Huge Hands

Glad you got it sorted.

I'm still wondering if it's a sensitivity issue. If the S1 is, as people have suggested, a parallel to series switch, then maybe one position is too sensitive for the preamp?

Possibly not noticeable in nice environments, but troublesome when in bad ones?

I reckon switching the other way is basically lowering the output from the pups (sensitivity) and therefore the noticeable noise, and associated feedback.

Not a nice problem, hope you can find a way around it. My suggestion, as a trial, would be to bypass your pre-amp altogether and see if you still get a problem. I know you probably won't want to, but if it helps....

The theatre should have a DI box if this is the case to allow them to get a feed without your pre.

Good luck!

Is the feedback a big rumble, or high pitched squealing?

It could be the valve in your amp acting as a big antennae - but then you said that it was ok if you switched the S1 in?

Hmmmm.

Lots of variable to play with. If you turn the amp off and it's still there, then it could be the sound guy doing something silly with the PA, rather than your amp.

I don't know if this will help, but you can give it a try:

Look at your gain stucture with your amp. It sounds to me like your bass pickups are acting too much like a microphone and causing the feedback. Is it because you have the input gain on your amp whacked up high? Perhaps turning this down, and the output up MIGHT just level out the gain path and help the situation. It's worth a try.

It may also be worth trying to keep your bass further apart from the amp if possible. If your bass is going through the PA, then turn your amp off as it's doing it and see if it stops. Then turn it back on, and get your sound man to mute you from the PA. It should determine whether it's the PA speakers or the amp that are causng the feedback path (or in a worst case, both!).

If it is the deaf loop causing the problem, there are tips on here about shielding your bass, or perhaps you can get your sound engineer to re-route the loop away from the pit.

I've just put a 5 string set of Labellas on my Cort - first time with flats on a guitar. Still getting used to them.

Nice and slippery as Bilbo says! I like it. Reminds me of my upright which also has flats.

I had similar gauge roundwounds on before, and I'm not noticing a great deal of difference in tone on my small practice amp, but I get to blast them next week at rehearsal so I'll know better.

Sorry, can't help with the slapping thing, not much of a slapper myself.

Also worth noting that Mackie bought out RCF a few years ago, who used to make quality speakers and drivers.

Most of the recent Mackie speakers were actually re-badged RCF ones.

If the Tapco stuff has their input, hopefully it will be good.

Do me a favour if you do go - get me some Greggs stotties while you're there. I'm only up the road from you in Crawley, and I'm dying for a bacon sandwich!!!

One starving exiled Geordie.

I rang Stringbusters back in January when I tried to get a set. They reckoned that LaBella tend to only make stuff to order, so they tend to buy bulk from them and when that stock has gone, it's gone, until they do another order.

I got the impression it might be best to get a few sets while they have them. Just wish I could afford more than one lot (£30 per 5 string set)

As xgsjx said, I'd look into one of the really small "notebook" type mixers. Behringer, soundcraft and others all do models for under a ton, and I seem to remember somone on here pointing out a shop doing one type for about £20 as a special offer! I can't remember what it was though, sorry.

The notebooks are usually 4 mono channel plus a couple of stereo phono ins, so can end up being useful for several things, such as small gigs, not just your home practice.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='185732' date='Apr 26 2008, 08:52 AM']I get this when I'm plugged into different bits of equipment at the same time. For example, I can plug into the bass amp and then touch the shielding of the freeview box and get a 'tingle'. Ideally all the bits of kit you're in contact with should be going through the same multiplug socket so you don't get this ground path issue. The multiplug can go into the RCD if you're using one, of course.[/quote]

I should have said this really. The guitar amp and mixer need to be on the same ring main/power source so that the ground path is as similar as possible.

However, I don't always think it's the venue's fault. I ran a venue for a few years and out of having bands in there 52 weeks a year, all using the same sockets, I could count on one hand how many people complained (the same ones would often complain more than once). I think it also has to do with certain amp/guitar combinations.

In the end, I made a couple of "Ground lift" XLR cables as I mentioned in my last post and marked them up so they were obvious. If anyone had a problem, we used one of those.

It does work. you are basically removing the mixer's ground connection to the microphone casing, so no shock.

