BOD2

Nope - it's generally not a good idea to cup the average (e.g. SM58) vocal mic. It effectively changes the pickup pattern of the mic, making it more sensitive in some directions. Since you're cupping it while feedback is occurring that means there's already a loud howl in the PA and making the mic MORE sensitive will mean more of that howl will reach the mic.

As the user of the mic there's not a lot you can do. Stepping AWAY from the mic will sometimes help but the only real solution at the point of feedback is to reduce the gain at the mixer slightly.

Another option would be to shim the neck a little. That would allow you to raise the bridge saddles which would result in greater break angles and more downward pressure on the strings at the bridge.

[quote name='Pete Academy' timestamp='1332686846' post='1591607']
Don't worry...it'll be OK when the room fills up.'
[/quote]

That depends on the cause of the "boomy issues". If it's caused by a reverberant room (i.e. lots of sound reflections from walls, floor and ceilings) then, yes, it will improve as the room fills up and bodies block the sound reflections and effectively cover the reflecting surfaces.

But bear in mind that higher frequency sounds are more likely to be absorbed by the audience - the longer wavelenghts of the lower frequencies have a greater tendency to "bend" around bodies and so may not be absorbed as effectively.

You could try powering the pedals from batteries temporarily to see if the power brick is causing the problem.

If you don't get the noise when using batteries then that narrows down the issue. If you still get the noise on batteries then you can rule out the power brick as the source of the noise.

If it is static electricity then it could be caused by the pickguard material. It may also get worse when the air is drier (possibly in winter when heating is on).

I've read that rubbing the pickguard with one of those fabric conditioner sheets that you put in a tumble drier can reduce the static (smells country fresh too !)

Another thought - looking at the Lakland it seems that the plastic pickguard is completely separate from the grounded metal control panel. What happens it you tape a bare piece of wire onto the plastic pickguard at one end and to the metal control plate at the other end (effectively grounding the plastic). I know plastic doesn't conduct electricity but the static charge builds up on the surface. Worth a try for the time it would take.

[quote name='Jungle VIP' timestamp='1329926313' post='1549875']
Would you guys say it's not likely to be the building if it still happens when playing into my phone? I thought that would make sense but I might be missing something.
[/quote]

Hang on... are you saying that with your bass plugged directly into the phone, with no AC adaptors anywhere, just bass and phone, you still get the crackling noise ?

If that's the case then it has nothing to do with the mains wiring in the house.

It could well be static. Sometimes the shoes you wear are good insulators and don't allow the static to discharge. Try playing with no shoes on (I know it sounds daft). Does that make any difference ? If it does then it is definitely static.

Static electricity ? Discharging from your body through the bass to earth ?

It's possible if you have a lot of man made fibres around (carpets) or you're wearing a microfibre fleece.

Not sure what the solution would be, though.

Is this worth a look ?

[url="http://www.schecterguitars.com/International/Products/Bass/Stiletto-Studio-5.aspx"]http://www.schecterguitars.com/International/Products/Bass/Stiletto-Studio-5.aspx[/url]

I have a similar model and It plays vey well. Not sure what the current price is but it should be similar to the ibby.

Lots of good practical suggestions above. Another one that is quite cheap to implement is to try putting a think blanket (or old duvet;sleeping bags etc.) on the wall behind the singer. This will absorb some of the sound and stop some of the reflections coming back into the mic and may allow a little more volume before feedback.

If the volume in this small room is particularly loud, then you should all consider wearing ear plugs to prevent any long term hearing damage. As has been said before, ear plugs can help with clarity too.

Yes, but for this to work reliably you do need to disconnect the speakers from the Ashdown amp section.

I found a similar question a while back here ...


[url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/50774-installing-a-bridge-on-a-body/page__p__537875__hl__bridge__fromsearch__1#entry537875"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/50774-installing-a-bridge-on-a-body/page__p__537875__hl__bridge__fromsearch__1#entry537875[/url]

Have a look and see if this helps

Sometimes a pedal board power supply will cause buzzing. As an experiment, try moving the power supply in relation to the guitar cables to see if this makes any difference.

