Raph

[quote name='colgraff' timestamp='1446227462' post='2897977'] I didn't know AMPBand provided cover for any sea creatures.... [/quote] Well, when you're talking about pubic liability, the topic can stray a bit.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1413565944' post='2579712'] ... and may continue to do without, hoping to never have to need any of the services. One may hope; that's free. [/quote] Depends which bit you're referring to; I hope you're not listing MU merchandise as an "advantage"? Some of the more useful benefits listed such as PLI are available elsewhere for less than MU membership with PLI for free. As for advice and support I gave up ringing the MU for contracts advice years ago as I always got contradictory advice, I even charged a ridiculous sum for a session once on the specific advice of the union, then when the client told me to f-off I rang the union and got a totally different answer to the same question about how much I should have charged... tbh it's sometimes been more of an impediment than a help. The chap on the end of the phone is always super-friendly, that's nice. Someone asked about a PLI certificate from the MU, yes you get a proper document certifying you're covered for £10m. I'm wondering about going with Ampband for £49, and losing the £40 discount on my instrument insurance. I'd be £110 better off, which is why I'm looking at that list of benefits and thinking hard about which of them actually apply to me. It might work for you, but personally I'd find it a bit late to start with careers advice and training! If you regularly do theatre work or school teaching I think it's probably more useful. If I go further into why the MU is largely irrelevant to me this'll become a whole other discussion, but in short it seems best suited to regular gigs with an employer, where "salaries" and "pensions" and such exciting stuff can be argued about; a freelance "bar rocky jazz-head" (as someone recently described me), doesn't really experience such pleasures! The long and short of PLI is that if I did injure someone by clonking them with my bass headstock or dropping a speaker on their foot etc. I'd want to be able to do right by them, and I certainly couldn't do that out of my earnings.

[quote name='Balcro' post='1055891' date='Dec 12 2010, 12:04 PM']From looking at the Eminence .pdf and at usspeaker.com, it would suggest that this unit is mainly intended for use in multiples. The latter suggests it would be good in an Ampeg 8x10. On it's own it will be loud but not stunningly loud. Only 100w power handling. There's also an 8 ohm version available. Balcro.[/quote] OK - I think I'll probably go for a high sensitivity neo PA driver instead then. Thank you for the reply.

Eminence BP102-4 Anyone have a cab using one or more of these? If so, any opinions? I'm intending to make a 1x10" cab to use with 250-300W amps, not intending to use extension cabs therefore 4ohms. It's rated at a rather weak hifi-esque 90.5dB/W/m but I've compared the freq curve to speakers rated at 98-99 and most of the usable frequencies are only 2-3dB down, and there's a big dip in the 500-2k range, which I normally filter down with EQ or an unorthodox crossover that leaves a dip to compensate for where a speaker tends to "honk" (often around 2-2.5k). A higher sensitivity speaker wouldn't be effectively any more useful if the gains were in that middle range where I'd just have to get more creative to filter those frequencies out... If the consensus is that it kicks out plenty of welly per given watts then I'll get one.

Got the replacement diaphragm as mentioned above for £15, fitting it is as easy as something unimaginably easy, and hey presto, working tweeter. Thanks for the replies!

Hey thanks for the reply! 25H273 - yes that's the one. The cab looks fairly old, it's a Goliath III and the horn looks the same as the one I had in a Goliath 2x10 I bought in 2004. Also the same as I have in an Ampeg 410HE I bought in about 1992! I found a replacement at Thomann, and a couple of suppliers in the US - but knowing what happens when customs get hold of a package from the US, I'm not keen on that option, especially as Parcelforce add another £8 charge for what they call "handling". What I might do is get a replacement diaphragm - e.g. [url="http://speaker-repairs.co.uk/shop/diaphragm/n30.html"]http://speaker-repairs.co.uk/shop/diaphragm/n30.html[/url] - unless someone tells me it's a risky thing to get into. I've done many speaker repairs, including the odd re-cone and re-foam, all successful I hasten to add, but never done a tweeter yet. It's £15 rather than about £40+post from Thomann.

I've been given an SWR 4x10 with some blown drivers - one of them being the horn - I tried the horn from my ampeg 4x10 in it (looks identical) and it works fine. So I'm wondering where I can get it as a spare, or if there's anything commonly available that would fit. In another bass speaker that didn't originally have a horn I fitted an APT150 - works superbly but in the SWR there isn't space for the large rectangular horn. I could fit an APT80 in there (same driver) but I think the dispersion probably isn't as good, and the flare is a bit too small so I'd have to make up a plate for it to go on. The best solution is if I can find the correct horn - any ideas? PS - the flare is 110mm square, the hole the driver fits through is a 95mm circle.

