JapanAxe

Managed to find time to mark up the main board, and mark and centre-punch a lot of the chassis - transformers, output valves, front and rear panels. I've re-positioned some of the rear panel stuff so as to sit between the valve socket positions. I'm leaving the rest until I can test fit some of the components.

Oooh! I'm not a big effects user when it comes to bass but that sounds very tempting.

Actually last week but…

First full rehearsal with new singer. She is great, easy to work with, and sings in a positive way that’s nice for me to harmonise with. Mostly on IEMs (drummer has electronic kit) but ran a mix through the PA too and someone made a phone recording that I listened back to today - this is a band with potential methinks.

Nope, Mrs Axe is unreasonably supportive of my musical endeavours and the profligate gear acquisition that goes with it. The latter is (mostly) funded by gig money, and the bills all get paid, so the main sticking point is the space required - at present, an upstairs room, a downstairs cupboard, a chunk of the loft, and most of the space under the spare bed.

I consider myself lucky.

Layout pretty much complete.

I was going to stagger the 6L6 positions but I went back to Morgan Jones's 'Building Valve Amplifiers' and he says that (1) you can get away with mounting power valves closer together as long as they are not showing each other the wide faces of their plates, (2) mounting valves in the middle of a chassis limits convection cooling. Consequently I now have the 6L6s lined up just inside the rear chassis edge, oriented so that they each see the thin edge of their neighbours' plates. I plan to have a tag strip running parallel to the row to terminate the 1ohm 1% bias sense resistors, and possibly some other stuff.

I've also marked up the hole positions on the bias board - each side of the output transformer will have its own bias pot.

There's likely to be a couple of weeks' break now for holidays and stuff, so bear with me.

Payday bump!

On lead guitar last night with an ‘anthems’ band (all the predictable stuff that has punters losing their poop) at a nice old pub just outside Portsmouth. When I’ve played there previously I’ve noticed that single-coils pick up a lot of buzz, plus we’ve been in a ‘box’ area in the middle of the pub which made it feel very loud despite the earplugs that I always use.

This time, instead of a Strat I took my modded Steinberger Spirit with (noiseless) Lace Sensors as well as my Tele Deluxe (humbuckers). Also they gave us an area backing onto the front windows, which was much more open and allowed for better engagement with the audience as well as reasonable ventilation.

What a difference! The on-stage sound was loads better and my Steinberger has never sounded as good. The landlord is great with us, providing free drinks (which for us means coffee and soft drinks) and paying above the odds. The only downside was the long drive home to Swin Vegas.

I got mine when they were about £570 and it’s still been great value for money. The learning curve is steep and I still have to refresh my memory fairly frequently as to various settings and operations but it’s a great bit of kit.

On 22/06/2025 at 21:47, Mickeyboro said:

I’ll just re-state my original question, as it’s three pages back…

 

1. Can a band thrive if most of its members have other, clearly more interesting/lucrative interests?
2. If so, how do you manage/motivate them?

1. Yes, but there needs to be a consensus on how this will work, for example - first come, first served as far as gigs go. If I’ve agreed to do a gig, that gets priority. It goes in other band diaries as an unavailable date for me. If a ‘better’ opportunity comes along, I won’t blow out the existing one. I may try to negotiate an arrangement so that I can do the second gig, but I’ll never leave a band in the brown stuff.

I’m in the slightly unusual position of being an actual member of two bands (one a startup not yet gigging, the other gigging infrequently) and depping with at least five others. I mentioned diaries - some of those bands use the Teamup app, which is free and pretty simple to use. It saves a lot of to-and-fro messaging about who is available for what dates.

2. It sounds like you’re the bandleader here. I’ve done that twice - never again! I don’t think I can help with this one, other than to ask: If they lack motivation to play with your band, they probably shouldn’t be doing it!

25 minutes ago, TrevorR said:

…

 

I’ve also never felt the need for sweepable mid controls in a bass - too much room for error and dialling in a bad tone. A simple, well designed, fixed centre mid control gives me more than enough of a “punch” control in 99.9% of circumstances.

I agree, it’s bad enough having to think about how much to cut/boost the mids, without having to decide which mids!

2 hours ago, la bam said:

Morning all. 

 

Our band is all iems. 

 

We go straight into our own mixer and do our own sound. 

 

However, we are now lining up a tour where we will be going through the venues sound guy and pa. 

 

Is there any way you all use where we can keep our iems and mixes etc but send a separate feed for each instrument to the sound guy/foh. 

 

Like an xlr splitter etc? Does anyone have any experience with these or similar? 

Not a true analog split but I use this in a couple of bands. Only works on Behringer or Midas kit with the Ultranet system though. I have it set so that each output is a copy of the corresponding channel input immediately after the gain control - which you need to remember not to mess with, but thankfully the sound tech can’t either! It’s in the bottom rack space here, connected to to my XR18 via a single ethernet cable:

And here’s a handy video from Scott Uhl, who I’ve found to be a great resource on all things wireless:

FWIW I once compared the Line Out from my Markbass Nano 300 to the untreated input signal. I couldn’t tell the difference.

Today I re-drew the main board layout and stuck it onto the full-size chassis plan. I need to do a layout for the bias board before I get too far along with this.

Yes.

I take whatever is right for the gig, regardless of what I paid for it.

