Talk about your Bass Bag/Cover...
 

My bass bag is old and faded.
It has the words 'DARYL PROWSE' written on it.
I tried to black out the DARYL part because my name is RICHARD, but you can still see it.
Every time I do a gig lots of people probably think that I'm Daryl Prowse.
Do I need to get a new bag if I want people to ring and offer me gigs?

Talk about your Bass Bag/Cover...
 

Maybe people would think it belonged to your other brother DARYL ;).

From what I've seen, get the Bobelock. It looks to have a step on my Mooradian.

About my bass bag
 

I love my bass bag. It's a Mooradian that Jeff threw into the deal when I bought my bass from him.

When we brought our youngest daughter home from the hospital last year, my cat was injured fighting for winter territory outside. He was hiding for days, and didn't move very much. I figured he was just jealous of the new baby ("What! Another One! Will you Please Stop with the babies!" or some feline-equivalent line of thought . . .) because I didn't notice his injury.

During that time, he made a nest in my bass bag and peed all over it.

I do not get the chance to gig often - I'm a full time teacher with a bunch of babies at home. So, it was at least a week before I put the bag on the bass to go to a rehearsal and went "What the &*^% is that smell?

IN the meantime, I had noticed my cat's injury, and he was treated for an infection with a high fever.

The cat is fine now.

The bag still stinks a little.

Mooradian, maybe ten years old, the only zipper still working is the main one. Anointed several times by cats in the past, they seem to have moved on to greener pastures now, thankfully.

Richard, your bag is fine. :rolleyes: You know how it is; if you show up with nice new flawless equipment, nobody thinks you've been around long enough to know how to play!

Wash that bag Stan! People are probably talking about you behind your back at rehearsal!
Has anyone had experience at adapting old bass bags into clothing?
I have an old bass bag that I sometimes wear to work on cold days. The bottom part's a bit loose and the top part's a bit tight. Any thoughts / suggestions? The bow pocket holds about 5 handkerchiefs, which is handy on those winter days when you have a runny nose.

Which leads us to our next point: Can you wash a bass bag without damaging it? Anyone here tried?

Could you carry it through a car wash?

Stan you need to give that bag some special attention. Cat pee smells the way it does because there are some pretty persistent alkaloids in it which not even bleach will shift.

http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-7780.html

http://www.thecatsite.com/Care/48/Combat-Cat-Urine.html

Failing that, I reckon you should take it to a dry cleaners.

I have, it was fine. But I guess it depends on the bag. Reunion Blues... eh, maybe not so good. ;)

Stan, shouldn't the cat really be responsible for cleaning it?
Nah, that's silly... sorry, I don't know what came over me.
Wait for a nice summer's day and hang your Mooradianon on your clothes line (that thing you often see your wife standing
near (Lol!:D :D ). Use the garden hose on it and then let it drip dry. Obviously you need to take the bass out before doing this. I think this will work. You could probably have it dried in an industrial dryer... if it shrinks, just give it to a cellist as a birthday present.
Also, tell the cat to pee somewhere else next time.
Also, tell the people in the orchestra what happened to your bag so they won't think you're a guy with a bit of an odour problem.

The Ultimate Bass Bag Story.
 

There was a guy in Wainuiomata who was murdered and his body was dismembered. He was a bass player and had a very distinctive bag with red pieces of leather sewn onto it. The pieces of leather were cut to look a little like a devil's face, well , so some people said... I had never seen it. Only some of his body was ever found and the bass bag seemed to disappear. This happened about eight years ago.
Some say that the pieces of leather originally were taken from a dead soldier during the Maori wars, some 150 years ago.
One day, about a year ago, I was walking past a second hand shop in Wainuiomata and, would you believe it, the bag was in the window.

I was curious, so I went in to ask how much they were asking for the bag and where it had been found. The old guy in the shop seemed like he was hiding something and didn't seem that keen to sell it.

