Music

I’m really tempted to pick up a NS/Stick, co-created by Emmett Chapman and Nedsteinberger. The NS/Stick is an 8-string bass set up for tapping like a Chapman Stick, but due to many engineering features, it can also be plucked like a regular bass. More info at http://nsstickist.com/.

Here’s Don Schiff on the NS/Stick.

I picked up a Chapman Stick from Emmett Chapman some years ago. Here’s the rig I started out with; a small cheap Crate 2 channel amp. 2 channels were necessary since the Stick is stereo, separate pickups for the bass and melody strings. This didn’t last very long since the amp sounded terrible. I think it was only 40 watts and had a little speaker. Didn’t do the bass strings any justice.

Well, as with most Stick players, I got GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), and ended up with a 160 watt SWR bass amp with a couple of 15” woofers and piezo mid/tweeters to give the Stick the full sound especially from the bass strings, a Rane SP13 preamp designed specifically for the Stick, and Boss VF1 and SE-70 processors for the bass and melody strings, respectively.

Later on I got rid of the SWR Workingman’s 15 bass amp, replaced it with a similar SWR head unit (160 watts) and have the bottom 15” speaker cab plugged into that. Same sound in a smaller configuration. I wish I had more time to spend on the Stick…