Cool vid of the bridge on my PBC bass...

Wordless Wednesday

StarF**ker Central, Part I - Tony Levin

I've been fortunate enough to meet a number of my musical idols. Being that I'm not all that famous myself, it's cool that so many of them are down-to-earth enough to have a conversation with a relative nobody like myself. Here, first entry in an occasional series about my brief encounters with musical "heroes."

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Tony Levin is generally considered to be a very cool, somewhat quirky guy. He's a great bassist and an innovative musician (among other instruments, he also plays a Chapman Stick). His book "Beyond the Bass Clef" is a fun read, with gig anectdotes and studio stories - and the odd crazy invention (bass rig with capuccino machine) and oatmeal cookie recipe(!) It was during a book signing that I got to have a brief conversation with him, and I just so happened to have a fun story to tell, which he quite clearly appreciated.

As you may have read in a previous post, I own several pair of Tony's "Funk Fingers" (small drumsticks that attach to a bassist's fingers for a percussive sound.) Tony used them on several tunes with Peter Gabriel. In the meantime, I actually used them on two of Second Story's more popular tunes, and as a result, if you came out to see us, you were quite likely to see them in action at least once.

A friend and regular audience member came up to me after a show one evening all excited - he told me that, the previous weekend, he had watched Peter Gabriel's "Secret World Live" video. "And his bassist - he had those crazy drumstick thingies like you have!" I, of course, filled him in that Tony was actually the inventor of those "drumstick thingies." As you can imagine, when I recounted that story, Tony got a nice laugh out of it.

I found him to be generous with his time, attentive to his fans, and quite friendly overall. Cool guy. And he signed my book.

My Hoyt 6-string Fretless (Mark Gollihur Signature Model)

Yeah, you read that right - the gorgeous work of art in my hands to the right is my "signature model" bass - made entirely to my specifications by Karl Hoyt, luthier and family friend (he's also made 3 basses for my dad). I even sent him a sketch of the body design - I wanted the extra long upper horn for balance (that's a looooong neck with lotsa tuners on it) and a short lower horn for easy access to the upper range.

I love my bass; it has a through-body maple neck with an ebony fingerboard, and amazing side wings that are a "hippie sandwich" of wenge (an African wood with the color of chocolate-y goodness) surrounding a gooey center of mahogany. It even features an amazing hand-made bridge of solid ebony - and matching ebony knobs! The bass is truly a work of art.

The electronics are also custom-tailored for this axe; a Bartolini preamp blends the undersaddle piezo pickup for natural "acoustic" sound, while the (now quite rare) active Lane Poor magnetic soapbar pickup sits in the "sweet spot."

This bass, which I've strung with LaBella Deep-Talkin' Black Tapewound strings, sounds amazingly woody and warm - it just has this wonderful singing tone with no hint of nasal ugliness. And with its low action, the mwah that you can produce with this thing is just unstoppable.

This was the first 6-er that Karl had made, and it was also his first neck-thru, if I remember correctly. He has made quite a few very cool basses, including an acoustic-electric and a couple of electric 5-ers for my dad (1 fretted, one fretless). In fact, if you look back into my July posting archive, you'll see a mock ad (from a "Wordless Wednesday" post) that my Dad and I did up just to break his stones. Karl's a funny guy with a goofy sense of humor - and he makes cool basses.

Wordless Wednesday

Upgrading EMG pickups to 18 volts - one of my favorite mods!

I've long hosted this information at my website, but I figured putting it here might help more people find it. I get emails from people occasionally who found it, did it, and just have to tell me how great it made their bass sound. So here it is!

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Getting More "Oomph" from Your EMGs
The simple $.79 mod that may save you from buying new pickups

I find it interesting that EMG's have seemingly fallen out of favor with most modern bassists. I've been using them for more than 10 years, and with the exception of my killer Hoyt fretless 6 (which has a Lane Poor and piezos) all of my basses have had them. And I'm very happy about that, and have no plans to change them.
The fact is, most people have grown tired of that signature EMG sound, which has become somewhat eclipsed by newer, boutique pickups (which, don't get me wrong, rock) -- and EMGs have become somewhat passe' to many modern bassists on that ever elusive search for the perfect tone.

