Dan Dare

Let's keep this one going. I like spoof labels. My Bitsa has a Fender style logo that says 'Findus Sea Bass' on the headstock, courtesy of a chap on eBay. Is that illegal?

I had the same issue when building my Bitsa. I rotated the socket on the scratchplate so the contacts didn't touch the shielding and it was fine.

11 hours ago, dannybuoy said:

What are you using to process the signal, as the did could be coming from there. Install Audiobus and route the input directly to the output and see if you still get it then?

I rate my Beyer DT770s over the Phil Jones cans any day, but at 80ohms they take a bit of juice to drive them, I found them lacking in volume through the Sonic Port but plenty loud enough via the Bighead.

This. Great cans. Tried and tested. I power mine with a mixing desk, which gives plenty enough volume

I've bought several items from them - Mex P bass Special, PJB C4 and a few odds and ends - and they've always arrived very promptly. No complaints from me.

I'd suggest trying some D'Addario Chromes. Roto flats are quite high tension for their gauges in my experience. Chromes are not too expensive and reasonably bright, when new at any rate, so are quite versatile. If you get the 45-100 set, they won't be too brutal under the fingers. They come coated in some kind of gunk that prevents corrosion, which makes them feel a bit oily/sticky. Wipe 'em down with a drop of meths or white spirit and they'll feel better.

Don't want to be a doom merchant, but it may be NAD. The digital bit is generally something of a black box. Unless it can be replaced whole, it's often game over.

On ‎22‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 12:17, EliasMooseblaster said:

That would require you to find a guitarist who'll voluntarily play in Eb - a very rare breed, in my experience!

Buy 'em a capo for Christmas.

A good repair person has a living to make. He isn't running a charity. It's sensible to search for alternative quotes, of course.

1 hour ago, Sean said:

That’s absolute bonkers!

What’s the set up? Master/slave?

I suspect the lower case contains the power supply. That many KT88s or 6550s are going to need pretty beefy transformers unless it's an OTL design.

Comments from others above are very helpful - make sure your outputs are connected correctly, using pfl (if the mixer has one) to set initial levels, etc. Assuming that is the case, it's important to set the gain structure correctly. You have three stages of gain in a mixer - the input gain, the channel fader and the output faders. Each stage feeds through to the next and they must be balanced to each other and not over driven. A quick and easy way to get started is to begin with all turned fully down. Then set the main outputs at around -5db (keep the power amps feeding the main system and the monitors off at this stage) and the channel faders at 0db. Whilst someone sings into each mic/plays each instrument, slowly raise the input gain until the signal lights show at around 0db, or maybe -+3db on peaks (allow for the fact that people sing/play more gently when sound-checking than they do when the gig is underway) and adjust the eq to suit. It helps to do this on headphones. Then set your monitor levels. If you are using monitors, roll the bass end off quite hard - that is a frequent cause of feedback (and you don't need heavy bass in monitors - you can hear plenty of it from the room normally). Once you are happy, raise the gain on the power amps feeding the main PA until the overall level is as desired. That should leave plenty of headroom and allow you to increase the output faders if you wish to raise the overall level during the gig, or individual channel faders if you want to hear more of a particular singer or instrument, without running into feedback issues. Hope this helps.

Not specifically a Bluetooth speaker, but the Cambridge Audio Minx is well reviewed and sounds good with a decent low end for its size. I have one - use it with the laptop, phone and other things. Can be powered off the mains adaptor or the internal battery.

I think you'll probably just have to let the smell work its way out/wear off. A pal of mine used to drive rally cars. He bought an ex-works jobbie from a farmer, who had bought it and used it for one season only, before parking it in the corner of the yard, where the pigs lived. My pal could never rid the thing of the smell of the pigs, even though he stripped everything out of the interior of the car.

Nice. Loved my Bassman 135 and 2x15 cab. Don't miss carting it about, mind.

5 hours ago, dyerseve said:

how on earth do you reach this conclusion? Surely if this was the case all basses would be made from plywood or MDF or any other readily available and cheap material...

 

 

I was referring to tone-woods, not inexpensive, readily available timber such as alder (used by Fender for solid bodies because it was a cheap and plentiful semi-hardwood that was easily machined). Materials such as ply and MDF can actually be quite tough on wood machining tools because of the glues, resins, etc they contain, so the saving in expenditure on material can be offset by the increased cost of replacing tool bits. I'm referring to building solid instruments out of rosewood and other fine timber. Sure, Brazilian Rosewood makes a big difference to my 1971 Martin D35 (sorry. couldn't resist bragging), but it makes no difference to a solid.

