Gottastopbuyinggear

Also not an arsey question, although the answer may be "if you have to ask you'll never understand"... Why do you need one per band - different set-up? Flats and rounds? Flats and rounds was my justification having two Precisions, by the way, and I'm struggling to not use it as an excuse to get a second Jazz 🙂

I’m no expert, but do like to do a bit of research, so unfortunately managed to elect myself as sound man for our pub band when we bought a PA. We have a digital mixer so I always high pass the keys and guitar, on the occasion we mic him up, which I find keeps the low end clean - unlike the situation at times in the practice room. I don’t know what kit the OP has, but somewhere along the chain there’s likely to be some high pass filter capability, which shouldn’t affect keys or guitar detrimentally but will protect speakers from the low bass frequencies. I’d guess somewhere around 80Hz would be a good starting point? I don’t currently go through the PA, which is a bit of a problem given the very limited sound check opportunities we have and the fact that I’m stood out the front so can’t adjust my own sound/volume. I’ve wondered before about putting some high passed bass through the PA so will probably give it a try soon. Fortunately our guitarist isn’t a bonehead about volume. That honour goes to the drummer 🤦‍♂️

I bought Rich’s MXR 81 preamp pedal. Really easy to deal with Rich - clear and quick communication, and the pedal was well packaged and in great condition as described.

I think some headphone amps will have peak limiters in them to guard against this sort of thing? I seem to recall one of the Behringer ones does, but I can’t remember which one off the top of my head.

With a couple of days off in the run up to Christmas I finally managed to get around to the 3D printed case I've been meaning to do for ages to house the latest version of my foot controller. The controller is based on a Teensy board to give both USB and standard MIDI, with a Raspberry Pi Zero to act as a USB MIDI host. I also have a half built Teensy based MIDI controller for adjusting parameters, so I wanted a solution that can accommodate all three USB MIDI devices. I've included hardware MIDI too so that I can still use the controller while the HX Stomp is connected to HX Edit via USB. The Teensy is connected to the Pi outside the case so I can disconnect it to update the software and don't have to open up the case. The mini OLED displays are connected to the Teensy via an I2C multiplexer. I won't show a picture of the inside of the case - it's a mess! I need to learn how to use a better 3D design solution - I used Tinkercad for this, but it's quite basic. The case is slightly more robust than I was expecting for a 2mm thick 20% infill print - it'll do for me using it, but won't survive our singer jumping on it - fortunately it's usually our guitarist's pedals that get destroyed like that! Software needs a huge amount of work - it's a monolithic mess at the moment. At present three of the buttons are configured for a single press to toggle (Tuner, Compressor and Mid Boost), single press or single action on hold (Mode - switches between Stomp and Snapshot on single press, and boosts the output by 20dB for connecting directly to a power amp when held) and single press or multiple action on hold (Prog up and down by one on single press, or repeated up and down by three if held). Next step is to make the button handling generic and call the relevant action based on what each switch is presently configured to do, so that I can implement different layouts across the switches. DD3DE07F-31DB-4D5E-A3A2-9DEB8924A311_2_0_a.mov

@PaulThePlugvery kindly sent me two when I needed one for my son’s bass. I’ll check with him to see if he’s still got the second and if so I’d be happy to pay the favour forward and send it to you, @neepheid. Don’t hold your breath, though - he’s not the most organised so may not be able to find it!

I have the single and dual versions of the Gator case, one in use and one up in the loft at any time. I go through cycles of using the dual case, then getting fed up because it’s so heavy and reverting to the single case, then feeling bad that I’m not taking a spare bass to gigs and going back to the dual. To put it in context, I’ve just weighed it with its current contents - a couple of nine pound basses, lead, iPad, strap, clip on tuner and earplugs (don’t think the last two are adding much weight!). It’s 14Kg loaded like that, so not always the easiest of things to carry/get into the back seat of the car, etc. I wouldn’t try putting it on my back and carrying any distance. They are excellent cases though, and offer plenty of protection. My only gripe is that the padding in the handles seems to separate making them slightly uncomfortable - it’s happened on both mine.

Facing across the stage was something I’d considered too. I think we’re going to experiment a bit over the next couple of gigs. We’ll try facing back/across the stage and covering both of us, and I think I’ll try angling my cab to solve the problem for me and putting the monitor closer to the drummer, which I think will require a bit less volume.

Almost always about level with the drummer in the pubs we play, unfortunately - rarely enough space to get my amp further back than he is.

Is that in addition to a back line amp, or are you going through the PA? Whilst I’d like to add a sub and put bass through the PA, again I don’t think it’s justifiable based on the amount of gigs we play.

