(2)-SF Bass NGD This week

Attached I am sharing images of 2 Starfire basses that I got this week. Why did I buy 2 guitars you might ask? Mainly I had to travel a good distance to see them, and liked them both when I saw them. Once I pick a favorite one, I might sell off the extra guitar.

Since this is a "non-Guild" part of the country I usually have to come up with some plan to find one that amounts to lots of internet searching, phone calls, etc.

The 1966 SFI has an older "sheen" to it. The 1974 SFII looks to be in "mint" condition.

Thanks for all your helpful comments and descriptions of these. I hopr this img sequence works:


Thank you,
Craig

idealassets said:

The 1966 SFI has an older "sheen" to it. The 1974 SFII looks to be in "mint" condition.
Craig

Click to expand...

IMO, you just can't beat that "old sheen" Craig



Mine has it in spades. 8)

Wow. Do me the favor of A/B'ing them before you make your decisions. I've always wondered how much of the Starfire sound is the Bi-sonic and how much is the short scale hollow body. Mellow is going to vote for the older one.


Old sheen indeed

fronobulax said:

Wow. Do me the favor of A/B'ing them before you make your decisions. I've always wondered how much of the Starfire sound is the Bi-sonic and how much is the short scale hollow body. Mellow is going to vote for the older one

Click to expand...

.

Quick question Frono. The pickup migrated forward by the '67 model year, correct? Were there any bridge position SF1s built after the '66 MY?

Sandy/ Frono,
I have saved images of your basses into my archive. I got a better feel of the finish from what you show in your pic's. My images are not so good, since they are from inside my house so far.

I need to buy a bass amp to A/B them. The new Fender units with a horn sounds like a good sales feature. But I am open to any suggestions for an amp, since I am not so good yet on bass. (A mid to high bass setting on the guild is best, since a high treble sound is not so good, the Fender horn feature may not be so desireable also?) I plan to use the Guild bass in folk music groups of 50-100 in the audience. The folk people do respect a good instrument. I plan to use a Rickenbacker or Ibanez bass as a "player" for everything else.

My skills are: 1)Drums 2)Guitar 3)Bass. The A/B will be my best shot. The Guild bass doesn't appear to be for "thumb slapping". But I do manage to get some percussive feel from it.

Craig

Congrats! Nice score, especially the '66!

Personally, I don't think you need a tweeter - to me that would only be necessary if you plan on playing something like an Alembic or slapping a lot with round wounds, which sounds like the polar opposite of the gig you are planning on using it at. If you do get one with a tweeter, make sure it has an independent volume control so you can adjust the level. (I assume that you are looking at one with an extra speaker for the high end? I think of those as tweeters but I could be wrong on the terminology)

BA-524 had the bridge position and BA-554 has the neck position. That makes the migration in (late) 1966. I note that the thumb and finger rests migrated after the PU and the first one I have with staggered rests is BA-9xx belonging to TwoCorgis.

My collection of Starfire bass p0rn is here although I have a few more I should upload.

The amps that I have played through that are still in production are an Ampeg BA-115 and a Line 6 LowDown Studio 110. I've also played through a 1970's Peavey and a 1990's Fender Princeton Reverb guitar amp. I'm not real picky about my sound and I can make the Starfire sound pretty much like what I am expecting with any of them. Since they are all currently in Mrs. Fro's dining room I tend to choose whichever one is plugged in. I think there is a little more bottom from the rigs with 15" speakers but I'm not sure how important that is to me. The Line 6, for example is 20 lbs whereas the Peavey is 45 lbs for the head, 45 for the 1x15 cabinet and 110 for the 2x15 and the Line 6 will fit in a Honda Civic's trunk.

The Line 6 gets a performance test here this weekend, probably with the JS with the latter being chosen for reasons that have very little to do with the sound.

I use this 2 setups and my 12" cab has a tweeter with volume control and I like it, but I also play steel rounds:

if I want to carry a load I take my 100 watt full tube power amp (custom made, a hiwatt would be next similar to it) plus seperate preamp here a DHA bass ocerdrive DI

and lightweight and main giging rig:

My collection of Starfire bass p0rn is here

Click to expand...

I used these images to get some good detail about the instruments prior to gettig seriuos about owning one.

Thanks for the amp assistance so far!

Krysh- are those ad strips on your bass removeable? Thats a great concept.

Craig

idealassets said:

...Krysh- are those ad strips on your bass removeable? ...

Click to expand...

yep, maybe not that easy after some years but yes.

idealassets said:

Sandy/ Frono,
I have saved images of your basses into my archive. I got a better feel of the finish from what you show in your pic's. My images are not so good, since they are from inside my house so far.

I need to buy a bass amp to A/B them. The new Fender units with a horn sounds like a good sales feature. But I am open to any suggestions for an amp, since I am not so good yet on bass. (A mid to high bass setting on the guild is best, since a high treble sound is not so good, the Fender horn feature may not be so desireable also?) I plan to use the Guild bass in folk music groups of 50-100 in the audience. The folk people do respect a good instrument. I plan to use a Rickenbacker or Ibanez bass as a "player" for everything else.

My skills are: 1)Drums 2)Guitar 3)Bass. The A/B will be my best shot. The Guild bass doesn't appear to be for "thumb slapping". But I do manage to get some percussive feel from it.

