stingrayPete1977

I would be surprised if there were no other basschat members there, I would love another view on it? I will tag Soundgarden at the top....

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1379251442' post='2210300'] Not much use if both of the Ampeg's ain't working. [/quote] Fixed

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1379251268' post='2210295'] Thought they'd have got on with a direct DI then sorted the rig after ? Ok, we are not soundgarden, but i did a dep gig with a rock band at a small festival, and one of the guitarists new expensive blackstar amp failed, its very frustrating. [/quote] They swapped to faulty Ampeg number two first, then another hissy fit, eventually came out for the encores which sounded like into the desk to me and much clearer than it had all night, lots of drive from a pedal of some sort, juicy!

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1379180925' post='2209600'] What will happen with GB amps still in warranty? Will it still be honoured? [/quote] I have owned my Genz gear for years, it was owned by Fender back then, I see no difference other than the label, I am sure we will see a glut of small Fender heads over the next few years and to be honest knowing Fender fanbois they will sell well and end the myths of small heads? Warranty claims have afaik always gone through Fender anyway so I see no issues at all, none of mine have warranty left anyway

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1379250505' post='2210278'] But surely if your using an Ampeg at least half the point is the sound of the valves? Therefore it would make little sense to DI before the amp. [/quote] Come on your just being a pedant, you know that at a gig like that the crew could just mic the cab and mix it in or in this case boost the Di until the head was swapped between songs. Best of both worlds, see what happens if you dont!

He looked to be a bit peed off a few times earlier on to me, he had two P basses and to be fair the white one that he threw on the floor at the end of the night (I forgot to mention that before) sounded better but now he has bust that one and given the other away Probably just a duff lead!

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1379250044' post='2210263'] Hmmm... sounds like a rigging fail....and wonder if the crew got the bass back..??? If you are going to have two amps up, then have two amps UP. But I guess the moral of the story is.... if Ampeg, get 3...!! [/quote] I didnt see it get passed back and I was quite close, I actually took a picture of them playing with no bassist for this at the time imaginary thread but no point really is there with [i]that [/i]clip? Funny if it had been handed to Big Red X, he would have given it back, bloody P bass,

So many bands are going all in ears yet people are still relying on their own amp as the only stage sound even at a big gig like that. I am sure most of the crowd me included wanted to be took back to the 90's but not like that, ha. Should we all chip in and send him a Behringer DI box?

I am still slogging away too Geoff keep them up! I loved your playing in the new video where you are talking at the same time, brilliant.

Wowzer

Anyone else see the drama at the Soundgarden gig last night? I had a scoot on youtube amazed to actually find the moment Ben gave his P bass away, Lol. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OunDwc_3m_8[/media] For non fans the amp went as they started their most popular song Rusty cage only for it to go sh*t shaped for Jesus Christ Pose a joint classic that most of the crowd were waiting for! I have a feeling there is a sound guy with an Ampeg sized lump after insertion of at least one of the faulty heads up his anus, yep second head lasted all of a song. Anyone get a clearer view of what went wrong was it actually both heads or a faulty lead/pedal etc? either way he was having trouble a few songs earlier when I think most of us here would have wanted the spare head putting on [u]between[/u] songs with a fresh set of leads just to be certain. Not a happy bunny by all accounts and he had the best sound for the last few songs once by the sounds of things they routed his pedals into the desk which as many of you know I have been touting as the best method for many years, all this my sound mic'd 1x10 cack can and does lead to giving away nice P basses

The problem is stemming from the neck not being straight from the end of where the truss rod is effective to the heel end of the neck. A good through neck has that problem resolved as part of the build almost like a built in shim at the heel area by calculating the stresses and strains before the bass is even built, you could even put a longer truss rod in so adjustments can be made over a longer area of the playing area.

