Miscellaneous

Raven

I love the heavy metal band Raven. Thanks to eBay, I’ve managed to pull together a decent collection of old Raven clippings from the 80s.

Tablature

Many years ago I tabbed out some of my favorite songs to play on bass.

Journey

Raven

Sword

My music gear

I don’t play as much as I used to, but I love my music gear.

Black Steinberger XQ4 with TransTrem

Purchased new in 1990. Serial number N11029. Had a Bass TransTrem factory installed in 1992. To my knowledge, the only XQ bass with a TransTrem. I play it with the bridge pick-up full on, the neck pick-up half way, and the tone about 60%. Tight string spacing facilitates fast playing. Graphite blend neck bolted on rock maple body. Very heavy, about 13 lbs. Stays in tune for weeks on end. Originally came with a DB bridge (Steinberger bridge with a Hip-shot style D-tuner for the E String). One gripe about the TransTrem: intonation has to be adjusted manually by pushing saddles back and forth with your fingers, as opposed to using a screwdriver or allen wrench.

Red Steinberger XQ4

Purchased used in 2004. Serial number N10305. Exact same bass as my other XQ, except it has a standard Steinberger bridge.

Gallien-Krueger 700RB/210

Purchased new in 2002. Loud enough for most any gig. Simple to use. Wide range of sounds. I set it warm and tight by rolling back the “presence” and “contour” settings, keeping the EQ flat, and playing through my Yamaha NE-1. Built-in handle and rollers allow you to pull it like a suitcase. Unfortunately one of the rollers has dry rotted. Able to tilt back like a monitor, but is very unstable in this position. Concise and helpful user manual.

Carvin DC-127 with Wilkinson Tremolo

Purchased new in 2001. Serial number 64639. I had the good fortune of knowing someone with two Carvins, so I became familiar with the name and their instruments. When I decided to buy my own electric, the only question I had was which Carvin to buy. I went with the DC-127 because it was one of their less expensive models (about $600). The difference in it and other higher-priced models, as far as I can tell, is the pick-up configuration. Same neck-through-body construction, same hardware, same beautiful finish. Sounds great played acoustically. Plugged in, it does what you want: warm, bright, mellow, crisp, etc. Mine has Sperzel tuners, which makes string changes super easy.

Korg Ampworks Bass Modeling Signal Processor

Purchased new in 2004. Serial number 005860.Makes playing and recording bass so much fun. Three big knobs give you a world of different of sounds. Mix and match modeled preamps, modeled cabinets, and a sound effect. My favorite is the “Jazz” preamp, 1x15 Jazz cabinet, and a touch of chorus. No matter the settings, I always set the treble back to about 10:00. It doesn’t come with a power supply, but has a 4.5 volt DC connector. It runs on two AA batteries for about 10 hours of continuous use.

Yamaha NE-1 Parametric Equalizer

The “NE” stands for Nathan East. Supposedly this unit is based on a custom-made unit Nathan uses in his rig. All this unit does is cut EQ. You can choose if want the cut to be “deep” or “shallow”, and you can choose the frequency. The frequencies are not labeled. It’s an arbitrary 1 through 10. The user guide sort of tells you which frequencies are available, but only with a picture of a graph. You can’t determine exactly which frequency you’re cutting on, say, Deep 7. From the picture it looks like about 800 kHz. The setting I use is Nathan’s setting, Deep 4. It’s a -20 dB cut at 2000 kHz. The creates a warm growl and you can barely hear your fingers scrape the strings. Only complaint about the NE-1: it only runs on a 9V battery. No power adapter jack.

DigiTech RP7 Valve Pre-Amp

Purchased new in 1999. I use this mostly for recording my guitar direct. Usable pre-sets, good variety of distortion and reverb, and easy to program. Very tough unit, built to last. But lack of on-off switch is disappointing; it’s only on when plugged up. The power supply also doesn’t stay in the unit very well. One misstep and you lose power. The few times I’ve used it live I duct taped the power cord and that prevented any problems. Out of production.