I grew up playing Fenders and Fender clones. I own more than a few vintage Fender Precision and Jazz basses. My first bass was a 1969 Fender Precision, which I still play to this day. Actually, that’s the bass I’m holding on the home page of this website. I even have the leather strap that my dad bought for me when I was 13 years old. I remember the day he bought it for me. My dad took me to a guitar shop in Transfer, Pennsylvania, that was owned by a great guitarist named Max Schang, with whom I began playing with 8 years later.

“Dad, that strap is really expensive.”

“Son, when you buy a good strap, you’ll have it for the rest of your life.”

When I was 17 my parents bought me my first new bass. It was a Japanese made 1988 Fender Jazz Special fretless bass. Over the years I noticed that people seemed to like the way I played that bass. When I moved to NYC, I noticed that people here also seemed to like my fretless playing, though it’s not something I was really trying to push. For instance, one time I accidentally grabbed the wrong case on a way to a rehearsal, and that was it. They heard the bass and told me to bring it back.

That particular Japanese Fender was nice, but it really wasn’t a great bass. When you’re in NYC playing clubs where anyone may walk in, I thought that I should invest in a quality instrument. I knew that it was time to find a better fretless.

Not knowing much about boutique basses at the time, I went with what I knew and tried to find a vintage Fender, but the prices are crazy these days. Knowing that the key to a vintage sound lies in the volume and tone pots as well as the pickups, I decided to open up my amazing sounding 1969 Fender Jazz bass to check the serial numbers. As it turns out, the pots in that bass are from 1966. So, step one for me was finding a matching control plate with those exact pots. That’s where eBay came to the rescue.

It’s a long story and a bit off topic, but in a nutshell, I assembled a “vintage” Fender Jazz bass with the help of eBay, and it sounds and plays great. It sounds like an old Fender, which I thought was fine until I played a bass made by Leslie McCurdy of Fleet Guitars.

Leslie is a good friend of my man George Petit, who engineered my LaFaro record and the last two Tri-Fi records. He’s also a great guitarist, and I play in a few of his bands. George was one of those people who, after hearing me on fretless, requested that I stay on fretless. One day Leslie mentioned to George that he was going to start selling basses and George said “Hey, I know a bass player that you should meet!” That was it. I played a few of Leslie’s basses and immediately started talking about a personal, custom made fretless bass.

Leslie McCurdy of Fleet Guitars

Leslie’s concept for his basses is based around one perfectly placed Gibson Thunderbird pickup. Having been a Fender man my whole life, I was totally unfamiliar (and unprepared) for the Gibson experience. I went over to Leslie’s house and played with his guitar collection, which is very impressive. He has a few different vintage Gibsons– a Thunderbird, EB0, as well as a few early ’60′s Fenders. Of course he also has a few of his own creations as well.

I really liked the Gibson sound. They’re big and round but have a tone that cuts through a band. I guess I’ve steered away from Gibsons because they have felt awkward to play for me. The Thunderbirds are headstock heavy and have an uncomfortable body shape and the EB0 feels like a toy. However, when I got past that, I really liked the sound. That’s where Leslie’s basses fill in the void by providing the best of both worlds.

Leslie is an unabashed Fender Precision fan. His first bass was a Precision, and his current lineup of bass creations are based off of the Fender “feel”. The string spacing on the bass he made for me is a Precision spacing. Picking up one of his basses felt comfortable to me, since I’m basically a Fender guy, but they all have that bite and sound of the old Gibsons which was a nice surprise.

That’s when I made the decision. I’ve been unhappy with Fenders when it comes to making my own music. Everybody seems to play a Fender or a Fender style copy. When I pick up my Fender Jazz fretless, it’s really hard not to draw a comparison to Jaco. Give me a Precision and I’ll dig into James Jamerson, Jerry Jermont, Chuck Rainey (a fellow Youngstown bassist by the way), etc… Yes, there are times when the gig calls for me to completely and unashamedly copy some or all of those players, and I LOVE doing that (especially Chuck and Jerry!), but when it comes time for me to make my own music and my own statement, I want to get as far away from that as possible. That’s why I was so excited to play Leslie’s basses.

I really liked the way Leslie’s basses sounded. They have everything that is important to a bassist. They have a great tone, plenty of punch, they cut through the band, and they sound like a bass– not some kind of fancy “ready to take a solo” thing. That said, they can also sing when you need them to. Oh, and since they’re hand made basses, they feel amazing. If you’re not happy with something, Leslie can make changes to suit your playing. I’ve finally found a bass with which I can cut the ties to my forefathers and create my own thing.

Building the P-Bird

Leslie has been calling my bass the P-Bird, which he said means Phil’s Thunderbird, since it’s made for me and has the Thunderbird pickup.

He asked if I had any requests before he started. Well, the first thing I thought of was to get rid of the volume and tone knob and just wire the pickup directly to the jack! I always leave my knobs wide open anyway, so I thought it would sound better to get everything out of the signal chain. Well, long story short, it was too much signal for a bass preamp to handle. Rather than soldering in a resistor, we just went ahead and put a concentric volume/tone pot it. Other than that, I let him do his thing based on what he knew of my playing.