Ah, well, I’d love to but we’re strictly a hobby band restricting ourselves to two gigs a month so can’t really justify the expense. Also I don’t want to have to get into micing up drums. I wear custom moulded ear plugs so my ears have already thanked me 😊

Not over that period of time, but on an email per day basis I've already had 3 from PMT today.

To put the question in context, pub band with keys and vocals only going through the PA so my bass amp is carrying the room. Drummer complains he can't hear the bass, and to be fair it's a problem I often have as I'm standing just in front of the amp most of the time. It's been suggested that I could put some bass in a monitor that would cover both me and the drummer. It would be high passed to cut out anything below about 100Hz or so as it'll only be an 8" or 10" monitor. Apart from the general problem of adding to "on stage" volume could this cause any other issues - I'm thinking specifically of whether it could cause cancellation problems with the sound that the audience hears? Any other considerations?

I think ignorance is probably the issue here, @Phil Starr! Again I’m casting my mind back a while so I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think I tried modelling the removal (or at least blocking) of one of the four ports in WinISD and it lowered the bass response and gave a bit of a low mid hump around the 100 to 130 Hz mark, which I thought would probably be a reasonably pleasing bump. But we all know that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, and I could well be speaking out of my own rear port…! There’s two things I thought I might be able to achieve - 1. decrease the low bass, as the cabs used together can be quite overwhelming, and 2. improve dispersion (?) to make it easier to hear myself when I’m standing very close to the cabs. I could experiment with 1 pretty easily by just blocking a port in each cab. 2. will take a bit more work as I’ll need to make new baffles, but I built both cabs with removable baffles so it’s entirely achievable. If reducing the volume of the cab turned out to be worth trying then what would be the lightest material I could introduce to take up some space? Oh, and feel free to let me know just how much nonsense I’m talking!

That was a very timely question as I was thinking about asking the same thing. Also, was the Mk 2 the same internal volume as the Mk 1? The reason for the interest and question is that I built and still gig two of the Mk 1 cabs, but feel the need to add a tweeter in one of them to help with my own hearing of the bass when I’m standing very close to the cabs, which I often am in the pubs etc. that we play. Casting my mind back a few years I *think* (though I’m not entirely sure) that the Mk 2 might have been the same internal volume but with slightly different overall dimensions, and likewise *think* that I worked out that I could fit the SM212, tweeter and manrose pipe based port in the Mk 1 front panel footprint. And there’s a third question, too - if I wanted to adjust the port dimensions to tune the cab a bit higher then would that cause any problem based on the crossover design… always assuming there’s still a record of it somewhere… Hope that all makes sense - I’m one or two glasses of a rather nice Malbec in…

You are a lucky man then! I've also had to contend with the keys player spilling his drink all over the stage box and nest of cables a couple of times. I sent him this the morning after the second incident: To be fair that was a few years ago now - I've not had to launder any cables since.

I look after and in fact have bought almost all the leads for our band. I’ve even built a custom snake for the far side of the stage to bring keys and key players vocals into the mixer and send main and monitor mixes back. This is what my bag looks like after a typical gig: and the state of the leads that get thrown back at me at the end of the night by the keys player: We have a new approach now - keys player keeps the leads, and I try to not watch as he pulls them apart when setting up for each gig. I keep some spares just in case, because they aren’t going to last long with that sort of abuse!

Ah, CD Guitars - I’d forgotten about them. They do seem to be a bit of a treasure trove for awkward to get parts - think I bought an extra long truss rod nut from them a while ago. I’ve replied to your PM, and thanks again for the kind offer - I’ll happily relieve you of one of your spares!

The nylon washer between the tuner peg and shaft has disintegrated on my son’s Ibanez SR300. Does anyone have any idea where I could buy replacements? I can see plenty of places selling ones that are about 6mm outside, 4mm inside diameter, but these are more like 8.56mm outside, 6.5mm inside. The closest I can find are drum tension rod washers so I may have to give that a try.

I have this: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Einhell-BT-HT-Folding-Truck-Capacity/dp/B001GU6FYI/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=3REQXT4OZZKA6&dchild=1&keywords=sack+trolley&qid=1617954212&sprefix=Sack+tr%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzVVZBSUE0UUFNMDhQJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzAxMjExM0k1SFFKMjVaVkZVQiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMzU5NjQ0TUtFUkxJUFlTU0pMJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ== I went for this over one where the wheels folded in as I thought this might be sturdier, but obviously it takes up that little bit more room. Seems very sturdy to me, but fully loaded with my gear is probably only 35Kg. Have also moved a 6ft tall fridge with it