Heading Out LR Friday 12-20

[darwinohm]

We are heading up to the northern Minnesota tundra this weekend. Grand Rapids tonight and show in Clearbrook Mn tomorrow night. This weekend I get to test the Thomastik strings on the bass and the Eden 2-12 bass cabinet. The van is loaded and being checked out by Sam. It will be a 600 mi. weekend.



Some things worth mentioning, you can see the yellow wheels on the Rock n Roll cart. I love it for moving gear. The do have cases fpr most of my gear and it pays over time as you don't damage things. The three guitars are in Wolfpak cases, another thing I like for gigging. My G&L cases stay new. What kinds of things are you using? Roadies would be swell at my age. I did load the heavy things yesterday.

I have different guitars and do my own setups and that brings up the question of truss rod adjustment nuts. The Fenders and G&Ls are similar especially the older ones with the 1/8 hex wrench. The bullet types are also very easy to adjust. I am not as fond of the metric G&L as it is more difficult to adjust and I made a special wrench to do it. Next you have the top adjustment nuts that have a cover that needs to be removed, ie Gibson, Hamer, Prs, and several others. The vintage Fender requires the neck to be removed so it is hit and miss. That is also the kind of system that Grosh uses and they claim that you can adjust with a screwdriver angled from the side. That is a disaster waiting to happen. I remove the neck to adjust it. Then there is the wheel at the base of the neck with holes in the side to adjust as used by Musicman, Parker and Gadow. I think my favorite is the Suhr which has the adjustment at the base of the neck using short 1/4 allen. It is easy and clean as there is a small area removed from the pickguard to accommodate the wrench. The wrench even has a rubber protective coating on it to prevent marks. These things are important to me as I tweak them before a gig and don't want to remove covers or necks. Any thoughts from you folks on this? What do you prefer?

Wishing you all a happy holiday time and hope that you can spend time with your families. I will check in on Sunday. -- Darwin

[Ldavaz]

I envy what you're doing, but not where you're doing it, at least not today. We go to Ely in the summer some years. You live in a great place. My great grandfather was a 19th c homesteader and had a cattle ranch off US 2 just inside WA.

I, too, do my own setups and the only guitars I have bought recently that need to be setup are G&L's Don't particularly like the bullet, because it is already outside the neck, and any adjustment that takes it further out makes me nervous.

I am bedeviled by the micro tilt on my 90 ASAT. I just can't seem to adjust that neck tongue to get the action where I want it without a buzz in the high registers on one or two strings on one or two frets.

[astutzmann]

Have a great trip Darwin. I'm amazed that you can play those lefty TI strings.

[NickHorne]

Ldavaz, if you have buzzes on just one or two strings of your 1990 Asat, on one or two frets, it seems extremely likely that a fret-dress and setup will fix it unless the frets are very worn.

But:
What neck relief would you say you have?
The micro-tilt is not adjusting the neck tongue, it's adjusting the angle of the whole neck. So this will not address your problem.

If you have noises at the top of the board only, it suggests that you may want to:

Not move the micro-tilt;
Straighten the neck a bit with the truss (say until you get around .006" in the middle of the string if you fret the first and 17th frets and observe the gap; if you play more forcefully with your picking hand, make that relief more like .010").
Then raise the bridge saddles to give clean playing.
These steps will give you better all-around results on good frets. But if the frets are tired, then a dressing may be needed to get the neck to work properly.
If you want to refine the nut slots, do that last.

I don't see how the bullet is "outside" the neck; the location of its bearing point is what matters, and that is in a good place. The actual point of adjustment is not significant in itself.

[Salmon]

Darwin,

Have a safe and enjoyable trip.

Hope the gig is fulfilling and profitable.

May a crowd of groupies swarm your car and carry your gear into the venue upon your arrival and back to the car for your departure.

[darwinohm]

Thanks for you comments. I think that truss rod nuts were much of a concern for anyone and they all work! Some just easier than others.

Alf, the Thomastik-Infield are really swell strings. First of all, there were no instructions on lefty strings which you would think should be included. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and decided mayby I should install them backwards! It worked. Now I was concerned about the oscillations being out of phase but I got lucky. Seriously, they are the best flatwounds I have used. They are a lighter gauge by design which gives a very nice feel, especially to someone who also plays six string. The tone is almost round wound. I am seriously thinking about putting a 5 strings set on one of my 5 string basses. I am trying to decide if I should get a 5 string set or a 4 string set and use a regular round wound low B. what do you guts think? Thanks again Alf for the introduction to something I handn't tried before. They are sweet!

The 1-12 Eden bass cabinet worked very well. In the mix, I had a 15, 2-10s and the 2-12s. The twelves give a very full frequency spectrum and add very nicely to mix and are half the weight of my 4-10 cabinet, a real bonus for me. I am glad to have it and I now have nothing heavier than 60 Lbs which Kari and I can manager well.

I would be remiss if I didn't talk a bit about our gig. It was cold, below zero at night. We were lucky in that both venues let us leave our gear overnight so we didn't have to store it in a cold sub zero vehicle. Friday night was a blast and after loading up on Saturday about noon, it was off to Cleabrook Mn another 2 1/2 hour trip to way northern Minnesota. Clearbrook is where I graduated from high school in 1960. They have an old theatre that was built by the WPA in the early 30s, I believe. I roller skated in it during high school and it was run kind of old then. When I received a call about a venue in Clearbrook, they wanted to book us in the Roxy Theatre. I didn't know that they still used it as there were many years they didn't. I asked them if they had good heat in it! It has been renovated and kept pretty much original with the original stage curtain still being used. I was filled with tables with a dance floor in front of the stage. The band felt this was the most interesting building that we have played in and these are friendly, fine, Minnesota people. We were treated like royalty. I graduated in a class of about 40 and, much to my surprise, 10 of my classmates were there. At the end of the second set the mayor told me they wanted to book us next year, same time. We were lucky we had that night open next year. It was one of those experiences that you couldn't plan if you tried. The acoustics were one of the best I have experience so the sound was crystal clear. The whole band stayed with friends of mine and we were up until 5:10 am talking smart. We were up again at 8:00 and on the road to load up and head back. Got in late yesterday afternoon and am still recovering today! What a blast to recover from! Back in the old Roxy after 55 years since the last visit. Am I lucky or what???-- Darwin

[NickHorne]

Darwin, your gig at the Clearbrook Roxy sounds like a really extra-happy experience! Thank you for sharing that with us.

[Salmon]

Man another great story well told.

It is fortunate that all of this came together especially considering the cold weather. But don't sell yourself short. It sounds like you earned what you received. The band was good. The classmates didn't run away when they recognized you.

I am happy for you Darwin.