Twincam

My 20t despite having slightly different eq points has the eq set similar. Generally the bass slightly cut, mids and treble slightly boasted. 

I will add to the above good advice that a shim should be as thin as possible you don't need to make the neck angle huge, just enough to get the action you need. Experiment with folded paper you be surprised how thin a shim often needs to be. Then if you wish you can make the shim out of a different material to the size required. 

2 minutes ago, gpw5150 said:

@Twincam Yes, red 

I'm not sure about those calculations but the faital pro 8fe200 looks a big improvement over what's in there now. 

I've worked on a number of basses and other instruments with the same or similar setup. And they can be a right pain to get even volume. 

If the above advice doesn't work about making sure the bridge piece bottom is flat and the piezo slot is clean and flat. Then cut the bridge in half carefully! I use a Stanley knife heated. And cut NOT where a string lays but inbetween a and d obviously. This spreads the tension more evenly. Has worked every time on a difficult bass.

1 hour ago, gpw5150 said:

So, I modelled it;  Have no idea what I am doing!  I made the volume 84 litres of the box.

Thin Green is ported to 10cm with the SFE-200 driver - VAS 13.6 l

Thick Green is ported to 10cm with the  TF0818 - VAS 9.4 l

Red is sealed with the SFE-200 driver VAS 13.6 l

Blue is sealed with the Eminence Alpha VAS 17.1 l

Lower Blue is the TF0818 driver sealed - as is now.

The box resonance drops to 40Hz ported.

 

Did you model it sealed with the faital pro drivers you mentioned? 

Certainly you could replace the drivers with something that works better in that cab. You would have to calculate cab volume etc then model different driver specs. 

Yes you could self port too, but you would need to do a bit more work. 

After doing some very diy experiments porting things myself just for fun rather than out of need. I found it's a very steep learning curve. 

16 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

Sorry to disappoint, but an incoming Ampeg PF-50T has somewhat disincentivised the bass amp project. When I do get round to a build, it is now more likely to be based on a Supro guitar amp like this.

Enjoy the pf50t I have the pf20t it's fantastic, so I imagine the 50 is even more awesome. 

On 19/10/2018 at 13:10, converse320 said:

My PF20t exchange unit arrived today.  It is different in two respects.  Hum has almost completely gone - its perfectly acceptable now, in fact barely audible.   The amp overall is also noticeably louder.  There was clearly a fault on the first one, though the character of the sound hasn't really changed.   Big thumpy tones on tap.  I still can't get much in the way of change in tone with the gain turned up though - no noticeable change in tone regardless of the level of gain, just makes it louder.  Cab still MB 1516B - deafeningly loud now if you want it to be.

These need the eq to be turned up a bit more than usual then gain cranked up to get growl. The pf20t doesn't have as much gain as the pf50t. But you can certainly get growl and overdrive just all the settings need to be fairly high. 

Better picture. That doesn't look right to me will buy a new valve and hope it solves it. 

My pf20t has a slight mechanical sounding buzz on low trailing notes. I tried the amp with another bass and another little speaker I had and the sound is still there. 

Tapped on the valves no microphonics. However I noticed one 12ax7 looks much brighter than the other (pic attached) in fact it's even brighter on one of it's sides to the other. I swapped the valves around and the brighter and dimmer valve is not because of the socket position it's following the valve.

The noise is still there maybe not as much but could just be me thinking that. I also noticed an improvement in gain and tone when swapping the valves. They are the same ruby valves but one is a hg and the other a hg+. The hg+ is supposed to be in v1 but the amp sounds better and stronger for it in the other position. 

I'm hoping it's just a valve going funny. Was going to try some different valves anyhow. But if not the amp will have to go back. 

Excellent! So will there be a thread on this. I would be very interested to see how this turns out. 

I was reading about phase inverters last weekend. My lass seen what I was reading rolled her eyes and called me sad 😂 haha!

2 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

Does anyone have a schematic for the Ashdown Little Bastard 30? Or at least the output section. I have a project in mind...

May I ask what's the project? 

The Bugera amps are fairly well made from what I've seen personally and read. Often based on other manufactures designs. Sometimes they have stated there power ratings not in standard rms. The combo in question probably is 250 or so watts. 

It's probably a decent enough combo. However it lacks an extension speaker out which is often handy if you need to get more volume. 

Fender p bass (and alikes). Must be the most reliable bass to use, tone wise and in general reliability. 

And surely the most used in the music industry over the years. And used in every genre. Look how long it's been around and since the move to the split pu design it's not really changed. 

While im not a fan of the overly chunky neck ones, I literally can't say anything bad about them. 

Always thought these were cool. But the pu cover kinda looks slightly out of place. 

And I too think yours is the best colour. 

8 minutes ago, discreet said:

The 1x15 combos were a 'compact' option at the time, IIRC... I suppose compared to the truly  enormous Trace rigs, they were. Like I say, it's all relative.

I went down the road of very lightweight gear for a while - a BF One10 and a GK MB200, a very nice little rig - but it just didn't have the slam of a Trace or an Ashdown combo, nor would you expect it to, really. I found I had gone too far in sacrificing heft for portability. It's actually a difficult call sometimes...

I know it's been proved that one can't tell the sound of a Class D amp in a blind listening test, but recordings are one thing and gigs are another. I can't shake the feeling that there is something lacking with Class D, especially live! But that's been covered elsewhere.

At around about the time I had the TE combo I had a aguilar ag500 and a ashdown abm 500. The TE was the loudest and it's still the loudest solid state amp watt for watt I've heard. 

They should in theory help with more even output. In my experience non staggered poles vs staggered, I'm not sure I've noticed a difference between them once the pu is adjusted. Especially as with most setups the strings don't really follow the neck radius unless all strings are set the same height.