Carving the neck

I had to decide whether I wanted a lined or unlined fretless. In the end I decided to just have him drop the lines in, even though I don’t look at my hands often. If I had it to do over, I’d probably go unlined just for the look of it.

The neck is made of solid Honduran mahogany with a two-way truss rod, 2 graphite rods, and an ebony fingerboard. He also laid a ebony veneer on the face of the headstock, which is a nice touch.

Choosing a body style

Leslie has two different body styles that he likes to make. I liked the one on the right.

Creating the Body

On the left, Leslie has drawn out the pattern for the top of the bass. The photo on the right is the body. The top is a 1/4″ thick piece of redwood, which he glues onto a thick piece of Mahogany.

Another signature of Fleet Guitars is the chambered body. It makes the bass more resonant, gives it a better balance with the headstock, and makes the bass incredibly light!

On the left is Leslie’s template for the chambers, which he carved out of the body. The third photo is the finished rough body.

Finally, the body is finished and the neck is set. Then it was time to get serious about picking a color. I had the choice of going with a solid cover-all vintage style finish or a nitrocellulose see-through finish. I decided that the wood was much to beautiful to cover up completely, so I picked a red based nitro finish that thins out in the center to let the grain show through.

Pickguard or no Pickguard?

The top is so beautiful it was tough to decide whether or not to cover it up. Leslie showed me a few pickup guard style shape ideas, and we both agreed on the template you see on the left. From there I had to decide on a color. The gold was interesting, but in the end the black one won out. It has a tiny white binding that matches the tiny white binding on the neck nicely.

Show Time!

And here she is! As you can see, I started out with no knobs, which I thought was pretty sexy.

Brooklyn Guitar Show

Left to right: A few of Leslie’s basses surrounding a mint 1962 Fender Precision that he was selling at the show. The 2nd photo is Leslie and me. Lastly, Leslie is playing another fretless bass that he made for himself. I really liked that bass as well!

Actually, I ended up liking every bass he’s made. If you look again at the first photo, check out the red bass 2nd from the left. It’s a fretted model with a slightly different pickup position from my fretless. I ended up buying that bass from him a month after the show.

On the Job

I’ve been taking my new Fleet Guitar signature P-Bird to every gig that I can and everyone loves it. Without saying a word about having a new bass, people come up to me and comment on the sound. It’s a hit!

Here are a few shots of me with George Petit’s band.

With Purpose

Now that I have a bass that speaks to me, I’ve been inspired to write my first all electric bass recording! Stay tuned for updates on that project.

If you’re interested in checking out Leslie’s basses, give him a call or drop him an email. The details are on his website: http://fleetguitars.com

Is vinyl better than CD, or is CD better than vinyl? And the answer is………………

Yes.

That’s right, I said yes. Yes is the answer to which format is better. Not the answer you expected? Allow me to explain.

There are a crazy amount of variables involved in music production. Think about all of the parts of a stereo, CD player, turntable, and the hundreds of manufacturers making these items, times that by differences in living rooms, and squared by the difference in the shape and qualities of people’s ears (no joke, it counts). Okay, how in the hell is anyone supposed to declare a winner?

I have a few insights as to why I feel the answer is “Yes”. In my opinion and experience, one format can indeed come out on top of the other in particular cases. Here’s what I’m talking about.

First, let’s start with how vinyl can be a winner and also a loser.

The rear tonearm is for stereo, and the grey tonearm on the right is used for mono LPs.

Let’s attempt to compare an album that was recorded and pressed in 1960 to its digital version that was just released on CD this year. As we hop in our handy-dandy time machine and meet the recording engineers in person, we learn that these guys were the supermen of the recording world in their day. They were much in demand and working like crazy. They have a TON of experience getting as accurate a sound as they can get for the dominant medium of the time- vinyl.

As they set up their mics, they’ll tell you about what they’re going to gain or lose as the sound hits the tape, then what’s going to happen when the sound hits the vinyl lathe. “Hey, that’s a weird place to put a mic” an engineer from 2013 might say, but that guy probably doesn’t have the experience setting up for an all analogue mono recording session that’s being pressed to vinyl (unless of course he’s over 70 years old).

So, we jump back into our time machine (which just got a parking ticket sitting in front of the Vanguard for a few hours. Nice to see NYC hasn’t changed), and encounter the next issue– tape degradation. Mister engineer from 2013 wants to re-release that 1960s session he was just listening to. Well, the engineer forgot to get a dub of the session to bring with him in the time machine, and we can’t go back due to the parking ticket, so we’re stuck in 2013 with 60 year old analogue tape.

Okay, I got a bit crazy with my Sci-Fi story. In a nutshell, a good quality original pressing vinyl recording will sound better than a CD reissue because the vinyl was made from the fresh tapes. The CDs are dubbed from 60 analogue tape, which is starting to get a little funky.

Some of my favorite Sam Jones!

Another factor in the CD reproduction is whether or not the people making the transfer to digital take the time to re-master the tape for CD, or maybe they think they know better than the original engineers and decide that they can do a much better job mixing the session. Grrrrrr, THAT one gets me every time. You have to hear the difference between the original Cannonball Adderley – Nancy Wilson on mono vinyl compared to the CD release. Holy cow, the CD engineers ruined the recording! They remixed the session and made it sound like Nancy is singing in a phone booth outside of the studio.

