martindupras

My problem is slightly different. They're hex screws, and the hex hole is worn so that there's not enough 'grip' for the allen key to turn anything. The hole is too small to put even a small flathead screwdriver, so I can't even remove the hex screws. The simplest solution is to replace the knobs, if I can find them. To make things worse: I couldn't remove the small knob on the mid-EQ pot, because the hex head is stripped that bad. I tried prising it off gently, and somehow that resulted in the centre-detent of the pot no longer working. Damn. - martin [quote name='icastle' post='1155634' date='Mar 9 2011, 05:44 PM']Common sense would say that they use the same size knobs for everything so they don't have to worry about buying in different knobs from different manufacturers - but it sounds as though they might not have done that in this case. If the grub screws on the original knobs still have enough thread on them to stop the knobs just falling off (or just rotating freely) then I'd be tempted to put a little blob of clear nail varnish on the thread and just tighten to the point just prior to the thread stripping. When it dries it creates a seal and stops everything wobbling about. Getting the grub screw out again is no problem as the nail varnish will just snap when you turn the grub screw.[/quote]

I have a lovely Fender American Deluxe Jazz V. The screws in the knobs are stripped, so they don't hold the pots very well. I thought it would be really straightforward to get replacements, but long story short: no. That's because it uses the skirted concentric knobs for the EQ His and Lows. I have some replacements on order from the USA, but in the meantime I bought a set on eBay, the description of which said: "Fender Squier Jazz Bass 5 String Stacked GUITAR KNOBS." They don't fit. The non-concentric ones are too tight, and the concentric ones are too large. Am I right in thinking that Fender and Squier use different knobs, or have I been conned? Are all Fender pots the same sizes? - martin

Very nice to get the word from someone who actually owned one. The Big Al is quite attractive. I have a Bongo and love it to bits, and the Big Al seems to bring some of that Bongo flexibility into something that's a bit cooler and a little bit more classic at the same time. I'm half surprised that the resale value of the Jag was crap, but at the same I can see that it's not for everyone, and therefore demand is limited. - martin [quote name='Prime_BASS' post='1155138' date='Mar 9 2011, 12:02 PM']The RRP was a bit ridiculous for what it was, re-sale value was crap. Took me ages to get shot of mine. Although it's playabilty was great, reasonably light, it was just let down by cheap electronics which due to it's over complicated switch arrangement was not worth the hassle to upgrade. Preamps are usually a cut a stick kinda thing but with the Jag I attempted it, got lost and gave up. It came to life a bit with some quality pickups, and it's a great alternative for a jazz bass that looks different and is lighter. Also there are better examples of do-it-all basses that really do it all and still be themselves, the BigAl SSS for example.[/quote]

I was completely unaware that they stopped making them that long ago. I'm really surprised by that because I have visited the Fender site now and then for a few years to check, among other things, if a 5-string jag was in the works. It's really quite disappointing, but I guess that's all down to offer and demand. - martin [quote name='tarcher' post='1154901' date='Mar 9 2011, 08:27 AM']Don't know if they're still being made for the Japan only market,but nows a good time to try and bag yourelf one,before the prices start to go up. There's an unused s/h one on ebygumtree for the princely sum of £900 in black. one turned up on ebay last week that had been gigged and it sold bin for £340 with hard case. I think they stopped producing in 2008.[/quote]

Just out of curiosity, I was browsing the Fender website. The top drop-down menu has Products -> Bass Guitars -> Jaguar. I clicked, and much to my puzzlement, I got: "There were no products found for your search.. Let's try your search again!" I thought this might just be a broken link. A search for jaguar bass returns nothing at all. Unless I am being a complete cretin, there's no trace of current Jaguar basses. Jaguar bass pickups, yes, but that's it. Does anyone know about this? I'm quite disappointed: I thought the Jaguar looked cool and was interesting and distinctive. I was really hoping that they would catch on and that we'd get a five-string version. Which leads me to the next question: does anyone know of a parts suppliers that sells (long shot, I know) jaguar bodies that would take a five-string neck? - martin