However, some venues will have bad electrics, so mains testers and RCD's are a good precaution for gear, and ultimately you if there was a serious electrical fault.

As I said before, unless the RCD is doing some ort of ground lift itself, I doubt one of those would help the problem that you complained of.

[quote name='Buzz' post='185707' date='Apr 26 2008, 02:37 AM']Ashdown made strings? First I've heard of them.[/quote]

Thats them on my bass in the avatar. Came in a tin that looked like a projector film canister.

I have just looked at Stringbusters and they finally got some Labella flats in, so I've nabbed a set of Deep Talkin' ones (760 FSB).

I'd still be interested in my OP question though, if anyone has any opinions, and on the Labellas? Cheers!

Did anyone used to use "Ashdown Fatties" strings?

I tried some on my Cort C5 a few years ago and liked them so much, I bought a few tins of them.

I noticed about 6 months ago that Ashdown weren't selling them anymore. I rang them up and tried to coax the guy I spoke to into telling me who made them for Ashdown, as I was assuming someone like Rotosound were making them and they were sticking them in a tin with their label. However, he was adamant that they had been exclusive to Ashdown, but admitted weren't doing them anymore.

I am hopeless at changing strings, due to laziness, lack of cash and trying to pretend that it's because of my Jamerson idolisation and his theory that the "dirt keeps the funk", but my last set are starting to feel pretty tired.

Can anyone recommend another make that are similar tone and feel? I have been toying with the idea of getting a set of Labella flats to try, but wanted a good roundwound set to fall back on if I didn't like them, as well as the fact that Labella flats appear to be like rocking horse s**t to get here in the UK.

P.S. In case bass_ferret gets angry at me, I did search the archives first, but came up with nothing

The cheapest way is to chop the shield off the mic lead at one end (pin 1) and tape back so it doesn't short. This will solve your problem.

Its to do with you being grounded through your mic to the mixer, and also through the guitar, and the small potential differences in the ground paths.

I'm not sure how an RCD would solve this, other than stopping you dying from a serious electrical fault, so perhaps still a good precaution.

Im assuming you're on about those painful little zaps you get in the mouth when you get close to the mic?

I don't actually know (my own interpretation of it is not good), but I just wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate the fact that Lequient "Duke" Jobe who played it originally with Rose Royce was a monster, and often under-rated, bass player. I looked him up on Google a while ago, and found an article that said these days he was living a pretty squalid lifestyle in a caravan. I don't know if it's true.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='184528' date='Apr 24 2008, 02:31 PM']LOL, nice try. If you're in the vicinity of West London, you're certainly welcome to pop around and have a go on them. But yes, its the Gherkin. The load in is going to be very interesting - mostly via express lifts I suspect.

How about a free jar of advocado hummous instead? [/quote]

Erm uurrggh! No thanks! I can but dream!

I would have thought the load in will be through the building's loading bay and up a goods lift, upon threat of death by the "police state" security dept should you happen to be seen by a white collar member of staff in your get-in jeans. You will be hassled to get rid of your van asap and no one will give you a hand with anything....

Don't want to put you off, but I work for an AV contractor that deals with all the big finance houses in these flashy buildings all across London. I haven't dealt with the Gherkin, but they're usually all the same. I guess they need heightened security what with 9/11, 7/7 etc, but a smile now and then would be nice....

The class system is still evident in these buildings. Most contractors wear polo shirts with the company's logo, but we get all of our guys to wear a shirt and trousers so that they blend in a bit with the traders. They certainly get treated a lot better throughout the building!

When I get back to work in a couple of weeks (currently on the sick recovering from an op), I'll have to pop round and hold you to that offer!

[quote name='Rich' post='184515' date='Apr 24 2008, 02:11 PM']Give that man a coconut [/quote]

Was I right? Is that all? I was hoping, at the very least, to have won one of CK's Musicmans??????

Let me guess, a bumper sticker, mug and signed Basschat t-shirt?

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='184512' date='Apr 24 2008, 01:56 PM']- any guesses? [/quote]
By the window shape - is it the Gherkin in London?