So I was thinking -- if everyone else has moved on, am I just down with the old sound, too stubborn to change? Has the "in" sound moved on, leaving me hopelessly clinging to the "modern/active" tone of the past? Am I simply "out of touch" with the essential tone for the modern bassist?

Pauses for effect...
Nah. I realized that all of my EMG-outfitted basses of the recent past have had one major improvement, which -- for me -- has made all the difference in the world. The amazing thing is that those selfsame EMG pickups you already have (and are considering replacing) may have that tone you're looking for, lurking in the dark recesses of some forward-thinking design. And you can coax it out with a little effort, some basic soldering, and a little bit of pocket change.

The smart folks at EMG had the thoughtfulness to make their pickups able to handle voltages from 9v to 27v, reportedly to make them phantom-powerable (another intriguing thought, but the subject of another digression.) Some enterprising folks discovered that adding a second battery (thereby powering the pickups at 18 volts rather than the stock 9) makes an enormous difference in the voicing, sound quality, and headroom that EMGs can provide. That "choked" or "signature EMG" tone is no more. Clarity and "oomph" is yours for the taking. This mod improved all of my preset sounds, from the "rumble and click" setting to the "balls and chunk" preset. And it only takes 15 minutes and costs like a buck to try it; and for the faint at heart, it's totally reversible.

Think I'm nuts? This is directly from the EMG Site:

"Can I use multiple batteries?
Yes. If you've got room for multiple batteries in your guitar, you can use two batteries wired in series to power your onboard circuitry at 18 volts. The output level will not appreciably increase, but you'll have increased headroom and crisper transients. This is especially useful for percussive/slap bass styles where you can generate enormous instantaneous power levels across the entire frequency spectrum. You can also wire two batteries in parallel to provide a regular 9 volt supply but with much longer lifespan between battery changes.
Although most of our products are rated for 27 volts, we recommend a maximum of 18 volts. The additional benefits of 27 vs. 18 volts are negligible."

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Hold that iron!
All the standard disclaimers apply...
Please don't blame me if you screw up your bass... this information is for you to implement at your own risk. However, this is stupid-easy. And I have personally performed this mod on 4 basses (3 of mine and a co-worker's, who then helped two of his friends do it) and everyone has been tickled pink thus far. Though I'm pretty sure that the mod works with all EMG active pickups and circuits - you might want to check with EMG to make sure you won't fry anything.

For instance, from EMG Tech Support:

"The EMG-HZ pickups are passive, not active. There is active tone circuitry in some (maybe all?) LTD basses that requires a battery. You can run the circuitry on 18 volts without damage to the circuitry as long as the modification is done correctly."

This won't work (obviously) on EMG Selects (they're passive, silly) and I don't have information on whether this works on any other active pickups by manufacturers other than EMG. I don't know if this works with your Ibanez, or your Warwick, or what. Though I'm pretty sure that it's an approved and kosher upgrade on the Woogie Fritzmeyer Signature Model. Got it? Good.

So on we go! It's not tough, if you have moderate experience with a soldering iron.
Highly recommended - read ALL of the instructions before you start!


Materials required:

• Soldering iron and solder
  
• 9V battery "clip"
  
• Something to snip and strip wiring (wire stripper, teeth, whatever you got)
  
• Electrical tape
  
• A couple of new batteries
  
• a 9V battery holder is preferable - it keeps the battery from bouncing around in the cavity. (Surrounding the batteries with foam is a decidedly low-tech but effective approach, as well.)
  

The Instructions:

Figure 1: What you've got now.


The clip for the 9 Volt battery currently attaches directly to one of the prongs on the 1/4 stereo output jack; this way you're not draining the battery when nothing is plugged in.

1. Take out your current battery.
   
2. Figure out how you're going to jam 2 batteries into that little compartment (an important step - you may need an extra length of wire or some creative thinking, depending on your bass.)
   
3. Heat the iron and desolder the black wire from the existing 9v clip from the output jack.
   
4. Solder the red contact of the new 9v clip to the black contact of the existing one and completely insulate with the electrical tape.
   
