LukeFRC

1 hour ago, joel406 said:

Secret sauce?

 

Pedal board one: Mesa Subway pedal. Keely compressor pro. Tuner. Chorus.

Pedal board two. Mesa Subway Pedal +. Keely compressor pro. Chorus.

Pedal board three. Two notes Le Bass. Keely compressor pro. Chorus.

Pedal board four. Two notes ReVolt. Keely compressor pro. Chorus.

Pedal board five. Quad Cortex.

Pedal board six. Work in progress. But I have a CAB M that I'm toying with.

The common denominator is the pedal board!

Great price 

1 hour ago, krispn said:

If it sounds good it sounds good. Might do a trade in with a pedal at Andertons and try one. 

Didn’t their previous bigger compressor pedal get a thumbs up for guitar, but there was something that meant it didn’t work as well for bass?

2 hours ago, danbowskill said:

To those in the know... I've just bought a used fuzz (which sounds fantastic) ,but the pop from the switch through my amp when turning on/off is irritatingly loud.

Would swapping out the footswitch solve this or maybe it's a design floor?

Cheers

I've a DIY pedal that does the same and I need to sort... I think it's a cap across the input that solves it 

2 hours ago, nick said:

I've had this (self built) Ziebek / Electronix Submarine clone, which in itself is a stripped down clone of the 'Albert Kruezer preamp', on every version of my pedal boards for the last twenty years.

It's got pretty varied tone shaping abilities & quite versatile for such a simple circuit, but I use it quite subtly to just add a bit of low mid 'thump' - really lends itself well to flats.... It's also quite handy as a clean boost for when I swap between my Mustang & Stingray.

 

I should really get round to building another one, when I get the time.

Have you got the schematic to hand? I was looking for it the other day and some of the hosting of files has gone so hard to follow what was verified and not!  

11 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

To be fair - you always seem to be busy, I admire the updates but also think “god that’s a bit much” 🫣

compared to your professional life @AndyTravis it must be a breeze! 

3 hours ago, slowburnaz said:

For what it’s worth, here’s a fretless with my pickups and a Lusithand (though these are the coil pair per output versions):  

 

Fretless demo starts at around 3:35.

That sounds wonderful. There is a chance it’s the player as much as the bass, but it sounds great!

Ie on another thread…

7 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

This looks pretty interesting:

https://crazytubecircuits.com/sidekick-jr

That is very cool. Actually prompts me to ask another question…

On 13/10/2023 at 23:01, mr4stringz said:

The Darkglass wizardry will add a fair heap in cost on in itself of course but, regardless, 100% agree.

 

Also, why do this and not colour match the headstock? Bonkers.

Because without it they can use any neck on the line, any black body and just fit black hardwear and the specific plate… easy. 
 

53 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Well, it didn't have the desired effect - it did clean it up a little but not a lot. Going to have a look at my bench grinder to see if I can mount a polishing wheel onto that.

unless you're going for a mirror finish getting all the sanding in one direction works well

30 minutes ago, bloke_zero said:

You're already getting better results than me! Ok, time to get some kind of mini anvil!

Only wee 2mm letters mind 

Well that photo tells you not a lot!

19 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

Before putting the front panel label on the Vong-Filterung that you kindly sent me (I did think I had it working at one stage), I put a polishing wheel into the pillar drill and tried that. It wasn't a success.

 

I now have a USB -> MIDI box and will shortly have a Zoom patch switcher box which I want to polish up, both in 1590A boxes, so more experimentation is required. Polishing kit (three buffing wheels, three polished) now ordered from Ebay.

How come the polishing wheel didn’t work? Here’s my end result - not perfect but not aiming for that! 

I played with the back of an enclosure as a test piece - I've found that the wood block behind wasn't hard enough - steel jewellers bench anvil and a lump of steel that a mate found had better results. I still need to work out the best way to set up a stamping process so I can align to a baseline.... I think that S is upside down too!

You’ve played with the editor for the Nemisis? None of the options get you closer to what you want? 

Pedal hack... both of the above images are the Musikding standard pedal enclosures - while they are cheaper than a Hammond... erm you can tell they are cheaper than a hammond... The Vong has had me do A LOT of sanding to it - and it still isn't a great finish compared to Hammond - and the L4 preamp is how it comes and you can see it looks a bit unrefined. 

Well for this preamp I'm trying stamped enclosure a la Fairfield Circuitry. I love the Fairfield aesthetic - if I suddenly had a massive bass pedal fund I might very go and buy everything they make and make some beautiful and crazy noises- I really really would like to try the accountant... and the meet Maud.... and... yeah you get the idea. 

Anyway - how to get a rough enclosure nicer and with less effort - I tried a bit of steel wool and found if you took a bit of time and only wiped in one direction you could get quite good unfinished-finish .... 

then I got a 14cm bolt. Wrapped steel wool around it. Stuck it in a drill press.... and I had some wierd pedal sanding machine! And, unusually for me. 
IT WORKED!
 