Note that it's not the power cables that feed the pedals that cause any issues - it's the actual power supply itself.

Another potential issue is if the overall gain of your setup is raised by the addition of the pedal chain (i.e. everything is louder with the pedals in place than without). More gain means more amplification is taking place and any noise in the setup is amplified along with your signal.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1324412561' post='1474029']
I was desperate for one of these, but I've heard about too many problems to want one.
[/quote]

Perhaps you should have a look at this

[url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/rcf_art_310_a.htm?sid=b31a6c6c780dbca6bd5700de77fb9bd9"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/rcf_art_310_a.htm?sid=b31a6c6c780dbca6bd5700de77fb9bd9[/url]

RCF are more highly thought of in PA circles these days than Mackie of late.

You can wire it up either way and the end result will be the same - two cabs in parallel giving a load of 4 ohms to the head.

It's very unsual for cabs to be wired in series and if a cab has two "input" jacks on it then they will invariably be wired in parallel so that when you daisy-chain to another cab the result is parallel wiring.

If you daisy-chain, then note that ALL of the power goes through the first speaker cable. If you use both outputs on the amp then half the power goes to each speaker cable. This should not be a problem if you use good speaker cables.

It's realy down to you - whichever you prefer and is more convenient.

Don't ever remove the earth connection from a mains plug - that's an accident waiting to happen.

How are you connecting the pre and power amp together ? With a mono jack lead, or an XLR lead ? If it's XLR then you could try disconnecting the earth from one of the XLR connectors to break the earth connection in the lead. If it's a mono jack lead then you can't do this.

On looking at your screenshots there, it looks to me like a font issue of some sort. My font in IE8 and Firefox looks nowhere near as smooth as on those images

IE8
[IMG]http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss59/BOD2_photos/IE8.jpg[/IMG]


Firefox
[IMG]http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss59/BOD2_photos/FireFox.jpg[/IMG]

I hate to criticise things when it's clear that a lot of effort has gone into the new website design.... but....

Running Windows XP Pro SP3 and Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.6.22

I don't mind the colour scheme at all - it's fresh and looks modern, but I too am having a problem with the fonts. On the main page the forum headings (e.g. Introductions", "General Bass Discussions") are clear but the description beneath each heading is very difficult to read. The font appears very thin and broken up - as if it's being displayed at a lower font size than it was designed for - and there is no anti-aliasing of the font on my screen at all.

I use a fair number of forums from time to time and I am having real difficulty now in reading this one. It's not the actual size of the font - I can use other forums with similar font sizes - it's the appearance of the font.

Perhaps my PC does not have this particular font installed and it's substituting an inferior font ?

I've never seen an electronics book that is specific to bass guitar. Usually you'll get a "guitar electronics" book with a couple of references to bass added as an afterthought.

To be honest, the best, most up to date information is always available online. Most pickup and preamp manufacturers will have wiring diagrams available online and you can also find a lot about the theory behind it all online too.

Seymour Duncan/Basslines have a great wiring resource here -

[url="http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/"]http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/[/url]

Just to recap....

You have 3 units that have "built-in" mains cords (i.e. the mains cables cannot be disconnected from the units) and you want to connect them to your power distributor/monitor ?

If that's correct, then yes you can do this. What you need are these connectors -

[url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/euro-line-plug-1360"]Maplin Euro Line Plug C14[/url]


Remove the 13 Amp plugs and replace them with the above C14 plugs. The C14 plug has Live, Neutral and Earth clearly marked inside the plug. The screw terminals can be a bit fiddly but patience pays off.

The units themselves should be internally fused in any case. The fuse fitted to a 13Amp plug is really there as a last resort. The Samson unit will have overload protection also (there's a circuit breaker on the front of the unit that will trip in the event of an overload fault in the same way that a fuse would blow).

Note that if you ever need to operate these units separately in future (i.e. without the Samson) you can just plug a standard IEC (kettle-type) lead, with a 13A socket on one end, directly into the C14 plug that you've fitted.

