tauzero

[quote name='Biglump' timestamp='1421275782' post='2659423'] I was wondering (and searching) if anyone has converted a defunct practice amp to 12 volt operation successfully. I was given a Rocktek amp with a duff power supply. A dead PC donated its PSU to get it going again. But I am just wondering about converting it to 12 volt operation by striping out the PSU and wiring 12 volts direct. (though an appropriate fused connector, of course) [/quote] So you've used the 12V off the PC PSU and that's doing the job? You'd probably be OK running it off the nominally 12V supply, though as Dad says it's actually more like 15V. If you feel you may worry unduly, there's 12V regulators you can get (off That Ebay for example). Assuming there's an 8 ohm speaker in it, the maximum current that it will need to cope with is 12/8 = 1.5A (roughly, the speaker will never be taken up to the maximum 12V but then again the circuit won't be 100% efficient).

[quote name='MarshallBTB' timestamp='1421432590' post='2661233'] Thought this was worth sharing.... a lot of effort but still pretty cool. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy3IFQjP-4k"]https://www.youtube....h?v=Xy3IFQjP-4k[/url] [/quote] Is it your work? Rather more sophisticated than what I've put together.

[quote name='BILL POSTERS' timestamp='1421402863' post='2660726'] Wont it get sealed in by the shrunk tubing ? [/quote] I only use it on the barrel of the plug, not covering barrel and cable end.

Look very handy. I've got a Behringer CT100, which falls between those two in price, and it doesn't do speakons and only caters for 3 cores on the DIN sockets (so it's fine for MIDI but anything using 5 pins won't be fully tested). But it does show the interconnections all at once, and also has "intermittent" indicators. I don't think I'll be replacing it but should it ever die, one of the Studiospares ones would be a definite candidate.

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1420800773' post='2653497'] By the way, do you ever have any problems with condensation or water affecting the cables if you're using a kettle to supply the heat??? [/quote] No. It's pure H[sub]2[/sub]O and it'll evaporate off reasonably quickly.

I use a Zoom B3, or when space is definitely at a premium, an MS60-B.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1420145325' post='2646154'] Convert it to a 2-string, replace the pickup with a cheap Jazz unit jammed into the cavity at an angle, and put it on eBay for £269 as suitable for people with fat fingers. Don't forget to drop a hint about the possibility of it being an early Fender prototype! [/quote] "Made when Fender's Custom Shop was just finding its feet" should do it.

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1421313629' post='2659624'] I think the point I was making in the previous is that a used but mint bass might lose value if dinked, a used relic probably won't. It's a safer investemnt all other things being equal. [/quote] I wonder when we'll see the first bass being advertised as a mint relic.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1420666232' post='2652034'] Haha! I used to manage a quality department, too...never thought of that In that case, it must be just the un-pictured jack-plug panel...very minor. It must mean their quality standards are pretty high even for economy ranges... [/quote] The only thing I could see wrong with mine was a scratch in the lacquer about a centimetre long.

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1420727182' post='2652649'] [size=4][font=Calibri]How much does it stretch (if at all) before you shrink it?[/font] [font=Calibri]i.e. can you stretch it over a Neutrik plug or would you need to remove the plug, slide the tubing over the cable and then re-solder the plug back on?[/font] [font=Calibri]How exactly do you shrink it?[/font] [font=Calibri]I've read that you can use a hair dryer but some of the tubes quote a 70 degree centigrade heat required and I don't think many hair dryers would run that hot, would they?[/font][/size] [/quote] If you get it big enough, you could just shrink it onto the plug body. I do this with power connectors - I run a jack-jack with two DC power extensions cable-tied to it from amp to effects and wireless, and as they're different voltages but the same size plug, one DC lead has blue heatshrink on the connectors at each end and the other has red. I use a boiling kettle to shrink it - just hold the switch down or use a non-automatic one. Force of habit from using steam to shrink wine bottle capsules on...

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1419256195' post='2638031'] My schaller strap lock had a major fail a few months back and my bass would have certainly hit the floor if I hadn't managed to stop it. [/quote] How did it fail? I've been using them for nearly 30 years and never had a failure. As far as the nuts holding the straplocks to the strap goes, there's a Schaller clone made by Boston which has two nuts per strap end - so the first nut tightens down and the second nut locks it.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1420627777' post='2651393'] Does look a bit odd. The gig bags aren't air tight are they? the metal parts on the gig bag are as corroded as you'd expect from something sitting round for 62 years and though obviously the bag protects the bass to some extent you'd expect some discolouration of metal parts over that period surely? the knobs, tuners etc look like they just came out of the factory. [/quote] The bag zips aren't heavy duty chromed. Have a look at the unchromed steel woodscrew heads, you can see the discolouration there.

[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1420402541' post='2649012'] I'm in bands with people who are emotionally stable enough to play a a tune without it causing resentment! I'm not on about playing an entire setlist of songs everyone in the band hates. [/quote] We're hardly scraping for songs. And we're grown up enough that we can say why we don't want to do songs (it's very rarely because anyone actually dislikes the song). It's not as if I'm still in the old club band and playing "Red Red Whine" while smiling through the pain - that would be the wurst option.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1420307954' post='2647918'] IMO, there's no easy solution to this for them. They get slated for not 'moving with the times', but when they do take a faltering step in that direction they get slated for it. [/quote] They don't really commit themselves to it, though. They don't have to stop making Ps and Js to bring out something newer. What they do need to do is show some sort of commitment to doing it. And if people really don't want anything other than Ps and Js from Fender, then maybe they could use one of the myriad other brands that they own to demonstrate that they can innovate.

