Bradwell

Was talking to one of the Peavey staff about this rig, the head is pretty similar to to regular VB-3 aside from cosmetic changes so I would expect the footswitch will work. The cabs are built specifically for the rig though, as opposed to being based on any existing product.

Getting into the minutiae of detail - types of wood are going to affect the tone, so is the grain direction, having a nicely tight fit on the neck pocket, how the wood has been dried out, the thickness of nitrocellulose laquer, playing with sweaty palms etc. Go based on a personal preference and general consensus - I like the feel of maple necks, not keen on rosewood, jazz profile for bass and a soft V for 6 string electrics. Mahogany necks are too heavy to give a good balance on most guitars and as much as I'd love to have the time & funds to experiment with building necks from exotic woods... I don't. The neck tonewood makes up such a small part of the overall sound and it will get argued over until the cows come home, same goes for body tonewoods. I would consider the guitar to constitue 1/3 of the instrument, the other parts are 1/3 amp and 1/3 cab.

[quote name='movwkd' timestamp='1417360612' post='2619532'] Great glad it tested out ok, and it looks fine and all works great sat in my dining room, lol .. I won it for a stupid low price including the fees and its getting its first outing at my next gig [url="https://www.dropbox.com/s/gu0pgil5p3don5z/vb%20ma%20rig.jpg?dl=0"]https://www.dropbox....%20rig.jpg?dl=0[/url] [/quote] Congratulations, glad a fellow Basschatter got a real bargain on it. Let me know how the gig goes. Picked up my equipment yesterday, no pictures as I was busy testing everything and ordering band-mates about. It all works very well and apart from minor scuffs in Tolex on the cab, everything is like new. More equipment than we realistically need at the moment and for the price paid - absolute bargain. Would suggest anybody in the east midlands area should keep an eye on the next auction. There won't be as much gear being sold but it'd be a good opportunity to pick up a back-up amp, FOH gear, cabs etc.

They still make higher end guitar amps in the USA, it's mostly the lower end gear that's cheap chinese stuff with lower build quality.

I got a confirmation email that I'd got all the lots I had been bidding on, but with guitar and PA stuff I wasn't really in a bidding war with anyone - none of it received other bids in the last hour and I didn't pay much over the reserve price on anything. Will be picking it up on Tuesday next week but feel like I got some real bargains (subject to being tested and confirmed working). It's enough gear to cover PA duties in a mid size pub/bar and rigs for 2 guitarists plus extra cabs to keep in our practice room, if one or two repairs are needed it's still going to be worth what I spent. Peavey doesn't do a particularly good job of marketing their gear in the UK, don't expect top end sound quality but it's atleast gig-worthy and rugged. Have a 20 year old VTM-60 guitar amp head at home that is bulletproof, loud and the tone's quite alright when you get it set up well.

Nice one picking up the AH600 from the demo room, always pays to check new & used prices and not get sucked in to bidding wars. The last item to be sold was a Budda 212 cab, somebody ended up paying the best part of £400 (when fees and VAT are added). They can be bought for £450 online new and I got one in the auction for much less. Let us know how it plays I think most of the Trace stuff went for a fair but not bargain price, then again it all looked very tidy. Pretty sure the majority of it was sold. Speaking to one of the Peavey staff on Saturday there was talk of Trace Elliot gear undergoing a redesign, although manufacturing is moving out to the USA it's nice to know the brand is being invested in after Gibson made a mess of it. I'm not sure what the reserve price on Peavey VB-2 and VB-3 amps were but I don't think they all got sold. Didn't put any bids on them as I was after guitar gear and couldn't find much info online about them. I'm going to phone the auction house later this week as I have some questions before picking up my lots so I will see if there was any VB-2 / VB-3s left.

Without looking into it further it should be ok but worth investigating properly for anyone who's interested. Anything on a 120V only supply could be run off a transformer. I was mostly there for electric guitar amps + PA equip though so I've not paid much attention to bass gear. I expect there will be tonnes of VB-2 heads going for the reserve price. If anyone is seriously interested you want to register to bid and get approved by the auctioneer ASAP (may take a couple of hours to go through), bidding ends at 11AM tomorrow.

Spent ages looking round on Saturday. Spoke to the staff who said Peavey are finding a UK distributor and shutting down the warehouse, will be a few weeks before they open a new repair centre but the impression I got was that the majority of stuff will be working. Lots was hire for festival-back line so it spends 8 months a year sitting about General rule: amps in low lot numbers below about 400 are tatty and best avoided. Lot 460 (VB3 amp) is 120V so anybody tempted should avoid that one. Most of the Trace gear is shooting up in price but to me it all looked in good condition visually. Tested lot 1261 (VB-3 Michael Anthony signature + 2 cabs) myself with one of the 5-string basses, not my style as the head looks a bit tacky with the decals but it works alright. Probably would sound quite nice with a Fender P-bass but I the Peavey bass was awful.

