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Return of the Ugly

February 19, 2014

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An ABG Manifesto: Chapter 5, part one (medium)

Um forgettable… that’s what you are. I consider myself exceptionally medium (except for hat sizes). Which is to say not big or small (unless I’m in Oklahoma), not virtuoso nor dunce. A jack of all trades moving along before mastering. An unmemorable renaissance man. A serial hobbyist. We tend to glorify the specialist be they painter, baseball player or cellist. The only jack of all trades standing the test of history that I can think of is Leonardo da Vinci (warrants further research). By definition medium is “about halfway between two extremes of size or another quality; average.” At the same time it is also “an agency or means of doing something.” By that definition creativity cannot become tangible without a medium. So perhaps medium is not forgettable, but integral. This digressive opening is a means of discussing medium scale bass guitars. I’ve been playing medium scale (32”) basses for the last six years. I arrived there I suppose by definition as it was about halfway between th

The ABG Manifesto: Husky White Duke

I PLAYED WITH FRETS AND I LIKED IT Although the blog doesn’t reflect it, there’s been plenty going on these last 24 months. The blues band, Gatorwater has been gigging regularly and just recorded eight tunes in October. After a 20 year pause, the old college band—The Dynamo Theorem played its first show—I had to remember how to sing! I’ve been playing trumpet with regularity, building bikes, and of course my steadies—drawing and designing. Although it feels like I’ve slowed down with the bass building, that’s really not the case. I’ve worked on about a half-dozen bass guitars and even got my hands on an old Ampeg Baby Bass that needed a little love. It’s safe to say some of the blog silence has been due to a bit of a tangent. Having spent so much time working on fretless acoustic bass guitars, I found myself rediscovering frets and solid bodies… and I liked it. The best place to begin this new journey in the ABG Manifesto is with a short-lived bass I called the Husky White Duke and

AN ACOUSTIC BASS GUITAR MANIFESTO

AN ABG MANIFESTO: CHAPTER ONE The trouble with the acoustic bass guitar (ABG): Can’t project at same level as acoustic guitar—needs amplification. This is why bass amps and the upright bass are so big—it takes a lot of air to push low frequencies. Most piezo systems seem to accentuate the negative sound qualities of the instrument: tinniness, clacking. Under-bridge piezo pickup tends to send a weak low-E signal because of the string pressure on the bridge—requires adjustment. Bridge isn’t adjustable and seems to require seasonal or annual adjustment, which is tedious. Big-time feedback issues. Have to fill sound hole and/or EQ. WHY BOTHER? I’m not exactly sure why I bought an ABG, but I went out and got one within a couple months of starting on bass. This was back in 1999 after playing trumpet for about a decade. If I had to guess, it probably seemed closer to upright bass (which it’s not (which I still haven’t transitioned to twenty years later)). I think there’s just a certain some

Carving with Slap

It's been a busy week. Between work deadlines, wrapping up the tedious final details of the bathroom renovation and trying to finalize the Fender T-Bucket build, I've actually spent several hours carving my electro-acoustic upright. I started that build five years ago around Christmas and I've been having a real urge to get back to it. Each project has presented me with some problems requiring solutions. More work. Perhaps this is the hobbyist's lament, but it's good to keep working and thinking. What has been really enjoyable is digging into Djordje Stijepovic's Slapstream . He's probably most recognizable as Tiger Army's bass player, but he has played with just about everyone it seems. For quite a while he's had artofslapbass.com . Which gets into double bass history and technique with a strong focus on rock n roll, rockabilly and blues genres. Slapstream is essentially the live video version of that website. Generally over three hours, each inte

