Passinwind

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1442677713' post='2868725'] I still have a Fender hankering even though I would never really use it as my other basses are better so I wonder why I would want another Fender could it just be that a Fender is the bass everyone should have in there arsenal? who knows anyone else had this thought?[/quote] Nope, I've never thought of basses as weapons in an arsenal, or that everyone should own or use anything.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1442652602' post='2868446'] and the caps... now a note - I can throw together a circuit board but don't know all the ins and outs of electronics... If you look at Passinwind's version of the stingray preamp it's stuffed full of the nice wima metal film caps - the ones that look like little boxes - the current mm preamp and things like the stinger copy you can buy use electrolytic caps - the ones that look like gasometers. I've uses tantalum in the polarised ones as thats what the original early preamp used - on paper they're not as "good" - but I think when we're talking about circuits in music in a bass preamp "good" isn't always the thing to aim for. I had a hellborg preamp into a power amp into a ACME B2 - possibly one of the most clean and accurate rigs ever! So little compression of anything, big signal and such a crazily well engineered cab. (comparing it with barefaced big baby for example and one comes out as a great bass cab and one as a great hifi speaker! there are downsides to acme stuff though and for bass duties if I were buying again at full price the barefaced BB2 is where the money might go... but ACME stuff is stunningly good) anyway I digress - clean is good - but I've now got a Mesa Walkabout - and all that warmth and fatness is great and sounds right for bass. So I'm trying to recreate the sound and feel of the 1977 ray I played... and I love the way this circuit is designed too - pickup straight into the preamp and the volume on the output amp stage of the chip. very good. here it is fully stuffed. It needs the wires and things added to the pot but I'm going to wait till the body is dry to do that so I can position everything properly inside the control cavity with minimal wiring runs. One thing that I did realise is though my Bart pup is awesome... it's not going to sound vintage stingray... anyone wanna swap for something more vintage sounding? I can add money. (or anyone wanna buy mine so I can buy old horse murphy's stingray pup?) *[/quote] Hey Luke, things are looking good! My version of that preamp is different in some less obvious ways too. It was never intended to use with actual Music Man pickups and expects to see two volume controls in front of the preamp. I reduced the natural low bass emphasis a little since I already have a pickup much nearer the neck than a 'Ray does, tweaked the gain, reworked the treble peaking, used a much different type of opamp, and a few other things. So if it's a vintage thing you want, you are probably on a better track. Did you get those boards from Uncle Fluffy, or ??? Looking forward to seeing the rest of your build progression.

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1442588758' post='2868053'] Great service, it says a lot about this guys. I'm worried about my Shuttle 9.2, Fender doesn't have a very good costumer service, and if i have any kind of malfunction on my amp in the future it will be almost impossible to track and solve it. The components are too small and getting replacement parts will be a nightmare! Maybe it's time to start saving and replace the 9.2 with the new Genzler amp, when it's released... [/quote] Some of us old timer techs have learned to cope with surface mount components, but proprietary parts and "black box" power modules have put local repair shops in a pretty bad place. I think I retired at just about the right time. Andy Field is at Mesa now and his new design uses the new "700 watt" ICE module as well. There's a bigger one in the pipeline too, hoping to get my hands on one soon. I've been rocking the 700 watter very happily for half a year now in a DIY build and I'm sure Jeff's implementation will be great.

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' timestamp='1442506762' post='2867453'] Off-record question: Now that Fender terminated GB, will Jeff offer any kind of help/assistance with malfunction/broken GB products, by his own free will? [/quote] He has been doing that on TB frequently. Andy Field, the former chief engineer at Genz, has the parts stash and a shop set up for both warranty and non-warranty repairs. He goes by "Agedhorse" on Talkbass.

[quote name='Sercet' timestamp='1442571786' post='2867852'] I use a little valve preamp with the ten2 for electric. It's good. [/quote] That would be my solution. I had an AI Focus for EUB and a tube preamp into it plus 12/10 cab was plenty for loud and convincing BG for alt. blues with two electric guitars in the venues I play, up to 300 people or so. Most AI heads handle 2 ohms perfectly easily and a second Ten2 cab should work very well IMO. I am not really a fan of the Markbass combos at all, like the heads a lot though.