Of course, original pressing vinyl can indeed sometimes come out as the loser depending on which generation of the pressing you come up with. I’m not going to dive into the details now, but basically they would put the master plate on the press and make a series of records, then pop in a new master plate after the old one wears out. If you get a first or second pressing of an LP that was made with a fresh plate, it would sound better than the later generations, even for an original pressing run.

Oh, and it goes without saying that you need a copy of the original pressing that has survived 60 years of ownership in tact. The good news is there are many excellent first pressing LPs still available and priced within your budget. For instance, that Cannonball LP I mentioned was only $8 on eBay for the original Capitol Records release.

Now here’s why a CD can come out on top.

Whenever I have new people over to the house for a listening session, this discussion always comes up. I decide to let the vinyl do the talking and set up a double blind test- vinyl vs CD. As I mentioned, anything that was originally recorded for vinyl always wins the competition. However, that doesn’t mean all CDs are garbage. Quite the contrary. After listening to all of the great vinyl I own, I’ll pop on a modern recording on CD and BAM– the ooohs and awwwws take over.

Why is this? Well, for starters, todays engineers have been working in digital environments for decades now. They know where to place a mic to get the best sound out of digital. It’s also easier to make a consistent product– no more generational issues or pressing problems. It’s digital. It’s a copy of what was captured at the studio (Almost. More on that in a second).

There is one myth that, if I can’t completely dispel, I will at least make you consider. Some people often say that the bass is much better on CDs compared to vinyl. While it is true that you need to tightly control the bass on vinyl due to the nature of cutting the grooves into the platter, I have many LPs that have GREAT bass on them. You can indeed get the bass out of vinyl like you can on CD. Of course, the better the turntable, tonearm, and cartridge (stylus), the better the bass response.

It seems to me that the basic difference between bass frequencies on vinyl and CD stem from people’s perception of the bass in the 21st century. People want more bass. Engineers are mixing the bass hotter than they did in 1960. We’ve become accustomed to hearing the bass better thanks to technological advances in the instrument itself and advances in live amplification.

Unless you’re buying brand new music on vinyl, chances are your collection stems from recordings from the early 1980s and beyond where they didn’t pump up the bass like they do now. That said, I absolutely loath the engineers who have decided to crank up the bass on the CD rereleases of older recordings, but that’s a whole other topic to write about.

I have many modern CDs that sound amazing, but I can still hear the disappointing short falls of the CD medium. For instance, cymbals sound too crunchy to me. I can’t hear the warmth of a ride cymbal like you can in person. On vinyl, you can hear more of the wood in the stick in the sound, the warmth. Newer recordings on CD, however, have significantly closed that gap. It’s better, but that aspect is still trailing vinyl.

Just as original vinyl sounds better than the modern reissues, modern recordings released on both CD and vinyl simultaneously sound better on CD. I have both versions of a bunch of recordings that were released on both vinyl and CD in the last few years. I’m not going to name any names, but in each case I prefer the sound of the CD over the vinyl. Why? There are various reasons. In one case, whoever mastered the vinyl probably had little experience doing so. The inner groove distortion on the first side was out of control. Maybe I got a bad pressing, or maybe it was because he put a really densely orchestrated tune as the last track on a side, where the circles of the groove are much tighter and harder to track. I have a fairly amazing turntable and even I had a hard time tracking that tune.

That’s more of a problem with inexperience and not necessarily a problem with the vinyl format. Still, that is indeed something to consider with modern vinyl. Whatever the reason, bad sound is bad sound. I now search for reviews of new vinyl releases before I buy them to make sure that there was an old guy in charge of the vinyl release!

The future of digital music is here.

But wait, Phil! I thought that you said the CD comes out on top sometimes?

Well, maybe this shouldn’t be a competition between vinyl and CD, but a competition between vinyl and digital. The CD is just the first commercially successful digital medium. The MP3 was next, but that was a huge step backward in terms of quality for the benefit of saving hard drive space.

You may or may not know that a CD is actually a compromise in sound. Just like an MP3, it’s technically a “lossy” format, which means that some musical information had to be left behind in order for the music to fit on a CD. Early in it’s life, a group of people got together and decided how big a CD was going to be and which frequencies us little ole humans needed to hear. For an ordinary person, it probably doesn’t make much of a difference. To a musician, well, we can hear what’s missing. Like everything in life, there are plusses and minuses. Here’s what happens when you record a CD.

When you record in the studio in the studio these days and you’re planning on pressing CDs, you capture the music into a computer at a sample rate of 96K-24bit (I’m generalizing. There are other sample rates people use, but you’ll see where I’m going with this). After you mix the project, you send it to a mastering house where the mastering engineer dithers it down to what they call “Red Book CD” quality, which is 44.1K-16bit. Yes, you are understanding this correctly. They throw out more than half of the sound that was captured. What’s left out? Well, what ever musical information scientists think we can’t hear. However, a lot of people can indeed hear the difference.

At this point in time, though, musicians and engineers are now asking the question “Why?”. People are downloading music now, not spinning it off of CDs, so why stick with the limitations of the CD? Enter HD Audio.

