richrips

Is there any special trick for ebony boards? r

they use line 6 toneports at the Bass Institute. very simple and looked solid. Me and my friends all use Edirol UA 25's which have yet to break down. Rich

Changing from 8 to 4 ohms makes a very marginal difference to volume and is certainly not worth selling cabs to achieve. run one cab from each output. in to 8ohm cabs this will give you around 350 watts per cab. The relationship between watts and volume is not linear, meaning a 1000 watt amp is only twice as loud as a 100watt amp. you would need 10000watts to go twice as loud again, hence the difference between 350watts and 500watts is very small in audible terms. The easiest way to more volume is to boost the signal to the power amp (see my first post). Do you have any fx pedals? I hope that makes sense and helps! Cheers, Rich

i have an lg 1000 and had the exact same problem. the lg's have weak pre-amps. simple fix is to put a pedal in the effects loop to boost the signal going in to the power amp. i put an aphex punch factory in and it is now super ultra loud. If you feel more adventurous, there are schematics to put a boost circuit into the preamp as well. I use the lg with 2 BFM Jack 12 cabs and it's very very loud and even with the aphex, it still cost less than £250. deal! hope that helps, any pedal with clean boost will do. Rich

Hey thanks for all responses thus far! Really helpful. I shall get in touch with all those suggested fairly soonish and as soon as i've sold my sage green metallic jazz body i shall be putting in an order! Also feel free to recommend anyone else, the more the merrier. Thanks guys! Rich

Hi everyone, I want a jazz bass body made: Ash Lightish weight (but not too fussed..) interesting grain (if possible) 1 or 2 piece (again not too worried) 70's pickup placement (Warmoth want to charge $45 for this. I think that's a ludicrous premium for moving a router half an inch south!) I wondered if anyone on basschat could make a very very basic version of the above as cheaply as possible. Essentially i want someone to cut out a jazz outline and rout the neck pocket, pickups, and control cavity. No sanding or finishing, i'll do all that. I reckon someone on here should have the materials and skills to do this fairly cheaply. i'm hoping to spend less than £100, which should be possible, since this should only cost parts (body blank £50 ish) and labour (10mins with a jigsaw and maybe a tad longer (hour?) with the router). So that is the challenge! Any Takers? Or any hot tips? Cheers, Rich

Not sure if this has been mentioned as i skim read the thread.... (guilty!) 75 reissue basses have the bridge pickup nearer the bridge than the standard fender. This gives the neck pickup a slightly more biting, thinner, treble-rich sound. This gives the 75 an edge for slap as the brighter bridge pickup mixed with the standard neck pickup gives a more pre-mid-scooped tone. However, moving the pickup towards the bridge makes it less deep, which could explain why your 75 sounds slightly less full and "in your face" compared to the standard jazz, where the bridge pickup is further from the bridge, near the stingray spot which gives thicker, punchier mids. All of the above is subject to opinion and i could be barking up an irrelevant tree, but when i had it explained to me it made sense. kinda like the difference between Larry graham (standard pickup placement) and Marcus Miller (75 Jazz pickup placement). As for pickups, i'm using dimarzio ultra jazz's in a bass and they don't have too much top end, but are very full and thick, much like their owner. Rich

[quote name='Davemarks' post='802588' date='Apr 11 2010, 01:38 PM']oops.... did I do something wrong? :-)[/quote] Yes! it was grossly unfair of you to put Dr. Dre's song Housewife as the 'repetative r'n'b bassline' exam!! you knew i'd find it hilarious and pretty much drop my bass laughing halfway through..... "You pimpin strong, but comin home, to sheets that be filthy" comic gold! r

[quote name='Prime_BASS' post='802821' date='Apr 11 2010, 06:01 PM']Is it possible to upgrade something like epiphone junior to accept bass frequencies?[/quote] Should be, although i've never heard of it done. Plenty of people modding them online (my grainger is the same with different badges) but never seen it done for bass, with most people going for brighter tone, not deeper. if it had a switch for Champ or Ampeg modes, that would be handy! anyone got that schematic kicking about??? r

i use a grainger valve 5 watt monster. easily loud enough for guitar in a band practice. quite loud with bass but definitely saps the bottom end out. most valve signal paths tend to do this unless specifically designed not to. i plan to run it bi-amped as for some awesome valve overdrive on the high frequencies, kinda like the stranglers sound. like you i found a bass cab improved the bass response, but not brilliantly, especially after i've been gradually modding the grainger towards fender champ specs. a guy i played with a few years back had an original tweed champ amp. probably the coolest sounding 1 watt on the planet!