5. Solder the black wire of the new clip to the output jack where the old one attached.
   
6. Do whatever else you need to do while you're there -- put in the battery holder, if applicable.
   
7. Put in two fresh batteries - mixing old and new will give less than stellar results.
   
8. Play and be stunned and amazed. If not stunned and amazed, reverse steps to negate, or use "Upgraded to 18v electronics" as a unique selling point when you get rid of this bass.
   

Figure 2: How it will look.


Here's what it will (essentially) look like when you're done (but don't forget to insulate the wire-to-wire solder joint to prevent shorting.)


For those afraid of commitment:
Fellow TBL'er (The Bottom Line Bass Digest) Rick Blair suggests this alternate method which simply involves creating a harness with a three pack of battery clips:
"Wire 3 battery connectors in series and connect a battery to two of them and the third connector to the original battery connector in the bass. If you ever decide to go back to a single 9V battery, merely unplug the harness."

Important Note: this section has been recently updated due to some people having trouble with this method. Please completely think the whole thing through as you're doing it to make sure polarity is correct - reversed voltage may damage your preamp or pickups.

Figure 3: The temporary harness
(Again, don't forget to insulate the solder joints to prevent shorting!)



For the real wackos:
You can, if slightly off-kilter in the noggin, even add a THIRD battery to increase to 27v. However, I'm told that the upgrade from 18 to 27 is not nearly as dramatic as that from 9 to 18; and it's probably not worth the extra battery costs or trouble to make room in an already crowded cavity.

Hey, this mod is also applicable to guitars as well. I used to have an old Peavey six-string that screams.

Good luck, and keep living the low life!

Comfort Strapp - the best guitar strap I've found!

These are the coolest and best guitar straps I've been able to find, especially if you play heavy basses or guitars. The two ends are constructed of the typical webbed strap with leather ends, so there's nothing too special about them - it's the middle of the strap that makes all the difference. The middle uses a thick swath of neoprene (the stuff of wetsuits) but its inherent "bounciness" is tempered by its attachment to a fixed-length strap of webbing. So it has a little bounce, but not too much. Having just enough shock absorption makes it comfortable; it makes heavy basses and guitars seem lighter. But by controlling the stretch factor, it doesn't bounce all over the place - your instrument stays where it belongs. The neoprene also has enough friction against most clothes to keep it from sliding; so the Comfort Strapp is the most controlled, best strap I've tried.

Read more about them at Comfortstrapp.com.

Note: I am not a paid endorser of Comfort Strapp.

My "Rickenfaker"

Here's my 1976 Ibanez "lawsuit" copy of a Rickenbacker® 4001. I picked her up on eBay a while back. She was in rough condition; the pickups had been spray-painted flat black - without being removed from the bass! In addition, a thumb rest had been screwed into the face of the body! Of course, she had the usual dents and dings that you'd expect on a bass over 30 years old, and she was grungy from having been neglected.

I took her apart, cleaned her up, removed the pickguard and electronics, replaced the pickups, electronics and knobs with genuine Ric parts, and put a set of RotoSounds on her. Once I was satisfied that she was back up to speed, the crowning touch: I fashioned a replacement headstock logo, in the style of Rickenbacker's type, that says "Rickenfaker." I figure, it's not the real thing - so I might as well play up to that fact. It's a poseur, but it does a good job! We've recorded it on a number of the Din Within songs with great success so far.

I also equipped her with a "stereo" output jack (with a switch) to allow me to send the pickups to separate amps (a la "Rick-O-SoundTM") or both to a single output for normal use.

Here's a closeup of the "Rickenfaker" overlay. When I first created it, I thought it was such a swell idea that I'd put them on eBay for other owners of copies to apply to their basses - alas, that didn't last long. Once the Rickenbacker brass caught wind of it, they strong-armed eBay into cancelling the auctions, and subsequently threatened me with eBay banishment. They are EXTREMELY protective, which I understand - but it's not like I was passing off the bass as a real Ric (or making a kit for others to do so). Legally speaking, my humorous log is a parody, which constitutes fair use (look it up). But I wasn't about to get into a verbal fistfight with them (and risk my eBay history and account) for a measly $10 apiece.

So, nyah nyah, I've got a RickenFaker logo and you don't.

The ol' Battle Axe

The bass shown in the photo to the right has been my main axe for almost 12 years now. It's a pretty amazing instrument, with lots of unique features that make it the most gig-worthy and the best-sounding bass I've ever encountered.