[quote name='51m0n' post='1102123' date='Jan 25 2011, 01:57 PM']If you arent out front then you dont know what it sounds like out front. You cant even be 100% sure from the reverb tail you may hear. The engineer (if he is any good) should be willing - if he has time, and there is a decent reason to - to put a mic in front of a cab as well as a DI. If he doesnt have time, then tough luck. Time to blame the guitarist, drummer, vocalist, other band, traffic whatever, doesnt matter, you havent got time! As far as I'm concerned a DI off the bass (with said mic'ed cab) makes more sense than a DI'ed amp, since the amp may go 'pop'. That DI is going to be mainly used to extend the bottom end down (close micing a driver will be relatively mid heavy compared to the soulnd of your cab as a whole), and maybe the top end up a bit too (for those that like some tw***). The amp DI alone, if its got some drive, will sound crappy as, it wont sound decent unless its gone through a driver. If its clean as a whistle then why not cut out the amp? You will eq your amp to sound how you want it through your bass cabs. Guess what, the PA isnt using your bass cabs, so it will have a different frequency response, so your eq will be useless, probably damaging to, your perceived sound. If your amp allows you to go pre-eq then thats a help, but its still another thing to fail. A mic in front of a driver is the only way to capture some of the sound of your rig. An engineer may come over and have a listen to your bass rig, or not, dependant on the acoustics in the room he may not really need to to hear it any better than from the desk. Unless you use a lot of tubey overdrive or fx of some other kind you dont need to have the amp in the chain to the desk, if you do they need to be included in the signal chain, and the best bet is a DI before any overdrives if possible, and a mic on the cab. Do not p*** off the engineer, your mix will suffer. If someone got aggressive with me about how they thought things had to be set up, they wouldn't be playing that night, or any other night. Engineers get a lot of stick. Have you ever done any engineering? It is no where near as easy as you think. It isnt made any easier by people who dont really know what they are talking about trying to make unrealistic ill informed demands, and then making it impossible to achieve those demands by their own actions. For instance turning the bass up real loud just means everyone else is quieter in the PA, chaps, bass spill really is omnidirectional! I can promise you that if you try to make me engineer by 'taking your sound and making it louder' the end result will sound crap. Really. Unless your entire band understand frequency mixing, and have carved all their sounds to take this into account (you will need an electric kit to do this) then you will just put out a massive mush of noise with no clarity at all. The last thing you actually want is your sound but louder![/quote] This is pretty much everything I was going to reply with. Very, very sensible answer. The only thing I would add is that in my personal experience, if you ask the soundman nicely and you make their job easy, they will accomodate you if it's relatively straightforward and painless. If a soundman wants a DI from my bass, they can have one; they're used to it, they know how to EQ it, etc. I suggest that they also take a DI feed from the amp on the grounds that I use quite a lot of effects pedal. If they have a free strip on the board, it's no harder than having using a strip for an extra mic. - martin

I have just bought an EUB from bythesea. It was an easy, quick, pleasant transaction. The bass arrived very quickly, well packed and in beautiful condition. And it was a bargain too! +1 - martin

[quote name='Johnston' post='1081154' date='Jan 7 2011, 02:55 PM']all[/b] online retailers have to follow that. Distance trading rules or something it's called.[/quote] Of course, and not just online retailers, it's the same if you place a phone order. In the UK, it's expressed in the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations and the Electronic Commerce Regulations, which as I understand it are both informed by the European Directive. Thomann are good that way, and fuss free. Not all retailers who do business online, however, understand and apply the law. I've had several instances for instance, where I (or colleagues) have returned goods as faulty, only for them to be returned to us by the retailers who claimed they were working. I've had to bring their attention to the law before they accepted that they had to take the goods back and refund all shipping charges. Two retailers were particularly troublesome in that way. I will not name them, but they're fairly well known outfits that you will have heard of. in the end, it boils down to this: treat me well and honour your promises and I'll be a happy returning customer. Don't treat me well and I will remember for a long time, and you're not going to see any more or my money. - martin

You're a good man, Pete. If you were my local store, that would be exactly the kind of customer service that would bring me back, and that would make me recommend to others. - martin [quote name='Pete Academy' post='1081033' date='Jan 7 2011, 01:35 PM']Going back to customer service, if someone comes in for a kids' classical for £39, I make sure it's exactly the right size, I tune it up, and stretch in the strings, so that it at least has a chance of being in tune for the first school lesson. They probably save ten quid at Argos but have an instrument that is out of tune. Therefore the child gets frustrated, and it gets chucked in a corner. Waste of money.[/quote]