Before anyone thinks I'm showing off - my finger still hurts from the metal-stamp-test-mishap

48 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

@LukeFRC that’s it, 27 years I’ve been obsessive. Maybe I’m burned out 🥴😂

Imagine you're a massive Man City fan. 

You go to every game, home and away. When you were younger you even played for the youth team. You're in the fans group. You have all the kit to wear, plus the training kit. You talk for hours online on forums about City, you wake up and you check the socials for news about city, you own nothing red, you listen to Oasis every day, your ring tone is "aaguerooooo" and you have dreams you wouldn't tell the wife about of Haaland. If we cut through your heart it would probably be tattooed with the City badge.

But one day you wake up beneath your bedsheets (sky blue, but not the official club ones, because even your wife has limits) in your Man City pyjamas look at the a signed picture of Pep above your bed, and one of Colin Bell on the bedside table along side you and get up. You pull open the curtains to see the dour grey rain that Manchester is famous for and the realisation hits you that you're just a extra in the background of a petrostate's soft power initiative, and paying for the privilege. 

So what do you do? Probably take a bit of time away from City, maybe try purple bedsheets. Redecorate. Relax. 
the thing is you probably still like watching city, and with time maybe even go to a few games again. But at that stage, on that grey wet morning the end state is uncertain, maybe you will, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll start playing again, maybe you'll end up doing something else. You just need time to reconfigure work it out. 

(Know Andy just well enough to know the football metaphor will make his day him vomit  _)

With demanding work and two small kids and an upcoming house refurb project keeping my playing at home ticking over feels like an achievement in itself.

Basses are fun and there’s enjoyment in trying gear, but that gets odd when you’re not using it regularly. 
but I’m atypical I think, my creative outlet is through my work, and playing bass is what I do to relax and use a different part of my brain - I’m reality piano would probably be better if I would be disciplined enough to sit and learn. 
it’s not a bad thing to not care as much any more, and put your energy elsewhere.
Where that must become odd feeling is if part of your conscious or unconscious identity is “hi I’m Andy - I’m a musician” - that has to be positively reprogrammed to be something else. And it probably isn’t easy to do that.

I love that!

13 hours ago, tauzero said:

The old adage "measure twice, cut once" can be extended to cover orientating twice and drilling once. Eagerly pressing on as I was after Tuffcabbing the whole cab, I put the corner protectors on the back corners, drilled screw holes for all four, and then realised that I'd put them the wrong way round and the drill holes should have been on the sides and bottoms, not the back. Holes drilled in the proper places and corner protectors fitted, and a little wood filler to fill the holes, which will be given a dab of Tuffcab.

 

Doing a test fitting of the grille, I found it was very slightly oversized - a mm or two. I have assorted implements of destruction to rectify the situation - I think an angle grinder or bench grinder would be a bit extreme, a power file or belt sander seems more appropriate. Does the BC massive have an opinion? Just holding it on edge is going to be a bit tricky. I'm inclined to the power file (more suited to one handed operation).

Can you rout the wood on the edge out so it fits? Wood is easier to bodge than metal 

Ground control to @warwickhunt…

I had a beat up Lakland 55-94 which has a lovely fat tone that the eq wasn't doing anything for - boosting mids was too boomy, cutting seemed to kill the whole bass.
But there is a way, and their is a master - and his name is John East

and his Uni pre is lovely. 
 

Now I have read online that the lakland on it's bridge pickup doesn't sound the same as a stingray. And I have measured and compensated for the scale lengths and found that yes, it is not in Leo Fenders 70's sweet spot... 
But control over bass and treble boost frequencies, and A-B ing it against a borrowed 1976 Stingray got it pretty close

On 09/10/2023 at 20:22, TheGreek said:

I bought a Kawai F2b which had a defective bridge pickup, which had a lower output. 

I really should have left it alone - tbh I could have lived with the lower output,  especially as I'm predominantly playing 5ers now.

Changing the pickups turned out to be a nightmare  - I ordered a set of custom pickups which really were characterless and had to go back.

Replaced these with a set of active Wilkinsons which are "fine" but not as punchy as the originals. 

The whole process took far longer than it should have and I'm not convinced that I've upgraded the electronics - if I was playing 4s I'd probably be thinking about a good quality preamp but since I'm not I'll leave it for the next owner to do if I sell what is an amazing bass. 

Images below are of the original pickups. 

 

love those knobs. 
Kawai is on my list to try sometime, though I know the pickups are pretty much impossible to replace when they go

31 minutes ago, independent.jerry said:

 

It's a preamp. The switches control the response of different freq points. 

 

It's an awesome tone sweetener and has a huge headroom. 👍

 

Is it Ziebek ? Or Zwiebek or something? I thought I remembered a version with less switches