rmorris

On 26/02/2023 at 10:06, Mister RLP said:

 

Thanks for getting back. The scratch plate had two films on it - one with the Fender Play sticker on it and another one underneath. I had taken off the first one after I bought it but left the other one on as didn't really notice it was there. It was only when putting some lemon oil on the fretboard that I thought I would take off the other film. I wish I just left alone, now! I think my main concern is that the screw wasn't making this noise before (I've had the bass from new for four months) and now when I rest my thumb on the pickup it makes an unpleasant scratchy noise. I took the scratch plate off last night and couldn't see anything untoward - nothing loose, etc. The good news is that the very dry laurel board now looks much better! 

 

The noise happens when your thumb is resting / brushing on the screw ?

Sounds like that screw is not connected to the guitar's 'Ground'. I'm not familiar with that pickup / design in particular so don't know if it meant to be 'grounded' by design.

But it's not uncommon to get scratching / brushing / rustling noises from isolated screws eg scratchplate screws. More typically more noticeable with electric guitars due to higher gain used. Similar can happen with plastic/nylon scratchplates over time where they get 'shiny' from wear and this causes static charges when touched.

If you can make some contact from the pickup screws to 'ground' then the problem should go away.

Alternatively you can try to reinstate the protection that the film was providing by coating with eg clear nail varnish or similar.

2 hours ago, Bassfinger said:

Don't forget the rear of the pickguard.

Yes. There's some element of shielding there. But it's mainly an issue of avoiding static noise when it gets "shiny" or you touch the screws. My basses tend not to have them but I often get this problem with Fender style guitars. High gain makes it a big problem. Have it in a nice Harley Benton atm. Need to shield and "ground" it. 

15 hours ago, pfretrock said:

Thanks for the tip. Chinese copy? Just got a couple of chips from China to make a ring modulator. Farnell prices had gone up to £30, so I got some from China for £3. First one went up in smoke!

No. Simply the client didn't know their technical stuff and didn't realise that they needed to use tape with a conductive adhesive if they weren't soldering the joints / seams.

33 minutes ago, pfretrock said:

The electrical version for electro magnetic shielding has conductive adhesive. I would not think the gardening people have the tape made for them, they just source the mass produced electrical variety.

You do need to check. There is copper tape available where it is adhesive but where the adhesive is not specified to be conductive. I know this from an EMC lab that I've used and friends with the owner/consultant. Some clients turn up thinking they have their kit properly shielded with copper tape. Only to find out they have the non conductive adhesive type.

1 hour ago, DTB said:

If it’s in short supply then no need to line one’s entire under garment, a simple pocket around the dangly bits would be sufficient. 

Don't forget the "Ground" wire 😳

1 hour ago, DTB said:

I had to earth the neck on a guitar before. It picked up terrible static from the shiny neck finish. As a last ditch attempt to fix it I took the neck off and lined the pocket with foil so that the neck bolts pierced the foil when I replaced it. Then soldered an earth wire to the foil and connected it to the earth on volume pot. It worked. No more static. 
something in the finish was obviously conductive, once it was grounded via the neck plate and screws and foil it was sorted. 

Not necessarily "conductive". You can produce static charge with non-conducting surfaces. Think rubbing a balloon on your jumper to get it "charged" then "sticking" it to a wall.

Same thing happens with scratchplates and screws etc. In your case it seems that the grounded neck plate and screws provide a guarding effect that attenuates the noise energy and avoids it causing a problem in the pickup / wiring.

Nice work 🙂

24 minutes ago, KingBollock said:

I, personally, use aluminium tape. Mainly because it’s what I have knocking about. Seems to work just as well as copper. I have done one guitar in copper, the rest aluminium.

 

This information is probably useless, though, because it’s not going to be any easier to get than copper tape.

Cheaper though.

The conductive paints also work. But not so well ime. Talking about rfi general btw and not only guitar / bass related.

Aluminium (cooking) foil is effective and easily available. But needs "special" solder so usually need to make sure it overlaps and had a good mechanical interface to other pieces / metal work.

It can be worth getting the thicker "turkey" foil that I'd sold esp around Christmas time.

2 hours ago, KingBollock said:

It helps if you’ve got a multimeter to make sure that it is all connected and conducting.
 

Sometimes the stuff with conductive adhesive doesn’t always conduct through the adhesive. What I like to do, when it’s all done, is add a strip of tape across the lot with the very edges of the tape folded underneath. Or you can stick down a length of stripped copper wire. If this makes any sense? I’m not sure I’m describing it very well.

