[I changed the header -- this ain't heading towards Fazioli] Well Ed, funny -you- should be the one to pick up on this, even though it wasn't intended as "bait"... First, since Antares has yet to respond, I'm guessing he made have made a simple typo. On first reading, I was associating 'sappy' with pine trees, Vermont, maple syrup, things like that. My mental image was slow, molasses, warm and drippy. Again, not my concept of a classic S&S bass. Now, if Antares meant "s[n]appy"... whole different story, whole different mental image. As you may recall, we used to give pet names to sounds and/or studios. Setting precedent for this was no doubt the "Nashville Sound", as in Chet, Floyd, and even the original Oak Ridge Boys before they sold out like Quincy Jones. I digress. There was Memphis, Detroit, Muscle Shoals, and others that I don't remember. For the musicians, it seemed the "in" sound/site/studio was anyplace other than where they were currently situated. Part of the charisma of THE sound, especially Nashville and to my ears, was the piano, which must have been (at the time) either a S&S 'B', or clones of one, never mind who's session it was on. I might speculate that a studio, an engineer, or a miking technique was accidentally or purposely discovered. I could as easily speculate it originated with -lack- of maintenance (new hammers, voicing, etc.), since these instruments don't have the luxury of down time. I don't know. I just know THE sound "took" in popularity, and was duplicated in other places and other studios. The sound I like -is- the same sound that the engineers and musicians seek out. Of course, it has a lot to do with the material too! I'm not about to back off my other favorites -- M&H 'A' (scale dependent) and 'BB', one particular Baldwin 'M', two particular -old- Baldwin concerts, Del Fandrich's prototype vertical, a particular Seiler full upright, and assorted others on a one-on-one basis. As for hammers, I don't know -- probably the very hammers you demonstrated to Wim Blees. At that time, I was like Donald Sutherland in the WWII movie "Kelly's Heros" -- I just drove 'em, I didn't know how they worked. Ahem, speaking of war stories: War Story 1: I came very close to having access to a 'B' and a spectrum analyzer at the same time. This was when s/a's cost so much they came with built-in security guards, complete with their own thermos' of coffee. Close didn't count -- I missed the moment. However, I always felt that S&S had (past tense) a predictable, quantifiable sound from 'pp' to 'mf', maybe 'F'. There is no 'ppp' on a real S&S, nor should there be, [according to him who just said it], and I couldn't see the lower case F. From there on in dynamics, I felt the strings became over-driven to the point of distortion, similar to a fuzz tone or flanger for a guitar player. In reality, it may be the method or rate in which the (bass) strings [individually] break up into their respective partial groups; it may contain elements of 'ensemble' , 'doppler', or 'phase shift' , or any combination of these. I feel that had I not missed my chance with the s/a and 'Big', I could have proved _something_ to myself one way or the other. The sound I like is the instant feedback (on demand). I call these "bark" or "growl", if those word semantics convey any meaning for you. War Story 2: Prior to a regional conference in Mystic, CT, I was spending some quality time with Wally Brooks. He had a... non-Big (Large maybe) S&S that was 85% finished. He was going to do classes with it, but at the post-banquet gala and milk-swilling with the boys session, I was to entertain the troops with the same piano. While still in his shop, he asked me what I thought. I said, "It's ugly, and I don't like the sound". (I actually used a less delicate description). He slapped me across the back (been meaning to talk to him about that too) and said he'd make it "special" for me before the conference. In the time remaining, he fired a dust coat of black lacquer to make it more presentable, and did something to the hammers, maybe more. I didn't see what he did, I was busy stealing ideas for my shop. But that little box blew the socks off everything else at that conference. Somehow that piano changed dimensions after I originally played it. I have two or fourteen more war stories in this specific area, all better than these, but will stop, hoping I've better explained... 'sappy'. At 06:04 PM 4/1/99 -0500, you wrote: >Greetings, >Jim writes: >> I like a bass that can >>(optionally) be driven into distortion. > > Hmm, cool. What hammers are we talking about here? I hear distortion >at FFF in the Renner Blues before they get their shoulders needled for the >first time. And I hear distortion in the bass of all of the recording studio >pianos, but their hammers are like rocks, ( ask Wim Blees, I showed him one >and all he could say was "They USE this piano"?). > I would like to hear a little more description of "driving a bass to >distortion", ( I bet there are some war stories in this subject.........) >Regards, >Ed Foote Jim Harvey, RPT Greenwood, SC harvey@greenwood.net ________________________ Greenwood: the land that time forgot.
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