[quote name='ahpook' post='184417' date='Apr 24 2008, 11:45 AM']a band i was in years ago played metroland at the metrocentre once.

that was weird...massive PA, kids on fun rides...and a bunch of us crusties playing...[/quote]

As a teenager, playing drums in both a church band and it's naughty spin off soul group, we regulary got to play the "town squares" in the Metrocentre, i.e. outside House of Fraser and C&A (as they were then, haven't lived up there for over 12 years, so not sure any more!)

They would either be church dos, or charity fairs (where we would be used to pull the crowds in).

The first bad one was when the church group had turned up to a regular Mothering Sunday service, but unbeknownst to us, as it was the first one after the Dunblane tragedy, the Bishop of Durham turned up to do a remembrance service along with the local media. I couldn't hear anything due to the poor PA and crazy acoustics, so was trying my best to keep with the band and not have a blazing row with them during the obviously sombre occasion. I remember my bass drum made it onto that night's news, but not me.

The second was when, as the soul group, we were trying to pull a crowd so a mental health charity could get people over and be interested in their cause. Unfortunately, while playing our faux Commitments numbers, one of the charity's, erm, benefitees(?) decided to dance to the music in the middle of the square.

At one point, it looked like the whole Metrocentre had stopped shopping and come over to laugh at this poor lady's antics. It was the largest crowd I have ever played to, but it was also the most embarrassing situation I have been in. When we stopped, and the laughing died down, I just remembered stunned silence, apart from the noise of popcorn bouncing off my toms, which some little urchins were dropping from the upstairs balcony.

Bump from me John.

I'd love to have the money and space to have this alongside my JV jazz - it's a beaut!

I need 5 strings though these days.

I don't know what the Americans have told you, but here's my laws of physics without knowing the amps or cabs you mention:

There are two main ways to connect multiple speakers via cabling alone. In series, or in parallel.

In parallel, the easiest way to think of it, if you use equal impedance drivers, is that you halve the impedance when you add two toogether. For example, an 8 ohm driver plus an eight ohm driver would equal a total 4ohm load. This is not so simple if you were trying to wire an 8ohm driver in parallel with a 6ohm one, and there is a formula to follow, but I'm trying to keep this simple.

In series, you effectively add the impedances up, so 8 ohm plus 8 ohm would be a 16 ohm load.

In answer to your direct questions, plugging a 4 ohm cab into each socket is likely to be a parallel connection and give you a 2ohm overall, so not good for your amp. Unless Marshall do something clever with your wiring, it will have the same effect as plugging one cab in and then daisy chaining to the next, It's all parallel wiring.

If you are replacing drivers with 2x16 ohm drivers, then in each cab these would need to be wired in parallel to give you 8ohm total per cab. (If you wired in series, you'd end up with 32ohm).

You could then parallel two cabs to get a total of 4ohms.

That is all from my rusty electronics memory, and hopefully matches with America. If not, and I got something wrong, I'm happy to be flamed!

Hello and welcome. I'm not really one of the "official greeters", but thought I'd say hello as I too stated out as a drummer.

I tried bass because I could never find a decent bass player to jam with (was always a case of the worst guitarist having to "drop" onto bass).

I've never looked back really, although I do still dabble with the sticks occasionally.

Unfortunately our band's drummer is a left hooker, so I just end up confused if I try and have a shot on his kit!

Electronic tuners as opposed to what? Tuning by ear?

I once did FOH sound for a "supergroup" consisting of Noel Redding on bass, Eric Bell (Thin Lizzy) on guit/vox and John Coughlan (Status Quo) on drums.

Noel/Eric spent about 20 mins tuning up independently just before the "curtain", and then as they started to play, were about a tone out and had to stop and start again. I think it was Noel who had just tuned up using his ear, but possibly both.

Mind you, it was only about a year before Noel died, and he looked pretty frail. I can remember clamping my "Huge Hand" onto his shoulder to ask him to play something for a line check, and I nearly shattered his bones.

Still, it was great to meet a legend!

[quote name='clauster' post='179746' date='Apr 18 2008, 01:51 PM']Until 6 months ago I lived in Southwater, just 5 miles from Partridge Green.[/quote]

Very nice part of the world. Both sets of "grandparents-in-law" live in Stenying.

A guy in a shop once told me that the difference was [i]"...a jazz was a precision that had melted"[/i] referring to the less rounded shape by the control pots!