Dan Dare

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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

A lot of sense in this, although it wouldn't make much sense for SD and similar companies to design an equivalent (or even better) sounding cheaper pickup to be made in the Far East. Nobody would buy the originals if they did. I don't generally like hot/overwound p/us either. With adjustable input gain on amps, it doesn't really matter anyway as you can compensate for variations in pickup signal strength.

Absolutely. Japanese audiophiles build some beautiful creations, such as this: .

Yes. Gator do a 3u shallow rack - http://gatorcases.com/products/racks-portable/molded-racks/grc-shallow-molded-racks/3u-audio-rack-shallow-gr-3s/. I use one. It's about 315mm front to back without the lids attached, so will take gear up to around 340mm deep. One thing I find worth doing is to use support for the amp, so the weight isn't all taken by the front plate. Something like this - http://cpc.farnell.com/pulse/rksu-1u/rack-shelf-universal-1u/dp/DP32725 (you want one without a lip at the rear) - attached to the rack strip at the back of the case helps spread the load. The rear of the amp can just rest on it.

Me too. Some appear to think that pickups are microphones.

You could gig with something like a PJB a Suitcase. I had the Flightcase, which didn't quite manage with other than acoustic or quiet amplified instruments in anything apart from lounge type venues in my experience. I sold it and got another PJB cab and use 1, 2 or 3 of them with my head depending on the venue/band.

And through rubbish Peavey speakers, too

Here's 2 of them running stereo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRt8CoZT35k. It's pornography, I tell you.