mellowgerman
Senior Member
Thanks! In this project I've been using a pick, which is something I did occasionally in the past if I felt a song called for it. Now though I'm really trying to hone in on improving my pick technique and maybe developing some new tricks, after years of mostly finger-style.
The strings on this bass are old long-scale D'Addario Chromes -- given the official shorter-scale adaptation treatment of stripping the silks on the headstock end and carefully unwinding a bit of the outer flat-steel ribbon winding, to enable feeding it through the tuning peg... important to note that not all flatwound strings are stable enough to survive this, but so far I've done it successfully and repeatedly with both Fender and D'Addario flats. Sure you can get D'Addario flats in medium scale, but then you don't have the heavier gauges available. I've had this particular set for years and they've been on a number of different basses, most recently they were on my red Starfire, but that was probably 6 years back. They may actually date back to 2014, originally having been on my old Epi Casady bass. The nice thing about them being so old is that they are fully worn-in, which is something that seems to take significantly longer with D'Addario Chromes than with other flatwounds. I really don't like how they sound when they're new, so it's a somewhat painful process for me to "deal with them" through the entire break-in period... but eventually they do tend to sound great! As mentioned earlier in the thread, even with the truss rod loosened all the way, this M85's neck is virtually flat with lower tension strings like the Maximas or TI's. Some players prefer a flat neck, but I do like a little bit of relief, so the Maximas won't work for me on this bass. No problem though, as I'm loving the way the D'Addarios sound on this bass.
Beyond this, both pickups are engaged and both sets of volume and tone controls are wide open --> Alembic F-1x preamp --> Guild Thunderstar Bass amp power section --> Genzler 2x12 cab
The room mic does the best it can, so it's not the greatest representation of the actual sound coming out of the speaker... with the amps set loud enough to match the drums (a lively set and a dynamic hitter) the bass especially is resonating through the walls and ceiling so it gets a little washed out and warbly at times in the recording. I was just excited to have found a recorder/mic placement where you can hear everything relatively evenly in the mix!
The strings on this bass are old long-scale D'Addario Chromes -- given the official shorter-scale adaptation treatment of stripping the silks on the headstock end and carefully unwinding a bit of the outer flat-steel ribbon winding, to enable feeding it through the tuning peg... important to note that not all flatwound strings are stable enough to survive this, but so far I've done it successfully and repeatedly with both Fender and D'Addario flats. Sure you can get D'Addario flats in medium scale, but then you don't have the heavier gauges available. I've had this particular set for years and they've been on a number of different basses, most recently they were on my red Starfire, but that was probably 6 years back. They may actually date back to 2014, originally having been on my old Epi Casady bass. The nice thing about them being so old is that they are fully worn-in, which is something that seems to take significantly longer with D'Addario Chromes than with other flatwounds. I really don't like how they sound when they're new, so it's a somewhat painful process for me to "deal with them" through the entire break-in period... but eventually they do tend to sound great! As mentioned earlier in the thread, even with the truss rod loosened all the way, this M85's neck is virtually flat with lower tension strings like the Maximas or TI's. Some players prefer a flat neck, but I do like a little bit of relief, so the Maximas won't work for me on this bass. No problem though, as I'm loving the way the D'Addarios sound on this bass.
Beyond this, both pickups are engaged and both sets of volume and tone controls are wide open --> Alembic F-1x preamp --> Guild Thunderstar Bass amp power section --> Genzler 2x12 cab
The room mic does the best it can, so it's not the greatest representation of the actual sound coming out of the speaker... with the amps set loud enough to match the drums (a lively set and a dynamic hitter) the bass especially is resonating through the walls and ceiling so it gets a little washed out and warbly at times in the recording. I was just excited to have found a recorder/mic placement where you can hear everything relatively evenly in the mix!
Still haven't found a photo of one like mine. That Starfire does look like the same configuration though.