Amplifiers: Centaur Acoustic PA amplifiers: Solid quality, full sound, dependable clean electronics, made with versatile artists' performing needs in mind. Small, light weight and practical, each "Acoustic PA" amp has three channels, one with mic or instrument input, two more with instrument input, also tape input, reverb, insert. My original early 80's Centaur PA still works as good as new, and sounds clean and powerful. Lots of details on the Centaur web site: www.centauramp.com They have 10', 12" and 15" models. When not touring, these are my gig amps. I have known Bob Spurlock for over 20 years, the inventor and builder of each amplifier. Everything that leaves his shop has his personal touch, tested, and built with caring quality. My 25 year old Centaur PA is still in service. My 2 Centaur Acoustic PA amps give me excellent dependable gig sound in a convenient size and low weight. This is not cheap circuitry, but the kind of lasting quality a musician needs. Evans Amplifiers -A well-made, powerful guitar line of guitar amplifiers that give you lots of control over the tone. For dealers, go to their web site and click on "dealers" www.evansamps.com/ Guitar strings: Acoustic guitars: D'Addario "Flat Tops" phosphor bronze semi flat wound X-Light Gauge EFT15, a sweet, quiet and easy string to fly on. (I change the .010 to .011 for the first string gauge). Archtop guitars: D'Addario Chromes light gauge. www.daddario.com Bass Expansion refers to the use of an extra pickup signal from 5th and 6th strings sent to octave-lowering electronics (EBS Octabass) used in conjunction with the regular pickup system blender signal, the normal guitar output signal. There are now a variety of creative choices and types of pickups to install on your particular axe to give you that extra signal off the two low strings. This new bass signal is blended into the performance on a separate channel, or through a separate amplifier, not too loud, but to just the right volume for the feel of a double bass accompanying the guitar. Play in the Kingster's style for a simultaneous walking bass line to accompany the solo fingerstyle guitar. This system is used on most of King's solo guitar CDs, and sounds like there is a walking upright bass player accompanying the solo guitar. A fairly easy way to get that extra signal from the low A and E strings is to adapt a Fishman Neo-D Magnetic non-battery Soundhole Pickup (in combination with the L.R. Baggs GigPro mini battery preamp as described further down in this article) and mount it exactly centered under the A string. This way the E string signal won't overpower the A string, and the crosstalk of the D string usually won't matter when using the Octabass, which is designed to process only the lowest note it hears. So, understand that this pickup is mounted parallel to the strings, not perpendicular as is usual for such a pickup to read all six strings. I used to recommend the Fishman Rare Earth pickup with its built in preamp and sleeker profile, but there have been too many times when the Rare Earth signal has not been powerful enough to run that octabass properly, not to mention the hassle of changing its batteries once you get it mounted. The Neo-D with the Baggs GigPro really does the job well. Other systems of bringing that extra low A and E string signal can include a signal from individual bridge or saddle pickups, or from a specially adapted short length embedded piezo pickup. These options necessitate an inline preamp of some kind, either hidden in the guitar or outboard. As for the octave-lowering electronics: I use the EBS Octabass, a rich analog octave converter. For the "EBS Octabass" do a Google web search to find dealers or web order stores that sell them. If you don't use a seperate pickup for your Bass Expansion you can't get a clean bass sound, as all the strings will be trying to feed the octabass. You can use the new Boss pedal that has programmable bass frequencies, but the limitation is that depending on your cut-off frequency, you will not be able to control octave doubling happening on the 4th string. The best way to get Bass Expansion on your acoustic is to get a Fishman Neo-D Magnetic non-battery Soundhole Pickup; super-glue or epoxy 1/4" to 1/2" extended wood or plastic pieces to the end clamps, then mount it parallel to the strings, exactly centered below the A string. If you like, you can drill and mount a 1/4" female plug on the guitar for it, or have your luthier do it. Then a guitar cord goes from your new pickup's guitar out plug into a Baggs GigPro preamp (you absolutely need this premp to make this work, it doesn't seem to respond to other preamps) and then from the GigPro to an EBS Octabass (and to get the best analog octaver for the best