Gottastopbuyinggear

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1454865886' post='2973701'] There was one particular issue of Neutrik jacks that had a poorly designed earth connection that was so solid that you couldn't get it hot enough to take the solder properly. It would draw all the heat into the casing of the plug. I have a couple somewhere. They have black plastic tops. They later went back to the normal earth tag. [/quote] The right angle ones have tags for the earth. The straight ones didn't, and it did seem that it took a while to get the solder to take. But I'm getting the same problem with both straight and right angle. [quote name='essexbasscat' timestamp='1454866083' post='2973705'] To the OP; have you checked the Neutriks with a multimeter before soldering ? checked the cables unsoldered ? all clear unsoldered ? [/quote] Yep, both were okay. [quote name='obbm' timestamp='1454868692' post='2973753'] OP, are you stripping back the black conductive plastic screen from the inner core? [/quote] Aha, I've just seen something on another forum about this. No, is the answer. I've just taken a look and I can see what you mean - there's a black sheath around the white insulator surrounding the signal cable. You're saying that's conductive?!

A while ago I bought a bunch of Neutrik jacks, a mixture of straight and right angle, some Sommer Tricone cable, and some Klotx AC110, with a view to making up a couple of shortish patch leads, and a lead of about 5 feet to use while I'm playing through Amplitube on my computer. The first one I made sounded a bit strange to me, so I checked it with a multimeter and found there wasn't infinite resistance between the tip and the sleeve. I made up another, and got the same thing. I had another go this morning, and yet again the same thing. It's not massive - I need to set the multimeter to the highest range, and I'm getting a reading of about 0.2Meg Ohm. I've tried all my other cables, including some I made myself a while ago with cheaper jacks, and they're all fine - infinite (according to my multimeter) resistance between the tip and the sleeve. It's driving me mad - what am I doing wrong?! I'm pretty certain it's not my soldering - I've built effects on PCB and veroboard (some recently), and even a valve amp, and never had a single failure, but I can't seem to make a basic patch lead now! I've got a degree in electrical and electronic engineering for heaven's sake! The only thing I can think of is that I'm heating the plug too much and the insulation is breaking down, either in the plug or the cable. I've been using a 30W iron recently, rather than the 15W I usually use, but I've had no problem soldering LEDs, transistors, etc. with that. Any ideas?!

If you are handy with a soldering iron then I'd second the vote for the ROG Ginger - I built one at Christmas (using a PCB from TH Custom Effects) and I'm really pleased with how it sounds for adding just that little bit of drive and warmth. Added satisfaction of building it yourself, too.

[quote name='Talon' timestamp='1451129094' post='2938416'] Got some Custom shop 60's Jazz Pickups.....Lovely [/quote] That's what I had last year, to put on the bass for which I got the tort pickguard this year. They're great pickups, hope you enjoy them too

Tort pickguard (I'm sure they were always called scratch plates when I was a lad?) for my sunburst jazz. Perfect!

[quote name='CokeyW' timestamp='1448483629' post='2915860'] There is no perfect bass = there will be no perfect sex robot. EMG will always create an upgrade and we'll endlessly discuss its merits. There'll be tried and tested mass market sex robots and small niche builders who'll build sex robots to your exact spec for a price. [/quote] I'm already worrying what the first bitsa is going to look like!

I have a set of Rotosound RS 77 long scale flatwounds, 45-65-85-105 with only about 10 hours play, but the G seems a bit dead compared to the others. I found the tension too high for me so I'm trying some D'addario chromes instead. Happy to post within the UK to anyone who wants them - drop me a PM. Might take a while to get to the post office, though, so possibly not for you if you're in a hurry!

The OP doesn't say why they want to raise the cab off the floor, however I'll chime in with something possibly totally irrelevant anyway... I had a situation where I wanted to get a cab isolated in some way from a very boomy hollow wooden stage, and angle it back a bit at the same time. I found there's quite a few places on the web where you can buy foam for furniture in different densities cut to size in varying shapes. I bought one that was an inch at the back, three inches at the front, in a dense black foam. I think it was about ten quid including postage. It's not as dense as the auralex stuff by any means, but the cab was stable, and it did help with the boom from the stage.

Received wisdom from the internet (so it must be true...) is that neither the 350 or the 800 had the same issues as the PF500. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the more recent PF500s have also been trouble free, and as an owner of a more recent 500 (bought new about a year and a half ago) I'm hoping that's true!

Just remembered where I'd got the original idea from - this very forum... http://basschat.co.uk/topic/260884-zoom-b3-or-keep-building-effects-board/

I have the MS60. You can do 1 or 2 but not both at the same time. If you don't want to use a line selector in one slot of a patch in order to turn it on an off then you can set up a bypass patch and use the ability to cycle through two selected effects to go between patch and bypass. That will achieve 1. That will also achieve 2, as you can cycle through any number of patches, but if you wanted to also be able to turn everything off as well as have two different effects selectable during a song then you'll have to have a cycle of three patches, one of them being a bypass. The foot switch only has one mode of operation at any time, either turn on or off the currently selected effect in a patch (hence the use of line selector as the first effect to turn the others off) or cycle through a number of pre-selected patches. If you're enough of a geek (as, sadly, I am...) then you could build an external switch using MIDI over USB, as the pedal does respond to basic MIDI patch change messages, but I won't say it's easy. There was a guy on Talk Bass building that sort of thing (http://www.disasterareaamps.com/shop) but I've not seen anything similar on sale in the UK, though there might well be if you looked hard enough. If you wanted to go the DIY route it would probably cost about £50 to do something similar to what I did. I could let you have a list of the basic parts I used, and the code, but no warranty that it'll work properly!