Consensus. We have an Excel spreadsheet with a list of suggestions on, and each member gives a song green (yes), yellow (maybe), or red (no). Anything with reds by it doesn't go forward. We've been building a set up so out of pragmatism we've put some three-greens in front of some four-greens if they're quicker to learn. Sometimes a song gets mentioned in rehearsal that isn't on the list and if we agree on trying that, it gets added. Slightly haphazard but it works. With the other covers band (now in hibernation), the singer, drummer, and I could suggest a sing that we all really wanted to do until we were blue in the face but the guitarist would then decide, generally on songs that none of us had suggested. We finished up with a reasonable set but there were some songs I'd have loved to play but never did.

Hedgehog's Flatmate

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1420287309' post='2647510'] It's an easy typo and one that auto-correct loves to use. And "dullards"? C'mon, don't start that! [/quote] I should have put a big smiley there really...

Scrape "Fender" or "Squier" [1] off the headstock and put "Walmart" there and you have the business model. Fender has always been about making basses cheaply and in great numbers. The haphazard machining techniques of the 60s and 70s meant that there was a fair amount of variation and you could get a good one or a crap one. As CNC took over the world, tolerances got better and you were guaranteed a mediocre one every time. There was mention of innovation and how Fender had tried and it hadn't worked. They didn't really try. Look at Harley Davidson, the motorcycle equivalent of Fender. sh*te old bikes with engines designed in the 1920s. HD decided to make a determined push forward and came up with a design that was radically different for them (bringing them forwards to at least the 1980s), and then stuck with it despite criticism from the small-minded HD fanbois. 15 years or so on, the V-Rod design is doing well. It's a shame that Fender have taken over brands like Genz Benz and Takamine. I really can't see those takeovers being any good for the products (Takamine) or the derivatives of the products (Genz Benz). Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if Fender, the bloated parasitic organism, died, and left its offspring, Fender CS, Squier in each country independently, Genz Benz, Takamine, and whoever else, to sort themselves out on the world stage. [1] It's not "Squire", no matter how many times you dullards try to spell it like that. You really should have it tattooed in mirror writing on your foreheads.

Played pub about 20 miles away. First excursion for new (to me) Berg cabs. Very good sound. 2x45s plus 30 minutes after midnight. Second set, only song in the whole lot that I sing - "Make me smile (come up and see me)" and audience (which is mainly hidden) rush to minute dancefloorything, making me think they were coming to lynch me. Could have been better paid but went well and was good fun.

Dammit, why is no-one selling a Peavey 5-string? Bass Collection 5-string (I've had one and they're great) £250 [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/251490-bass-collection-sgc-nanyo-315-5-string-1991/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/251490-bass-collection-sgc-nanyo-315-5-string-1991/[/url] TC BG500 combo - I'd hope that the sound was as good as from the RS112 I used to have £275 [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/249840-tc-bg500-210-combo/"]http://basschat.co.uk/topic/249840-tc-bg500-210-combo/[/url] That's £525. With a bit of negotiation, I could finish up with £500 or more left. I'd spend most of it on women and drink, and waste the rest.

[quote name='skychaserhigh' timestamp='1420251240' post='2647282'] Well , I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it. So there. [/quote] But did you see Dawn French and go "phwoar"?

I'm 57. I'm just about oldest in one band, in the other (currently hibernating) band I'm definitely the grand old man (the singer's mum is 5 years younger than me). I don't care. My first band played Glenn Miller songs. I play music from the 60s to the present. There were lots of crap bands back then and quite a few good ones. There are lots of crap bands now and quite a few good ones. There used to be lots of solo artistes playing all sorts of material of varying musical merit. There are lots of solo artistes playing all sorts of material of varying musical merit. X-Factor and The Voice have a lot to answer for. Opportunity Knocks and New Faces had a lot to answer for. There were more ground-breaking bands in the 60s and 70s because there was more ground to break. I may, of course, be opposed for this view, and indeed I may be wrong, but I would say that someone like Victor Wooten is not a ground-breaker. He is an absolute virtuoso, but he has taken skills that the groundbreakers have explored and improved and mastered them. He may well be nibbling at the edge of the unbroken ground but there's so little of it left that finding a bit that you can actually pitch your claim to is getting very difficult.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1419278317' post='2638341'] Had a chat with a gtr about this very thing today and we gave up when we wanted concesus on ground breaking gtr players. We had Hendrix, Beck and Van Halen and that was as far as we got.... [/quote] Jan Akkerman.

Recorded it and watched part of it when we got back (about 3AM). Skipped over William Bell, Boz Scaggs, Ronnie Spector, and Ed Sheeran (mainly due to content although Ronnie Spector's voice took a little while to get going and was somewhat wobbly even then), thought Paloma Faith should have just used her own voice for the Tina Turner cover instead of trying to do a TT impression (the first song was good though), Wilko could have done with Daltrey, rehearsals, and a guitar tuner, but no problem with his energy levels, Ruby Turner nailed it, Joss Stone didn't quite seem on full song. Liked Clean Bandit, thought Paolo Nutini has a great voice - reminiscent of Paul Rodgers. Haven't got to Hayseed Dixie yet. I think, from what I've seen, had I been in, I could quite happily have left it playing and ignored a few bits (especially the ones involving Jools's honking and tonking). Oh, and now Dawn French has lost that chubbiness round her face, she looks absolutely stunning.