AN ABG MANIFESTO: CHAPTER TWO

PUDDLER’S HALL Sometimes when you play a gig there is magic in the air. Sometimes not. In the week leading up to February 19, 2016 I was having trouble with Flattop’s new pickup/bridge. I’d switched to an upright bass piezo and built a new bridge. The projection was bad and uneven across the strings. I picked up an Ibanez ABG at Sam Ash on my way to a gig in Rock Island in January and now I was looking at it deciding if I could make it gig-ready. As I recall I added a couple sound-posts and changed the strings. Chris and Tommy headed up to Milwaukee early to tour the Pabst brewery and Taylor and I drove up later to meet them at Puddler’s as they made the transition from Bar/Restaurant to venue. We all started scrounging around for extension cords to get all our amps and the PA plugged into the one outlet on the side of the stage. In the first few measures of our first tune my low E slipped in the bridge pin down to something approximating low C. Then a few songs in Tommy’s amp gave out

An AGB Manifesto: Chapter 4

SIZE MATTERS? Before the pandemic I had a bug up my ass about bass ukuleles. I believe it was tied to camping—traveling in general, with the thought that it could go anywhere. YouTube would certainly lead you to believe that ‘everyone needs one of these in their arsenal.’ I bought a fretless Hadean (cheap-o leaning) and strung it up with Kala U-Bass flat wounds (not the goofy rubber bands). After a month playing it like crazy I haven’t touched it too much. You could say U-Bass is to Bass Guitar is to Double Bass. Which is to say, different animals almost entirely. __ I’M NOT A PLAYER, I JUST BUILD A LOT Despite all the basses I build or modify, I’m a monogamist when it comes to instruments (which is to say small changes throw me off). I generally only play one bass ever, but occasionally I switch off for a month or two. After practicing on the U-Bass for a month, my intonation was crap on my normal axe. Despite it’s convenience, it proved to be a different instrument and not a great pr

Not an Engineer

Wow. I’m approaching two years since my last post! And I’ve heard no complaints. Always nice to start things off with a haiku. About three years ago I decided to start writing about my love of the acoustic bass guitar and working my way through guitar builds. It made sense to leave the posts about drawings on other platforms where they would reach more people. I’ve reached dozens. Although I fully intend to get into the weeds with bass builds, I thought it was time to go back to the original intent of the blog: drawing. While my main site serves as an archive and promotion, Instagram offers a place for images to be lost in the algorithmic ether, the blog offers a chance to get a little more in depth with ideas. Through a confluence of experiences—nostalgia, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary , a desire to stop building bass guitars, and the surprise of finding a hobby shop still in existence—I decided to build a model. That got me thinking about space. Outer space to be more specifi

Another poster for the Abbey

This is for an Irish band named The Japanese Popstars. What more inspiration do you need?

work/play resolution

It has been a different kind of year 2015 with it's good and bad. I've been called bass player, woodworker, car guy, outdoorsman, beard guy, rocker— not a single hepcat space viking or deep sea poem painter. As I take these partial truths and blatant inaccuracies under consideration I look forward to 2016. I figure I'll play the bass, paint on paper, build from wood, eat some pizza (with salad) and watch Saturday night Svengoolie. Aside from from Saturday night Svengoolie, Curio has been a catalyst for all of the above. Two years into my time at Steppenwolf, I feel like I have a place of work instead of a day job—allowing me to refine my communication skills and bring all this extra-curricular experience into the creative and collaborative Steppenwolf world. My resolution is to have a balanced and exciting year of work and play. I'm not a wordsmith, but there should be a word meaning work/play—did Shakespeare invent one? The closest sentiment is this anecdote

An ABG Manifesto: Chapter Three

Chronologically the Fender T-Bucket is the next bass I picked up (January 2018), but I forgot about the 2017 ESP TL-4Z which I’ve actually played out with more times than the Fender. I grabbed this guy back in April of 2019 and made some small adjustments. The ESP is electro-acoustic, but perhaps a bit more like a chambered guitar than an acoustic. It manages to have some of the issues that ABGs have along with my least favorite issue found in electric bass guitars… HOW TO FIX NECK-DIVE No really, how do you fix neck-dive? If you’re a bass guitar player you probably already know what I’m talking about, but for the sake of clarity: neck-dive is when the balance of the instrument is heavier towards the headstock. The result is when the instrument is worn with a strap the headstock pulls down and the body wants to rise. Detrimentally meaning that you have to hold up the instrument with your fretting hand while fretting. It can also result in neck and shoulder soreness due to lack of bal

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