And i was 2 then...... I did however get to do my audition just before the school moved from Acton then did the 1 year diploma in Kilburn a few years back. Memory is a bit hazy for that particular episode......can't think why....? Did John Curry and Paul Scott work there back then? Absolute legends, whereas that Dave Marks chap.....well..... Rich

i had this with an old DOD pedal.... depending on how much you want to spend, you can buy a normal DC input jack and mount it in the plastic cover for the battery compartment which means you can use any old 9V boss-type adaptor OR you have to buy a new adaptor with the variety of tips to choose from ( i think the dod needs a 2.5mm jack, like a small mono headphone jack). The first option is cheaper, but involves drilling a small hole and soldering connections for the new socket). rich

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='798178' date='Apr 6 2010, 11:04 PM']Bill's cabs have always intrigued me, I'd love to have heard a pair of these 1x12's next to my pair of Aggie 1x12's. Did you go for the strap handles in the end? I find them more than adequate on said Aggies.[/quote] I'd like to compare these to a set of more conventional looking 12's too..... There are so many theories and stats and numbers but the proof of the pudding as always is in the listening. No handles yet. i got some chrome corners but havn't fitted them yet as it means drilling 32 perfectly measured holes and there always seems to be something more interesting to do! i kind of like the stealth look they have with no corners or handles, kind of star wars meets 70's funk....or do they just look like kitchen appliances lol... rich

Check out Bills stuff. All the cabs are designed with specific drivers in mind. For example, my cabs could have housed 3 or 4 different drivers and the plans show how to tune the cab perfectly for each recommended driver (this involves one of the small bits of ply in the ports being longer or shorter- easy!). This allows for different people to build cabs tuned to whatever Cost/Spec of driver they feel they need/can afford. Pretty cool! r

[quote name='steve' post='797992' date='Apr 6 2010, 08:36 PM']Hi Rich, I'm starting a Jack 112 build soon, I have a couple of questions you might be able to help me with what made you choose the Kappalite over the Delta Lite II? what kind of band are you playing in, do they play load? I'm wondering whether one Jack112 will cope with a fairly loud rock band? cheers[/quote] Check the comparison graph here: [url="http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8778"]http://billfitzmaurice.info/forum/viewtopi...f=12&t=8778[/url] I opted for the kappalite basically because i could afford it at the time and wanted to build the best cabs i could afford. it will have slightly smoother response through the mids than the deltalite and as it has slightly higher x-max and thermal limits it should be able to go a tad louder if i really push the amp, although i have no way of comparing and the difference may be slight for all i know and if i'd been short of cash would have gone for the deltalite. One cab may be loud enough for you, depending on what you want. My rig with 2 cabs would be fine in a medium venue with no PA. One cab would be fine for most smaller places. For heavy metal without PA support (or just to be massively loud onstage) i would go with 2 so you get kickass volume. if you play through the PA and your rig is for monitoring only you should be fine with one most of the time. I havn't needed to crank my rig to full power at all yet and we play Loud Reggae/ska/fun. I know most of this is subjective, but i hope it helps! Cheers, Rich

[url="http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Jack.html"]http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Jack.html[/url] Fully recommended. Build your own, save £££ and sound awesome! Rich

Have played these for several months now. VERY impressed. When i first got them finished i was using only one for band practice. we booked a bigger rehearsal space just before a gig and i got the chance to try both. i was totally disappointed as they sounded thin and weak, but then had a brainwave..... it turned out either one of my speaker cables, or one of my speakers in the cabs was wired opposite way round to the other, hence, when i plugged in two cabs stacked one on the other, they were producing equal and opposite sound waves whose interaction caused most of the sound to disappear. so i swapped them round. BOOM. Easily the loudest, clearest bass rig i have ever had, making my Peavey stack sound like a gentle giant. The sound is very much full-range as described on Bills website. The full spectrum of my bass and amp came through (No marcus/victor high end as i havn't yet felt the need to add the optional tweeters. maybe if i get back in to slap at some point...). They don't sound instantly mid-rangey with heaps of punch like a 4x10 nor do they sound booming and LOOOW like a 1x15, but the beauty is that all these sounds CAN be dialled in with EQ, as the whole spectrum is there. At the moment i am playing a lot of reggae/dub/soul and i have to admit that looking at the size and weight of the Kappalite drivers, i wasn't expecting a ground shaking bottom end.... Wrong! The cabs put out ridiculous subs when you want them. i can easily get too much very low end if i roll off all my tone, boost lows on the amp and play muted flatwounds on the neck pickup of my Ovation Magnum. They sound equally good with my VM fretless jazz, responding just as well to the different EQ. I like playing live with these because their dispersion pattern means the sound is pretty uniform across the stage. i can hear myself, and my drummer says he can clearly hear what i'm playing too. i've recently sold the rack full of amp pictured above and have gone for an Ashdown Little Giant 1000. This amp is very transparent and honest, which is a good match for the speakers, meaning i never have a problem finding the sound for the song. Also, both speakers, my bass, and my amp now fit under the boot cover in my astra so after the gig i'm not worried about having gear on view. Weight wise, they are middle of the road. Nothing like my Peavey 1x15, but certainly not a markbass 1x10 either. i havn't got handles on them yet but thanks to the odd shape, they are quite easy to pick up once you know which way round to hold them. They fit through doors and up stairs no problem. All in all, very impressed. i'm happy with the sound and would have spent another £500 or so had i gone for off-the-shelf cabs of this spec. Anyone who wants to try them out is welcome to pop over if you're in Cardiff, just PM me. Cheers, Rich