rmorris

13 minutes ago, Passinwind said:

It's a good idea to look at the drill tolerance specs from your fabricator, JLCPCB call +0.13m/-0.08mm for instance. Doing my own footprints for just about every component can be a definite time suck, but it's worth it!

Worth remembering that pcb fabs will round drill sizes to reduce excessive number of drill bits used (or for bit availability).

Especially where there is a metric / imperial mix. 

1 hour ago, LukeFRC said:

Elecrow - 6 of these for about £3-4 

 

if I did it again I would build the pots onto the board and possibly find a manufacturer who would do the holes a wee bit bigger - they aren’t designed for my mistakes! 

Nice. wrt the hole size - these are specified in your Gerber/NC files (or other file format if used) so it's not a matter of manufacturer limits (or am I missing something) ?

It can sometimes help to clarify that you are specifying post plating size rather than drill size.

General pedalboard noise tip. 

Avoid the inexpensive patch cables usually in various colours and all coated in plastic including the plug ends.

They lack shielding at the plug ends and are monsters for picking up noise.

And in a pedalboard context this includes radiated power supply related noise.

20 hours ago, Smanth said:

I was gifted a fretted bass following my loss of nearly everything in a fire in August.

 

I've been converted to fretless playing.

 

I'd appreciate you experience/thoughts on how to best de-fret a bass.

 

S'manth xx

Thought here is "Don't do it". Buy / Trade / Sell for a fretless. It's 2022. No need to go all Jaco now 😳

Trust me. I'm in Brighton 🙂

5 hours ago, agedhorse said:

Could it also be that the designs aren't as good?

Depends what you mean by the design ? - of the circuit itself, its implementation on a pcb and how things are wired, the enclosure wrt shielding.

Type and position of the power supply is also a possible factor. Depending on the nature of the 'noise' eh hum / buzz / hiss / general "digital hash" etc...

Just becoming aware of this company / products

this info on current commercial status

https://forum.moddevices.com/t/mod-reboot-we-made-it/8484

I like it. Have you considered some sort of strain relief on the cables to/from the amp to reduce the tendency for them to pull on the first / last pedals ?

Maybe by threading through a couple of holes made in each of the supports ? Or something...

43 minutes ago, Rich said:

 

OK, the plot thickens a bit... I've just bought Pinball's old bypass loop pedal to use as a basis for this... I opened the back and it looks a bit like this. My question is... what are those capacitors for? Are they click stoppers or something? It's just out of interest, the whole lot is coming out anyway.

 

 

logically they are ac coupling capacitors to block any dc components in the signal.

You'd expect the external kit plugged into Send and Return to have them on their own inputs / outputs so I don't really see the case for them here.

They are also quite a small value so use is limited to high impedance inputs. Okay with most pedals / amps but using with typical line or mic inputs will give significant low frequency loss.

Yeah - I mean he was good on the Beatles and all that. But little will surpass the Wings version of the Crossroads theme tune (classic Tony Hatch) that they used for particularly dramatic episodes.

Disclaimer: May make no sense to younger, non-UK or those that weren't permitted to watch ITV.

On 12/09/2022 at 11:55, uk_lefty said:

If you absolutely want to save every penny and this is the same as the Caline ones (it looks like it is) then go for it. It won't cause you any issues at all. Problems may come if you like adding cheaper pedals, or more expensive and more thirsty pedals. Then you might get some noise bleeding through and having a decent PSU at least rules out that as a source of unwanted noise. 

 

I'm on my second Caline PSU. Nothing wrong with the first one, I just gave it to an old friend who's still using it when I went to a massive multi fx unit. I'm now back to separate pedals and I went straight for a Caline PSU because I know it works. 

Why do you think cheaper pedals might be an issue ? Less power supply noise rejection ? That should really be eliminated in the PSU itself imo.

And more expensive pedals ? If they draw more current than the power supply can...errr ... supply, then that's obviously a problem.

Bottom line (pun intended 😊). For least potential noise / problems use a supply with properly (galvanically) isolated outputs. That will work well with digital pedals etc.

And if not then using individual outputs is better than a daisy chain power cable as it reduces common impedance in the 0V ("Ground") line.

3 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

I’ll get my water-wings

Water Wings. A swimming Paul McCartney tribute act ?

14 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

tube compression is a whole other topic!!!! But point taken

 

 

wrt Tube compression (aside...Tube, is this Talkbass now ? 🙂. We'll have "Valves" here thank you very much)

yeah - the dynamic range is reduced (compressed). But it acts on each waveform cycle instantaneously, rather than reacting to a time averaged signal level.

Signal is clipped it to varying degrees producing additional harmonics.

With reference to the OPs concerns around "Overtones" - this process increases or adds "overtones" (harmonics).

With 'normal' compression there is some distortion produced when the gain (attenuation) is being altered.

But this is not the intended purpose an the effect is of a much lower order.

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

Peanuts are a legume so I'm covered.

You can have all the pineapple though. Horrible stuff.

I'll swap mine for those mini picked onions.

The pineapple should be on a pizza ???

30 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

In over 30 odd years of playing as a job, I've found it's better to work on your right hand dynamics and touch than rely on the little boxes.

Yes. I don't think anyone here is advocating dynamics processing as a substitute for technique.

The issue is what compression does to the sound in terms of harmonic balance etc.