"I'm walking towards the door when he calls me back and says that I can have it for $40.
I go over and inspect the bag. It smells a bit musty, but seems in very good condition. I ask the old shop keeper why there is red leather sewn onto it and he gets a bit agitated. So I give him the money and take the bag home."

When I got home, I lay the bag next to my bass and it seemed like it would be a perfect fit. Bit I kept getting an uneasy feeling about the red leather 'face' that almost seemed to change at times.
Now, I don't like wasting forty bucks, but I decide d to get rid of the bag because it was making me feel a little uneasy. It was probably the leather face.

"I notice there's something in the bow pocket, but don't really want to use my hand to get it out, so I undo the pocket and shake the bag. The best part of a human finger falls out! And it's got a ring on it! I nearly soil myself!"

The ring was gold and seemed to have a face on it. If the finger belonged to the bag's original owner, why was it still intact after all these years? It had, logically, to belong to someone else. I put on some rubber gloves and carefully removed the ring from the finger. There was something written inside the ring... it looked like Spanish.
It seemed to read,
"El tercer dedo no es uso a un bajista."
It was written in very smal writing and was quite hard to read, so I may have gotten some of the letters wrong.
I was temped to try the ring on but, having seen 'Lord of the Rings', I knew better.
I put it in a drawer and squeezed the bag (with the finger back in the pocket) into my plastic rubbish bin. It was rubbish collection day the next day, so I wheeled the bin out to the side of the road.
It felt better to have the bin out of the house.

I must admit that it was a bit of a relief to hear the rubbish truck early the next morning.
After he'd gone I went out and checked the bin.
Empty.
Then I remembered the ring.
Damn! Why had I kept it?
I rushed inside and opened the drawer, but it was gone!

Someone needs to reclaim this thread.

I have a Ritter double gig back for both my fretted and fretless Smith BSR5GN basses. It's crap. The thing started falling apart from almost the time it was delivered and I went to great pains to sew some black denim reinforcement into the seams that held but its started falling apart in different places now. I wonder where my $120 went!

Part of me is tempted to get a double leather gig bag but they're fairly expensive.

Steve, sorry to pull you up on a technicality but...
What you are talking about is actually a 'basses' bag and not a bass bag.
Unfortuuately we don't actually have a thread titled 'Talk about your basses bag' so I guess it's alright to post about this freak of the bass bag world here. But let's hope that this little leniency doesn't compell 2nd fiddle Rod to start going on about violin cases.

Talking about violin cases ...
 

Puppy's are also a serious threat :eek: . Note damage in rim and padding
Attachment 217
This case originally belonged to Richard Prowse and was home for his bass when just a baby:p

Cute, but "puppy's" shouldn't have a possessive apostrophe.

...and no space between 'mean' and the question mark.

There lived a hobbit, probably up your bottom.

Actually, my sentence contained a 'split infinitive'.
I should have written:
Probably up your bottom was where the hobbit lived.

gramatics
 

'Probably up your bottom was where the hobbit lived.'

No. Still don't buy it. First impressions count and think Tolkien's script would have been tossed in the bin. :)

This thread needs to get back onto bass bags.

Can a car qualify as a bass bag? Sorry, that was just plain silly.

My bag certainly is old. It doesn't really offer much protection. At least it doesn't smell of cat pee. I have a pretty good bag for my Fender bass, and a hard case.
I've just put my Fender back into tenor tuning. It's fun to play solo like that but I hope I don't let it interfere with my DB practice.
My Fender is a 78 jazz bass and I was feeling guilty seeing it sitting there unplayed. It certainly has a nice tone... and a good bag.

On Down here NZ
http://www.smithbassforums.com/showthread.php?t=33
we're talking about greetings!

Could "How's your bass bag?" be better than "how's it going?"

Rob...
"Get thee to a nunery!"

Gee, What happened to the thread? The cat pee, the bass bags, etc. I think I must have found a wrinkle in the cosmos here. Perhaps it is the Stargate ...

Fixing
 

I tried to move it to the DB accessory's section and goofed. Split in two.., My bad.. Mike will fix it and move it back to the pit.

