icastle

[quote name='Doddy' post='1344548' date='Aug 18 2011, 04:10 PM']Unfortunately that's true of a lot of music shops.[/quote] Yep. I had a bit of a faltering start with my local music shop when I first moved up here. Usual scenario, two 18/19 year old guitar heros manning the shop and the owner out the back doing a guitar setup. I was only after a set of bass strings and it turned into a 5 minute argument because what I wanted wasn't what one of the lads wanted to sell me. The owner appeared (sh*t - this is starting to sound like Mr Ben... ). Having knocked around the same folk circuit for many years, we recognised each other and he started to relate tales of people I'd played with, and we chatted about the 'good old days'. With each tale (and a cup of coffee as well), the young lad became a little more uncomfortable and crestfallen. The owner finally left to finish his setup and the young lad sold me my strings (complete with a boss authorised 'staff discount'). It may have been my imagination, but the final grunt as I made to leave sounded a lot like 'sorry'. That was over 5 years ago. The shop has moved to larger premises in the same village and the relationship has improved to the point where, if I'm passing the shop, I always get a wave and frequent offers of a cup of coffee.

[quote name='roonjuice' post='1344656' date='Aug 18 2011, 05:46 PM']the cable is a standard 4 pole speakon and checks out fine. i'm stumped![/quote] Well, you had the amp connected properly, the cab is working fine with a different amp and the speakon lead is ok. Must just have been an amp defect that decided to come to the fore at that time.

There are some high brow technical rules about the effectiveness of mixing 1x15 and a 2x10 cabs, but in the real world, bass players have been doing it for years and continue to do so without any problems (provided you watch the impedance).

[quote name='roonjuice' post='1344422' date='Aug 18 2011, 02:33 PM']Particular attention was paid to the setup. It was most certainly plugged into the speakon out labelled BR/L The cab was set to bi-amp with the amp tweeter engaged with the the right side output up full, and the left hand out put down, (along with all other eq/gain controls). [/quote] That sounds spot on to me. If the cab works with the SVT then you can rule that out. Apart from an amp 'defect', the only other thing that readily springs to mind is the speakon cable - if it's the one that GK supplied then all should be well. If it's a cable designed to be used as a standard Bridge Mode cable then you need to make sure that it's wired 1+ and 1- (not 1+ and 2+).

Best guess - you connected the cab to the RH speakon instead of the LH one. If you run a GK in bridge mode you must use the LH speakon connector.

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1344266' date='Aug 18 2011, 12:37 PM']Well yes, but large successful companies always draw some people out from under their stones to have a moan. Look at Microsoft. Anyway, 'Jones the Butcher' was a bumbling old fool [/quote] LMAO - I'd forgotten about him, it was just my Welsh roots showing.

[quote name='Chris2112' post='1343512' date='Aug 17 2011, 06:49 PM']And yet we're always going there to take advantage of their reasonably priced, relatively high quality produce and other items. My local Tesco certainly doesn't look as though it's struggling.[/quote] That's true. But on the other side of the coin though, how many anti Tesco websites have appeared compared to anti 'Jones the Butcher' websites?

Yes and yes here as well. Fretless Fender JB and a Tanglewood acoustic that I use as a quick 'grab it at 2am' thing so I don't upset the neighbours.

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1343209' date='Aug 17 2011, 02:59 PM']I'll give shops another 20 years or so.[/quote] I don't agree. If you look at all other industries, there is only so much that many customers will accept. Tesco were just another supermarket but are now seen by many as a plague on mankind. Banks have started pulling their call centres back to the UK because we didn't like dealing with Mumbai. Growing veg is something our grandparents did during the war and only 'old people' did it - not any more. Humans are (generally) a social animal and will only take so much 'cold mechanisation' before they switch alliegences back to a more traditional set of values. I agree that there needs to be a marked change in the attitudes and business models used in some music shops but I don't really foresee them (or any other retail sectors) dying out.

[quote name='davebass66' post='1343245' date='Aug 17 2011, 03:18 PM']interesting, I hadn't thought of that... The preamp has a toggle switch for the different 'Z modes'. would this be classed as something that routes the signals?[/quote] Probably not - I think it just changes preset curves on the preamp control chip. Having said that though, there's nothing to stop you holding a scrap of wire from the back of one of the pots to the switch casing to see if the problem disappears or improves... Probably a daft question, but you have got the pickups both connected the right way round?

Difficult to say without seeing it. Excessive hum is usually down to a bad or missing earth somewhere within the setup. One place I have encountered hum is on little toggle switches used to route signals/perform a coil tap - the switch casing often needs to be earthed in the same way that pot casings are and wires leading to/from it need to be kept as short as physically possible.

There have always been music shops like this, even before the internet. For some reason, there seem to be a disturbingly large number of music shops who don't seem to have grasped the idea that the only thing that differentiates them from their competitors is the level of service and care they provide. I've been into music shops where I have been told absolute garbage, had promises broken and been blantantly lied to. It's not the internet that these shops should be worried about, it's decay from within that'll eventually finish them off.

[quote name='ben604' post='1343092' date='Aug 17 2011, 01:43 PM']As the title really. Is this a silly idea?[/quote] In our setup, yes, it would be a silly idea... ...I'd have to give him a bunk up to plug his guitar lead in.

[quote name='bassman7755' post='1342672' date='Aug 17 2011, 08:01 AM']Well depends how much of a purist/pedantic-git you are Daisy chaining means that one speaker is operating over a longer cable length and thus lower damping factor due to the increased impedance of the longer cable. So technically your always better off with the shortest possible cables direct from the amp. If your speakers are 2 of the same type then the cable gauge and lengths should be the same (but still as short as poss).[/quote] I'm no purist, I'm not pedantic but I am a git. Assuming you're using a decent quality cable, the effect of impedance over 4' of cable isn't going to be noticeable unless you look for it.