Craig

Click to expand...

I strongly suggest you check out the Hartke Kickback. I use mine on 90% of my gigs. Light enough to carry with one hand, way more than loud enough for your intended use, very simple controls and under 400 bucks new. I have the 12" speaker model which I would suggest, it also comes with a 10 or 15. Can`t begin to tell you how great a Bi-Sonic Starfire or Dark Stared DeArmond sounds through this....

Tweeters = evil. Particularly horn/bullet tweeters.

Tweeters = evil. Particularly horn/bullet tweeters

Click to expand...

D,
If this is so, I presume that 12" or 15" speaker(s) = good. But could you please give me your valued input on why no tweeters?

In my opinion this is the ultimate great bass sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWCaMRqdV_c Jack adds a little more than whats on the 67' album.

However what about this sound? Is there some high frequency amplification here?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eu8vhPmnzg

It sounds catchy, but my preference is the 60's retro folk sound. #1)Byrds #1 tie)Airplane. w/Jack on bass, Kanter on the Ric 12, then the airplane vocals and add Jorma on the Gibson ES335 you had one fine sound.

This Fri nite, I will be doing some Byrds & Airplane on the Guild 12 string.

Craig

Tweeters are NOT evil. The bass is a full-range instrument. The overtones are what define individual instruments and I hate hearing this stuff like "I play bass, not treble". In fact Casady's sound was his relentless search for being able to use the whole spectrum of the bass, not just the low fundamentals.

So don't avoid tweets just because it's a bass. My Precision with five year old dead flats sounds better through my cabinets with the tweeters than it does through them with the tweets turned off.

Also, don't buy into the false assumption that speaker size gives you much useful information about what sound to expect. It's simply false when dealing with a full-range system that a 15" for example has more lows than a 10". It's much more about the cabinet design, and the amount of air being moved than it is about driver size. There are cabs with 15" speakers that don't speak with as much authority on the bottom end as many 4x10 cabinets. Electric bass amplification is generally NOT the same as building a full-range PA where you bi-amp and design cabinets/drivers for specific limited frequency ranges.

John

And don't forget that Jack's sound in that clip includes-

A. A HIGHLY modified Starfire Bass- this is the one the folks who eventually started Alembic did all the work on to give him more control over the sounds, and to eliminate high-frequency loss in the pickups. Ron Wickersham at Alembic has said they found that even 3" of cable between the Bi-Sonic and the first amplifier stage gave them audibly noticeable high end loss. That's why the went with active pickups- to put the first amplifier stage right IN the pickup housing.

B. The Versatone amp- small tube amp with a particularly warm overdrive. Jack used this as an effect by using a volume pedal to control how much of his signal was from that small amp and how much from the rest of his rig.

C. Jack's ears and fingers- despite some drastic changes in gear over the decades his sound is pretty consistent. The gear changes make it easier to get what he's hearing in his head, but it's there in his head that the sound starts.

John

John,
Sounds good. Its great to be able to discuss all the good stuff here on LTG rather than to listen to all the music store salesmen.

Craig

Yes.

And tweeters are evil. An abomination among bass players. Pure a-musical ego. Not fit for ensemble consumption.

Nonetheless, I bow to the lecture on Jack and Alembic.

idealassets said:

In my opinion this is the ultimate great bass sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWCaMRqdV_c Jack adds a little more than whats on the 67' album.

Craig

Click to expand...

Oh boy that's good.

idealassets said:

Tweeters = evil. Particularly horn/bullet tweeters

Click to expand...

D,
If this is so, I presume that 12" or 15" speaker(s) = good. But could you please give me your valued input on why no tweeters?

Craig

Click to expand...

Its not about 12s or 15s, its about the upper harmonics of paper cones drivers. The SWR Baby Blue had a decent sounding 5" paper dome "tweeter", and if we recall, Jack used one for a while. That was an expensive driver in a very low power amp. Bullets and little metal horns are used to keep cost down and power handling up, not for decent tone. Turning off a tweeter in a multi-way cab doesn't mean you are redirecting the upper harmonics into the other drivers of your cab, only turning them off.

What you hear on that JA clip, on Jack's recordings, on Live Dead or any live Lesh record, is the sound of the instrument played full range through a limited range driver, 12s or 15s, as they did it back then. Phil's tone on these new Europe 72 releases is stunning - just pounding all them JBL 15s like mad.

Tweeters - evil. Good for clanking.

jte said:

A. A HIGHLY modified Starfire Bass- this is the one the folks who eventually started Alembic did all the work on to give him more control over the sounds, and to eliminate high-frequency loss in the pickups. Ron Wickersham at Alembic has said they found that even 3" of cable between the Bi-Sonic and the first amplifier stage gave them audibly noticeable high end loss. That's why the went with active pickups- to put the first amplifier stage right IN the pickup housing.

John

Click to expand...

For anyone else who isn't already certain of what they know and find the subject interesting, this is completely incorrect. But its the internets and everyone is an authority based on their quality of assertiveness.

Nonetheless - Alembic pickups are very low output and are passive; they have no amplifying stages inside them. And as far as we can determine at this late date, both Jack's Starfires were primarily passive instruments, with only one active stage in them, which was not an amplifier.

Also, his speakers were JBL or Altec 15s, and the 12 in the Versatone.