My 6-string fretted GTB 356 Model was made by a US-based company called PBC that was located in Coopersburg, PA - they're no longer in business, but the basses are still made by Dave Bunker in Washington State. When I decided that a 6-string bass was going to be a necessity for Second Story, writing partner Scott and I took a trip up to PBC's factory store to check out their basses and manufacturing facility. (We had seen a couple of their basses and even talked to a rep at one of our local music stores.)

When we got there, they had a showroom full of basses - and LOTS of them were sixers. I picked up at least half a dozen while we were there, and they were quite nice; well-appointed, and very nicely finished (most, including my bass, have AAAA-grade flame-maple tops or better.) When I came across the bass I eventually bought, I knew instantly that it was the instrument I had to buy - it practically melted into my fingers. There are some instruments that you just KNOW were made for you, and this bass was one of them. While I was "cashing out" the bass, the guy also confided in me that the bass was originally built specifically for Allen Woody; but when he came to get it, a new model caught his eye and he took one of those instead.

All I know is: the bass is awesome.

Features:

• Bookmatched AAAA figured Maple top
  
• Patented Tension Free neck, 5 piece, Maple fretboard
  
• EMG Dual Coil soapbars, EMG BTC Circuit, 18v (The bass came with the pickups; I upgraded it to the BTC preamp and the 18v system)
  
• Individual "Through Body" Bridges in Gold plated solid machined Bell Brass (one for each string)

The Tension-free neck is the most interesting special feature on this bass. Rather than a traditional truss rod, the maple neck has a pair of channels routed through it; within these cavities lie two cold-rolled steel bars. All of the tension that the strings impart on the neck assembly are carried by the bars - not the wood. The manufacturers claim that this eliminates dead-spots, and allows for excellent adjustability and durability. All I can say is that the bass plays like buttah, and from the low B on the bottom string to the very highest notes up the C-string the bass has a balanced, even sound - octave to octave, string to string.

The other innovation is the high-mass bridge system; there's actually a separate through-body bridge assembly - made of bell brass - for each string, which ties into the massive tone plate on the back surface of the bass. It makes for a bit of added weight, to be sure - this bass is no lightweight - but it creates the ability for amazing sustain; and since each string has its own bridge, multiple notes played simultaneously ring out and sustain just as well as single notes do. There's just a tremendous amount of clarity and focus to the bass. It... just... sings.

Of course, visually the bass is striking - with its no-headstock design and very beautiful bookmatched top. And the headless design makes for some great ergonomic advantages as well. Firstly, the balance on this bass is amazing - where most six strings "neck-dive" because of the weight of all those tuners on the end of the neck, this bass just "hangs" in playing position with no effort. Also, not having a huge headstock makes the bass a lot more compact, which is valuable on the many crowded stages I've played on - I never accidentally whacked my singer in the head (though I thought about doing it on purpose more than a few times). And it makes for a smaller case, which is nice.

Clearly, I can talk a lot about this bass and go on forever. The maker is relatively unknown, but I'm a big fan and will hang onto this bass forever!

Funk Fingers?

These are some of my favorite toys. Originally developed by Tony Levin and his bass tech, based on an idea that Peter Gabriel suggested - I believe the story went something like this: When they were rehearsing or recording one of Gabriel's tunes, to get a percussive sound, Tony was whacking his bass with a spare drumstick. Peter said, "Why not attach the sticks to your fingers? The result was this:



For a brief time, Tony actually had a bunch of sets made, and sold them on his website. I was lucky enough to grab a few sets for myself when they were there, since he no longer produces them. As a result, he gives his permission to recreate them yourself for personal use - but mandates that you cannot mass produce or sell them for profit (I think he owns a patent for them). I've since seen original pairs of the ones he produced sell on eBay for over $100 (which is ridiculous since they should be easy enough to make for yourself.)

I actually got pretty good at using them; I performed with them regularly in live concerts and bar gigs with Second Story - as well as recorded two of the songs for the second album using them ("Dancing on the Hill" and "Abducted"). I hope to soon have some video available of them in action.

But they're neat, very cool, and they never failed to get a reaction from the crowd when I started smacking my bass with them. And they can provide an ultra-percussive bass sound that just can't be matched with the thumb alone.

