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JapanAxe

⭐Supporting Member⭐
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Everything posted by JapanAxe

  1. Got some more done last night - PI and Normal channel. ALL BUILD PICS NOW IN POST DATE 01/11/2025
  2. Robert bought some cables from me and all went swimmingly, despite me being a numpty and mis-typing my bank details first time around!
  3. I worked out that I am currently working on around 65 songs for upcoming gigs, some on bass, some on guitar. Despite that I managed to fit in some build time this evening and wired up the Bass channel: ALL BUILD PICS NOW IN POST DATE 01/11/2025
  4. I played on the country music club circuit for a few years, and the target audience was mainly 70+ with the kind of outlook that you might predict. I joined a band where it became apparent that the drummer was very much of the persuasion (how can I put this?) ‘Stop the boats’. Now and then we’d work with another musician - let’s call him ‘Ken’ - who got frozen off Facebook for a month for his unsavoury comments about the adherents of a certain religion prevalent in North Africa and the Middle East. The band and WAGs were around a table in a break discussing an upcoming gig, and Mrs Axe asked, ‘Will racist Ken be playing?’ The drummer’s face was something to behold! I’m aware that some musicians that I play with hold political opinions far removed from my own. The same goes for some members of my extended family. I didn’t know the musicians’ views before I started playing with them, and my family are my family come what may. Online, it’s easy to end up in a bubble where we only hear our own views reflected back at us. In the real world I prefer to avoid that. But if a band is looking for players on the basis of a particular world view that jars with me - for example conspiracy theories, which I’ve seen more than once - I’ll give it a miss.
  5. A bunch of budget patch cables for whatever purpose you desire! 9x 50cm straight 1x 90cm straight 2x 50cm angled 4x 30cm angled All tested and working fine. Lengths are conservative and exclude plugs. £10 the lot delivered in the UK.
  6. With more shiny things acquired or heading my way, it's time to clear some space on my pedal shelf. Maxon AD999 Analog Delay This is a stellar analog delay that I've owned for 20 years and never thought I'd sell. In my country band it was always on, either as a slapback or a longer atmospheric delay. In recent years I have come to want modulation and preferably tap tempo, and sadly this has neither. Maxon developed their own BBD chips, of which this has eight (8), giving a maximum delay time of 900ms. The delay sound is clear and sweet, but not squeaky clean like a digital delay. Here's a Guitar Player review. Excellent condition, boxed with manual. £160 delivered in the UK. Arion SAD-3 Analog Delay Probably analog delay's last gasp before the Carbon Copy brought about its resurgence. Unlike the SAD-1, this squeezes up to 200ms out of a single Panasonic MN3208 BBD chip. Consequently the delay is short, dark, and somewhat low in level unless you whack up the Depth control. In excellent condition with box and manual. £65 delivered in the UK. Walrus Audio Fundamental Reverb Provides 3 types of reverb, of which the Plate is my favourite. The Mix control allows you to dial in more reverb than dry signal, right up to 100% wet, so it can be used in a series loop (most amps) or parallel (some Laneys). In very good condition, with hook velcro on the base for fitting straight onto your pedal board. £95 delivered in the UK. FuzzDog Micro-V Envelope Filter Built by me from a FuzzDog kit, the circuit is based on a Mutron Micro V. All works as it should, but after an initial burst of wack-wacka lunacy, I kind of lost interest and have never found myself needing it on a pedalboard. Rubber feet on the base. The white spray-painted finish has sustained a couple of nicks, otherwise it is as you see it. Yours for £45 delivered in the UK. Boss AC3 Acoustic Simulator Does what it says on the tin - turns your clean electric sound into a passable facsimile of an acoustic. I think it sounds best with 'G. AMP OUT' into a clean guitar amp. In excellent condition with box and manual. £60 delivered in the UK. Burford Electronics Robot Ring Modulator (with useful mods) Not just any robot but one that has been out on the lash, scranned a kebab, had a fight, tried to shag a dustbin, and is now throwing up in a shop doorway - that's the sound you're hearing! You're probably not going to play Valerie through this but great fun can be had by tuning the oscillator to the key of the song and letting rip. (Some oscillator signal is audible when the pedal is engaged but nothing is being played.) This came to me faulty but I have rectified the wiring issues. I have also made it more user-friendly by adding a 9V power inlet (was previously battery-only) and a status LED. Some dings to the paintwork as per the photos. Comes with instructions. £75 delivered in the UK. WITHDRAWN because of an intermittent fault that I can't fix. Danelectro Cool Cat Tremolo A lovely optical trem. I think it shares the circuit with the earlier Tuna Melt (which I used to own) and the more recent Billionaire Filthy Rich. I was going to keep this but That Pedal Shelf is struggling under the weight... Controls for Speed and Depth, plus the Hard setting on the Hard/Soft switch takes you straight to choppy square-wave mode. In excellent condition with box - yours for £40 posted in the UK. Dazatronyx Optical Tremolo As far as I know, a unique design, hand-built in Australia. You don't see many over here. Controls for Rate, Tuning, and Boost. Tuning is kind of like depth but also affects the overall volume, and you then compensate with the Boost to taste. Mechanical true bypass switching. Operates from a standard 9V boss-style adaptor or a PP3 battery. In excellent condition, and just look at that artwork! No box, velcro on the base ready for your pedalboard! £85 posted in the UK.