Yes. The thing with the conductive adhesive is that you should "squeegee" it down ie apply a lot of pressure. 

And be aware that 'slug tape" is unlikely to have conductive adhesive as it doesn't need it.

Just now, meterman said:

I don’t have a multimeter or know anyone near me who has one.

 

The strip of tape / copper wire thing makes zero sense to me, but then admittedly I do have learning difficulties! 
 

Never had to do this before and I haven’t managed to find a YT tutorial that I can actually make sense of. I only want to do this once, properly, and not balls it up like I usually do with anything maintenance related 😂

Okay. So you can buy a multimeter with continuity test for something aroun £10. Often from Lidl etc or CPC online. Best also check actual resistance with it as continuity may be indicated at anything less than, say 100 Ohms, although in reality that would be fine.

On 06/01/2023 at 15:15, Smanth said:

I feel you!  The "Big Boys Race Our ..." mnemonic is etched in my head since my early exploits with breadboards, a cheap and nasty soldering iron and a stack of Babani books ... but these days (as you) I just bung a multimeter on them ... it has the secondary advantage of allowing me to pick one from the strip that is closest to the nominal value.

 

S'manth x

Confession - I'm an electronics design engineer and never read resistor codes - just measure them.

And of course SMT resistors have the value marked on them in some form.

On 06/01/2023 at 18:19, LukeFRC said:

Random question- what are the 2m resistors doing here? One I think is to stop a pop on switch on? Other set input impedance?

should if work without them? 

Yes, R1 allows C1 to discharge to 0V to minimise pops on plugging in.

R3 biases the Gate of Q1 to 0Vdc.

The input Z is essentially 2M inn parallel with 2.033M. In round numbers = 1M

On 21/12/2022 at 10:58, Lozz196 said:

Not sure about all working practices that are being looked at but I can understand why RM want to change some - maybe this has already been changed, maybe it was a practice that only happened in the depot he worked at but it`s what used to happen, my mate who was a postman told me about it:

 

2 postmen, Paul & Pete.

Paul is running a bit short on funds so gets Pete to pull a days sickie.

Pete gets paid for this day whilst at home and not sick at all.

Pauls duty is 8am - 5pm. Always finishes his round by 11.30 so always home by midday.

As Pete is off Paul covers Petes duty after doing his own, is back at the depot by 3pm, is home by 3.30pm.

Paul is still at home an hour and a half earlier than his scheduled duty time.

Paul receives a full days overtime (at overtime rates) for covering Petes duty.

 

Now I can understand unions looking after their members and T&Cs, fair play, no-one wants to be run over rough-shod by their employer and rightly so unions look after their members, but the above, well  I can see why any company would want such T&Cs changed. 

 

 

 

 

Doesn't sound believable or significant tbh:

Being scheduled til 5pm yet completing work before noon would seem to be a managent / Time and Motion issue.

How does Paul know he will get the extra round ? Unless it is a tiny delivery office with only two postmen at a given time.

It would seem to require managerial collusion rather than being an issue of working practices.

15 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

not caused by Brexit, but a shortage of lorry drivers according to this anyway, which is affecting all EU countries last time I heard

https://www.water.org.uk/news-item/driver-shortage-statement/#:~:text=There is no shortage of,is solely one of distribution.”&text=What's the current situation%3F,small number of water companies

There is a general HGV driver issue. But in GB the issue is exacerbated by not being an EU member.

9 hours ago, Smanth said:

I've scoured the web for this info, but to no avail ... I'm hoping that a BCer with one of these will be able to help.

 

• How much does it weigh?
• How wide is the bottom (19th?) fret?
• What is the string spacing at the Bridge?

 

My end game is to obtain a short scale 5 string, that is light (Scratch the TMB-35), available (scratch the GRSM-25) and not the price of a small flat (Scratch almost everything else!) and so I am looking to see if there are any shorty 4 stringers that might take a conversion to 5.

 

S'manth x

Hi S'manth

What tuning / string gauge are you thinking on this. Seems to me that it could be "Floppy City" ?

4 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

If you're looking for light then Harley Benton probably isn't the way to go. They're superb. But they're almost always on the heavier side. 

Not ime at least with a HB electric guitar I have (can't recall model off hand). Noticeably lightweight.

On 16/11/2022 at 13:08, Chienmortbb said:

Yes, resistance is useless as an indicator as it does not take into account the diameter of the wire.

Inductance is the dominant electrical parameter - and you'd need to measure it over the frequency range.