sounding bass, you really need the EBS, not a Boss or other brand). Calibrate equal volume between the E and A strings by gently moving the pickup up or down as needed, then tighten into place. You keep most of the acoustic qualities with this pickup in the hole. I accomplished adding bass expansion to an old Gibson ES175D by replacing the bridge with a new Fishman bridge that contains one pickup for each string (this bridge, which looks just like a Gibson classic rock type bridge, has the stainless steel saddles which I like to replace the wood bridge on the ES175 - I think a wood bridge is very nice on a jazz guitar, but I use the 175 with its double pickups as a full-service variety working gig guitar, and I need the fuller spectrum of tone and sustain from stainless steel saddles with this guitar). Of the built-in pickup wires coming out of the Fishman bridge, I used only the wire leads from strings 5 and 6 (and ground lead) and soldered them up to a female TRS plug, drilled a new mounting hole for that plug near the existing plug, and mounted it. (To find which leads they are, put the bridge on the guitar with the lead wires sticking out; have a test amp with a guitar cord plugged in and while holding the ground lead of the Fishman to the guitar cord ground, hold each colored wire lead to the tip, one by one, and pluck the low e and a strings to determine which wire amplifies the string you want; cut off the lead wires for strings 1 through 4). I use a stereo male guitar cord plugged into my newly-installed TRS plug I put on the guitar, and use a a Radio Shack adapter cord to break the output into two seperate 1/4" guitar plugs, one for the low e and one for the low a string. Run those signals into a Rolls MX4 mini mixer ( a terrific mixer and perfect preamp for the right bit of signal gain; can be found for $45 plus shipping using Google/Froogle internet search on "Rolls MX4"), so you have individual volume control over each of the bass strings to best equalize their volume (which is the most important thing you need to make this work effectively), then run the output of the Rolls to the Octabass, and octabass to your amplifier for your new Bass Expansion signal.. I keep the Octabass set to its deepest low setting for deep bass tone, but relatively low volume. Q. Why do you recommend the Fishman Neo D, in particular? How would it work (track/sound) compared to, say, a Baggs Hex system, running the bottom two pickups to the octave pedal? Why the GigPro, as opposed to, say, the Para DI? Have you ever tried the bass expansion with a nylon string guitar? I've tried the bass expansion with several different guitar/pickup combinations and more often than not I've run into tracking problems. I sure would appreciate any advice you can offer. A. I recommended the NeoD with the GigPro preamp as a combination that works, as I use them. My experience trying the NeoD with a ParaDI was that it did not work. The net result needed, no matter what pickup system and/or preamp combination is to produce a signal that is powerful enough to drive the EBS Octabass. If the signal is not strong enough the Octabass produces bad tones, weak signals, and apparent "tracking" problems. I have used a few Fishman Rare Earth pickups (they have a preamp built in), and some of them power the Octabass just fine, while others do not, until you run them through some kind of preamp first. Odd, but that's how it is. Advantage of the Rare Earth over the NeoD: it has a sleeker profile, takes up less of the sound hole. Disadvantages of the Rare Earth over the Neo D: it is priced 3 to 4 times higher and it has two expensive batteries that require you to remove the pickup from the soundhole for changing... and you still won't be guaranteed that it will not need a preamp to power the Octabass (even though it has its own preamp). I have not tried doing bass expansion on a nylon string, or with baggs hex pickups. But the principle remains the same - if you can get a strong enough signal off those two bass strings, you will power your Octabass with no tracking problems. Tabledit: This software for tablature plus treble clef notation is brilliant, economical (both in cost and in the small size of disk and ram space it uses), and has the quickest learning curve out there. It is constantly being improved by it's genius author in France, Matthieu Leschemelle, and is used worldwide by guitarists and teachers. It is very reasonably priced, learned relatively quickly, plays the arrangements on computer, and it is a powerful tool that will be valuable to a guitarist all his life. www.tabledit.com Tabledit provides a free version of their software for playing "tef" files. Go to their website and click on "FREE TEFVIEW" |
Steven King's Instruments |