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1444997925' post='2888004'] My position now is that, if you don't enjoy the basic grooves like a shuffle or a 4:4 walking line, it's because you aren't nailing it [/quote] This too. Mind you, I do enjoy that stuff, but I couldn't believe how difficult a root note shuffle could be to get right. I'm pretty sure I ain't nailing it yet!

Go Buddy Go, by The Stranglers. Can't believe I only heard it for the first time a few months ago - I was young when it was first out!

[quote name='CHW' timestamp='1445008063' post='2888149'] Is the whole change one string at a time thing an urban myth, I've never heard anyone report problems with a stringed instrument having regularly taken all of the strings off?? [/quote] I can't believe it could really be a problem - necks don't get made or have their frets levelled under tension, and if your truss rod adjustment is at the heel then you often have to slacken the strings right off to shift or remove the neck to adjust it. Perhaps snipping all the strings off from full tension might be a bit of a shock for an old instrument, but in general I'd suggest it's nonsense. But what do I know? Perhaps someone more knowledgable will be along shortly to put me right!

[quote name='Lozz196' timestamp='1440009588' post='2847578'] Yes they are very reasonably priced, I suppose they have to be to grab a share of the micro-amp market, but given how good the VT DI pedal is, I`m surprised that this amp is only a couple of hundred dearer than that. [/quote] Apart from the addition of the power amp itself then I'd guess all the rest of the features (and more) are already there in something like the VT Deluxe, so the additional cost of manufacture is probably relatively small. I should add that I've no experience of any of Tech21's pedals, although I've had a healthy case of GAS for them for a while, and now for this too. Damn...

The MarkBass cabs with piezo tweeters get a lot of criticism for being hissy, though I've not heard that of the horn loaded ones before. I have a 102P which is a little bit hissy with the LPAD turned up, but I always have it turned right off and I can confirm there's no hiss like that, so your situation does sound a bit like you have a fault. I've been in a similar position before, with a relatively minor niggle with a different speaker cab, and being such a bulky and heavy item I was loathe to go through the hassle of returning it. If I were in the same situation again, though, I would return it, as it still niggles me on occasion now.

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1439246623' post='2841335'] I was advertising for experimental/ambient musicians for a project, I had 2 guys contact me both looking fora bass player for their blues rock bands. [/quote] Scandalous. One can only imagine they thought you might have a diverse range of musical interests and be interested in another project - how very dare they! I hope you sent them packing with a suitable admonishment.

[quote name='anaxcrosswords' timestamp='1438885882' post='2838450'] My experience is similar, but I put it down to imagining - especially if I attempt anything noodly - that I run the risk of looking like a plonker in front of shop guys who are likely to be immeasurably better musicians than me. So I just plod simple notes to get a feel for the bass or amp or effects pedal or strap or whatever. [/quote] I do suffer from this, but then I ask myself, do I really give a sh*t for the good opinion of someone who would think like that?

I'm a massive fan of playing through Amplitube on a PC and using headphones (and agree with fretmeister, the B 15 model is really good). It's the easiest way I've found of playing along with songs or backing tracks - more convenient for me than using an iPad, though that's probably just a personal thing. I usually use a touch of compression to tame the peaks, which makes it easier on the ears when playing for a long period of time. I'd invested in Amplitube for guitar stuff anyway, and if you keep an eye out they do some good sales quite regularly, but there's other modelling software out there which is cheaper.

A question on this - can ear buds with only the vocals really work, or would they block out or muddy up too much of the rest of the sound to be able to sing in tune? With regard to cheaper IEM systems not having any form of limiter, what about putting everything through a compressor (which someone in the band might already have) to limit the transients? I practice both guitar and bass almost exclusively through headphones using Amplitube, and have found it much more comfortable to put a bit of light compression in just to limit the spikes.

I have one of each for different cabs. They're both excellent. The Hotcovers one is more of a vinyl type material and has a reasonable amount of foam padding, whereas the basic Roqsolid cover has a thinner felt lining. As a result the Roqsolid cover, when taken off, will fold up as you'd expect. The Hotcovers one will retain its shape and resist folding up - I regularly put my gig bag full of cables on top of it while setting up and it doesn't collapse. In a small room that can be a bit of a pain, actually, as it takes up space. I'm just waiting for the time some unsuspecting soul tries to sit on it...

I bought a new MIM Precision recently and I absolutely love it. It play well, sounds great (to my relatively untrained ear) and the fit and finish are excellent. I also have a 2007 MIM Jazz, which is basically just as good, although I did find the pickups a bit lacklustre, and the pots don't feel as good as on the P. I also have a MIM strat from 2003, and a 2006 MIA Tele. Even through I love the Tele, I have to say that it's the only one that I've found a quality issue with, although I am being very picky about it. Conversely I saw an new American Standard P in a store recently, and the bridge looked like it was at least 5 or 10 degrees off kilter. It did put me off thinking about buying a MIA bass - if the people assembling and QC'ing them aren't spotting things like that then who knows what else is going on. I'm having a massive sense of deja vu now - apologies if I've spouted all this in another recent thread...

You could try openly recording your band "just for the hell of it", give the recording to everyone in the band, and then see if anything happens. You never know, he may spot the problem himself, or someone else might say something, especially if the rest of the band have been together longer and know each other better. Personally I've found Listening to recordings of my own playing quite useful. Until I first heard myself recorded I didn't realise I had a tendency to play ahead of the beat a bit too much on occasions, which was causing the drummer to speed up, and I've largely managed to correct that now.