bbrich

We sometimes do inexplicable things. I sold my Yamaha BBN5 bass last year having fitted a (second) replacement nut on it. I bought it on Denmark Street back in 1996. I was passing through London on business and had too many expenses in my pocket. It had a natural waxed finish and FIVE strings and was, therefore, going to revolutionse my playing. It didn't. It just irritated me every time I picked it up. It didn't balance too well, the pups were weak and characterless, it had skinny frets and the driest looking rosewood fingerboard that you've ever seen. No amount of lemon oil would put any sheen on it. I love rosewood, but not that piece. The control cavity wasn't shielded either so it would hum and buzz if you got too close to a computer monitor or your amp. Crap really. Two questions. Why did I buy it and why did I keep it so long?

Yes that's right - Saudi Arabia. Somewhere in the Middle East as it used to be called. I'm actually from Stockport just south of Manchester but I've been contract working here for over thirty years and been playing bass for most of 'em. Get home every three months or so, but my music is all done here. My main bass is a heavily customized red Westone Thunder IIIA. EMGs, Badass, EMG BTC. All that's left is the original wood but it fits me like a glove and sounds really tight through my ancient Trace Elliot 715 combo and the PA. I bought it from the Bass Centre in 1986 and all the mods have been done by them. Its probably done more air miles than most Westones and gets new strings before every gig. I also have a gorgeous Schecter Omen Extreme 5. The black cherry flamed maple contoured top looks fantastic and it sounds good too - just roll the bottom off a bit. Plus the usual Precision but with a Warmoth neck, Badass bridge and split EMG, an Ovation Applause acoustic bass, a Vintage acoustic bass and a Steinberger Spirit headless 4 string in white - purely for posing. As well as the (currently being reconditioned) TE 715 I have an equally ancient Marshall 100w combo and a really, really ancient Ohm Tramp 15w practice amp that just refuses to quit. Its played every rehearsal for the past 25 years so it doesn't surprise me that they don't make bass amps any more. I also have a Roland Micro Cube EX Bass which is neat, a Boss ME50B which isn't, a Boss DI box and a spare room full of PA cabs, desks, stands, etc, etc. I also look after the bands backing tracks (!!) via a PowerBook, Logic Pro, Alesis keyboard and a Roland MC80 sequencer. I manage and play in a covers/function band that's been playing the private circuit here for twenty years or so. We get to play roughly every 6 weeks and at any one time there will be one of us on holiday or away on business and there's never been a keyboard player in town - hence the MIDI. I suppose my musical influences started with Motown and from there migrated to glam-rock with Roxy, Bowie, Reed, Queen which in turn became prog-rock with Floyd, Genesis, etc. Then, in 81, I came to Saudi and at that point my music went sideways since in 81 in Saudi there simply wasn't any. Without radio or any regular source of music we relied on stuff that we'd bring in from the UK and the States so "ones listening became diversified" to say the least. I wound up going down the jazz-funk road and bass playing followed soon after. The rest is history as they say. Looking forward to many more years of bass playing but not too many of them in Saudi. Cheers, bbrich