Servisol - seems expensive but you don't use it that often so a can will last years.

I reinstalled it all, it's the same. The amp comes up as "new hardware" on teh desktop but the editor doesn't seem to know it's there. The first menu has upload and download, clicking these results in "you must be connect first!" - yes, the amp's on and connected. When I open a saved patch the upload and download options are greyed out. Both options on the "action" menu (a misnomer if you ask me!) are greyed out. The midi control tool is the only thing so far that's recognized the amp - it comes up on the midi device field, but as I mentioned the EQ patches aren't being transferred.

Thanks tauzero - I tried USB and the PC wouldn't recognise the amp at all, so I used a midi cable and then at least the amp came up as a "midi device". Via USB nothng happened at all - the amp didn't appear as an external drive or anything, simply the same effect as not plugging it in at all. I did set the switch on the back for USB or midi by the way (took me a while to notice it!) I'll try reinstalling the editor.

It's good that they didn't make a fuss - in that sense things could have been worse. But the point is, did you end up with something you can't use? Interestingly (well, only a bit interestingly...) mine squeals on one of the speaker outputs, but as I mentioned it's at a frequency on the edge of my hearing - dB-wise it might be quite loud but to me it sounds about the same volume as the mains hum, which isn't too terrible. On the other output it's totally quiet. The first amp I got was horrendous - a really loud square-wave boiling kettle! ...though it didn't occur to me at the time to try both outputs. Totally different issue - I can't get the PC editor to send EQs to the amp. I midi it up to the PC and send EQs on channel 1, click "send" and the patch number comes up on the amp, but the EQ LEDs go flat (i.e. all a t 0dB), and there's no audible EQ. My interest in the software EQ is to change the centre frequencies and bandwidths - e.g. to set the lowest one as a rumble filter, and to get a couple of good "honk" filters in the middle. So far no luck with that. Has anybody else used the software EQ?

"Ashdown were very helpful in trying to fix it. I just wasn't happy with the end result." - If they were helpful but you still ended up with a squealing amp then in what way were they helpful? I just got the replacement today - so far so good. No square-wave boiling kettle. It does squeal but only very quietly, and somewhere around 15k, so it only sounds to me about the same level as the rest of the (quite significant) noise. Anyway, not enough to spoil a gig. And in every other way it sounds great.

Ashdown are sending me a replacement direct. Only remains to be seen (heard?) whether it works...

The Tascam's pretty good. The slowing down thing's a bit crude, it simply chops up the audio and pastes it all back together slower... with the resulting chopped-up-ness in the sound, but still good enough to use.

"If all those who do have whining amps have tweeters and all those who's amps don't whine also don't have tweeters it would explain why not everyone has a problem" - don't know about yours, but this one was not at a frequency that would be eliminated by disconnecting a tweeter. It's like 2 or 3 octaves above middle C, well within most bass drivers. Also the fact that it starts after a while suggests it's a fault rather than a design flaw - low-pass filtering that didn't work wouldn't work from the start, however this amp sounded great for the first minute or so, [i]then [/i]started whining.

" I also find that I'm exceptionally quick at (re)tuning without a tuner in one movement and followed by a quick final adjustment to get it dead on." - True - that's what I do on the upright. Remembering the position of the machine head and just going back to it is surprisingly reliable. PS "D is not the 'only' note I'm downtuning to" - you can detune down to C as well - I tried it but couldn't get on with a major 6th between the bottom two strings, too confusing!

Just got one in the post - a bit noisy on switch-on, but as mentioned not enough to be a problem - BUT... a minute later, the dreaded boiling kettle, and in a sort of square-wave tone. The courier's picking up again straight away. Potentially a nice amp, but totally useless with this fizzly noise coming out of it.

I have two on my 4-string basses and love them. Makes tuning the E very slightly more fiddly - as jean-luc says above you have to tune, flip and retune to make sure the string has settled, otherwise it'll go out as soon as you play the first note. Lubricating between the nut and the string helps. "£45 for a machine head that saves me about 5 seconds" - if I only used it that way I wouldn't bother with a de-tuner, but I play it pretty much as an extra note, flipping it in and out while playing. Sometimes I leave it down for a stint, so octaves are on the same fret, but as soon as anything melodic happens (admittedly not frequent at the bottom of a bass), I flip it back up for normal tuning. In short - yes, I think it's brilliant. It stopped me bothering with 5-string basses for about 10 years. I succumbed in the end, but just that extra note on a 4-string was great - obviously for Play that Funky Music you can just detune for the whole number, but even then it's great to flick a lever rather than have to faff tuning between numbers. Only tip I have, like what's been said above - keep it lubed, cos any wear will mean wibbly movement in the pivot or in the cam, which will result in unreliable tuning. Bike chain oil's good.