But it wouldn't tell you the magnet type - generally ceramic or alnico and there are various classes/grades within that.

Nor the wire type or winding / magnet geometry etc.

On 07/11/2022 at 17:21, chyc said:

I've played with an Encore that had the truss rod adjustment down by the pickups. It was a standard 6(?)mm hex bolt. I had to take the scratch plate off which was a real pain because I think the scratch plate could have a cutout to accommodate adjustments, but it doesn't.

 

Back when I adjusted it I didn't know any better and thought you needed to take the strings off. In a sense you do: that's how you get the scratch plate off. However if you want to adjust with the tension of the strings that is possible: loosen the strings, take the scratch plate off and bring the strings back to pitch. It's really fiddly to adjust with the strings in place, but it's not impossible.

 

Good luck is all I can say.

But if tightening the rod it helps to slacken off the strings so that you aren't fighting them whilst adjusting.

2 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

 

I used some little push/pull connectors when I hardwired my East preamps, way easier than screwing into a Lego style block.  

 

Wago connectors are fantastic, it has to be said.  I've never considered using them in a guitar application.  I've got to put a humbucker into a guitar later this week.  Top tip!

Yes. It's always worth a look at what's available from the electrical trade. Space can be an issue obvs and compatibility with stranded wire depending on the connector. Although you can use ferrules or just "solder it solid" as best suits in those cases. No need to worry about a n IEC compliance inspection 🙂

21 hours ago, Paul S said:

 

My hands shake too much to do any soldering but something like this works just fine.

If you have the space for this then also look at WAGO lever type electrical connectors. Don't even need a screwdriver - just wire cut / strip.

On 06/10/2022 at 14:42, Osiris said:

 

You just need to set the threshold so that it works in conjunction with the amps gain control. Just bear in mind that if you swap basses you'll likely have to tweak the threshold and possibly the amp gain too. Or if you have an active bass and make any adjustments to the onboard preamp you'll probably need to fine tune the settings too. 

 

Once you've set things up right you might find that your driven tone is more consistent too. 

 

It's probably easier to have pre-set levels to set a consistent level to the compressor / fx chain rather than altering several controls on the compressor itself.

eg by using a simple boost or graphic eq or whatever pedal. Or a mini mixer if that suits.

On 24/10/2022 at 19:02, Zephyr said:

It’s not rattling on open low E but only the F. I can just about stop the buzz with precise placement of my finger, and, pressing down more firmly than I am usually comfortable with.

 

It does not look twisted but will get a second opinion.

 

So I am thinking of just building up the slot (if that’s the right word) as I can just about get away with it at the moment. 
 

 

But if it's only buzzing when you are fretting the first fret F then that should take the nut out of the question ?

See Velvet...'s comment above.

On 15/10/2022 at 11:41, Dan Dare said:

 

Not always the case. Whilst the mains power supplied to a property in the UK is pretty good/clean, it depends what else is connected within the building where you are running your gear. A lot of buildings contain all manner of stuff - commercial lighting, refrigeration, etc - which can cause problems and mains-borne noise. 

True. A good electrical installation and correct use of it will avoid having stuff like thyristor light dimming and air con etc on the same ring or radial as audio kit. If it does happen then it's a bit optimistic to tell us on a power conditioner of type described to deal with it effectively. Solutions tend to involve special transformers and/or large ie high inductance filters. Best dealt with at source. 

And don't let your drummer plug his fan into the audio mains. Plus laptops etc best run from a non audio mains supply and audio output taken via a DI box.

I wouldn't worry about frequency response problems though unless you experience it.

On 11/10/2022 at 21:07, velvetkevorkian said:

As a rule of thumb, I recommend discarding any advice targeted at "audiophiles" as it's invariably snake oil garbage.

Indeed. There's a good reason why "Audiophile" often gets translated to "Audiophool" in Pro-Audio circles...

On 13/10/2022 at 15:06, NHM said:

OK, then why are people spending £100+ up to big bucks on Furmans for their rack?

Can someone who uses one make the case for power conditioners?

In many cases they are simply responding to the marketing blurb. It's true that UK mains is often better than other places esp USA simply due to differences in distance from distribution sub-station. But not really in urban areas. Mains filtering is a thing although more often to stop putting rubbish back onto the mains. And PFC is required for IIRC power above 75W. Incoming problems should really be taken care of in existing kit. Basic question is what problems are experienced / conceived ? You can't remove a problem that doesn't exist.

fwiw I have a foot (feet ?) in the MI / pro-audio / compliance fields.