[quote name='Mykesbass' post='1080831' date='Jan 7 2011, 10:54 AM']however, there are certain things that really should have more expertise behind the selling of them - musical instruments being a prime example, and here the business plan doesn't work as people are not prepared to pay for that expertise. I'm sure most of the retailers on here[/quote] Well yes and no. I'm not saying that it isn't sometimes the case but it has to do with perceived value. You can buy a car online, but most people don't, they'd still much rather go to a dealership. Most people realise that there's no point in buying a laptop from Curry's because it's going to be expensive and sold by people who generally know little about computers. If a 12 year old asks for an electric guitar for Christmas, the parents are going to look for the cheapest thing, and they will go to a shop and expect to be shown the merchandise, given expert advice and still get the lowest price. It is ultimately up to the retailer whether they will price match anyone. They don't have to, and personally I think that the ones that offer personalised service and aftersales care are in the win for perceived value. The gear I buy is hard to get, generally expensive and relatively rare. I bought my GK Fusion 550 head brand new from Thomann without even having a chance to try it out because there was no stock anywhere at the time. I would have happily travelled 90 miles for the chance to try one in a store but I couldn't. Thomann offers a money-back guarantee so if I'd decided it wouldn't do, I knew I could send it back. But that's still a lot of pain and hassle and guesswork, which would have easily been avoided if there had been stock somewhere. I think there is another factor that we need to consider in all this. If you look at things like clothing, CDs and games, the street price can vary quite a lot from the MSRP. Tesco's buying power for instance can allow them to sell for less than a small retailer can buy. On the other hand, if you look at the street prices of musical equipment, there isn't that kind of variation. Look at the price of Fender instruments, Boss pedals and Marshall amps. I would guess that the biggest variation comes from the variation in the exchange rates, which is why Thomann is sometimes a bargain and sometimes not. No one is able to undercut the competition by 20% on brand new items (excluding demos and clearance stock.) More generally the variation in price between retailers is in the order of less than 5% which is really marginal. When you factor in shipping the hassle of returns, the shop doesn't seem such bad value. I have my suspicions that distributors have their share of blame too. A lot of disappointment I've had with physical stores in the past has been with expected stock dates. Many times I've placed a special order at the counter, and witnessed the phone order with the distributor. The dates given have hardly ever been honoured. That's not the fault of the store. When the Roland VG-99 came out, I wanted to try one out. It's quite an expensive piece of equipment that one doesn't buy lightly. The local Sound Control had one, but refused to let me try it because with the box open it would become a demo and (1) they couldn't return it to the distributor and (2) they couldn't sell it at full price if I didn't buy it. I phoned Roland who denied the whole thing. One of them must be lying, but both of them lost the sale. On a side note, I was pretty pissed off that some spec information that I needed wasn't on the website, wasn't answered in an email to their tech support, and that no engineer returned the call I was promised when I phoned their Swansea headquarters. One last thing: I own a lot of guitars and several basses. That's a lot of strings, but since I don't play them all at once I don't change them often so I tend to buy 10-12 packs of guitar strings at a time and 4-5 packs of bass strings, maybe once every 15 months. I would very very very happily buy these at full price at any of my local stores if only so my money goes to them and not online retailers. Guess what? No one stocks Ernie Ball Blue Steels 11-54 or Warwick Black Label 45-135 sets within driving distance from Bristol. I'm not however prepared to go to the store once to place an order and pay a deposit, then come back again at some undetermined date in the future to collect them and pay for the balance. Not when I can order online cheaper and faster. In other words: I would like to give £250 a year worth of business to any of my local stores, but there is zero incentive for me to do so. - martin

I personally think that there are unrealistic expectations from customers, suppliers and shops which result in a lot of dissatisfaction. It is becoming increasingly difficult for any music store to keep stock, let alone stay alive and compete with online prices. Online retailers are increasingly relying on price beating to survive. Customers want everything, at the cheapest price, and right now. In my mind there is absolutely no doubt where things are going. 1) Any physical store where the staff treat you like sh*t is going to die. I went to a local store recently and was made to wait for three minutes while the only staff there was making plans for the weekend with his mate on the phone. I'm not going there again. 2) Online stores that are not honouring their promise will die a slow painful death. I recently was after a pedal that practically no one in Europe had in stock. However several websites claimed to have stock, even when I phoned them. When I told them I'd place the order as soon as they could read me what it said on the box, they claimed they "couldn't find it." I had a similar story with a bass case that was meant to be in stock and dispatched the same day. Only to find several days later that "they didn't have stock, that was a mistake." 3) For high quality, high price goods, I predict it will become the norm for customers to travel a fair distance for the opportunity to try out and see in person expensive goods. If you're going to spend £2k on a new bass, travelling a hundred miles to a specialist store is probably worthwhile. In the end, it's all down to perceived value. I will admit that I'm a fussy customer, but at the same time I will happily pay more to support small specialist retailers. - martin

[quote name='martindupras' post='1065880' date='Dec 21 2010, 04:31 PM']If it was me, I wouldn't run the TU-3 from a 9V supply, just in case. It will probably work, but I wouldn't risk it. - martin[/quote] I just re-read the above. I meant to write "I wouldn't run the TU-3 from a *12V* supply". The point being that it is meant to run on 9V. Just for the record. - martin

