Dan Dare

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

1 hour ago, stevie said:

There is so much marketing bull surrounding replacement pickups that it's hard to tell what's true and what isn't. A couple of years ago, there was a link on here to a small bass manufacturer's website where they demonstrated around 10 different P-bass pickups on the same bass. Even though the price differences were great, the differences in sound were marginal. It was basically impossible to tell the cheapest Chinese copy from the most expensive hand-wound-by-dwarfs-and-aged-in-whiskey-in-California models. I suppose it's hardly surprising when you consider that this is fairly primitive technology that is very easy to copy.

So I'm not surprised that there is disagreement on this topic (expectation bias and all that). On the other hand, I have certainly heard some pickups that provided an overall "more desirable" sound than stock models and I know the differences were not a product of my imagination.

I'm currently playing an Ibanez SR500 with Asian-built Bartolini's. I wouldn't mind upgrading the pickups if I could be confident that I would actually get an improvement, but the views on the internet about upgrading are as inconsistent as the those in this thread about the Duncans. It's very frustrating.

I would also mention that I've heard replacement pickups that were worse than the originals, and that generally includes most so-called "hot", overwound pickups.

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.

5 minutes ago, VTypeV4 said:

Valves the size of big coffee jars requiring kV of HT are really something quite magical - even the most hardcore 'lightweight / class D' stalwarts on the forum can surely appreciate the beauty of these thing however impractical they may be.

I love the glow of my 6L6 and KT88 / 6550 amps!

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.

On ‎17‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 08:37, NancyJohnson said:

With all due respect, this type of comment kills me.

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

On ‎17‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 00:09, discreet said:

This is nice. Do PJB make combos you can actually gig with? That are still tiny?

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.

1 hour ago, dood said:

I love the juxtaposition of two fiercely powerful valve amplifiers with HT's that could fry people instantly playing cabaret music.. 

And through rubbish Peavey speakers, too

11 hours ago, dood said:

Philips EL6471 might just take the biscuit but I wouldn't wanna take one to a gig!

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

17 hours ago, VTypeV4 said:

Personally I think it's the big Trace VTypes but I'm biased really!

http://www.chambonino.com/construct.html

And this is just nuts..

http://www.chambonino.com/construct/const9.html

Wow. Supply rail at 2,500v? I'd make sure I had my transformers wound by someone who knew what they were doing.

If you do use jacks, Neutrik make a speaker jack that will accept thick speaker cables.

Single coil p/us, such as those on J basses, particularly older ones, do tend to buzz. You can reduce it, but you cannot eliminate it entirely in my experience. Shielding and grounding help, but single coils are very susceptible to rfi, fluorescent lights, etc, etc. I've shielded the pickup and control plate cavities on my 72 Jazz with copper film and grounded the bridge, but it still buzzes slightly, especially in some environments. Incidentally, it's worth using a small capacitor in series with the grounding wire for the bridge, so that if you get an amp fault and/or the earth to your equipment isn't working, you are at less risk of shock.

If  go for Speakons, make sure you use genuine Neutrik ones. The cheap copies are not as good and some don't mate with the real thing, despite claims from manufacturers that they do.

5 hours ago, HengistPod said:

Not a bass, but I recently purchased some stage lighting from Gumtree for £60. When I went to pick the gear up (from a private school, as it turned out, who just wanted to clear some space), I thought to myself, "these look pretty good quality!". There were 8 Selecon fresnels, and 4 zoom spots, with very substantial tripod stands, T-bars, and two dim/chase controllers.

Anyway, I sold 4 of the fresnels for £260, a controller for £100, and two of the spots for £230. A very tidy little profit, and I'm still left with 4 fresnels, 2 spots, the tripods and a controller. Not sure whether to even keep them, because they take an extra 45 minutes or so to cool down after a gig. LED is the way to go for a pub band that just wants to pack up and get home after the show ...

Classic illustration of sellers not doing any research/homework. Good on you for spotting a bargain. I agree about LEDs. I have old world lights that get/stay hot and they are going as soon as I can afford replacements.

6 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

I'd put the percentage who hold that belief to be closer to five. Don't confuse religious fundamentalism with political conservatism. Even on that the percentage of American voters who are true conservatives is nowhere near half. As with true liberals it's more like 15%. The vast majority are actually centrist, with leanings one way or another, but not strict agendas. OTOH the percentage of Americans who are numbingly stupid probably does approach half, but occasionally something happens that reaffirms the potential for hope that we still have a future, yesterdays election result in Alabama, for instance.

Fair points, Bill. I've been watching a lot of Matt Dillahunty's phone ins on YouTube recently, so my view is probably unfairly jaundiced. I do appreciate that the people who call him and try to claim the man in the sky exists are not truly representative. Alabama was very good news. Well done Doug Jones.

1 minute ago, xgsjx said:

It makes sense to take anybody's pronouncements on anything scientific/technical with caution regardless of their beliefs.

 

Some more than others. I think I'd favour my doctor's advice over that of the man in the pub...

12 hours ago, tonyclaret said:

 

Google "Jazz bass wiring" and you'll find diagrams. Any of the online guitar parts suppliers can provide the pots (you need 250k), cap, etc. The standard J bass cap is a Sprague orange drop, in 0.047uF. You can experiment with values (try 0.022uf or 0.1uf - they're cheap) to see which you prefer. A larger value will lower the roll-off frequency. Shop around as prices vary quite a bit and don't be tempted by the exotic paper in oil capacitors some will try to tell you are vital. They're no better  (and considerably bulkier) than the orange drop for guitar use (imho, obviously).

It means that a good half of the population of the US believes the world to be about 6,000 years old and to have been made in 6 days, so one is advised to treat their pronouncements on anything scientific/technical with caution (Bill F is an exception, obviously).

If you have a classic instrument that is getting scruffy, I suggest resisting the temptation. I regret stripping my old J bass (it was a very battered sunburst). Reduces the value and now "roadworn" is in vogue, anyway.