paulbuzz

Bought a pedal from Pete - speedy, helpful, and friendly message responses, quick posting and well packed. Many thanks, Paul

In 1979, at the second touring-band gig I had ever attended, I spent the whole gig crushed against the stage directly in front of Algy and his blasting natural-finish Fender P, thinking it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. This definitely had an impact on my choice of a natural finish P-copy (Satellite!) to learn on when I started playing bass not too long after. Thanks Algy. The gig was at the local university and was meant for the students, but lots of us local kids had blagged our way in. Before the Damned started, I had wormed my way to the front of the packed bar queue, to be confronted by an intimidatingly mature (student-aged!) barman. Not wanting to push my luck too far, I squeaked "A... half of lager, please". He glared at my blatantly underaged visage and growled "This is a punk rock gig. You'll have a pint or you'll have nothing." "Er... ok... a... pint of lager, please" I squeaked back. He served me and I fled, victory pint in hand.

Nice! Enjoyed it, and the other couple of songs on Spotify too.

Ahh, I too still have my much-used and much-loved Trace Elliot GP11 Mark 4 preamp, identical to yours as pictured above; great sound and completely bomb-proof construction. Haven't used it in anger for ages, but my emotional attachment to it probably outweighs the paltry sum it would be sellable for. It's certainly earned the houseroom for a quiet retirement!

In case it helps: the Boss website says that the WL-50 uses 60mA in normal operation, and 320mA while charging the transmitter. Edit: just seen that this info has already been posted above. Just ignore me!

I'm sure your pedal would cope fine with phantom power being applied to it; all modern equipment does, unless designed by a lunatic. My personal rule is that any equipment that would be killed by the application of phantom power should be killed by the application of phantom power. 🙂 (With very rare exceptions for vintage ribbon mics)

Another vote for the Joyo American Sound - ridiculously good for the price. Also the Danelectro Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive (Version 1) - a clone of the Paul Cochrane Timmy. They altered it slightly for the Version 2 variant after getting a lot of grief for cloning a one-man builder's original circuit.

For live versions of Stay, this is the one that does it for me. The end section is really cooking on gas.

This has nothing to do with bass playing, and it's definitely a bit unfair to Tony Visconti, but it is very funny...

Yes, I think so; it's fairly spacious under the main board as far as I can remember. There was certainly no problem finding space for my output level pot below the 'Mode' control. I would think there's almost certainly space for another pot in the equivalent position on the right hand side (ie below the 'Start' control). There's probably even space for a couple more below the 'Blend' and 'Stop' controls... 😁 Desoldering the internal trim pot for the distortion level control would just be mildly fiddly, I expect. As far as I can remember, I did have a bit of trouble desoldering the expression input jack, but managed ok in the end. As you can see, once it was rewired I replaced it upside down, to keep the new connections away from the board. As you can also see, I managed to acquire a matching EHX knob to go on my new output level control, though I can't remember where from now - it was definitely somewhere slightly obscure - a shop in Finland possibly...?!

Ah, that's just an extra effect output jack, wired in parallel with the original one, purely for convenience in placing/cabling the pedal on a board. Hope the pics/notes I made above are sufficiently helpful - I don't want to derail the thread with a long and detailed description of my efforts (Is it even possible to derail an eleven year old thread...? 😁 ) but I can post more detail if you want.

Hm, I think most of the interesting stuff is probably slightly hidden under the main board, and I think getting the board in and out was the most challenging part of the process, so wouldn't be too keen to repeat it unnecessarily. Electronically it was all pretty simple (just as well, as I'm no electronics expert). It just involved identifying and hacking into various points where signal was coming in or out of the pedal anyway: - the output volume control is at the very end of the circuit, so accessed at the bypass footswitch - the effect loop was added at the footswitch for the built-in distortion - it's in the 'non-distortion' signal path, and yes, it's (usefully) post-envelope detector - the footswitch for the expression-pedal input was hacked in at the expression input socket This all works extremely well despite my mediocre electronic skills and technique, so definitely wouldn't be hard for anyone competent to duplicate.

Ha, all credit to you Loz! - I haven't done that kinda thing for a while now! Perhaps your energy levels are holding up better than mine! (56 now, I think!) 😁

Maybe it's also partly to do with playing opportunities: I still love that bright grindy tone, but it wouldn't suit any of the music I play these days as a middle-aged fart. I feel like the opportunities for me to sound like that have largely disappeared - in 2021, who wants to listen to to a load of old farts playing the kind of aggressive indie-ish music in which I used to use that bass sound? And would I still have the energy to play that music convincingly anyway...? 😆

I have one and and really like it, but for me it was greatly improved by a few simple mods: 1) Added an output level control to match up the volume between effect & bypass, which varies greatly depending on the settings 2) Added an effects loop to allow patching in a fuzz of my choice instead of the built in one 3) Added a footswitch (& indicator LED) to switch between envelope control and the expression pedal input

Must have had Dave Parsons on guitar, surely...? But certainly Sham without Pursey isn't worthy of the name. According to Wikipedia they currently have 3/4 of the classic lineup (including Pursey), though whether that means they're any good or not I've no idea. Edit: ah, I see they're one of those bands where different band lineups exist simultaneously - in this case fairly plainly a 'proper' version and a 'fake' version... sounds like you were unlucky enough to catch the fake version...? ☹️

No loopers for you then! 😄

Everyone knows that if it's a great gig, it's because the band were great, and if it's a terrible gig it's because the soundman was rubbish! 😉

Useful item (indeed, I too have made these in the past), but... £45 for one pot in a box...! 😧

Ok, out in the carpark, you two! 😄 In practice it's all contextual, innit? In a loud rock band, where you're struggling to get enough vocal level without feedback, mic-to-lips is essential, as EBS suggests, with some bass rolloff to counter the proximity effect. In a quieter context where feedback (and spill) isn't an issue, backing off the mic a bit will often give a more natural result, as Dad says.

I'm with the dog.

Careful eq is always the most important thing; rolling off a bit of bass is often useful to counter the mic's proximity effect, especially in the common 'lips-up-against-the-mic' scenario. Apart from that... Reverb on vocals in a live context is only really important if a) you're performing outside or in a particularly acoustically dead room, or... b) you're playing particularly empty/spacious music, or... c) you're playing a genre of music that is expected to have super-reverby vocals Otherwise reverb often just tends to get lost whilst also muddying up the overall sound. A bit of shortish delay with very little feedback is often better for achieving the effect that people usually try to use reverb for. It's very important to be able to turn it off between songs though; it doesn't work well for announcing the next song! Compression is very useful for evening-out the level differences between the loud and the quiet parts of the singing - especially if the singer doesn't have the mic technique to do this themselves. However, as others have noted already, it can worsen feedback problems if the singer is quiet, or if you're already struggling to get enough level on the vocals. Other effects are mostly inessential candy. Modern harmony-generating effects could bring a lot of added value, but I think it would take a lot of preparation and experience to really get them working well, even with the right gear.