I've thought about it some more and since the pedal can take a 9V battery there's no reason why a 9V supply wouldn't work. My guess is that the reason why they used 12V power supplies in the early 80s was because they weren't using regulated power supplies, which means that the voltage drops a bit when you power several pedals at once. With regulated power supplies, this doesn't happen. - martin [quote name='Sumbabba' post='1066637' date='Dec 22 2010, 12:05 PM']Thanks for the advice guys, I've got KiOgon making me up a single lead for a very reasonable price :-) Martin, it does need a 12V but I've tried plugging it into a PSA-240 9V and it worked. The light was a bit dim but other than that it seemed OK. Plus I got the idea from BossArea which seems to be populated by weirdly obssessive Boss freaks so hopefully they know what they're talking about :-) [url="http://www.bossarea.com/other/aca.asp"]http://www.bossarea.com/other/aca.asp[/url][/quote]

Actually, I just had a thought: if your OC-2 is old and needs an ACA-240, does it need 12V rather than 9v? According to the information that I found the ACA-240 is 12V, but the ACA-240G is 9V. If it was me, I wouldn't run the TU-3 from a 9V supply, just in case. It will probably work, but I wouldn't risk it. - martin

I thought I'd chip in with my personal humble opinion. I play 5-strings exclusively these days. I think of the 5-string as my instrument, I don't think of the 5-string as a 4-string with extra features. For a start, I avoid using open positions as much as possible (it's a matter of taste: I feel that open-string notes jump out, and I prefer a more even tone.) The 5-string allows me to avoid open strings if I choose to. I doubt that my approach is unique, but my way of seeing the instrument is to take the 5th fret on the B string as equivalent to the open E on a 4-string, and my fingerings derive from there. That means that I usually play higher up on the neck but on lower strings a lot of the time, and that I can extend either way from this 'default' position, so to speak. I feel also that over the course of a 2-hour gig it puts less stress on my arms (it's a more relaxed position for me.) Having said that, I use the whole neck. If we were talking about a piano, no one would make a statement such as "you should never play below E1" (or whatever.) Some people do, however, enjoy a good debate whether it's better to have a Bösendorfer Imperial with 97 keys or a Steinway with the standard 88. I take the view that one should play what sounds good and is appropriate to the context. - martin

I have not seen any two-output 2.1mm daisy chains or Y-connectors. My advice would be for you to get a 5-output daisy chain and not use three of them. If you're worried about them shorting out you could cover them in shrink-wrap tubing or electrical tape. Also since they are parallel connections, in theory you could just cut the three you don't need; if could make a neat cut and isolate the cut end with tape or shrink-wrap tubing then there's nothing to short out and there's no unsightly wires. You could make your own 9v leads, but I found that the barrels are actually quite fiddly to soldier, and they are much longer than the ones on daisy-chains. - martin [quote name='Sumbabba' post='1064582' date='Dec 20 2010, 01:19 PM']I have a Boss TU-3 and an OC-2 that I want to daisy chain as the OC-2 needs an old ACA-240 power adapter which are quite hard to get hold of these days. I also thought it would be a neater and easier set up. However, it seems you can only get a minimum of 5 adaptors on those parallel cables (such as the Boss PCS-20A) and I only want 2! I can see how it makes sense to have 8 if you want to fill up your pedalboard but I just don't see myself buying anymore Boss pedals. Does anyone know anywhere I can get hold of something like this? Cheers![/quote]

Bump! - martin

[quote name='radansey' post='1062757' date='Dec 18 2010, 06:51 PM']Martin, If you can find the spec details I may be able to provide one - will depend upon what I have in my man-drawer stock of hex screws of course!! Ross[/quote] That's great Ross. Many thanks! I'll let you know if I find out. - martin

Hi, I have a Fender American Deluxe Jazz Bass V (around '99, I believe). The knobs are not standard: there are concentric knobs for the active Low and High frequency pots. The bottom one has lost its hex screw, which means that it's loose and not very precise. I don't need the full set of knobs, and it would feel very silly to get a whole set of knobs to get just the one tiny little hex screw. Does anyone know where I can get just the screws, or does anyone know the spec of the screw (what size hex hole, what thread and size for the outer part of the screw)? Cheers, - martin

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='1018571' date='Nov 10 2010, 11:11 AM']Bongo SUB??!?!?![/quote] I'm not quite sure I get your point. Do you mean that it looks a little like a Sub because it's a metal guard? To me, rust metal looks as different as threadplate as tortoiseshell does to pearloid. Then again some people think PRS guitars look like Les Pauls, and I don't see the resemblance. - martin

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1018540' date='Nov 10 2010, 10:59 AM']I really like it, but as said, sharp edges would worry me. So would the scratches it might be putting in the finish on the other side! Dan[/quote] I'm not too worried about that, but I might put a thing sheet of something or other in between the guard and the body. Good point. - martin

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all the comments. I think it'll be there to stay, for a while anyway. I actually had them make me two, the second one being galvanised steel. I have to say up close the galvanised one looks vvery good but from afar it just looks like dull metal. I'll see how I can make it more interesting-looking. I'm not sure what metal it is but I assume it's regular steel. All the rust is from leaving it outside a few days. That worked really well. - martin