I have another Blog Post about this topic already, so I won’t dig into it too deeply here. Basically, you can now buy a lot of your favorite recordings as 96k-24bit digital downloads. I use HDTracks.com mostly, but you can sometimes buy recordings direct from artists. For instance, I have my latest tribute to Scott LaFaro available directly from this website as a 96k-24bit download, as well as my Tri-Fi’s last two recordings.

What’s the difference? Well, when I compare Chick Corea’s Light as a Feather on the original vinyl to my 96K-24bt digital download of the record, it’s hard to tell the difference! The gap is finally closing between the digital and vinyl realms! You still have the problem of tape degradation for the older stuff, but at least the digital world is beginning to release files that contain more musical information rather than less information!

The Final Word on Vinyl

Sadly, most people who dismiss vinyl don’t understand vinyl.

1) It has cracks and pops.

Well, first of all find a good copy of the record. Second, learn how to clean it. Finally, get an anti-static gun.

2) They warp.

Don’t store them in your garage lying flat. Keep them inside of your house, in the shade, and standing up on their side. If you have a few warped LPs, there are ways to fix them. They’re vinyl, after all.

3) They don’t sound nearly as good as the CD.

I’m guessing that the $50 record player you bought at Costco isn’t going to stand up next to the $100 CD player that you bought at Best Buy, or even a $50 CD player from Costco.

I build this out of an old turntable platter, VPI record cleaner nozzle, and a 1hp wet/dry shop vac!

You don’t need to spend a million dollars on a turntable, but you need to know what you’re doing. They’re not “plug and play” like a CD player. These days you can get more for your money by buying a  used ‘table from the 70s or 80s that will generally perform better than most of the ‘tables you can buy new for under $200.

Don’t forget, the ‘table itself is only half of the equation. You have to know what cartridge (stylus) to buy for it, and you need a specific phono input on your stereo. You can’t just plug it into the extra CD input. Once you have everything in place, you’ll need to learn how to align the cartridge to track at the optimum angle and how to set the weight of the tonearm.

Don’t be scared off, though. It’s not rocket science. The best thing about the digital world that we live in is the INTERNET! You can find everything you need to know about vinyl online.

Now go out and BUY SOME MUSIC!

I know, it's a mess, but it's not finished!

It’s something I’ve always thought would be cool, but in the every day sideman world, effects pedals have little or no application for the bass. I have vivid memories of being 13 years old and running my Fender Precision through my dad’s Cry Baby wha wha pedal and having fun– by myself in the spare bedroom. Try pulling that out on a gig. You had better have a vision of how it fits into the music! Well, I’m older now, and I’ve realized that if you want to get crazy with the pedals, all you have to do is form a band and write music with the pedals in mind. Easy!

My first real excursion into effects pedals was during my tenure with jazz legend Maynard Ferguson. There was a time when Main (our nickname for Maynard. Either that or Boss) had a series on Concord Records called Maynard Ferguson Presents….. One of the first artists he presented was our master trombonist Tom Garling. For a few tours when Tom’s CD was new, Maynard let us open up his shows with a few tunes. Tom always had me take an electric bass solo on (I believe it was called) Shrimp Tales. I remember that during a week when we were playing at Jazz Alley in Seattle, I swung by Bass Northwest one afternoon just to waste some time. I started fooling around with their pedal display, and really dug the EBS Octaver. On a complete whim, I bought it that day and tried it out that night on the gig. I kicked it on for my solo that night. Pretty slick!

That’s about as adventurous as I got for many years. I can count the number of times on one had that someone has actually called me for a gig and asked if I could bring an effects pedal– ZERO! That didn’t stop me from fooling around with them at the house, though. It wasn’t until I co-founded an electric trio that I realized that I could write tunes around specific sounds, thus making my pedal fetish a valid –nay– a necessary investment! Here’s what I’m playing with now.

Your Guitar Cables Are Important!

The first and foremost important element of any pedal board is the signal chain, specifically the type of cable you use. You need to have quality guitar and patch cables if you’d like your precious instrument to sound like you remember it sounding. Bad cables will suck the life out of your tone.

I’ve been endorsing cable made by an American company called Analysis-Plus for a few years now, and I love them. I can’t say enough about the quality and sound of these cables. When it came time to wire my board, that was my first call. As you can see from my photos, though, I still haven’t settled on a placement scheme, so the wires are kind of running amok around the board. Anyway, I’m using their “Yellow Oval” series, which is near the top of their food chain, but still very affordable, considering I’ll have these cables for at least 100 years. Even their entry level cables are great, since they’re all made with their patented “hollow oval” design. You can check out the science of that on their website.

The next element of signal chain preservation is a must have pedal for a bass pedal board- the ToneBone Loopbone. Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not a looper. It serves a simple, yet necessary purpose in the pedal board, and it’s the first thing that your bass gets plugged into.

Here’s the problem with pedals. As you add more pedals, you add more wire and electronics between your bass and your amp. With the bass, you lose a whole lot of high end and tone. There are better sources for information on this topic, but my understanding is that your bass amp puts an electrical load on your bass pickups. Placing too many pedals and cable between your amp and your bass affects the load on your bass in a negative way.

