Hi folks
By way of an introduction I’d first like to extend my thanks to our host Josh for his excellent series of instructional videos. He is one of a very few bass professionals out there who has seemingly mastered the knack of being both an inspirational player and teacher all at once! Sadly, so many otherwise competant musicians seem to find it necessary to break into irrelevant, distracting, off-subject and ego-polishing riffs at random intervals. Clearly Josh has nothing to prove!
I’m based in the UK, more specifically on a boat on the Llyn peninsula in North Wales. I arrived at the Bass after many decades (I’m 72) of attempting (and failing) keyboard instruments of various kinds only to conlude that while I’ve got some time left I ought to give another instrument a go. I’ve always thought the bass player to be ultra cool and having a good ear for harmony and melody thought it to be a good choice, particularly given my choice of dwelling (compact and no immediate neighbours to upset etc).
Being an engineer and not having huge amounts of cash to splash the obvious thing to do for me was to bulid an instrument which has become one of my 2 travelling companions. I call it ‘Homer 2’. ‘Homer 1’ is my rather elderly golden retriever. You can see both of them in the ‘Gear’ thread. Any resemblance of the ‘Homer 2’ headstock logo to other manufacturers is entirely deliberate.
My other interests include photography, cycling, salsa dancing and DIY.
Whilst being a total newbie to the bass I have other professional skills which I intend to bring the the party. This has begun with a very simple adaption to 'Homer 2’s body by embedding a headphone driver so that I can practice without the benefit of a normal amp on AC power. (It’s what’s causing that strange bluey glow in the pic). Being of an age and having cut my teeth on valve (tube) amps in the 60’s I’ve always maintained a professional and personal interest in audio ‘Hi Fi’ (not a term you’ll see around much these days) and have developed my design expertise right through discrete Transistor technolgy , IC technolgy to class D switching amps and beyond. Just as an aside, I am both amused and perplexed in equal measure that so many people are now parting with lots of money just so’s they can emulate the kind of amp distortion I (and others) worked so hard and for so long to get rid of. Go figure!
Those of you who are old enough (pre Broadband) may remember the warbling modems which were then necessary to connect your PC to your ISP. Well, that was me. Not the warbling of course but a designer of such communications technology which operated in the audio telephony band. This brought me in touch with many analogue (sorry analog) design techniques including filters, equalisers (EQs now) etc which I have now decided to consolidate into the 21st century by way of Digital Signal Processors (DSPs), now the favoured technology which forms the basis of many of the sophisticated pedal effects.
My plan now is to develop this technology to the point where it can actually be built in to the body of a Bass and communicate to the outside world by WiFi. This is quite ambitious and will warrant much time effort and expenditure. Perhaps there are others out there who might be interested in this subject and would be prepared to be involved in some way perhaps as advisers or beta testers. What say you all? The subject of a new thread perhaps?