If you play directly over a staggered pole pu, with fingers. They can brush against each other which may or may not be an issue to you. 

6 minutes ago, discreet said:

My point is you don't have to have the TE sound if you don't want it.

Not a cliche at all, they ARE better built. Heavier, but better built.  Trace gear was pretty bloody expensive back in the day, but I seriously doubt it would be commercially viable now.

I looked up a 7215smc as i used to own one. Came across an old advert for a used one, in the ad they state it's a reasonably light weight combo.

Approx 34kg 🤣

30 minutes ago, discreet said:

Yes, TE amps have a 'sound'. But you can choose to change it. That's what the famed Graphic EQ is for. I don't use the pre-shape preset and I don't use the 'smiling face' EQ curve. Why would I? Whether or not they sound 'old fashioned' is up to the user, IMHO.

Does an Ampeg B15 sound old fashioned? Does an SVT sound old fashioned? 

And yes, they can be quite heavy. A Trace combo generally weighs more than a modern combo. But it's not like one is immovable and the other is a feather. It's all relative. A modern combo might be 15kg. It's light - for a bass amp. But you still wouldn't want to walk any great distance carrying it.

In short, hauling gear is always a bit of a pain in the àrse at the best of times, whether your combo weighs 15kg or 25kg. For me, both would require wheeled assistance if covering more than around 50 yards, so the weight advantage is moot.

I'm not a Trace fanboi by any means, but the combo I have does exactly what I want it to do, the build quality is astounding, it's stood the test of time (20+ years) and it was a bargain!

 

The b15 and svt tones are old fashioned but there timeless and imo more useable. You can pretty much still buy those amps new which says something. The te sound has a niche but it's not timeless. 

To me TE always sounds like a TE no matter what I did with the eq. Even though i didn't like the tone, i like amps that have a certain manufactures baked in character. And it's good people like different things. 

They were certainly well built. And I hate to sound cliched but they seem better built than a lot of modern stuff. Especially the combos. 

On 06/10/2018 at 23:12, project_c said:

Played through an old Trace Elliot head / cab today and I could not get a decent tone out of that thing no matter what I did. I'm not sure of the exact model, looked like a similar era to the AH300, red gain knob, green volume knob, 'baked-in tone' on/off switch, going into a Trace 1048H 410 cab, and it just sounded terrible whatever I tried. It was boomy, honky and undefined, and the EQ was there, but not really helping. The gain either sounded like it wasn't being pushed, or it would suddenly sound like it was being pushed too hard and straight to fart city. Basically pretty much everything you don't want from a bass amp. I could also not dial out the horrible nu-metal tone that was lurking under all the woolly boxy terribleness. I was playing a Fender Jazz through it, no pedals, so nothing unusual there, but it was a struggle for sure. 

I'm not hating on TE, I have a knackered Commando combo which I love and use regularly, but I'm thinking I might be missing something with these old heads and cabs, anyone have any suggestions for how I can get something useful out of them next time?

 

I have almost the same experience with older TE gear. Including liking a knackered old commando I briefly had. 

Bass amps have moved on so much since TE were in there prime so to say. That isn't to say the older amps don't have there place. TE amps are loud, the ones still going seem to be reliable, and there often found reasonably priced. And while I don't like there tone many people do. But compared to most modern amps the classic TE tone sounds a bit dated to me, or is that the tone is out of fashion maybe. 

On 13/10/2018 at 15:38, The59Sound said:

The amount of bad setups on basses out there that make demo vids unbearable! 

This is true. 

Good example of double p pickup tone. 

What's there tone like? 

Classic flat or more brighter like fenders or eb cobalts?

Here are some pictures of my refinished USA Musicman sub. The only critic of these basses is the rather industrial factory finish. And the terrible scratch plate.

I had already taken the painted finish off the rear of the neck and applied a linseed oil and final tru oil satin finish. And I bought a used scratch plate 

Thankfully I have full use of my cousins car body garage, with a proper oven spray booth . I did the initial sanding, which I fully stripped off. And very kindly he did the final spraying. He has a colour mixing thing that has thousands of colours available. I choose a suitable red, I didn't want to go too fancy, flake finishes and candy colours are available but not my thing. 

Just to point out the red is darker than in most of the pictures.

With original industrial body finish. The new plate and oiled neck already made a big improvement.

Mid stripping of the finish. Was very tough on the front. I had to use an 80 grit on the dual action sander. Even then it wasn't easy going. The sides and back were not as bad. The front would of been extremely difficult by hand.

After first coat of primer. It got two coats in all then sanded to level it. 

Just after painting. 

And here it is all built and set up. I think it looks really good. It plays excellently, while the paint was hardening I levelled the frets, recrowned and polished them like a mirror. Middle up close picture, is a true representation of the colour. 

The finish I asked to kept as thin as possible, but still being resistant and getting a good colour. The tone has changed very slightly, and i swear to me the strings move subtly more (I re used the same strings and same exact setup specs). I don't know if it was the refinish as it was very thick originally and now much thinner. Or the fret job, because I often notice with both mine and customers instruments, that sometimes a good fret job can make an instrument not only play and feel better but they seem to sound subtly better. 

Next up is to lacquer the headstock. Like they do on the "full fat" ones. I almost was going to refinish and colour code the headstock and apply a decal, but wanted to keep some originality. Even though it says sub bass, which those not in the know might confuse with the Sterling brand china/Indonesia made ones. 

I'm very happy! 

22 hours ago, ebenezer said:

I take all my basses to Aidan, does a fantastic job.....they have never played so well !!

Cheers Mark always happy to help.