  7. I’ve used Vistaprint but carefully avoided all the upsells!
  8. Yeah I picked up the Daleks in a bag of little toys from a variety charity shop. They are genuine Dr Who merch. They sit on springs so if I tap my foot when I’m playing, they dance around. They each respond to different BPMs! I’m very happy with the Adams. And yes I have a bit of a thing with pedals - on skinny-string guitar anyway. I keep buying the buggers and I’m long overdue a clear out (watch the Classifieds).
  9. Each of the output taps that I have used (4ohm and 8ohm) has a jack socket and a Speakon socket in parallel. I'll always use the Speakon socket (unless I have no other choice) and the plug locks into place on those. There is no impedance selector swith - I don't trust them!
  10. Another gap occasioned by visiting family, holidays, and a load of gigs. Tonight I wired up the input socket, deep switch, and some connections on the preamp valves. ALL BUILD PICS NOW IN POST DATE 01/11/2025
  11. Here's mine as I left it last night before hitting the sack. I do try to keep the desktop clear but small objects gradually accumulate, either because I haven't found a home for them yet or because I haven't got round to restoring them to said home. On this occasion I stayed up re-doing the cabling on the smaller (direct-to-PA) board, which involved swapping a cable from the larger board. They are both for skinny-string guitar btw.
  12. Well there's a novelty, never come across that before!
  13. Go along the lines of ‘I’ve realised it’s not really for me’ rather than ‘I can’t see this going anywhere’.
  14. For those without the time or inclination to trawl through the build thread, here are some specs: James tone stack (independent treble and bass) Cathode biased power amp Pre-amp valves: 2x Sylvania 6SL7GT, JAN standard Output valves: 2x Shuguang 6L6GC 'coke bottle', modern production Rectifier valve: JJ GZ34 Transformers: Primary Windings Speaker output jacks: 4ohm, 8ohm, 16ohm (use only one at a time!) Output power: measured at 22.5W RMS Dimensions: approx. 31cm W x 20cm H x 25cm D
  15. You have a singer who helps with the load out? Hold onto them!
  16. This. I’ve measured (and felt!) 70-80V between the output of a 9V switched mode wall wart and ground. Earthing the connected device made the problem go away.
  17. I’ve realised I put a different price in the body of the ad - no problem, happy to go with the £950!
  18. All our devices connect to the XR18 via an external router. If our devices don't have a good connection to the WWW immediately before we use them on the router's local network, Mixing Station seems to throw a wobbly about the licence - at least sometimes.
  19. I’ve had my XR18 about 18 months now. About the same time I got a lap steel with palm levers and had to learn an open tuning. They both had a steep learning curve but I started using the XR18 on rehearsals within a month, whereas I’ve just done my first lap steel gig. Even so, I keep finding things with the XR18 that I’m either doing wrong or could be doing better. I mainly use Mixing Station as it allows you to group together the controls you actually need on a couple of screens, plus I can set up other band members so that only mess up their own monitor mix! I occasionally use X-Air at home for deep dives to check what I’m doing. The biggest problem I have found with Mixing Station is locations where there is little or no Internet. MS then decides that one or more users doesn’t have an iOS Pro licence and we have to go somewhere with Internet to refresh the licence. It’s a right palaver doing that 4 times in a row before playing a note!
  20. Now for sale in BC Marketplace!
  21. This is a single-channel take on the venerable Ampeg B15, sitting somewhere between the Heritage model and the Ceriatone 'Aunt Peg', but without the fixed bias option. The build blog is here and I suggest any prospective purchaser should read it carefully to get an idea of: How much care went into this build, along with the quality of the components. The problems I encountered and the fact that they have all been ironed out! The specifications. This was far from being my first amp-build rodeo, and I feel that I did a quality job on it. The amp has seen a lot of use over the last 4 years as a luxury practice amp in my home studio / practice room. I built it to use, not to sell, but I now find myself with (a) too many amps, (b) not enough space, and (c) a hankering after various other shiny things. I'm looking for £950 collected or by way of mutually convenient meet-up - it's not something that I would want to entrust to a courier. I'm based in Swindon, Wiltshire, but do travel around for gigs and to see family. The price reflects the cost of the components plus a tiny fraction of the many hours that I enjoyed putting it together. I will provide documentation (circuit diagram and layout) that should assist any tech that needs to work on it in the future. Some of the folks who attended the Big Fat South West Bass Bashes of 2024 and 2025 got the chance to hear this through my BF Super Twin - @Stub Mandrel, @Chienmortbb, @MichaelDean, @Pea Turgh, @Wolverinebass, @Sean - the latter played his new P-bass through it at full volume and produced so me very pleasing distortion!
  22. I would hate to be put in that position but yes, good call. There have been a couple of bands where my decision not to accept an offer to join has been based partly on their excessive volume.
  23. Faithless at Lakefest last night. I was playing on the VIP stage after Reverend and the Makers’ main stage set - heard them but didn’t see them as the VIP stage was immediately behind one of the big screens flanking the main stage, so when you looked left from our stage you saw the huge crowd! After we’d packed down I went out front with Mrs Axe and our son and DIL and caught most of the Faithless set. If I say I’d never seen or heard anything like it, it’s because I have close to zero experience of EDM. I was pleased to see a ‘real’ bass (some kind of J-type 5-string) and guitar (Jazzmaster) alongside drum kit, percussion, and keyboards (no doubt with sequencers). I have played Insomnia in a party band but didn’t recognise the songs except for God Is A DJ and a cover of a Dido song. Some of the songs were accompanied by videos featuring a guy who wasn’t on the stage, and who I later found out was late member Maxi Jazz. I have to say the performance was as tight as a very tight thing. Not my thing but I was glad of the experience.
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