The Dragon's Wing

[lbpesq]

Dave:
 
Not true!!!  Professional musicians (blue collar type, not superstars) often return from the gig, unload, and drop the equipment off at the studio just before sunrise!  Big fun!!!! (not)  LOL
 
Bill, been there, done that, tgo

[olieoliver]

Dave, that may have been rule of thumb, but todays musicians are much more industrious than the players of the past. Most musicians I know are more into the bussiness of music instead of the non-stop party of the past. Of course there are still those that the sun will surely melt.

[David Houck]

Bill; I knew someone would call me on that!  Fortunately, with most of the gigs I've been doing lately I've been able to load up, drive home, unload, and be in bed by not too much later than 3:00.
 
Olie; I was just kidding, lots of professional musicians work the day shift.

[bob]

Just gotta ask, Dave (and it is straying slightly back on topic) - how many times a day do you actually check the humidity, approximately what range are you able to maintain (or how much can you compensate for), and at what point does it become a problem?
 
And how do you get over the panic of actually having to leave the house for a gig, especially if it's up or down hill by a few hundred feet?

[David Houck]

Bob;
 
I have no idea how may times a day; I'm sure it varies significantly day to day.  A dozen times would seem a good guess at an average.  Of course I'm checking temperature at the same time.  My house doesn't have air conditioning, so that's part of the equation.
 
Here's an example.  Let's say when I wake up, the temp upstairs in the office is 70 and the humidity is 50, and the outside temp is 60 and the humidity is 80.  And let's say that the expectation is that the high outside temp will be 80 and that the outside humidity may drop to 40.  If I were to keep the windows and doors shut all day, humidity would not be a problem, but temperature definitely would be.  But if I just throw open the windows and doors early in the morning when it's cool, the indoor humidity will get way too high.  The trick is to regulate the windows and doors with the goal of keeping the house as cool as possible while keeping the humidity within an acceptable range.
 
As someone else noted previously in this thread, the humidity gauges change slowly, so part of what I'm monitoring is trends of increase or decrease.
 
So far this spring I've been able to keep the indoor humidity to an upper limit of around 60.  There have been a few days where, as a result, the indoor temp got uncomfortably hot.  For the same period the low end for humidity has been around 40.  In the winter the range was probably around 30 to 50, and I'm focused then on keeping humidity out of the 20s.  Based on last summer, I'm guessing this summer the range will move up some more with low 60s being unavoidable.
 
So, for instance this morning the humidity outside was still fairly high, but to keep the upstairs temp down I partially opened some upstairs windows and checked the temp and humidity gauges regularly.  Depending on what the gauges are doing I'll open or close as needed.
 
In addition to the basses, I'm also concerned about the printers and the copy paper.
 
Last summer it became a problem on days when it was hot and humid outside and I couldn't open the windows.  The indoor humidity didn't get bad with the windows closed, but it sure got hot!
 
When I go to a gig, if it's humid outside, I'll run the air conditioning in the car.  And most venues have air conditioning.  (But see my post above from June 4.)  And there have been times when I've started the car and run the air conditioning a while before bringing the basses out of the house or venue and loading them in.
 
And going anywhere around here involves an elevation change of significantly more than a few hundred feet .

[David Houck]

Oh, and Bob, and don't think panic is a part of the process .  I'm just trying to do what I think is appropriate given my very limited knowledge (or lack thereof), my limited resources, and my given environment.  If the neck moves, the neck moves.  If it gets too hot in the house, then it's too hot in the house.  Personally, I tend to find that every day is an amazing day here on planet earth.  I may get concerned, but I'm generally not panicked.

[bob]

I knew you wouldn't panic, of course - it's just whatever the present happens to be. Though there is nothing stopping us from attempting to deal with that in a skillful way .
 
By choice and/or luck, I happen to live in a more benign climate. However, there are a few months during the summer where heat becomes almost unbearable. Without air conditioning, I play similar games with windows, although at least I only have one floor to deal with...
 
Last fall, I replaced my old single pane windows with double pane, argon filled, low-E coating, vinyl frames, etc. Already I've noticed a huge change. My normal strategy in hot times is to leave the windows open during the night for maximum cooling, wait until the temperature starts to rise in the morning, then close them until I can't stand it anymore. The new windows, with no other changes, seem to extend that period by a good 3-4 hours - often enough until it is starting to cool down again outside.
 
It seems I'm close enough to water that humidity doesn't fluctuate that much, other than a general winter/summer kind of thing. I did start (briefly) monitoring humidity not long ago, but that had to do with investigating the problem of static charge when grinding coffee, and I promise not to discuss that further here.
 
Thanks for the reply, it's interesting to get a sense of how well you can control this with simple measures.

[keith_h]

And going anywhere around here involves an elevation change of significantly more than a few hundred feet .  
 
Yes Dave that driveway of yours could cause nose bleeds. LOL  
 
Keith

[David Houck]

Keith; yes, checking the mail every day definitely gets the blood circulating.
 
Bob: the problem of static charge when gringing coffee is not one that I've considered before.

[rogertvr]

Replying to Karl...
 