4 minutes ago, RichT said:

… start with the controls centred and work slowly from there. In practice I usually end up with a slight bass boost, then on a 2 band eq I'll use the treble like a tone control to brighten/darken to suit the song. This often means my treble ends up below centre in a 'cut' poisition. 

 

If you have a 3 band then the Mid control is your "poke through the mix" control. Turn the mids up to be more prominent in the mix, turn them back to sit back inside it. Nothing wrong in changing that from song to song either. When I have a 3 band I do tend more to set the treble once and then leave it alone, and then the Mid becomes my 'tone' control instead. No point in making things unnecessarily complicated. 

 

 

This is pretty much what I do on my one active bass. I tend to prefer passives but this approach works for me.

25 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

It's a popular search engine.  You need to get out more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ah… Duck Duck Go. Yes I’m aware of their work.

6 minutes ago, SpondonBassed said:

 

They look okay.  The only improvement I'd make to that might be to use flush fitting bolts complete with ferrules similar to neck bolts but with machine threads.

 

You'd need ferrules with a 90 degree countersink to match the bolts.  It looks like it could be made to work from the light skim reading I did with the help of a pair of gogo ducks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good idea! But… gogo ducks?

After a lot of measuring, lining up, measuring again etc, the cage nuts are now installed in the chassis and it bolts neatly into the headshell. The M6 bolts are some that I had in stock and I may end up changing them for something prettier.

For me, the hardest part about gigging now is the late nights. If I have a gig where I'm going to be late to bed I try to have a lie-in on the morning and/or have a 30-40 minute snooze around 4pm. Last autumn I did a gig where I was giving the sound guy a lift and had to get him home the same night/morning as he had a lunchtime gig the next day. I didn't see my bed till 4am and I was basically wiped out for 2 whole days after the gig.

Normal service now resumed!

A couple of weeks ago Mrs Axe decided that decorating the landing, stairs and hallway, and fitting new skirting boards and carpet in the latter, was suddenly The Most Urgent Thing In The World Ever. While I was at it I took the opportunity to re-route some ugly cabling and hide it in the walls and behind the new skirting board.

The Draper chisel arrived nice and sharp, so rather than blunt it by trying to sharpen it further, I set to easing the upward-bowed edge of the chassis shelf. I was able to get it so that the chassis went in freely, and I smoothed the chiselled surface down with various grades of sandpaper and gave the raw wood a couple of coats of clear satin varnish to match the existing finish. I won't be winning any woodwork prizes but now I can press ahead with the build - yay!

I've carefully measured and marked up the chassis lips for where the M6 cage nuts will go and drilled them out with an 8.5mm square bit. Only joking, I've drilled 7mm diameter holes and will need to file them out square to take the cage nuts. I've had to widen the existing mounting holes in the top of the headshell to take M6 bolts.

I've decided to use spring retainers for the 6L6 valves rather than bear traps as there won't be the amount of vibration that you'd get in a combo - and I hate those bleedin' bear traps! I also did a quick review of my components and realised I was missing a few bits so I added them to the order.

It's good to be back in the saddle!

Wow, bargain there for someone! My D-Roc gets a lot of playtime at Axe Towers.

21 minutes ago, shoulderpet said:

I'm looking at iems at the moment and is a bit overwhelming especially being a bit neurospicy, can you really get decent sound attenuation from a set of in ears? I was looking at a set of Shure SE215 and it says up to 37db of attenuation,  I am sceptical but hoping I am wrong

 

Also do you normally get a selection of different size tips? I am a little reluctant to fork out for iems only to find that they don't fit and are letting in a load of outside noise

 

Thanks

I have a set of SE425s and they do give a lot of attenuation, more than my ACS earplugs which are 'up to' 26dB. They also come with a range of tips in different types and sizes - bear in mind you may need a different size in each ear.

Folks on here may be aware of the stellar work of NI builder Golden Era Guitars and his previous SC Relics output.

I've owned and played this guitar a couple of years, having tried it when a friend owned it and begged him to give me first refusal should he ever come to sell it. It's unfeasibly good but I have another T-type that just edges it (and cost considerably more), plus I've just made my first foray into the dangerous world of Gardiner Houlgate Guitar Auctions, and have something I need to pay for...

Here are the specs, courtesy of the included COA:

Built in March 2020
Body
Custom Paisley with Ocean Turquoise Metallic Burst
Curved Neck Pocket
Nitro Finish
Lightly Aged with Craze Checking
Neck
One Piece Maple
C Profile
9.5" Radius
Aged Tint, Nitro Finish
Electronics
Radioshop ID Pickups
5-10 Overwind on Neck
Paper in Oil 0.047 Tone Cap
Treble Bleed
CTS 250k TVT Pots
CRL 3 Way Switch
Hardware
Gotoh
Weight
7lbs 2.5oz

The guitar comes with a nice light aluminium-finish hard case. (I'll add a pic of that once the daylight returns.) See below.

Looking for £1,300 - no trades thanks. Although I prefer to avoid courier delivery, I am not averse to a little drive out and meet-up, within reason. In fact I'm always happy to meet another Basschatter! I live in Swindon, Wiltshire.

The delightful photos below are from my friend's 2023 listing. You can propbably tell that he's a professional photographer. Obviously his Vox amp is not included. Currently strung with Elixir Optiweb 10s.

Just now, Bass Direct said:

I dont think the P can emulate a Jazz, and certainly it cant be done the other way round, the solution is to have both

 

In a range of finishes!

My back hurts just from looking at the pictures in this thread!