Had an excellent day, my first visit to a bass bash but will certainly come along for more. Met loads of awesome people, had a play on loads of fantastic gear and got to volume test my new rig. Thanks everyone.

Re: amp shootout - I think you need to have two Identical cabs or some sort of switching box for a proper side by side comparison. Tone controls set flat and using a looper pedal are both good ideas. I should be picking up my bass amplification the night before the bash, been saving up for ages. Two cabs + a big hybrid head although I'm keeping it secret until I've actually bought the rig (not a done deal until I hand over the money.) If anyone is updating the attendance list I will definitely bring the following 25. Bradwell - Fender MIJ Jazz Bass, Danelectro '63 short scale, Ibanez GSR 206, TC Electronic RH450 + Footswitch. The homebuilt fretless is still in bits but might get put together in a playable state over the next two evenings.

I use Ernie Ball 'not even slinky' strings to tune two whole tones down on one of my six strings (C F Bb Eb G C). Major third below standard and they're nicely playable at that tension on a 25.5 inch scale neck. A baritone six is usually either a perfect fifth, perfect fourth or major third below standard. You can buy replacement baritone necks to fit standard Fender guitars from Warmoth USA but for the price picking up a cheap baritone is a better bet for experimenting.

Cheers Phil. Excellent thread on UG, lots of info that I already knew from reading various books & articles but it's fantastic having it written for a band that's starting up. Lots of text books are aimed professional recording engineers: Getting through all the information and setting priorities isn't the easiest when you're practicing in a pub basement with two microphones, a laptop and several worn-out practice amps. I will take a look at getting the titan 12 or something similar as a vocal monitor for now and put RCFs as top of the list when it comes to auditioning FOH equipment early next year.

Thanks guys, Need something for practice more than anything at the moment. I know that a lot of places we're thinking of gigging in future should be able to provide a FOH system however, I don't want to rely on that. Something that can be used as either a wedge or FOH would be ideal.

Could do with some advice on buying an active stage monitor for my band. At the moment we're writing songs and playing through them without the vocal parts because we don't have a PA system. Looking at active, wedge type stage monitors that we can take to gigs and will keep up with our drums/amps if there's no front of house PA system provided for us. Been considering the Wharfedale EVP-X15PM, PMT Manchester have them for sale at £319. That's about the limit of our budget and I figure 400 watts is more than enough power for stage monitoring at club gigs. Will get our singer to try speakers out before we buy. Advice on other brands / models & shops around Manchester to go & test equipment would be appreciated.

A few basics: Try to hit strings with the side of your thumb knuckle and most of the movement tends to come from the wrist, let your thumb spring back off the string rather than trying to push the string down. A lot of the tone comes from the strings bouncing off the upper frets / fingerboard (fretless) - hitting the stings just below the end of the fingerboard works for me. Plucking is all about pulling the strings back far enough so they bounce of the fingerboard in the same way. For beginning stick to... Thumb - E & A strings, Index / middle fingers - D & G strings.

Lefties are rare by comparison, generally more expensive and the available variety of guitars is greatly reduced. Part of hendrix's tone was down to the orientation of the pick-ups relative to the string, particularly the slanted bridge pick up on a stratocaster. The closer a pole piece is to the bridge, generally the brighter the sound will be so stringing upside down on a strat will pick up close to the bridge on the bass side and further from the bridge on the treble side. As for reasons of technique, I can't think of anything right now.

[quote name='rapscallion' timestamp='1402997513' post='2478587'] Hi guys, Would it be possible to plane off the top of a guitar body and route out the cavities to make it a semi, then just glue and clamp the top back on? Am I just completely missing the point or is this a viable option? Cheers [/quote] Basically how I built my thinline telecaster with one exception:The top of the guitar would definitely have to be sacrificed to do it properly, short of a massive industrial bandsaw you wouldn't get a straight enough cut to re-use it. However it meant I could put a nice new flamed and spalted maple to on what was an otherwise very plain body (the back and sides were painted cherry red with sunburst finish on the top + cream binding). Routing out from the back and using cover plates is probably the easiest thing to do if it's for a quick & dirty modification to a cheapish guitar. Making a custom pick guard could work but would never be my first choice for reasons of aesthetic preference. Neck dive could be helped by moving strap buttons if possible or putting counterbalance weights in the tail end if required. Think carefully about where you're taking strength out of the body with the router - I would recommend that you leave a fair amount of core material down the centre and around mounting points for the neck & bridge.

