icastle

Racking it directly isn't really going to work because there are too many sockets floating about in inconvenient places. How about a piece of foam rubber and just sit it on top of the amp? The other other 'tidy' alternative that springs immediately to mind would be to get a 19" rack drawer so you can just slide it out to get to the controls - they are usually available with cable ports punched in the back, so you could wire it in semi permanantly - if you have any rack space left that is...

I do go up the 'dusty end' (mostly out of sheer bl**dy mindedness ) but by the time you're up at the 24th fret the whole thing is just nonsense anyway. What [b]is[/b] nice about having 24 frets is that you're left with a sensible space to play in without having to struggle.

[quote name='yorks5stringer' timestamp='1329486393' post='1543213'] Would lemon curd work as well? [/quote] Dunno. If it does we could always get the mods to post the results to a 'sticky thread'...

[quote name='noelk27' timestamp='1329502879' post='1543574'] Orange peel oil to clean. Linseed oil to moisten. [/quote] And what do you use on the ebony fretboard?

[quote name='Blademan_98' timestamp='1329428466' post='1542490'] You're not Bass player by any chance? [/quote] Well I have been known to dabble from time to time...

[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1329426452' post='1542440'] Nooooo! According to your sig, between me, you and Lozz we've got to come up with another three answers! I'm going for 'Set it up yourself, but only if you feel it needs it.' Edit: Damn, now there's four of us in the game. Now how many answers do we have to give? [/quote] That's another .25 of an answer each I have to say though that the 'set it up yourself' route is the best way to go if you have the appropriate skills (and you'll only get those by practicing them). Doing a setup for someone else is always hard because you're naturally going to want to work to the standards that you find most agreeable to yourself and a fair degree of guesswork is going to be needed as to what the end user actually wants out of a setup. I always setup a new bass to suit me, I've never yet taken an instrument out of the box and felt that it was exactly right. Once that's been done it'll just get various minor tweaks throughout it's lifetime to keep it the way I want it. Whenever I change strings I'll quickly check to ensure that the intonation is still true and give it a general dustover, other than that they pretty much get left alone.

[quote name='leftybassman392' timestamp='1329426326' post='1542438'] Well, maybe... [/quote]

And as this is BassChat... I'm gonna say if it aint broken then don't fiddle with it. All we need now is for someone to come up with 'maybe' then we'll have the obligatory complete set of answers.

Why not track down a 'plug n play' night? There's usually a good mix of genres, age groups and expertise at these things and I've always found everyone really friendly. If you're feeling a bit worried about playing in front of an audience then just sit back, make some contacts and enjoy until you are ready to jump in.

[quote name='jtcbass' timestamp='1329418433' post='1542281'] Thanks for the suggestions guys. I might have a look at a Roland Cube then. I'm not in a band at the moment, just want a decent one for home usage. [/quote] I used to gig with a Roland Cube 60 (they were covered in bright orange vinyl back then!). I know of other bassists from back then that used to as well - it was them that sold me the idea of using one. If you needed a bit more 'oomph' then you just DI'd it into the PA system. The new ones have an aux input so you can connect an IPod and play along with tracks and a headphone socket so you can do it all privately.

It seems not. We've used deps for all of the other band member roles at one point or another but if I can't make a gig then they just don't book it. There's a bit more to me than just my natural charm, wit and sophistication you know...

Another lemon oil user here.

[quote name='derrenleepoole' timestamp='1329406772' post='1542019'] If you're looking for a better practice amp, maybe look at something like the Roland Cube amps. Still perfect for practice as they're not too loud, but offer good tone for their size and will crank a bit if needed, as and when you decide to join a band. They also have headphone sockets out too, so you can be even quieter if required. Failing that, have a look around on the forum for sale section, or put up a 'wanted' advert on here. Must BC-ers are very generous and willing to help out if they can. [/quote] And a +1 from me as well. I heard one of these last night and was very impressed, and I'm a miserable git who doesn't give out praise just because something has a posh product label.

Nice simple design without piles of flashing lights and buttons that never get used - I'm half persuaded by the appearance alone! Nice to see a quantification of the power rating as well - [color=#ff0000][i][size=2]Measured using a -10dB 400Hz test signal with all amp controls flat, no Reverb or Boost. [/size][/i][/color] [color=#ff0000][i][size=2]Actual levels will vary with your settings.[/size][/i][/color]

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1329323582' post='1540676'] Or if the tolerances aren't really tight buy a load and measure each manually - find one about 10% over and you're there! Those Maplin ones are linear though so still may not be suitable [/quote] The OP did actually state that he was looking for linear...

You're going to struggle with 250KΩ. Nearest I can find is a 220KΩ one from Maplin, use one of those and stick 3x 10KΩ resistors in line with it if the value is critical? [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/standard-potentiometers-with-switch-2208"]http://www.maplin.co.uk/standard-potentiometers-with-switch-2208[/url]

[quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1329258647' post='1539849'] Nowt to do with intonation, he's trying to tune it up! [/quote] Yep I can see that now. I hadn't realised that they were so awkward to tune to open EADG and made an incorrect assumption that it was going 'out of tune' as the OP worked his way up the neck.

I suspect that it's to do with the reduced scale (20"?) making correct intonation harder to achieve (i.e. being 1mm out on a 34" scale is going to have a less noticeable effect than being 1mm out on a 20" scale. I'm perhaps being far too critical but I've heard a few of these Kala's now and every one of them has sounded slightly 'out' to me.

[quote name='Blademan_98' timestamp='1329239377' post='1539410'] I wanted to play the blues but lacked the ability so punk allowed me to play while learning [/quote] Yeah, but despite that, some good has to have come out of it...

I wasn't a punk 'fan' at the time and I'm still not. For me, it was too noisy, too extreme and I felt it relied too heavily on shock tactics to distract from the lack of musical ability. [b]But[/b], it did seem to wake up a music scene that had perhaps become a little stale and complacent. After the initial thrashing about, screaming vocals and spitting at people died down it seemed almost as though there was a wholeraft of new sounds rushing in to fill that void, some of it from within the 'punk movement' and some of it from further afield. So, as a musical genre, it's not for me, but from a 'clearing the decks' perspective I wouldn't want to go back in time and change a thing.

[quote name='Gust0o' timestamp='1329229477' post='1539146'] I think my new 400W Hartke head will see out the gigging season, and I won't need anything nicer for a while. Could it be that 2012 wil be a quiet year?!?! I hope not [/quote] This years already looking better for us. So far I have seven weddings, two recording sessions, a dozen or so pub gigs, a beer festival, a village 'fete' and some arts festival thing that I haven't really got my head around but pays (so I'm not too interested in the finer details ). Ironically, we have been talking about building a website for the band in an attempt to promote it (especially after last years pretty poor gig rate). The problem now is that if we do that we're not sure we could cope with the extra work as we're only in month two now!

[quote name='Blademan_98' timestamp='1329077351' post='1536911'] It is nice and all, but it had too many strings [/quote] That's easily fixed...

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1329012195' post='1536136'] Going by the curve on the back & how it fits to the contour of the body, I'd say it's made for the fatter bassist. [/quote] I'll just stick a pillow up my jumper.

I'm not usually much of a fan of headless basses, but that does look rather nice...

I've always found that running digital and analogue pedals from the same power supply is a bit 'hit and miss' with some combinations working reasonably well and some sounding truly awful. My 'solution' was crude but simple - I use an 'onboard' supply for analogue stuff and a standalone supply for the digital stuff. I've velcroed the leads together so I just have a 'single' cable running between from the power socket and the pedal board and the whole 'bundle' sits in the pedal board case quite happily when packed away.