so bass traps in corners do nothing, it seems we have been fooled. or are being fooled.

@asctim: Hi Tim. I played in a Blues trio with a bassist who had an electric upright bass. It didn’t sound much different than a regular electric bass (the neck was fretless of course), but looked kinda cool. Hey, did you ever play music with Chris (I can’t recall his last name), who used to work at ASC? I knew him when he lived in L.A. The last time I saw him was at the Vegas CES in the late-90’s, where he was supplying a lot of the rooms with Tube Traps. We met in the bar of the hotel to catch up.

By the way, in the early-90’s there was an ad in The Recycler (a weekly buy/sell newspaper in SoCal), offering Tube Traps for ten bucks a piece! I called the phone number, and arranged to go to the seller’s house immediately. I got there and found a guy in a empty house, all except for 13 of the Traps, ranging in size from 9" (diameter of course) up to 16". Naturally I bought ’em all. Best deal I ever got in hi-fi!

I got here at ASC too late to meet Chris. I’ve only played an electric bass a tiny bit. A few years ago someone gave me one that suffered some kind of rattle with the knobs on the main body. I didn’t have an appropriate amp to work with it, but got it to play and sound decent through my hifi speakers. I in turn gave it away to someone who fixed it. Being used to an acoustic bass, the solid body on the electric struck me as really weird. I haven’t touched an upright bass in over 30 years. From time to time I’ve thought about getting an upright electric. They’re nice and compact. My mother used to drive me to youth symphony practice with the scroll and pegbox of the contrabass sticking out the window. I often wondered what drew me to such a logistically challenging instrument. It’s been so long now since I’ve played with any seriousness it’ll be almost like starting from scratch.

Oh yes, the frets vs fretless. The frets were strange to me too, but kind of nice. It’s fun to slide into notes on the fretless, but doing that and also trying to pluck with any volume was tough on the fingers! I got some private lessons for one brief period and the guy teaching me said my tone was slightly off on some notes. That was worrisome to me because I wasn’t sure if I could hear it correctly. Thinking back, I suspect it could have been an issue with the difference between just intonation and even temperament, something I was not at all aware of at that time, and I’m still not sure I understand the full implications of. In any case, if you’re listening to overtones and trying to get the  next note tuned relative to those, you will be off in terms of even temperament, more so on some notes than others. I think that’s how it works.

What instrument do play?

 

Wow, aren’t you something special? So, a guy who spent some time in the big house for a drug conviction or whatever can’t lead a normal life, run a legitimate business, thereafter?

Plenty of white collar crooks in this country (who do way worse) never make it to the big house because they paid a handsome sum to a gang of lawyers. Move on!

@deep_333 

If you'd followed my advice posted above, you'd see that Dennis has been accused of white collar crime in the realm of room treatment.

Subwoofer on the floor? see here

mike

@asctim: Drums is my main instrument.

I've personally known only one bassist who went from electric to acoustic upright bass: Todd Phillips, who has worked with a lot of the modern Bluegrass masters. Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, David Grisman, etc. In 1971 he was playing a Fender P Bass in a band he was leaving just as I was entering. He did so to concentrate on learning mandolin, so went up to Marin to study with Grisman. David told Todd there were already a lot of great mandolin players, but a dearth of upright bassists. Todd took his advice, got himself an upright, and has been working steady ever since.

The one guy I know of who played (R.I.P.) a non-upright electric fretless bass (an Ampeg) was Rick Danko of The Band. Rick is one of my favorite musicians. And one player who makes his fretted electric bass sound uncannily like an upright is Joey Spampinato of NRBQ. He is another of my favorite players, and is Keith Richard's favorite bassist. When Bill Wyman left The Stones Keith offered him the job, and Joey turned him down! But he did agree to play in the band Richards assembled to back Chuck Berry in the Hail! Hail! Rock'n' Roll documentary on Chuck.