[quote name='cybertect' timestamp='1442338579' post='2866207'] You may have to hurry - Bass NW is closing for good on September 30th [url="http://www.bassnw.com"]http://www.bassnw.com[/url] Edit: Evan closing Bass NW for 'health reasons' according to the 'other' forum [/quote] Longtime Bass NW manager Chad Beeler has opened his own place in West Seattle now: http://www.thebassshopseattle.com/

I hear ya, and remember how rough that was when I had a real upright or worse yet, got thrown in on someone else's after not owning one for a while.. Last night was only my second real gig all summer. It was a last minute call for a big band wedding hit, nothing like my usual blow-over-charts calls. Luckily it was only an hour, and few of the band members know me well enough to be able to keep me on track with cues here and there. I've been shedding on my BGs all summer, not the EUB. Time to get back to work!

When you get up to Seattle hit Bass Northwest. You can check on their stock on the website.

The Presonus boards are by far the most widely used around here. Sound OK and seem pretty reliable. My friend has a few Mackies in his sound hire company too, but I have yet to give one a go. I don't know of a single band or provider who have bought a new analog board in the last two or three years out here.

Just looked at the manual. The limiter comes after the headphone section and only affects the power amp output. It is a actually more like a power scaling circuit, not a peak limiter per se BTW.

Cats? Psycho Jay does not approve!

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1441469377' post='2859101'] There's a post on TB suggesting that the power module in these might be the [url="http://www.talkbass.com/threads/fun-with-ice-modules-the-new-700asc.1107755/"]ICEPower 700ASC,[/url] [/quote] Confirmed. I have been using one of these modules for 6 months now, and while it's nice enough, the whole engineering package is what counts IMHO. And so as always, just depends on what you want and need to hear and feel for your particular playing situations.

[quote name='Zenitram' timestamp='1441271787' post='2857346'] I don't know how to describe it so I can find one online. The male end is TRS. It plugs into the mono IN of a Strymon pedal (but you open up the pedal and flick a switch to make it stereo), and you can then plug left and right cables into the female ends. If that makes sense. You people are clever and like a challenge. Help me find one for sale online. Edit for stupidity: "TRS stereo input adapter" is probably the way forward on this. Even so. Help a man out. [/quote] A standard insert cable with 1/4 mono male plugs (T-S) on the "wye" end would cut clutter and be a cleaner solution, IMHO.

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1441210368' post='2856981'] Something I've wondered about active/passive inputs and impedance; I'm well aware of the benefits of a high impedance input for passive instruments, but is there any compromise in performance when plugging an active bass into a high impedance input, gain issues aside?[/quote] Yes, for starters noise floor is at least theoretically a bit worse, but as always, that depends on nuances of circuit design, both for the active bass preamp and the input circuit it plugs into. A single 1 Meg resistor is actually noisier than the opamps I use in the front end, especially if it's an old school carbon comp one. Many passive pickups are perfectly happy with a substantially lower load than 1 Meg, so I prefer to design on a case by case basis. And of course, how much noise floor matters to you is highly dependent on your playing situations. There are also certain stability issues that crop up more often in higher impedance circuits, which can necessitate band-aid solutions that may or may not bug some people. You can probably guess where I fall on this one. The beauty (and curse) of DIY building is that one can obsess over any little thing that others may often ignore perfectly blissfully.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1441186521' post='2856682'] 4. Active/passive is really just about having 2 preset gain levels, and in many cases is a bit of a misnomer since I own passive basses with a higher output than many active ones. I'd rather see two inputs each with their own gain control and clip light so that the amp can be set up for use with any two basses and the relative levels adjusted to suit your needs.[/quote] My active/passive switching scheme is just about input impedance; it's up to the user to adjust the volume control, which is several stages deep into the circuit. To do preset volumes for two inputs is not difficult, it's just not within my own preferred set of tradeoffs. My hope is that since Chienmort actually uses and cares about passive basses, he will figure out whatever enhanced feature set works for that application. I've been learning a lot about that myself recently as I work through prototype onboard preamp designs, it is a pretty huge and interesting rabbit hole actually.

Thumbs up!

[quote name='Opticaleye' timestamp='1440590544' post='2852177'] The initial stickiness wears off ( I gave my second set a helping hand with a non stick scourer and methylated spirit before stringing) and the tone has all the character of a good flat with some roundwound punch and brightness without string noise.[/quote] I'm guessing that stickiness is what LDTF experienced, I have seen quite a few other references to it. The strings I just received don't have that, so hopefully EB will be able to achieve that in all gauges going forward. I am not one to be impressed all that easily, but I actually said "wow" when I hit the first pluck on the first string I installed.