I've got one of those somewhere. Bought it in the late 70s for a project bass. Don't think it was Hohner branded (box long since gone) although they may well have used them.

10 hours ago, chris_b said:

These days the bigger Ampeg amps do have speakons. They also still provide 1/4" sockets and their owner's manuals recommend using the speakons at "high output power levels". Why they still provide 1/4" sockets I don't know but for those guys to provide them, I guess they are expecting us to use them, and without breaking the gear when we do!

It would make sense from Ampeg's point of view not to limit their sales to those who have/use Speakons. Many still use 1/4" jacks.

You can get rubber feet that have sticky pads ready attached. Just peel the backing paper and stick 'em on. If you search for 'self adhesive rubber feet' on eBay, you'll find stacks of them.

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

That's why I mentioned there was no SS when 1/4" were adopted. Tubes aren't bother by shorting the output.

Is that really the case, Bill? I always thought one had to be extra careful not to short the output on a tube amp or run it without a load.

38 minutes ago, Kevsy71 said:

Hmm - should I be concerned about my all-tube Ampeg V4B reissue having 1/4" out to Speakon In on my cab? 

Not as long as you ensure the speaker jack is properly plugged in before powering it up and don't disconnect it before powering down.

54 minutes ago, discreet said:

There's nothing wrong with Duncan Designed pickups. If you have 'better' pickups it's definitely worth trying them, but record before and after to make sure it's not 'confirmation bias'.

I'd change the strings first. It's easy and likely to make a huge difference.

 

Edit: I also had a Squier VM Jazz V for a while and the 'B'-string wasn't all that great. Having said that bear in mind I don't get on with 5-stringers anyway, the 'B' string always seems like it's from a different planet, but that's probably a mental abberation on my part... I did some recording with it though and it sounded fine.

I've found few if any inexpensive 5 string basses that have a good low B string. The only one I did was a Lakland Skyline, which although "budget" in Lakland terms, was hardly cheap. It also had a 35" scale length, which accounted for much of the difference, I think.

19 hours ago, tonyclaret said:

If I remember rightly this is just a grub screw, should be able to pick one up at an engineer/tool merchants.

If you're in London, try Clerkenwell Screws. I've got odd bits and pieces from them that you can't easily find elsewhere.

1 minute ago, converse320 said:

Dan, I know a pickup is an electro magnetic device.  But if a string vibrates in a magnetic field,  a current is induced in the coils.  So a magnetic pickup certainly measures vibration of the string. 

See my other points above. You have to do something quite extreme to affect the vibration enough for it to be discernable (which is why using "tone-wood" on solid electric instruments is a waste of time and money).

11 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I think I read somewhere that the pots on Squiers are 500s rather than 250s? If so swapping to 250s would darken the sound a fair bit.

I'd be surprised if that was the case. The usual rule is 250k for single coil, 500k for humbuckers. As Squier are made by Fender (so follow original design specs) and there is no cost advantage either way, I don't think they'd do that.

18 minutes ago, converse320 said:

As I said above, I'm trying to understand why shimming makes no difference to sound, rather than claiming that it does make a difference.  I don't think guitar pickups are microphones, but I do think pickups are measuring small and complex patterns of vibrations in strings.  I would absolutely have expected that the way the neck joint is formed would make a difference to the way that strings vibrate.  To me, it's a bit puzzling that it doesn't.

Pickups are electro-magnetic devices, so measure the amount of movement of the string within a magnetic field (not vibration - that is what a microphone does) and convert it into (a very small amount of) electrical energy, which is fed to your amp and made larger (amplified). Most differences in construction, type of wood used, etc on an electric guitar or bass have no discernable effect on that. The job of the body, neck and bridge are to hold the string securely and allow it to vibrate freely. If you went to extremes - a bass made of cardboard with a balsa wood nut and plastic bridge, to be really silly - it would affect string movement and duration of sustain by damping it heavily, but a little shim under the neck heel has no effect that we can hear or measure. It's a matter of degree.

9 minutes ago, discreet said:

Thanks for this. Just had a look on Bass Direct at some PJB stuff... the Compact Suitcase at 300W @ 8ohms looks favourite. But it's out of stock.

http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/PJB_Compact_Suitcase_BG400.html

I think the best combination of power, tone, portability and affordability would probably be a second-hand Markbass CMD 121P, or some such.

Agree re. the MB combo. PJB stuff ain't cheap and in terms of sound for the pound, you can do better, especially used. I borrowed a MB 102P combo recently and was surprised how much poke it had. Real kick in the chest sound and plenty of volume. They turn up used from time to time