I was approached a few months back to play bass on a rock theatrical piece based on a Belgian fairy tale (yeah, it happens all the time in my world! ). There's about 45 mins of material and I was given carte blanche to do whatever I wanted with it. I played it in the car for a few days to get an idea of what was going on and then spent about an hour reading the fairy story and relating the story back to the music. Some of the bass lines were ok with a bit of a tweak here and there, others needed a complete rewrite as they jarred with the scene\music. Excluding the driving time, I guess I spent about three hours on it. The composer has more or less organised musicians and rehearsals start in October, the cast will be picked in May with a Belgian tour pencilled in next summer.

[quote name='ficelles' post='1341231' date='Aug 15 2011, 10:00 PM']If Flea plays the bass line on Parallel Universe without a pick then I'm a Mongolian Yurt Salesman...[/quote] That's be pretty in tents... ...I'll get me groundsheet...

Does the cab have a rheostat used to turn the tweeter volume up and down? If so, that would be the best suspect if you've already replaced the tweter. HTH

[quote name='risingson' post='1339224' date='Aug 13 2011, 11:43 PM']Pino Palladino said "as you get older your [s]tone[/s] knob creeps down and your right hand goes further up the neck".[/quote] Sorry, but I did resist doing that for a couple of days...

[quote name='daz' post='1341040' date='Aug 15 2011, 07:27 PM']Anyway three things are puzzling me. Firstly, the time it takes for the amp to go from being switched on and the time it takes for the speakers to become live. Its 15 seconds ( I have timed it) from the time the red power light comes on to the time when i can get any sound out of the speaker. Is this normal ?[/quote] Yep. Hartke amps have a protection device that delays switching the output on until it's checked for any short circuits in the speaker lead. If you listen carefully, you'll hear a little 'click' as the relay switches in. [quote name='daz' post='1341040' date='Aug 15 2011, 07:27 PM']The second thing is thing is everyone says how loud it was, well this is loud but not anywhewre near as loud as i expected.[/quote] That's probably because you're using the combo speakers. Behringer do have a habit of somewhat 'over stating' the ratings of their amplification equipment, so avoid pushing the speakers too hard or you'll probably destroy them. If you want the full output from the amp then you need to give it a decent 4Ω load. [quote name='daz' post='1341040' date='Aug 15 2011, 07:27 PM']The third thing is the bright switch. I'd been lead to belive this was a real scary type mode that wouldpeel paint off the walls. Well all i can hear is the treble going a bit higher, again is this normal ?[/quote] That sounds normal to me. All I would expect a 'bright' switch to do is to increase the top end. [quote name='daz' post='1341040' date='Aug 15 2011, 07:27 PM']Is that round thing just copper wire wrapped around an iron core? In other words not worth my time weighing it in ?[/quote] The round thing is the transformer used to power the amp - yes, they are usually just copper wire wrapped around an iron core, but don't let any transformer designers let you hear it described like that.

[quote name='Huwberry' post='1340999' date='Aug 15 2011, 06:59 PM']Hi there, A really quick question for you - is there a right/wrong way to connect a Little Mark II to two speaker cabinets? I've never actually done it before. I've just received two 1x12s, each with two speakon inputs. Can I daisy-chain them, or do I use both of the outputs from the amp? Or can I do either? It's a really stupid question I know, but I just want to make sure I'm not going to blow anything up doing either of these things. Cheers! Huw[/quote] Either will do the job with no difference. I tend not to daisy chain because if the first lead should fail you won't get a signal to either cab.

[quote name='Ross' post='1340454' date='Aug 15 2011, 11:13 AM']Lead free is shiny whether it's a good or bad joint.[/quote] Other way round - LF is always duller than 60/40 regardless of whether it's a good joint or a bad one.

[quote name='chris_b' post='1340239' date='Aug 15 2011, 01:08 AM']5 string Wal mk2 basses were introduced in 1986.[/quote] Yep - but not really comparable to Westone or Peavey.

[quote name='noelk27' post='1340194' date='Aug 14 2011, 11:38 PM']Well, you might be right in that more players started using 5-ers in the early 90s, but my memory is telling me that by '88/'89 there were a lot of production models available. Guess it depends what you define as production, but the likes of Zon, Tobias, Spector, Smith, Pedulla, Peavey, G&L, Fernandes, Carvin, Warwick, Vigier, Larrivee, Tune and Ibanez all had 5-ers in their line-ups. Seem to recall the Peavey model being called the "TL-Five", and although I never tried that one I'd either played or owned various models, including a Zon Legacy Elite and a G&L L5000, both of which I still own.[/quote] By 'production' I mean mass produced instruments for a mass market. I'm working from memory but the difference between 1989 and 1990 seems a lot smaller than a year 20 years on...

[quote name='Wilco' post='1340149' date='Aug 14 2011, 10:50 PM']If I were to buy another 4 string now, it would be either a Westone Thunder 1A or a Peavey T-40. I would also like to buy another 5 string at some stage. Can anyone suggest a comparable 80's 5 stringer to the Westone or Peavey? I took up bass in the 80's but honestly can't remember if 5 stringers like we see these days were about back then. Getting older & memory loss is a wonderful thing...............[/quote] Nope. Cheaper manufacturers didn't get onboard with 5 string basses until the early 90's. In the 80's the only production models that I can remember being available with 5 strings were Alembic, Steinberger and Yamaha.

Playing a 5 or 6 is far less pretentious than non bass players getting all opinionated about something they know nothing about.