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1440542980' post='2851866'] That's interesting because when I tried the EB flats they felt rougher than the Silencers. Those Silencers had been on a year though, so. [/quote] The light gauge set that I have has only been out for a month or two AFAIK. There have been a few heavier sets of the Cobalt Flats out for a while longer, and the early pics looked pretty rough compared to the current spec. The Silencers on my other bass are at least 2-3 years old IIRC. The Cobalts I have are slightly stickier and coarser in texture than Jazz Flats, but only slightly. Given all the breakage and dead string reports, maybe you just tried a bummer set, or I just got an extra nice one. [b]Edit for pics just taken:[/b] SIT Silencers: Ernie Ball Extra Slinky Flats:

[quote name='LayDownThaFunk' timestamp='1440525979' post='2851616'] SIT Silencers are already pretty smooth![/quote] Indeed, and I like them a whole lot. They actually seem fairly sticky compared to the EBs though, although I have very different gauges between the two -- I'm using the 40-95 set for the cobalts since that is closest to the T-Is that the bass was built for. Last night I got to play sets in a few different styles and found that copping the sound of T-Is that I have used forever on this bass was no problem at all. When I started digging in more or otherwise playing more aggressively the effort was generally rewarded rather than punished though, which I am quite happy about. These string are keepers for me as long as they hold up reasonably well, I think.

I just put a set of the Cobalt Flats on my Crescent Moon fretless today. So far they kind of remind me of SIT Silencers sound wise, but with a much smoother feel. I'm off to a gig right now, will check back in after I see how that goes. I've had T-I Jazz flats on this bass for nearly all of the last 12 years and just wanted to take a flyer on a serious change. The EB's are that, for sure -- I can actually really hear the Q-Tuners in there for the first time.

[quote name='Chienmortbb' timestamp='1438988231' post='2839316'] As I was tightening the slotted screws that held the stripboard and pot, the screwdriver slipped and gouged the back panel. I did a test spot of brush applied varnish and it seemed to work well but over a larger it looked terrible. So I disassembled the panel, rubbed it down then applied the last of the spray lacquer I had. Not great but just about passes muster. [/quote] Your back panel looks a lot more finished than any of mine ever have! Hope you get to actually playing bass through this soon.

[quote name='TrevorR' timestamp='1439211614' post='2840852'] So what is it that, for no real good reason, puts you off a whole raft of bass designs? [/quote] Frets, of any persuasion. Plastic pickguards. Bolt-on necks.

[quote name='Rich' timestamp='1438777056' post='2837113'] I like to hear [i]melodic[/i] solos. [/quote] Same here -- own the melody, own the tune. The breakdown thing doesn't do much for me, but it definitely works pretty well in dance music contexts and a lot of bassists and drummers seem more comfortable with it. I'm definitely not keen on hearing reluctant solos in any case.

[quote name='DolganoFF' timestamp='1438700711' post='2836515'] Beauty! Made by Oshpark, right? I have my fair share of the "purple pcbs" too [/quote] Sweet, what do they do? OSHpark is local to me and I have used them for quite a few boards over the last few years. For quickie prototypes their business model works really well for me. Here's my version of the ubiquitous Stingray 2-band clone preamp: I think maybe one resistor value is original, pretty much everything else is gently modded in one way or another.

[quote name='Badass' timestamp='1438669484' post='2836183'] Nice info there, [b]Passinwind[/b], thanks for that I will be sure to check this out. [/quote] John Broskie's website is Tubecad.com BTW. His board kits are absolutely first rate. On another tangent, here's my first non-clone DIY onboard preamp: Format is B-M-T with separated passive treble stack, switchable mid center options currently set at 720-1600-2400Hz. Current draw <1mA, polypro film caps used wherever feasible. Once I get the prototypes ironed out I intend to shrink it substantially with surface mount ICs and resistors. The design is based on my DIY amps and preamps done over the last couple of years, but I haven't done too many battery powered DIY designs before and have lots to learn about optimizing for low power parts. Keeping it simple isn't really my forte, love the challenge.