Plug your bass into the Tonebone on the right, then run a guitar cable from the left of the Tonebone to your amp. There are two effects send and returns, labeled  Loop 1 and Loop 2. The Tonebone has a knob that simulates the load your amp places on your pickup, thus keeping your bass pickups very happy. I experimented with this, and the results were pretty drastic. My bass sounded completely dead without the Tonebone. With the Tonebone at the head of the signal chain, I couldn’t tell the difference between running my bass into the pedal board or running it directly into my amp. All of the high end, definition, and dynamic range came back to my sound.

The Tonebone has two effects loops that can be triggered though switches to further help limit how much instrument cabling your signal has to pass through. That makes it easy to trigger two effects at once if they’re on the same loop (got to remember to turn the pedals on ahead of time!). It also has dedicated tuner output that’s not in the signal chain.

Create a band to satisfy your urges!

I guess now would be a good time to mention the project that allows me to indulge in my pedal fantasy, a band that we call (718). We’re just about done with our first album, but lucky for you, we’ve video taped each recording session. I’ll post a link to the YouTube videos that show off various pedals in my setup.

So, I guess I’ll start with loop one, which has my two envelop filters plugged into it. Why in the world do I need TWO envelope filters, you ask? Well, I have a very good reason. They both have specific areas of expertise.

The Lovetone Meatball! A pedal so good, I had to write a song about it! I kick it in at 3:58

I was hanging at a club in NYC called Smoke years ago checking out a great horn band called Hot Pants. One night, the bassist kicked on an envelope filter that caught my ear. Holy cow! That pedal sounded great! Of course, the bassist was great, but there was something magical about that pedal. It was the Lovetone envelope filter, made by a UK company called Meatball. The next day I was online checking them out, but they were $350. I hemmed and hawed about buying one, since I didn’t really have a good reason to own one at the time, and by the time I decided to buy one, the company had discontinued it. D’oh!

Well, I had my heart set on that sound, so I headed to Rudy’s on 48th street in NYC to check out their envelop filter selection. I fell in love with the EBS Bass IQ. What’s great about the EBS pedal is that it has the standard up and down filters, but it also has their custom made setting called IQ. I don’t know the specifics of what makes that setting different than the standard up and down options, but it’s really cool. I bought it that day. It’s a tricky pedal to use live, though, because it’s very sensitive to input. You can have it set perfectly at sound check, but it might sound a little different on the gig, which makes it tricky to just pop out on a random gig. I think I’ve found it’s strength, though– bass solos! It is the most expressive envelop filter I’ve ever played though.

"Sputnik"- a song I wrote for the dub side of the Meatball!

Of course, I’ve always dreamt of the Lovetone. A year later I heard that they were making the pedal again, but now they were $400! I hemmed and hawed, then months later decided to grab one. Of course, they stopped making them again. D’oh! Well, to make a long story short, I found one on the used market years later…. for even more money.

Yes, I paid north of four bills for an envelope filter, but it’s not a normal filter. I swear this thing is alien technology. The sounds you can get out of it are crazy! It’s the best filter I’ve used for straight up groove-pocket playing, hands down. It can also dig into Dub and Techno sub-bass stuff. I’m only beginning to touch the surface with what this thing can do.

The BassIQ in action. The soupy bass solo starts at 5:02.

You may have noticed in the photos that my EBS Bass IQ is kind of buried in the board. That’s the other nice thing about the Tonebone. I’m triggering the effects from the Tonebone rather than kicking the pedals, so I can pretty much ignore pedal placement. I only need to hit one of the two buttons on the Tonebone.

Onto loop two of the pedal board. The first thing in the chain is the TC Electronic Flashback. I discovered this pedal though a great guitarist Mark McCarron. I am one fourth of his band The McCarron Bros. We were at a sound check in upstate NY when I heard him stomp on that box. Wow! I think I bought that pedal via my iPhone before the sound check had ended. It has various delays and slap back effects, as well as a looper. The most amazing thing about it is the quality of sound. When I record a loop, I’m still amazed at how real the loop sounds. You can’t hear any degradation of signal at all. That says a lot, since some pedals have problems with the bass register.

"Something" by George Harrison. In a live performance, I kick the Flashback on at the very end to loop my line. Of course in the studio, I just overdub...

The “P.Pong” setting is really slick. It is a delay that almost behaves like a looper, since you can get it to repeat what you play and set how long you want it to repeat the information. You can set up a groove, then morph it into new directions. I really like the Loop function as well. I arranged a version of George Harrison’s Something, where at the very end I play an eight bar descending bass line, which I record with the Flashback, then kick it back in as a loop and start to solo over it with the band. I plan on writing more music with that idea in mind.

To the left of that is my EBS Octaver octave pedal. I was using the Boss OC-2 pedal in this position, but it just don’t track as well as I needed it to. The pedal would have too much trouble catching the pitch of the note I was playing, and forget about trying to sustain the note. It would just cut out. The EBS pedal does a much better job of tracking what I’m playing. When we initially formed (718), I was using my Nordstrand 6 string bass a lot. In a perfect world, I would bring two basses to every gig. However, I have been really digging just playing an old Fender Precision these days. The EBS pedal comes in handy on a few tunes that I recorded on the 6 string.

