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I fitted a Retrovibe Stinger preamp to my Sterling Sub5 and it's transformed it from an indistinct mush to a gorgeous sound. However on my latest gig towards the end of the night it felt like it was running out of steam. The Duracell battery has been in for a few months, so it might slightly past its best. Alternatively it might be running out of "head room". Has anyone got any experience of running this preamp with 9v vs 18v? The bass has a single battery compartment. I'm fine fitting a dual compartment, but would it be worth it? When the battery gets a bit low does it suddenly die or gradually fade away?

nah. It’s a different sound. I’ve been playing on records for years so I know what sound I need for certain tracks. And there is a difference in mid presence there. We sat and A/Bd it. Will Lee plays very different music as well. it’s not user error in this case. It’s just a case of being lucky enough to have both basses and picking which one works best for which tracks.

What's the collective term for these online banking services that don't require you fronting up with ten forms of ID?

Dave bought a mic from myself. Was a fast transaction with no problems at all. Absolute pleasure to deal with, 5/5 bass chatter, you can sell with confidence. 🙂

I like the durability of poly but the fact that it doesn’t “melt” into the previous layer like nitro makes it an absolute nightmare if you get a run or burn through when sanding. With nitro you can just sand back flat and then re -coat but with poly, you get witness lines around the sanded area. My favourite option is oil finishing then nitro clearcoat over that when it’s fully dry or lots of coats of wipe on poly if I am not so worried about getting a massively uniform finish. I am still perfecting my poly/white spirit ratios for the wipe on to get the best trade off between self levelling after wiping off and not too thin a coat; 60 - 70% white spirit to poly varnish seems to be about the sweet spot especially the more layers that go on.

Well my demo video is like 15mins long which is usually a sign that something should stay 😅

Honestly, SA dropped the ball on marketing - if they'd called it a utility pedal with endless distortion possibilities it'd have went down much better. Its basically a tone processor, with both semi and parametric eq, top quality compressor, endless drive/dist/fuzz options, as well as mad tremolo stuff too. It does the best gated fuzz tone ive ever used but it's capable of simple EQ changes, drives and more stuff than im capable of understanding

That looks grand; I also agree with you that a great result is easier to get in nitro than in poly.

Will doing a pat test on this amp without a cab plugged in damage it? Fussy venue, band getting rigs tested but I'm not there, so no cab plugged in.

Another song i really enjoyed playing was Do Anything You Wanna Do by Eddie & Hot Rods. Dave

Rock Salmon - The Police

I mean for the price it’s worth it simply to use as an amp & cab modeler - you’ve got an insane amount of free open source NAM models/captures out there. From what I can gather you can run 9 fx blocks too making it more powerful than the Stomp (I’m not actually surprised, cos as great as it is, the technology is a decade behind). There is midi control too so you can presumably set it up so you can control those fx blocks via midi? I think this is a sign of things to come - over the next couple of years (or sooner!) the technology for all this stuff is going to fit on a tiny chip and it’s going to be able to be sold from manufacturers in China for buttons. I know you’re paying for all the R&D with something like the anagram but I think the days of paying a grand+ for modelers/digital rigs are coming to an end - the technology is going to be too good and too cheap elsewhere

Another compressor deal a month later 😂 This time I sold to Jim - top top Basschatter!

sorted. One of the good guys on here, constantly helpful, constantly there for others.

It's hard to say without a lot more detail but putting a sub next to a wall is going to effectively double it's output on top of the reinforcement from the floor. I think having any mic within a foot of a sub is going to create issues. The sound coming from the sub may not sound very loud but at those frequencies the mic 'hears' better than you do. All of the sound from the sub is omnidirectional The tops point most of the sound away from the mics but behind the subs is just as loud as in front. Using subs isn't as easy as plug and play, be prepared to turn them right down, keep them well away from any mics and consider whether you need to use HPF. It may sound counter-intuitive to filter the bass from your subs but if sound below 50Hz is causing feedback problems and sets off room resonances it has to go. Percevere and you'll get there

I needed one of these last year but couldn't find anyone selling them locally. Shops said they're not worth stocking as they're so cheap and demand is very low. I ended up getting one from All Parts for 50p plus £3 postage.

The Guykers are fine, just needed some to replace the plastic tat knobs on my Ibanez. RE The Uni Pre - I was looking to buy a new preamp for a bass with 6 existing holes (I have a 4k Uni pre in another bass and like it) but with the active/passive on a switch instead of push/pull. After gigging it a bit I quite like the stock Markbass preamp though so I'm just leaving it as it is at the moment.

Abradacrabra - Steve Miller Band