I occasionally help out a friend to do disco/parties for friends. We played one a couple of weeks ago where a large part of the evening's music was to be from the sixties. So we got a hold of some sixties compilation CDs from Amazon and off we went...

I was watching the level LEDs on the DJ mixer (this was all CDs - no vinyl). When we played the sixties CDs the LEDs were bouncing about in time to music, just occasionally peaking into the orange and the sound was vibrant with occasional peaks. When we put on more "current" dance music (i.e. from the last 10 years or so) the levels just stayed constant - hardly any movement - and the difference in sound was immediately obvious, and actually quite irritating.

The current music was not any louder - the peaks were the same as the sixties music - but it was just always up there and in your face. No variation - just full on constantly.

Every post I've ever seen on this topic (and not just here on Basschat) usually states that "power conditioning" is not really necessary in the UK.

By all means get a surge protected distribution unit, if that would be useful, but the fancy power conditioning units are probably a waste of money here in the UK.

In a way, this is almost like asking for a replacement for a Fender Bass - there are lots of options out there but many people will happily choose the "industry standard".

The SM58 is a great live vocal mic. It performs well, is robust and not too expensive if it gets lost or damaged. It does have a "sound", though, and that doesn't suit every voice. Unfortunately the only way to find if an alternative mic is better [u][i]for your needs[/i][/u] is to try that mic out.

Some popular alternatives are -

Dynamic mics

Shure SM57, Beta 57A, Beta 57B
Electro Voice N/D767a
Sennheiser E845S, 935
Beyer Dynamic TG-X60, M69
Audio-Technica AE6100
AKG D870

Condenser mics (will require phantom power)

Shure Beta 87, SM86, KSM9
Neumann KMS 104, 105
Electro-Voice RE510
Audio-Technica AE3300, AE5400

None of which probably helps at all.....

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='1304788' date='Jul 15 2011, 03:02 PM']That's right. Hence why china and india are the world's best footie teams...[/quote]

Well perhaps they might if football was as big a part of their culture as it is in England or Germany or Brasil ?

oh I don't know .... you do your best to raise the level of the debate.... but it's Friday after all.

As for the "...world class alcoholic tosser in a skirt who blows his own trumpet & takes the mick" I'll have you know that I have never owned a trumpet and with all the lung disease there's no way I could blow it if I did.

It might seem slightly obvious but it's worth noting....

Scotland - population 5 million
England - population 51 million
Germany - population 82 million
Brasil - population 193 million

By the law of averages, surely the country with the largest pool of participants is more likely to have more people who excel in an activity in which all countries take part ?

You need to be very careful when buying radio equipment at the moment due to a recent change in the frequency band setup in the UK.

Google this for more detailed information, but the basic situation is that there is only one usable LICENCE-FREE frequency band for radio mics in the UK at the moment called "Channel 70" and this lies between 863.100 and 864.900 MHz.

This band has enough space for 4 different frequencies (i.e. you can use 4 different transmitters set to different frequencies within this band without the trasmitters interfering with each other). A transmitter is any device that transmits in this band - a mic, a wirelss guitar transmitter etc.

This can be a problem if there is a karaoke pub next door to your gig with 2 radio mics as they may well share the same frequency band as your equipment and could potentially interfere.

To go outwith Channel 70, which is desirable isolate your equipment from other users or if you have a need for more than 4 tranmsitters, you need to purchase a license. You can be prosecuted if you operate radio equipment outside Channel 70 in the UK.

The reason this is important is that some older second hand gear, or gear designed for other countries , may use frequencies other than Channel 70 and you could unwittingly find yourself using illegal radio equipment.

The body that regulates this can be found here -

[url="http://www.jfmg.co.uk/"]JFMG[/url]

Always check the operating frequency carefully before buying any radio gear, especially second hand stuff. Lots of people have been offloading high quality older gear that operates outwith Channel 70 at bargain prices because they know it is no longer legal to use in the UK.