I've been looking at doing the same with my Ovation Applause AE140. I only use it for practice but, compared to my electric basses which have all been professionaly set up, the action is frustrating. It not [i]that[/i] high, just not low enough for me. Its between 5 and 6mm at the 12th fret compared to 2.5mm on my electrics. When you study an acoustic instrument it doesn't take long to work out that there really aren't any simple adjustments that can be made, other than the truss rod which only has a marginal affect on string height. If the neck to body joint has changed due to years of string tension trying to 'force' the neck down into the body in front of the sound hole, then its probably impossible to fix from a practical point of view at least. However, if the neck joint and body have not distorted then its the saddle that will have to be lowered. As mentioned earlier in the thread, depending on the type of pickup fitted, it may prove to be a complicated job. On the Ovation the underside of the saddle is 'castellated' so that it contacts the piezzo pickup in a particular way - making it very difficult to simply shave a milimetre or so off it. I don't know if the Alliance 800 is like that but its easy to find out. Just completely slacken the strings off and carefully ease the saddle out of its slot with soft pliers or tweezers - taking care not to scratch, chip, break or damage it in any way. Then you can see what the underside is like and make a decision. Having seen my bridge I gave up any ideas I had of doing the job myself and took to Google UK. After an hour or so (!!) I stumbled across this website http://www.chrisalsopguitar.co.uk He doesn't really mention acoustic basses much but all the principles are the same. There is a lot of useful information on this site even if the layout is a bit amateur. I've learned a lot just wading my way through it. He doesn't just talk about action height, he goes into the ins and outs of intonation - another non-adjustable aspect of acoustic instruments. You may want to check the implications of changing the gauge, type and manufacturer of strings. They all have an effect on intonation and different guages will have a different "pull" on the neck which can also affect the truss rod adjustment, the string height and possibly the neck-body relationship over time. Most of the acoustics I've tried or owned have had Light or Med-Light fitted. I've always assumed this was to keep the tension as low as possible so I've never gone more than a 100 gauge on the E string. I've decided that the next time I'm in the UK (I work in the Middle East) I'm going to send my Ovation saddle to this guy and request that he makes me two new ones with lowered heights AND compensated to fix an intonation problem I have with the E string. Probably gonna cost me forty quid or so. For me I think its worth the money it if takes the frustration out of trying to practice quietly. Incidentally, I'd never dream of trying to use an acoustic bass on stage, they feedback like crazy and I haven't heard one yet that sounds any good including both of mine, a few I've tried in shops and even one 'thousand-dollar-plus' Martin that a local chap plays. Don't give up though - its 'do-able', just might not be quick.

Thanks for the info. I've got the local electronics genius looking at it right now. I hope its something relatively simple like your AH200 dry joint. British Audio Spares don't have any major parts in stock for that generation of GP7 & AH so I'm hoping it can be fixed at component level.

Yes, thanks for those words of encouragement. I've just re-read my post and I've noticed that I left out a critical piece of information - I'm in Saudi Arabia. So the concept of buying a new amp back in the UK and flying it out here (these days) is a non-starter. The airline or the baggage handlers would probably demolish it. A full-flight case would be un-manageable. Buying online would incur prohibitive shipping costs and buying one here I'd be limited to a practice amp or at best an 80-watter. That's why I'm trying to find a repair solution. I'd consider buying a second-hand amp off e-bay next time I'm back in the UK and taking the amp head out of the cabinet. I could manage that. But if this is a common problem related to age (the amp not me) then I'd probably be no better off. Thanks for the response though - at least I know somebody's read my plee...

I bought my Trace Elliot 715 100w Combo way back in March 1991 and I've been using it probably 7 or 8 times a year since then. I'm very careful with my gear and the combo still looks almost new even though its over twenty years old. Considering its a single 15 inch speaker the sound is absolutely fantastic. I've had unsolicited compliments from a number of bassists and musicians over the years and I've become accustomed to the sound quality of this amp. So much so that I just don't feel comfortable with any other similar combos - Fender, Peavey, etc. Its not about money, they just don't sound as good to me. The amp started to develop a problem a few years back. By the time I would get towards the end of a gig the output volume would drop off dramatically. If I turned the amp off for a while it would recover - suggesting that something was overheating. I started to use a parallel back-up on stage (Marshall) in case the Trace failed. In the meantime I had an electronics man, and fellow musician, take a look at it. He said there was nothing wrong with the power amp side of things and he thought that the Input stage was failing - perhaps due to my "hard" playing style. I think the Trace Elliot Input stage of that era had a gradual cut-off whereby if the signal from the bass was too high or if the gain was too high then the warning light would slowly start to flash after which the input stage would reduce the amount of signal coming in. My friend checked the input stage and said that he couldn't find anything wrong with it. I got all new jacks and pots from the States and he fitted those just to be on the safe side and we left it at that. It appeared to be working fine until yesterday. At sound check the Trace wasn't working at all. With the bass volume flat-out and the input gain up full you could just about hear a faint distorted sound from the speaker. I had to use the Marshall and run through the PA as well. Has anybody out there encountered, or can remember encountering, a similar problem with this generation of the GP7 Pre Amp and does any body have a schematic of this model or any other ideas?