rmorris

2 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

The takeaway I got from the last time around this mulberry bush is it's semantics. The bridge grounding grounds the player from acting as some giant inductive antenna.

Basically yes. Same sort of thing as when you can get better radio reception by putting your hand near the aerial.

On 09/05/2022 at 13:59, cheddatom said:

If the buzzing goes away when you touch the strings, that'd normally be a grounding issue on the bass wouldn't it? I guess it's always there, but when using your pedals, or just turned up to gig volume, it becomes particularly noticeable. 

The noise going away indicates that the bass itself IS 'grounded'. But the screening of control cavities etc may not be good enough. A pedal with gain may amplify (literally) the problem.

Another possibility is a break in the cable screens or power grounds. It will still 'work' but is likely to be more susceptible to induced noise.

On 10/05/2022 at 09:00, A.G.E.N.T.E. said:

IME, using a isolated power supply is mandatory. My pedalboard runs smoothly except when I add some digital effects using a non isolated psu. I'd try to test removing pedals one by one to see if the noise comes from a particular pedal. 

Top advice in general. But not the issue here where touching the strings / metalwork makes the noise go away.

10 hours ago, greghagger said:

The reason you can hear the clanking in online tutorials is because the vocal mic is picking it up. It’s that simple! Try and record yourself playing with a mic near your bass and it will all make sense! 
 

When I make my bass tutorials I cut the vocal track out of the video in the sections where I’m playing during editing but sometimes I’m talking and playing so I can’t do this in these sections. 
 

Also, a lot of fret noise disappears in the mix. If you’ve ever been in the studio and listened to bass only on playback, you’ll hear a lot of noise! 

Good point on the vocal mic, although I'd have to say that it should be possible to minimise that with mic selection and technique.

Yes - I understand that a lot of noise and stuff 'disappears' in the mix as it is masked from being clearly heard. I've heard a lot of solo'd* bass tracks including DI tracks. The amount of 'noise' varies a lot.

But I'm really talking about generating what imo is an excessive amount of it from the off due to unrealistically low action and technique.

* apologies for the apostrophe here but I don't know how to "spell" this or a better term ?

5 hours ago, FinnDave said:

They make a right mess of your frets, though.

Yeah - but they really suit Garage music 😃

I prefer a house myself 🙂

Sorry !

33 minutes ago, Alfie said:

A couple of LEDs I ordered recently are white rather than purple, is this likely to be a problem with the manufacturing/stock or is there some electrical wizardry I am missing?

Are they 'white' when illuminated rather than just when off ?

Try Half Round / Groundwound / Pressure wound types.

Smoother feel but brighter than flats.

Condenser Microphones at less than c £100 generally offer excellent value and performance these days.

Generally down to Chinese manufactured capsules that are used by the various brands.

You can look on Studiospares and pretty much anything there will be useful.

Individual tastes are not easy to quantify and, in reality, a huge amount of your results will be dependent on your mic' approach and technique.

You are targeting a wide frequency range from double bass and sousaphone through to acoustic guitar and vocals so that is something of a challenge for a single model regardless of cost.

Double bass is known to be particularly difficult to record - due to both the frequency range and the way the sound develops from the instrument. That's one of the reasons that a contact  / piezo mic is often used possibly in conjunction with a standard mic.

Also - for acoustic guitar a small diaphragm condenser might be a good idea. Particularly if pointing one at the neck to pick up string / finger noise. But that would imply a two mic setup with a 'main' mic on the body / soundhole.

I might suggest taking a look at this. Note it includes a suspension mount.

https://www.studiospares.com/microphones/mics-condenser/studiospares-s1005-condenser-mic-package-449560.htm

I have one of these (and other sizes for electric guitar and electroacoustic) and find it does the job in terms of carrying height / weight balance.

As has been pointed out - you do inevitably end up with a good height above head height making doors / buses / tube trains interesting 🙄

https://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_elite_gigbag_ebass.htm

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

But the back of the pot in itself is not an essential part of the circuit.

 

And the only additional earth cable should be the one from the bridge. Personally I'd solder this to the closest convenient "proper" solder tag, whether that is the one on the volume pot, tone pot or the output jack. That way you aren't trying the heat up an excessively large area/volume of metal and potentially damaging an electrical component in the process.

True it's not an essential part of the circuit. But technically it is not good practice to leave any metal floating so it should be tied to a reference potential eg 0V (ground). In reality though it likely makes no real difference on this application.

Point taken re potential damage but fwiw I've never damaged a pot by soldering to the case. Use a high temp for a short time.

14 hours ago, paul_5 said:

The back of the pot is just a large, conductive surface area to solder too - in theory you could solder ALL of the ground wires together at the output socket, but it's just less fiddly to have a flat surface to solder to than trying to do it on its side as the socket.

Against that the back of a pot acts as more of a heatsink hence the need for a higher iron temp/heat capacity. But yes I like a good solid connection there. Solution is really an iron with some oomph and preferably temperature controlled.

21 hours ago, Pirellithecat said:

Sound guy wanted to DI my rig at the weekend.   However, he raised an issue about using my inbuilt DI out, as he was using the phantom power setting on his desk and didn't want to put 48 volts into my DI Out.   He wanted to put my bass directly into a DI box (and then into my amp for stage monitoring).  This would have bypassed my effects (Ashdown ABM 600, with Effect and Tuner in FX Send/Receive) which I didn't want  - so to avoid hassle I just played without PA support.   (Which from my point of view was OK and, more importantly from the audience point of view it, apparently, sounded great.  However, the sound guy wasn't happy as he couldn't turn me down!!)