I realise that the very mention of the name Alembic automatically gives us high expectations, especially when you consider that John Entwistle apparently managed to get his Alembics to do what you are trying to get yours to do. But I have to say that the action you're striving to maintain on that bass of yours seems murderously low - I can't imagine how refined your technique must be to keep that thing under control when you're playing.
 
I have small hands. Even though I'm (obviously) male, I really do have small hands. I buy mid-size watches as normal gents' size watches are far too large on my wrists. Hence, I find that I cannot play basses where the action is too high - my wrists ache and my fingers ache too. That's why I've always stayed away from baseball-bat neck Fenders, not to mention the fact that I really don't like the poppy sound that the split P pick-up gives. My 4001 is fairly low, 1.2mm on the E and 0.9mm on the G.
 
Regarding technique, I don't understand the fact that playing an action that is regarded as being low is so difficult? I just play the damn thing - I have a very light touch, in fact it's so light that you'd swear the strings don't move!  I let the amplification do the work, not my fingers.
 
I could get into a competition as to which of my basses are lower than the others, but that's not the point of this thread.
 
The facts remain that I can set-up the DW to play with an action of 0.8mm or thereabouts (it will go lower!!!), with a virtually flat neck (i.e. next to no relief). It plays absolutely beautifully! It won't necessarily be like that in a few hours time! The time frame is too short for those sorts of swings to take place - in my mind anyway! If I'd taken it out of the house to whereever, then I accept a change of state.
 
Interestingly (and as I have stated previously) since the weather here has been hot-ish, it's been fine.
 
I used to think my action was low, but it's nothing like that, and in fact, I've found that by raising it a touch I actually get a better tone - the string can resonate further without the frets interfering. I started out trying to emulate the (apparently) ridiculously low action of some of my heroes, but over the years, I've developed my own sound by moving away from straight aping of their technique and set-up, and I believe that's a positive step.
 
I'm not aping anyone's set-up. My basses sound fine too, there is nothing I can gain from increasing the action - I've tried it. I do the low action thing because I have small hands - if I have to struggle to play an instrument, then I simply will not play it.
 
I learnt to play on a Fender Jazz (starting in 1979) and it was all too large for me - I could quite happily have given in. Hence the reason I played and subsequently bought in 1981 the 4001 that I still have now.  When I wanted a second bass, I looked around and settled on a JayDee. The reason I bought a JayDee was because the action was very very low on the used one that I played but the new one I had delivered was hopeless.
 
However, I realise that if you're in a top-flight Who tribute band, then you're in a very different position - you're being paid to emulate your hero's sound and technique, and of course, having your bass set up as his was is all part of that.
 
I'm between bands. No-one is paying me anything, unfortunately!!!
 
It's a tricky call - on the one hand, yes, I'd say your expectations are high and you should try backing off a little and let the bass play the way it wants to, but on the other hand, if any bass should be able to meet those high expectations, an Alembic should (as John showed).
 
I don't do back off - one of the major reasons I bought an Alembic was the fact that the action can be set-up lower than a snake's belly! Just to prove a point - my Status Stealth has no relief in the neck, the action is 0.8mm on the E and 0.4mm on the G. The Dragon's Wing will also do this, but the instability is just too much.
 
The DW is as low as anything I own at the moment and it's a joy to play - it has been for at least two weeks (that's a major gain over the three-hour slots I've had in the past). I wonder what will happen when the weather takes a nose-dive?

[bsee]

Roger, the fact that your bass is stable during the warm weather further points toward humidity changes in your house as a result of the heating system.  I suppose we'll have to remain in a holding pattern until the weather changes and/or the neck moves.  If you really want to know, you'll have to remain dilligent in checking humidity levels in the meantime.
 
-bob

[s_wood]

I need to be a little more scientific in my observations, but I think that I have noticed that it isn't so much the wild relative humidity swings that cause my necks to move, but rather humidity that swings consistently to the extreme - either below about 25% or above about 85%.  Those kinds of extremes, particulary very dry air, are most often found at the beginning or end of the forced air heating season, and that's when I have found my necks to require a tweak.   It seems like the humidity can move around from 25%-30% to 75%-80% with little to no effect upon the neck, but when either the minimum or maximum are exceeded it's truss rod time.  
 
Roger's scientific approach has got me motivated to learn the actual values of those minimum and maximum humidity points, so I am going to start recording my relative humidity values whenever I need to tweak a truss rod.  FWIW, since my last bout of truss rod tweaking in early May, all of my Alembics have been rock stable.
 
Roger: your low action and light touch may be second nature to you, but you really ought to give yourself credit for playing with a setup that most of us would find impossible!  Bravo!

[5stringfreak]

I own a DW, I use it strictly in my Rush tribute band Geddy's Kids. Best 4 string I've ever played, action and sound and feel are #1. This DW was listed on basscentral.com and on ebay, Cocobolo top, side red LEDs. I'm NEVER letting this one go! I call this bass the 'Demon'.

[David Houck]

Beautiful bass!!

[jazzyvee]

I tried one of these out a couple of years ago and I was really impressed with the sound and feel of it.
 
Nice Nice Bass.
 
Jazzyvee