Here's a clip from the studio (pre-vocals) of "Dancing on the Hill," which features me playing the Funk Fingers through a distorted amp.

And here's a sound clip, from a live performance with Second Story

Ahhh... toys.

Wordless Wednesday

HOW many strings are on that thing?

If you really want to get the audience's attention, you pull out a bass like this one. It's a 12 string bass (yes, you read that correctly.) It is actually sort of like a combination of a 4-string bass and a 12-string guitar; the strings are tuned in groups. There are four "root" strings for the standard bass guitar pitches of E-A-D-G. Then a pair of matching strings tuned one octave up are placed in close proximity to the main strings. So what you end up with, in the case of my instrument, is a tuning as follows (where a capital letter indicates the root string and lowercase letters are the octaves):

eeE aaA ddD ggG

The groups of strings are called "courses" and they are fretted and strummed/plucked in groups of three. What results is a HUGE, ringing, naturally chorused sound that can just fill the room.

Here's a clip from the second album from Second Story - a bit of "Truth Is..." which features the 12-string.

You've probably heard a 12-string before - Jeff Ament used one for the intro and outro riff (and much of the song) in "Jeremy"; playing a repeating figure complete with octaved harmonics. It's the signature line on the song. Another popular user of the 12-string is Doug (dUg) Pinnick of King's X; he's used it a number of times over the years, and since King's X is a trio, having the extra "girth" that a 12-string provides comes in handy, I'm sure.

As for me, I used it in two Second Story songs - "Truth Is..." and "Wise" - it also makes a brief appearance in the Din Within song "The Bottom/Between Two Lives." And I intend to use it a good bit more on the next Din Within album.

My particular bass is made by "Galveston," which is one of several names slapped on instruments that come to the States from China under several brand names (including several store brands). While the bass is quite solid, the stock electronics sucked big time, so I replaced them with some Seymour Duncan actives and a Bart preamp - the new pickups really emphasize the "chimey-ness" of the octaves, and yet they really helped to fill out the bottom end, too. And the Bart preamp really gives the bass a lot more headroom, which is necessary for a bass that creates so much bandwidth. Altogether, quite a worthwhile upgrade, even though I had to do a little work with the Dremel to make it happen.

It's not for everybody (or every song, to be sure) but the 12-string is a pretty awesome tool to have in your arsenal. I'm sure it intimidates most of the guitarists I know!

An introduction

So here I go, I guess it's time to start blogging. All the cool kids are doing it, so maybe I should too. I've always been a sucker for peer pressure.

Seriously, though - here's the gist of it; lots of musicians are on the web, hawking their band, selling their album, talking about gear, etc. So I thought that this would be a nice way for me to do that and more - share experiences with musical oddities like modifying guitars (I do that a lot), circuit-bending (I just started playing with that), and creating insane guitar or bass rigs with all sorts of bells and whistles (I've done that for myself as well as helped others with it). So I'll be talking about a lot of that sort of stuff as it occurs to me to do so. I'll probably ramble on about old musical projects, neat toys, long lost instruments I never should have sold, etc. Hope that interests you.

Who I am is a lifelong musician; son of a vocal/general music teacher (Mom) and a former music major/club musician/music store owner - and now, boss (Dad). My primary instruments are voice and bass (bass guitar and upright bass), but I'm a multi-instrumentalist and therefore own a large collection of other stuff - keyboards, drums, guitars, mandolins, didgeridoos, trumpets, and much more. I have my own studio, which I call Digital Din; my training is purely "on-the-job" as far as engineering goes, but last November my group Din Within released our debut album; it's an album that (with writing partner Josh's help) I recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered myself. Of course, I was also responsible for much of the performance. It's done quite well worldwide; it's available for sale at Amazon.com, CDBaby.com, iTunes, Napster, and many more (check out the Digital Din Homepage for a list of many of the retailers at which it can be purchased.)

So that's about it for now. I think my first post of real content will probably be about my "new" bass - actually a 4-banger from the 80's that I bought to recreate my first bass - one I wish I still had (for sentimental reasons only) but don't because I sold it to a former co-worker (Tom Wetzel - you still have my bass, man?)

Anyway, tune in soon for that post. Thanks for reading!