Depends on exactly what he wants but considering the price of bolt on replacements for stratocasters £200 would get a very nice off the shelf neck (most of the differences from the Jem are minor in terms of what they cost to produce such profile, fingerboard radius, finish and aesthetic things like headstock shape) One piece in this instance shouldn't make much difference due to the construction methods used. Ibanez Jems aren't going to be quite so well catered for by the mass market but any decent luthier should be able to supply a custom built neck from a choice of materials (rosewood plus a choice of maples - flame, burl etc.) and for £600 I'd be expecting extras like LEDs and custom inlays to be honest. Get him to shop around: Manton customs definitely, Warmoth for comparison purposes but I'd say keep business in the UK where possible as there will always be small, independent luthiers who will do a good job and provide excellent service. I know I'm working on limited information here but if that £600 is for a standard bolt on neck then I'd question how much he is paying for the full guitar if it's from the same supplier.

The main thing will be that the surrounds need a running in period to loosen up but this applies to the initial period of use. I suppose that depending on the material, for example; rubber may chemically denature over time, then they might change from not being used. A lot of guitar speaker cones have paper surrounds though. Moisture and mould will adversely affect the rigidity of the cone. Basically you would want the cone to be as stiff as possible for it to be responsive and efficient (common sense applies, keep the cabs stored properly). So long as they're not obviously damaged or being pushed too hard then keep the set up as is, I don't think there's any real reason to replace them. If you're still concerned then maybe try running some A/B tests with both cabs or checking them against another of the same model if you can loan one.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1411437021' post='2559524'] [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GTKnwuvI1E"]https://www.youtube....h?v=3GTKnwuvI1E[/url] [/quote] Nice to know they're reasonably playable instruments and more original than producing Fender / Gibson copies (looks similar to an Airline though), wouldn't ever chance that kind of money on it via ebay and it does look cheap. [quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1411424644' post='2559489'] I doubt it. The screws holding the neckplate on are diddy scratchplate-type screws, so presumably it's a cover plate concealing both the battery and the actual neck screws. Either that or the neck pocket is tight beyond Fender's wildest dreams. [/quote] The neckplate screws are spaced too far apart for the neck so I think you're right. There's other design quirks that I'm not convinced on: I think effects should always be seperate as there's less to go wrong with the guitar and it strikes me as a bit of a gimmick for beginners who wouldn't know any better. Unless you really need the effects on the guitar for practical / theatrical purposes then they're best kept in pedals or a rack. Which brings me onto this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP_VcJN6ro8 (Skip to 1:10 for some proper built in guitar effects) Also, I can't really think of any use for a 5-pin DIN plug unless you're sending control signals to something external.

Fender style retainers with grooves on the underside are pretty good. I know that you've already bodged one in place but when it comes to fixing things properly I would say it's best not to bother with threaded inserts - tried some for a neck repair and they were next to useless. Much better to drill the hole out and then fill with epoxy resin or glue in a hardwood dowel.

It's still a bit of an experiment but the theory is that 2-off 2x12mm battens epoxied into the truss rod channel should be so strong that there's very little deflection when the string tension is put on. They're so stiff that putting a truss rod in the neck would just add weight and adjusting the tension wouldn't make any appreciable difference. Problem is that any relief may have to be sanded onto the fingerboard. I prefer roundwounds so epoxy would save a rosewood fingerboard from getting chewed to bits. Using an ebonol fingerboard as the replacement on this neck so I'm not yet sure if an epoxy coating is necessary due to the hardness of the base material.

Working on one at the moment and have done a couple of others in the past. Usually I would fill the slots with shavings from a block of maple & glue them in, but the current one is epoxy mixed with white paint, both are a bit fiddly but work well. I'd recommend slackening the truss rod off and going over the fingerboard with a radiusing block to even it out before epoxying. Apply the epoxy using something like an old credit card or plastic spatula. I don't think the 2nd layer of epoxy needs to be particularly thick though as it forms a very hard surface. My current fretless project is a bit different as it's an old p-bass neck and the truss rod was broken (couldn't grip the hexagonal keyway to tighten it). I sanded the old fingerboard off, used and angle grinder to take out the truss rod and replaced it with some 2x12mm carbon fibre battens - when it's finished they should keep it poker straight but no adjustment. Will keep you posted on how it develops.

[quote name='skidder652003' timestamp='1410520978' post='2550283'] thems a serious matter of personal taste! To me, urggh! [/quote] I was mostly referring to the ones on the manufacturer's website Some of the woods are very pretty (mmm...olivewood), some of the dye effects are pretty. The basses themselves: to my mind the shapes aren't proportioned very well, they lack subtlety and I have real doubts about the design intent, pick-up covers look daft too. A matter of personal style before practicality. There's bits & pieces I like but I'd never design a whole guitar like any of those. Like you said, serious matter of personal taste.