I got a set about fifteen years ago - the shop I was in at the time only had Rotosounds or something else I knew I didn't like, so I got these Optimas, at £40 a set! They surprised me by being stunningly good, not just a gimmick with the gold look - a really solid tone and nice highs, not clangy but just nice. They lasted over five years of heavy gigging on a Fender P, several times longer than I'd ever used any other set of strings. When they eventually started to go dull, I tried to find another set, and all I could find was Maxima, which were supposedly the same, so I bought three sets straight off. The tone wasn't as solid, I mean by that the basic pitch of the note wasn't as clear and the sound not as fat, and guess what they went dull at the same rate as any other strings. So Maxima, in my opinion, aren't the same as the old Optima, and aren't anything to write home about. They're good, but these days I find Slinky nickel much more reliable, last as long, and are on average a bit cheaper. Not as good for posing though. I still have sets of Maxima on a couple of old basses, but they rarely get gigged so they're still fine. They do sound nice, but as i say, nothing all that special.

[quote name='tauzero' post='159379' date='Mar 18 2008, 08:41 AM']You could try talking to Flightcase Warehouse, as they make flight cases on the premises and have assorted materials, including lightweight ones.[/quote] "including lightweight ones" - if they do lightweight ones to order then that'll be the answer. I'll ring them and ask. Thanks for the suggestion.

[quote name='jmesa' post='157723' date='Mar 14 2008, 09:59 PM']Here's a silly one - buy an official Mesa shock rack.... only £645 over here! Nah thought not [/quote] Now... that's SILLY!!! Thanks for trying! I'm resigned to leaving it in the SKB rack. I've been checking out custom rack cases in birch ply and aluminium but they all weigh about 10kg, so I'm better off carrying some empty space than carrying more weight.

OK if nobody's got any good suggestions I'll accept silly ones...

PS the A.C. site is really difficult to navigate and find what you're after - but the info's there... somewhere!

I'd find separate tones for each pickup a bit of a handful in the heat of the moment. I even find the original separate volumes a bit much since swapping from one PU to the other means doing two moves. Obviously when piddling about at home this there's plenty of time, but going from basslines to solo mode in a gig you need a quick change. What I use is a JE preamp - I have one in a '75 Jazz. It comes with a front plate so there's no hassle other than connecting the pickups and screwing the plate to the bass. Check out [url="http://www.east-uk.com/"]http://www.east-uk.com/[/url]. The J-retro01 is the most relevant. The first stack is volume/balance (or "pan"), the second is bass and treble and the third is mid boost/cut and frequency. If you're really keen on separate tone controls for each pickup, the guy does a bass/treble stack module. I also tried a similar EMG module for a while and hated it, somehow the sound didn't do it for me, it was kind of brutal. The JE stuff actually sounds really good without degrading nice pickups. I'm not sure if the guy does a volume/blend stack on its own, but you can contact him, he's a very approachable guy. For separate tones for each pickup also check out Alan Cringean - he does a Wal-style circuit, but better than the Wal in that the "overshoot peak" - the thing that made the original Wal sound like it was underwater... is adjustable so you can get really nice sounds, not just stupid ones. I have a Wal and that's what I've put in it. There's also a treble control that covers both pickups, with boost and frequency so you can tune the crassness or subtlety of the treble. There's no need for cut on the treble since the other filters only cut. It sounds a bit weird but in practice it's pretty good, I've got one on a Wal and prefer it to the original circuit. Check out [url="http://www.acguitars.co.uk/index.php"]http://www.acguitars.co.uk/index.php[/url]

er... the title says it - can anyone recommend a decent case for a Mesa Boogie 400+? It's currently in a SKB rack which is about 10cm too deep for it, so lots of space at the back, but unnecessarily big, otherwise ok. Also at first even with the fan on it got too hot to touch, so I had to cut holes in the side panels to let air through. I'd happily get a rack case the right size if I could find one but they seem to be either about 250mm deep which isn't enough, or 400mm upwards,. I can get a flightcase made up the right size, but they're so heavy the thing becomes unliftable, and it takes yer arm off as it is, so I'm trying to find a moulded one the right size. Any ideas? PS Yeah, "get a lighter amp"or "do some work outs"... but I mean suggestions [i]apart [/i]from those ones...