Once again, "Sputnik". I kick the Frequency Analyzer on at 2:31, and again at the end

Finally, we arrive at the most un-useful pedal a person could have on their bass pedal board. It’s the Electro Harmonix Frequency Analyzer. I can think of no situation a bassist would ever need to use this pedal, that is, until I head my friend Tim Lefebvre use it on a gig at the 55 Bar one night. I loved the way Tim was using it. He’d just kick it on for a few notes here and there. Man, it was powerful! What a crazy sound. When used in the right place, it makes stuff happen. Of course, you need to learn when to use it. I had to buy one to see what I can do with it, and hopefully take it in a different direction than Tim. There’s only room for one Lefebvre, and I can’t compete! For now, though, I’m kind of following in his footsteps a little.

Finally, you may be wondering how many batteries I have to throw into a landfill each month. Not to worry! I’m hitting the local nuclear power plant for my needs with my Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Plus 2. This cool device comes with a bunch of outputs for pedals and all the different types of connectors you’ll need. It also has a regular AC socket that you can use for pedals with irregular voltage requirements. I run a split AC power cord out of that to power the Tonebone and the Electro Harmonix. It’s hidden from sight under the top tier of my pedal board.

Pedals are a whole heck of a lot of fun. I’m planning on digging even deeper, though that means I’m going to have to keep writing music to accommodate my fetish. Stay tuned, and take cover!

I was all excited to fire up the system that first night and listen to music that was un-muddied by all the noise running through the 60 year old circuit that I was using to power my fancy stereo. There are only two circuits for the 2nd floor of my house, which was built in 1942. In addition to lights, my stereo was also sharing the juice with a fan, TV, Tivo DVR, and a computer. All of these appliances introduce a little noise into the AC flow. You may not be able to notice it if you’re listing to music through a Bose Wave radio or similar entry level stereo, but you can definitely hear that gook in my fancy-schmancy system that I’ve put together over the last five years!

I’ve always felt that I am pretty decent at troubleshooting problems when they arise, but this problem had me on my toes. It can be tricky trying to troubleshoot something when you’ve just added a few new variables to the equation. In this case, I was having some work done to the house, so while I had an electrician on hand, I decided to talk him into running two new AC lines up to my stereo. Well, it took a little more than talk. I had to pay him, of course, but he gave me a great price since he was already around. He installed two 20amp circuit breakers and ran 12aug wire through the walls in the most direct way possible to my stereo. At the stereo end, I had him drop in two hospital grade outlets– a two outlet box on one line and a four outlet box on the other, side by side. After he finished the job and left, I plugged my power conditioner (which provides power to my preamp, DAC, Squeezebox Touch, turntable, and Oppo SACD/BlueRay player) into one line, and my power amp directly into the wall of the other new AC line. The thought there is, it’s best to have the sensitive electronics on one dedicated circuit, and the hungry power amp on it’s own separate circuit. As my tubes warmed up, I prepared a cool drink and cleaned some vinyl in preparation for the sonic bliss I was about to receive. As I flipped the mute switch to the  off position on the preamp, I was aurally assaulted with a very firm and not so pleasant hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm D’oh! (the “D’oh!” was the sound that I made, along with a few other utterances that are unfit for publication).

That was not good. I plugged everything back into the old outlet, and of course everything was hum free. I plugged everything into just one of the new AC lines– hummmmmmm. Tried everything in the other– hummmmmmmm. Put a ground lift on the power amp just to see if that did anything– hummmmmmmm. What in the heck? Of course, my first thought was the electrician forgot to tighten something, so I immediately left him a message. He was able to come back in about a week. In the mean time, I did a little research and came up with a little advice about having a stereo plugged into two separate AC lines.

I love the internet. In the space of five minutes, I learned that the two new circuit breakers must be wired into the fuse box in-phase, which means that they need to either be across from each other, or have a space between them when you look at their position in the box. Mine were stacked one on top of the other, so they were out of phase. Still, when I wired everything into just one outlet, I still got the hum. So, while I was indeed going to have the electrician fix this and place them in-phase, this most likely wasn’t the source of the hum. I was still leaning towards the possibility that something was wired funny at the outlet end of things.

The reason for having two outlets wired in-phase is because all of the stereo components are connected to each other via interconnects (RCA wires for you non-audiophile people). If the preamp and power amp are plugged into separate AC lines, you are creating a bit of a loop by running the RCA lines between them. As I’ve said, I was confident that this wasn’t causing my particular problem, but it unlocked a clue for me later when the electrician came back and began to fiddle with things.

When he arrived, the first thing he did was move everything in-phase. Of course, my hum was still there. He then got rid of the hospital grade outlets and replaced them with standard heavy duty 20amp outlets. I requested the hospital grade outlet because I read an article in Stereophile that they gripped the prongs of power cables better. My electrician told me that they also had something called an “isolated ground”, whatever that means. Since the word “ground” was involved, we both assumed that swapping them out would fix the problem. Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…….nope.