By tilting the neck you are moving the problem to the best place for it.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1378838969' post='2205442'] And you can show this by tilting the whole drawing of the bass at the same angle as you adjusted the neck due to the shim. Then by lowering the bridge you can get the string back to the same relation to the length of the neck as you would have had by shimming it. The only difference would be the angle between the string and the front of the body. [/quote] By tilting from the neck pocket you are keeping the correct string to body angle at 90 degrees and passing over the pickups evenly too, lowering it your way on a Jazz would mean the bridge pickup would need screwing in further, on a Stingray the strings would pass over the poles at a funny angle.

OK here is my terrible drawing of how I have acheived a better overall action with shims or microtilts (pre EB Rays), I have tried to accentuate the angles so we are talking tiny amounts in reality, for me this is only applicable for basses where the neck will only straighten from a certain point before giving a back bow. [URL=http://s997.photobucket.com/user/stingraypete/media/20130910_190855_zps5b25b63b.jpg.html][IMG]http://i997.photobucket.com/albums/af100/stingraypete/20130910_190855_zps5b25b63b.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1378832946' post='2205322'] I'm sorry to mess with your quote Pete but aren't number one and two virtually the same thing? The release you need to aplly to the shimmed neck in order to "enjoy a rattle free bass" is the same you need tp aplly to a unshimmed (does this work exist?) neck to get the same result. Only difference between both methods is to change the saddle height in oreder to achieve the same effect! Simple geometry! For all that is worth i want to add that the best (lowest) action i ever had was on my parted Singray5, factory setup, had a bit of fretbuzz but not audible through the amp, played like butter [/quote] The ideas with geometry and straight lines does not work because the neck is not straight only the strings are, what you are doing in effect is introducing a slight (so slight most players me included dont need it) dip around the 15-17th frets by offering the neck at a slightly tilted angle to where it was before.

You set the bass up, saddles are in the middle of their travel no problems, action nice and low at the 12th fret and the truss rod is holding the neck totally flat with no releif at all, you play it and the fretted notes are buzzing and rattling all over the place, what can you do? Add some releif until the rattles go, but now the action is quite high around the middle of neck even with the saddles lowered right down and the action really low at the 12th fret. Raise the action and leave the truss rod alone, that wont help will it because you already had a good action you were happy with so now its too high. Pop a shim in the heel to tilt the neck back and let a bit of tension off the truss rod for a comprimise between the two, set the action at the 12th fret and enjoy a rattle free bass

Forget perfect world necks and truss rods, the post below BRX's diagrams sums it up best...... [quote name='Kongo' timestamp='1243875872' post='503126'] Shimming the end of the neck pocket also makes the actiob even throughout so even if you like your current action but would like it the same all along the fretboard you can shim for that too. [/quote] Raising a neck within the pocket to compensate for a bridge that has its saddles bottomed out is nothing like adding a tilt via a shim or the microtilt adjuster.

I'm probably not explaining it very well, hopefully someone else can do a better job? A big part of the set neck is to over come the problem, and it usually does.

If you have the neck adjusted with no relief or back bow but the area from say the 15th fret to the end has a natural (slight) curve then adjusting the saddles down will not give you a low action all the way up, it's not great I know but I didn't invent it.

It's not at all, you can't adjust the whole length of the neck. I'm certain I'm right on this one BRX.

Nice one!

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1378812470' post='2204857'] You only need a shim to set the appropriate action if there is insufficient vertical travel in the bridge. [/quote] It has nothing to do with that at all, the truss rod doesn't act upon the neck near the heel end so the shim adjusts the angle of the finger board slightly. You could have a bass with loads of adjustment left at the bridge but when you set the action as low as you require at the upper register and with an almost flat neck (actually flat for some people) the general playing area is still too high an action, it has nothing to do with the bridge travel. You can have a neck pocket set too deep which has the opposite problem but requires the whole pocket packing out to raise the heel so the saddles are not bottomed out.

[quote name='keeponehandloose' timestamp='1378764723' post='2204553'] if you want to pay £100 per string Thomann can sod off , theyre yours. [/quote] I had enough trouble explaining to the wife after buying two sets of spirocores at £140 each! Thankfully guts have yet to spark my interest

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1378757665' post='2204408'] you did the right thing...offer to pay a bit more and keep the strings? [/quote] Guts can be £100 a string though!