right. Thin, sleek, effortless. String spacing is really nice at 18mm; enough room for slap, while still room for speedy fingerstyle.

Electronics:

The Emacs of bass electronics. Yes, it does that, for every value of that. But mind-altering; it takes a serious effort to grok them. Mica's hint of concentrating on one pickup at a time helps (like viper-mode in emacs :)).

Read more...

Alembic Pictures

We had a spot of sun this weekend, so I decided to take a break from work, and take some pictures.

Hit the link to see pictures of my 6-string Alembic Series II Balance K.










Read more...

Ribbecke Halfling

I'm having an acoustic bass guitar built by Ribbecke Guitar Corporation, and the first pictures of the build are now available.

If you haven't heard of them, check RGC out-- they make the best acoustic bass guitar I've ever heard. Read more...

Concert last weekend

This weekend, my wife attended an event, leaving me as sole provider to the kids. Always looking to expand their horizons (and lacking adult supervision!), I decided to take them to see some live music.



Kimberly Lynn is a bass soloist, who has an interesting methodology: she uses a looper (which is pretty much de rigueur for soloists), but also has a MIDI pickup. Anyhow, she's very talented, and the music is interesting (the kids definitely liked it). I'll even forgive her for a rendition of White Christmas before Halloween.

She is currently playing Saturday nights in Poulsbo, WA at Casa Luna. Check her out if you have the chance.



On the way back, we took the Bainbridge Island ferry (see picture above). I loaded the little ones with hot chocolate and made them stand out on the freezing cold prow with me. It brought back the magic of childhood-- they were so excited to be on the ferry, asking about sharks, "we drive onto the ferry?!?!", etc.

I wish I had thought to bring a kite. Read more...

It's impossible to sing and play the bass

I have an admission to make. I cannot sing and play the bass. I cannot talk and play the bass.

I can't even answer yes or no questions. I have no idea why, but I've come up with a pseudo-medical term for it: musical aphasia.

Here's Jay Leonhart's take on things:

Read more...