So  - how does one get around this issue? 

Thanks from a complete technophobe!

 What amp with DI is it ?

4 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

But pretty hard to work out as you would also need the r / c network of the lead and amplifier input for the given amplifier.

 

All in all I am not sure what you would be gaining for any of this compared to one pre-amp with a bass boost!

Well I did caveat with "If really into it" 😳

I tend to agree wrt bass boost preamp although the resonance / peak due to the L of a pickup and the C of any tone cap / Cable capacitance / and amplifier input C is interesting. If it interest you of course 🙂

Better (imho) Just take the signal from the top of the pot (rather than the wiper) and wire the wiperto the bottom of the pot to give a single variable resistor : Zero Ohm to 1M0 (well near Zero due to pot limits but that area not of interest anyway).

If we assume amplifier resistive input impedance of 1M0 then impedance range seen by pickup is variable between 500K and Zero. 

Lower impedances will, of course, give lower level into amplifier so you need to compensate for that for real comparison. 

If really into it you could 'LT Spice' simulate it with varying L / R / C values...

Worth looking here (legacy site)

http://www.audereengineering.com/TechDetails.htm

Is it simply a matter of simply reducing the impedance seen by the output ?

If so you could just use a pot' wired as a variable resistor in parallel with the amp input.

The transformer method is also an option - literally 'transforming' the impedance and can be wired to increase or decrease the impedance.

On 28/03/2022 at 13:51, BassAdder27 said:

Dual lock is very strong ( in fact hard to remove items if you get 400 variant )

 

 

Yes. In my enthusiasm I used a combination that is not recommended due to the difficulty is separating.

I found this out after I had some difficulty prising it apart 🙃

What is clear is that  in general it's not that a supply is itself inherently 'noisy' (although there are varying levels of noise on the voltage rails).

The real issue is what pedals are powered and how they are connected. The 'safe' bet is properly (galvanically) isolated outputs (or separate supplies).

The 'not really isolated' multiple output types can still offer an advantage over a 'daisy chain' as they can feed pedals from separate connectors so reducing 'shared cable'' (common impedance).

With a 'daisy chain' the order of pedals has an effect - basically a digital pedal that is putting clock noise onto the 0V line will cause more noise if it is toward the end of the chain because its return current modulates the reference of the pedals between it and the supply.

Linear vs Switching supplies is an 'interesting' area - In some cases a switching supply can result inn a better result. But personally I feel more confident with a linear supply.

A non-noise related benefit of isolated (floating) supplies is that you can stack them to give a larger voltage eg 18V from 2x9V outputs - I do this to get approx 18V for a couple of Trace Elliot pedals.

7 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Yet when a compressor is well engaged the overall volume RISES!!!!!!!!! 

The output volume increases only because you set the make up gain to a level where that happens. Or it has automatic make up gain.

The compression function itself is realised by a reduction in gain - hence the 'Gain Reduction' meters often seen.

Conceptually the function could be realised by amplifying lower level signals more than higher level signals.

But in reality it is done by gain reduction followed by make up gain.

This has the same effect - it's 'just' relative levels.

This applies to analogue hardware. Software solutions achieve the same thing and often present it in a similar way although the actual realisation in code may be done in various ways.

Worth remembering that the perceived loudness level is more dependent on the overall energy rather than peak level and this is a basic reason why compression can increase perceived loudness  whilst getting rid of pesky peaks.

6 hours ago, Osiris said:

I've been all around the houses several times with compressors and have in the passed used them set over the top, more as an effect, but back in a dad rock/sensible end of the metal spectrum band many years ago it was just the thing required when underpinning a pair of Marshaled up guitarists. These days I use much less compression but I always have some going on, more as a feel thing than an obvious effect, as my bass sound just doesn't feel right or sit where I want it in the mix without any compression whatsoever. 

It's really a question of context - useful to bear in mind that any bass guitar you hear on a recording has almost certainly been compressed in some way. Similar with any signal going to PA via FOH desk.

It's sometimes better to leave this stuff to the 'SoundGuy/Gal' who is listening to it in context. Also to reflect on studio experience and what was done there.

Simply - what do people recommend for neck cradle / support ?

Seems that opinion varies from some quite expensive kit to 'Big Bag of Rice' type solutions...

Something good for nut filing etc as well as string change convenience.

On 22/03/2022 at 10:27, gjones said:

I've joined a rock band and it means I have to play some songs with a pick. I've just bought a multi effects pedal, as my pick playing is a bit uneven and I'm hoping the compressor on that will smooth it out.

 

Of course I could just get better at playing with a pick?

 

Nah....

In that type of situation it's not just a case of smoothing it out. By setting the attack/release parameters appropriately you can make a compressor 'pump' deliberately to eg increase the transient clarity of your eighth note lines.

On 25/02/2022 at 11:31, MacDaddy said:

 

Another shout out for the BDI21. For around £20 for something that sounds good you can't go wrong.

+1. OP is looking for a safety net in case the Helix fails and can't be sorted atm ? Eg by "Turning it on and off". So imo doesn't warrant a high outlay.

And if the Helix does prove to be prone to flipping out then a proper solution is needed really.

fwiw I'd recommend putting some sort of mains filter in the power feed to the Helix to reduce susceptibility to electrical issues at different venues.

Are your tuners lubricated ?

Would you like us to assign someone to lubricate your tuners ?