This thread is goofy and not all serious. If you want to talk serious, no stupid jokes, then do it in the DB section I just started for "Bag in the Wings".. Other wise keep the 12 year old jokes here in the Pit.

MIKE WILL FIX YOUR TOYS TODAY!!;)

http://www.smithbassforums.com/showt...p?t=347&page=2
http://www.smithbassforums.com/showthread.php?t=346

And why is Ken starting to talk like Yoda from Star Wars?
Quote:
I tried to move it to the DB accessory's section and goofed. Split in two.., My bad.. Mike will fix it and move it back to the Pit.

This thread is goofy and not all serious. If you want to talk serious, no stupid jokes, then do it in the DB section I just started for "Bag in the Wings".. Other wise keep the 12 year old jokes here in the Pit.

Great reply Ken (the edit thing)!
5 gold stars!

I've been looking for a new double gig bag for my Smith 5's.

But the shoulder straps MUST be securely fastened as the two Smith basses are fairly heavy.

I've found these:
http://www.goincase.com/products/det...-bag-cl56066/1

and these:
http://www.doc1rock.com/osc/eshop/product_...?products_id=64

and these:
http://www.harvest-guitar.com/double-bass-bags.php

but the cost of the last two is a little eye watering.

Ah Steve.....
 

I think we are talking about the Double Bass here or at least that's what I thought. For the Smith, 'I' have a Bag that we have been selling for over 25 years in case you didn't know it.

http://www.kensmithbasses.com/access...bag(front).jpghttp://www.kensmithbasses.com/access...gbag(back).jpg

I like keeping things simple but equipped. These are great light weight but protective Gig Bags that have features that have been copied by most companies that I put on these Bags over 25 years ago.

Thanks Ken, but I'm looking for one that can take two basses. I often go to gigs on public transport in London (given its free with my job) and use the house amp. So taking two basses in separate gig bags can prove unwieldy.

Perhaps too serious for this area, but generally reliable advice on cat pee.
 

The drummer in my jazz ensemble has the same thing happen to his bass drum case. Cat pee chemistry: The pee residue is alkaline. It can be neutralized with a weak vinegar (acidic) solution. Best thing is mix it in a spray bottle like Glass Plus or 409 come in. It is not as harsh as those chemicals. I'd go about 1:5 or so vinegar to water. Then you can just hose the bag (garden hose!) and let it dry in the sun. The sun will go a long way to knock out odors.

I wouldn't put my DB in a bag the cat peed on because that stuff will transfer to whatever it gets close to. It's designed to mark territory, which means it is an invitation to other animals to do the same. It is pretty corrosive stuff, too.

A Chinese pug marked the cover of my ampeg cab (@#%$%$#! animals!) and I hosed it (garden hose) immediately and used laundry soap when I got it home. I think any decent bass bag or amp cover can take a good hosing. And a water filled squirt gun is a great way to "discourage" pets that get too close to gear.

David, your insight into bass bag cleaning is something that lifts all our lives.
Never underplay the effect that you have on us.

Cat pee thread
 

David -
We're poised to test your cat pee remedy today. I found a few more spots in the house that he hit and we didn't know about (a closet in the guest room, another duffel bag in the attic . . .)

I have balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, and rice vinegar in the house. I think I'll start with the cider.

Stan I hope the one that smells nicest is most effective :D

Something without color. Distilled white is probably the best.

Gosh Stan, when the cat first peed in the bag, did you ever imagine that a guy down under would start a thread on a bass forum that would eventually, after much discussion, lead to a probable solution to the fact that your bass bag was not making you the least talked about member of your orchestra's double bass section and that this guy down under would exclamate this situation by using one incredibly long sentence as well as using a non existant verbal form of the noun 'exclamation'?

I have a Levy's bouble bag and it has held up great. Theie stuff seams to be bullet proof so to speak.

I don't believe it's bullet proof... not for the basses anyway!