So, we were both stumped. I remembered the bit about having wires between components causing issues, so I decided to start disconnecting wires. First thing off was the wires to both of the tonearms of my turntable. Then the phono preamp for my mono arm. Then the cables running to the DAC, the the HDMI cable to my Oppo SACD/BlueRay…….. all of a sudden the hum was gone! HDMI in– hum back. HDMI out– hum gone. HDMI in– hum back. HDMI out– hum gone. It felt good to do that a few times. Cable out, cable in, drums stop, bass solo begin (oops, wrong story). So, here’s what was going on with that dang hum.

I had the TV running into the old circuit, and the HDMI cable was stringing from my stereo’s SACD/BlueRay player to the TV creating the ground loop. The electrician and I ran back down to the basement to check the phase of that old circuit, but it was indeed in-phase with the two new lines. The electrician checked the strength of the ground on that circuit and we found what was potentially causing our problem. The ground was really weak. That line is really old, and it does’t have the third green ground wire running through it like newer lines. It’s supposed to get a ground current through the metal sheath, but like I said, it’s an old line. So, at that point I let the electrician go since there was nothing more he could do. I knew what my only chance was to fix this.

As a last ditch effort, I remembered another possible source of ground interference– the coaxial cable TV line! Years ago I bought a little ground isolated filter made by Jensen that you’re supposed to drop into the coaxial line before it hits your TV. There are many brands, but I seem to remember this one being the best for some reason, and I just happened to have it sitting in my desk. I popped that into the coaxial path at a junction point and the hum completely disappeared for good!

If you keep your stereo completely independent from your TV or home theater, then you probably won’t ever have this problem. However, it’s getting harder to keep stereos separated from your TV/home theater unless, of course, you have the budget to have two great systems. Before I remembered that I had the Jensen lying around, I thought I’d just unplug the HDMI cable when I wanted to listen to music. Then I remembered, um, what about when I wanted to watch a DVD or BlueRay. I have a great Cannonball Adderley DVD that I was not about to give up! And what about my Joni Mitchell’s Shadows and Light DVD!? Well, I’m glad that I remembered the coaxial ground isolated trick!

Now that everything is hum free, you should hear what a difference having a dedicated AC line makes for your stereo. Happy listening!

I’ve been playing gigs since I was about 14 years old, but it wasn’t until I went on the road with Maynard Ferguson that I realized it was time to fill in ye olde ear holes. I vividly remember my first rehearsal with Maynard. We were set up in an empty hotel room in Indiana. Two saxes, three trumpets, trombone, piano, bass, drums, and Maynard. Now, if you’re not familiar with trumpet players, they can really hurt their lips if they can’t hear themselves properly. That being the case, Maynard was playing into a microphone which was being piped though two stage monitors at his feet. You heard me right. I was standing three feet from the legendary Maynard Ferguson, in a small room, whilst he played double Cs into a PA system!

I was rooming with the drummer that first tour. My first impression of my new roommate was “wow, he likes the TV volume cranked up pretty high.” I soon realized that it wasn’t just him. You could walk down the hotel hallway and pick out who was in the band by listening for TVs. It wasn’t until weeks later that I realized my roommate finally eased off of the TV volume. Of course, that wasn’t the case. I quickly woke up to the fact that my hearing was less sensitive after a few weeks of gigs. That’s when I called my dad.

My dad was working for GM at the time, and they had these simple disposable foam plugs that blocked nearly ALL sound from your ears. I believe they were rated for a whopping 30db reduction! The problem was, I was having trouble making music with them stuck in my ears, since they hardly let ANY sound in. It’s tricky trying to blend with a band when you can’t hear your bandmates. Still, since I was facing potential hearing loss, I made myself deal with it. I was standing on the floor between the drums and three monster trumpet players. They were all on small risers, which placed the bells of the trumpets were pretty far above me. The drummer’s high hat, however, was right next to my right ear. Then there was the (not so) small matter of Maynard, who was directly in front of me with two monitors facing back at us. Oh, and lets not forget my own giant amp, which was right behind me. After those first few weeks, I had my dad mail me some plugs immediately!

Those first few tours with Maynard were filled with expEARimentation (trade mark!). I would stuff the plugs deep into my ear for every tune that I was playing electric bass on, since I didn’t have to worry about intonation. The drums were so close to my head, I didn’t have any problems hearing the beat. On the acoustic bass songs, I pulled my left plug out a little bit so that a little more sound could come in. Since the bells of the trumpets were a bit in front of me and high above, this was the safest side of my head to let some sound in. I did this for a few tours until I discovered that there were companies that actually designed earplugs made especially for musicians.

I can’t remember the exact brand that I first tried (they may have been Etymotics, which I recently re-discovered after I lost my custom plugs. More on that in a minute). You may have seen these style of plugs before. They kind of look like stacked mushrooms that decrease in size as they get to the tip. On a recommendation from a friend, I picked up a 20db pair and was amazed at the sonic difference. I still felt protected, but I could hear the music so much better! I didn’t feel the need to pull one earplug out to hear myself. On the contrary, I could actually hear myself better. I lived with these for the next 10 years.

After moving to NYC, I began playing with Vanguard Jazz Orchestra on Monday nights. At first, I was subbing regularly for the legendary Dennis Irwin, which turned into a full time position when he became ill. When I was just popping in for a gig or two here and there, I took my chances and left my earplugs at home. The dynamic range of that band is huge, and I was having trouble adjusting to playing with plugs in during the quite piano trio sections, which are a hallmark of that band. Since I would just do a  gig a week for a few weeks in a row at first, I thought that making sure I sounded my best outweighed any potential damage that I may incur.

