hieronymous
Member
I've been playing my Starfire I bass again lately (first introduced in this thread). There was an issue with the pickup height, but I stopped playing it for a while because A) I went to Japan for a few weeks, and B) I picked up an early-'70s Gibson Les Paul Triumph Bass that was getting most of my attention. But last week my wife bought me a guitar pick made from woolly mammoth tusk (?!) and the Starfire seemed to be the bass that would be most appropriate to use it on.
So I've been playing it acoustically, and it plays great! The pickup height isn't an issue when I play with a pick. But then I remembered - another issue I was having with this bass was that the sound would drop out when I played with vibrato.
To make a long story short, I decided to make a recording to demonstrate the problem. Then I decided, why not go all the way and make a video?! So I did. And I learned a lot. I was able to see from a different angle how the string is aligned with the pickup, and that when I pull on the string, I'm pulling it pretty far from the pole - more than I expected!
So here's the video:
bisonic bass bends
I had fun with it - the first 30 seconds are just the mic on the camera. I flub a fill, then switch from the camera mic to the direct signal I recorded. Then I start messing with the bends to show how the volume drops out. The direct signal is going through an Alembic SF-2 Superfilter and Custom Audio Japan tube compressor, into an MBox and recorded into ProTools. Oh, and I'm using the mammoth pick!
So I've been playing it acoustically, and it plays great! The pickup height isn't an issue when I play with a pick. But then I remembered - another issue I was having with this bass was that the sound would drop out when I played with vibrato.
To make a long story short, I decided to make a recording to demonstrate the problem. Then I decided, why not go all the way and make a video?! So I did. And I learned a lot. I was able to see from a different angle how the string is aligned with the pickup, and that when I pull on the string, I'm pulling it pretty far from the pole - more than I expected!
So here's the video:
bisonic bass bends
I had fun with it - the first 30 seconds are just the mic on the camera. I flub a fill, then switch from the camera mic to the direct signal I recorded. Then I start messing with the bends to show how the volume drops out. The direct signal is going through an Alembic SF-2 Superfilter and Custom Audio Japan tube compressor, into an MBox and recorded into ProTools. Oh, and I'm using the mammoth pick!