7 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

That's just wrong.

 

Compression doesn't remove anything from the top and bottom at all. High and Low Pass filters do that.

 

Compression just moves all the information into a smaller dynamic range. It doesn't slice anything off. It just squashes it. All the information is still there, including the overtones you seem to be obsessed with.

 

In fact - overtones that are naturally quiet so would be at the very bottom of the wave have their volumes INCREASED with compression to get them into the compressed dynamic range that has been set.

 

 

I read the comment as claiming that the compression would 'remove' the top/bottom of the waveform itself (as opposed to restricting the frequency range at either end).

ie a degree of clipping. That would, of course, very much increase high frequency content . Including frequencies not in the original signal.

But yeah - in simple terms it just lowers the louder bits then turns everything up as required.

On 21/09/2022 at 09:36, dclaassen said:

I watched a Youtube with a guy playing a Martin D-45. First, without compression...it sounded amazing..just what you want from that wonderful guitar. He applied compression, and suddenly, it sounded like any generic acoustic guitar...it that what we are after??

 

The guitar thing there is interesting. It's quite common for engineers / producers to note that what sounds great on acoustic when being tracked often has to be severely controlled by eq/dynamics etc in mixing to fit in with the recording.

The last time I saw this it was indeed a Martin acoustic that was used as an example. IIRC Yamaha acoustics were well regarded for being 'recordable' and fitting into a mix.

18 hours ago, dclaassen said:

Sorry, but I don’t agree. If you consider a sound energy wave, when you move the fader, that lowers the amplitude, but the sound itself is mostly unchanged. Compression take off the tops and bottoms of the waveform. Two different things, imo

Wrong. Compression simply lowers the amplitude of the signal. It reacts according to the level (averaged / RMS / peak depending on the unit) and not to the individual waveform. Except if you set it up badly eg fast attack/release times on a  frequency corresponding to a longer time. Typically this might occur using very fast attack / release on the low notes of a bass guitar. But that is basically a user error (unless going for special fx) and will be obvious.

A simple compressor simply detects the signal level and lowers the gain when it is above a threshold level. Typically by altering the dc control voltage into a Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA). The VCA does not discriminate wrt frequencies. It's just an amplifier with a nominally flat audio band response. You could, in concept, control a motorised pot or fader in the same way. Don't try it though ! - for various reasons it not practicable.

Compression can indeed 'dull' the sound but it's not because it specifically removes overtones. It's simply due to the energy in an audio signal being a lot more at lower frequency. So, depending on the signal and the compression parameters, the low end can dominate the operation. So you get a large low frequency event and that causes ALL frequencies to be attenuated. The low end may then still be loud enough because it was too loud without the compression but higher frequencies that were not too loud to begin with may now be too quiet to be audible in context.

Solutions to this include "Split Band" compression - anything from the Trace Elliot SMX type compressors to sophisticated Multiband Compressors (typically used in mastering) and their plug-in equivalents.

Basically they allow the bottom end and top end to be compressed differently (or not at all). So a bottom end thump doesn't wipe out the highs.

On 21/09/2022 at 12:40, dclaassen said:

Not sure using compression, which changes the wave form and suppresses both transients and overtones is the same as riding the fader.

It is the same. Just using a different detector (ear vs electronic level detector) and attenuator (fader vs VCA / FET / LDR) . Technically it is feedback compression. As opposed to feedforward. Nothing to do with "guitar" feedback or howlround !

What Jjimfist said. Compression can be used creatively to emphasise and better define note attack. Eg "eighth note pumping".

14 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

You need to know what the current is too. Typically about 20mA but different colours are different currents. Dropping 7V at 20mA would take a 350R resistor.

Currents in the ball park of 20mA are normally far too much for a realistic light level. An LED of any colour will likely be too bright for comfort at that current (it will also produce a heating effect that reduces the brightness a bit and shortens the life expectancy of the LED). Values of 10/20mA are often quoted as max continuous rated current etc but typically much lower currents 1 - 2 mA or even less for "High Efficiency" types give a usable light level.

40 minutes ago, Clarky said:

I took pics. see this post

 

Thanks for those photos.

So back in the Bethnal Green Travelodge after a day at APE in Victoria Park.

Thought some here would be interested in checking out the interesting assortment of basses used by Thom Yorke and Greenwood's use of a bow on electric bass in The Smile.

1 minute ago, la bam said:

 

Unfortunately, yes. Youd be amazed how people react. It shouldnt affect anything, but it does.

Fair enough given its your actual experience. Out of curiosity who are you "Tributeing". Not a real word I know 🙂

Does anyone on the audience actually care as long as it sounds right ? I can see that a seven string fanned fret bass might spoil the mood. But J Vs P ?

6 minutes ago, yorks5stringer said:

Amusingly Nordstrand  said they had sent out one set of replacement grub screws or saddles to someone who had used Loctite Red and could not then move them at all!

yeah - I'm used to the Loctite threadlock products from industrial use although I couldn't quote the colours now. But you do need to use the one that just "holds it in place* against vibration as opposed to a moderately strong adhesive. The colour also acts as an anti-tamper warranty thing - basically users trying to improve something themselves . messing it up and then making a warranty claim.

Cheap nail polish/varnisg also works pretty well. But it lacks "professional credibility".

Good Luck.