When Dennis fell ill and I stepped in on a weekly basis, I realized that I needed to start protecting myself. By that point, I had been subbing with the band for about eight years, so I was pretty comfortable with the music. I saw an ad in the local 802 Musicians Union for a free hearing test and earplug fitting. I’ve always wanted to have custom moulded plugs, so I scheduled an appointment.

I was relieved to see the results of my first hearing test. Everything looked great, with only a slight notch in my left ear, which was most likely due the fact that I played with the Vanguard Band the night before. The trumpets were behind me and to my left, so I was getting a really good blast on that side of my head! Unfortunately, I couldn’t get fitted that day because I didn’t realize that I needed to clean my ears before hand. The audiologist squeezes a bunch of goop into your ear, which solidifies and creates a mould of your inner ear so that they can make the plugs. Even the slightest bit of ear wax will create imperfections in the mould that will result in a less than optimal fit.

So, that was a minor setback. I scheduled another appointment and made sure to clean my ears the night before with an over the counter kit I bought at the local pharmacy. Wow, it’s amazing how much high-end you get back after you clean your ears. Follow this link for more information about ear cleaning. Anyway, when I went back to get fitted the 2nd time, I got another hearing test. In the time between tests I started wearing one plug in my left ear at the Vanguard just to be safe. I was curious to see if maybe my left ear was a little fatigued at my first test since I played at at the Vanguard 12 hours before hand. Sure enough, the results at my 2nd hearing test were better, but still not perfect. With clean canals, I was ready for the goop!

A few weeks later, my new plugs arrived. They’re pretty weird looking, since the are the exact opposite shape of your inner ear. Because of that, they fit amazingly snug into your ear so that no sound can sneak past them. The only entry into your head is through the center of the plugs, which are blocked by a small circular baffle that has a db rating. You can choose between 9db, 15db, or 25db baffles. I decided to pick up the 9 and 15db baffles. These are by far the best sounding type of plugs that you can get, and they’re also the most comfortable. Of course, all of that comes at a price– a trip to the audiologist, sending the moulds to an ear plug company, multiple sets of baffles cost a little more, and return shipping. Fortunately, the American Federation of Musicians has a program to help subsidize the cost for it’s members, so my grand total was $170. Considering you can buy the ribbed musician plugs for $12, that’s a pretty hefty price difference.

You can understand why I would be so upset when I forgot my plugs at my current regular Monday night gig at Smoke with the Bill Mobley Big Band! I went back the next week, but they were lost in the shuffle of acts that come through the club every week. I went into a panic! Forget about the cost of the plugs or how long the replacement process was going to be. I needed something that could protect me ASAP because I had the entire trumpet section literally one foot from the back of my head! It’s a tight squeeze on that stage, and can actually feel the fourth trumpet players’ air stream on the back of my neck. For the first night, I ran to a local pharmacy and bought a pair of foam plugs. Great protection, but I couldn’t hear a dang thing. No fun at all! That night I jumped on Amazon.com and ordered a pair of the ribbed musician plugs for the next week. I forgot how good they sounded, actually. I made do with them for a month until I could get fitted for another pair of custom fitted plugs. The custom are so much more comfortable and they sound even better. Personally, I feel that they are worth the extra money. This time I made sure to write my name all over their protective pouch!

I have one more little tidbit of information I learned from my good friend and guitarist Tony Romano. He had someone over doing a little drywall work at his house one day. Tony noticed that the person put in ear plugs when he started the drywall sanding process. Would you care to take a guess as to why?

Hearing loss isn’t solely caused by high volume and loud sounds. You can also damage your hearing by repeatedly listening to one frequency! In this case, the pitch created by sanding drywall, which was pretty much the same “note” every time, damaged the worker’s hearing to the point that he had a bit of tinnitus. You know what tinnitus is. We’ve all had a temporary case of tinnitus at one time or another– a faint ringing in your ear. In his case, however, it wasn’t so slight anymore and it wouldn’t go away. If you’re a drummer, you are going to experience this same type of hearing damage because of your ride cymbals. You don’t have to bash them to hurt yourself. Just having that one pitch being played in close proximity to your head is enough to begin the process of notching your hearing. That goes for anyone that plays with a drummer! As a bassist, I’m always standing close to the drum set. Now that I know this dirty secret of hearing loss, I started wearing my ear plugs on all my gigs, even the “quite” gigs.

In conclusion, if you think that wearing ear protection hinders your ability to have fun and make music, then I would like to suggest that you probably haven’t found the right ear plugs yet. Even a mere 9db of noise reduction saves pressure on your sensitive ear drums, so you should at least wear something. Here (hear) are some helpful links.

Firstly, though I am not an endorser, here’s a link to the company I prefer for ear plugs of all kinds: Etymotic

The American Tinnitus Association

Musicians and Hearing Loss: Interview with Marshall Chasin, Aud. from the American Academy of Audiology

And of course, we cannot forget the contributions to hearing loss awareness made by H.E.A.R., which is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping musicians and music lovers protect their hearing.