lemmywinks

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

I tried a little wiring alteration on my SRMS805 this morning. This boosts the preamp output by 6db. It's sounding a bit less thin without having to boost everything to max. 

I found out about it through a video by Low End Lobster on YouTube, he did it to his EHB1005 (same preamp)

All I did was unplug the wires from the far right block and move them to the next one on the left. The photo is after the change. 

 

The mod you may be more interested in is the eq switch from VM3 to BEQ, the two plugs on the left. This one affects the voicing rather than just making the signal hotter.

I sorta do want to own an HB BZ-5000 one day, they look very well made.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/F-kAAOSwVyJk2mIl/s-l1600.jpg

Mismatched knobs, could it be he who shalt not be named under a different guise?

They're usually about £100 less than that IIRC, there's an identical one for sale on FB near me for £270.

The Money Traders in the next town over has matching lefty guitar and bass Spirits in black, been in there ages.

1 hour ago, sandy_r said:

Great!  Glad your Sinsonido is back to good health, preamp-wise

 

If you've replaced the original bridge-mics with a piezo, I would have thought that you've bought the optimal choice - anyway, it's down to how it sounds and performs for you that matters. Good result!

 

The problem on mine was due to the failed preamp circuit, so I left the bridge-mics in place and substituted my own circuit which has fixed the problem and provides smooth control of Vol & Tone

 

Yes, the variety of different 'standards' for potentiometer shaft fixings is annoying

 

I didn't like the plastic control knobs supplied with the Sinsonido, so I ordered some black anodized aluminium knobs which are still in keeping with the general design, but look and feel more classy.  They have grub-screws with plenty of adjustment, so they've fitted fine with the thicker shanks on the new controls which I've used:

 

 

I hope you're able to get some good sounds out with your piezo & its new preamp - happy gigging!

I just wish there was a proper drop in replacement, as it stands you either have to do some woodwork or build a preamp if your electronics fail!

Got the preamp from https://analogworkshop.eu/ installed this afternoon on my piezo equipped SInsonido, I bought this one:

https://analogworkshop.eu/products/piezo-preamp/

However the person I spoke to said this might be more suitable:

https://analogworkshop.eu/products/fet-acoustic-vol-tone/

Both are £40 + £5 p&p.

It comes prewired with PCB connectors, vol/tone pots, a battery clip and a stereo jack. I would recommend buying an extra 2 pin PCB connector as you'll probably want to connect your existing battery clip wires to the 9v+ and jack switch to make sure it doesn't constantly drain your battery.

It sounds excellent in the SInsonido, tbh I think with the tone knob almost rolled off (to get rid of that piezo scratch/clank) it sounds much better than it did in its stock form. It's very clean and transparent which is my type of preamp, that's just straight into the desk as well without even putting it through my Fishman Platinum. If you want to get rid of the troublesome mic/pre in the Sinsonido this is a very good option that's easy to install.

The downside is that mine came with a notched volume knob that is about 0.3mm wider than standard so doesn't fit my knobs, I assume this is an error and have contacted the supplier.

The TC BH250 is pretty small at 22cm x 23cm x 6cm and has aux in. It's bigger than the Elf, BAM and Gnome but a lot smaller than a LMII for example, not quite gigbag pocket friendly though if that's what you're after.

PJB BP200 is also very small (17cm x 18cm x 5cm) and has aux in, pricey though.

I was looking at the Gnome/BAM200 but compromised the nano size for features and got the BH250 instead.

Still a decent price really, aside from the pickups and bridge it looks identical to my old Korean built (2002) C5 which has been my gig backup for years.

Is it this one, on eBay now for £125?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335004023994?

Says Action V on the rear of the headstock and has more/better pics. I;m guessing intonation will be way out going off the saddle placement!

11 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

 

Ditto.  I went through multiple pedals that have sims or IRs before settling on the good old Sansamp for drive and I kept the Fishman Plat Pro to use with bass and acoustic; it was the most transparent and useful of them all.

One of the neat aspects of the Fishman is that if you also play acoustic guitar/bass then you also have a great sounding live rig for those as well. I lent mine (along with my QSC K10.2) to a mate when he had an acoustic gig, accidentally just had an amazing acoustic rig lying around the house!

I liked mine so much I bought the smaller Stage version for home use with my SInsonido and little Ibanez Parlour bass.

It depends on what sound you're after really, there's many ways to present your bass to the PA. What sound are you going for at the moment? Any pedals in the chain?

Aside from modelling and multiFX there's quite a few dedicated bass preamps on the market now so maybe finding a store that stocks them and demoing a few would be beneficial. I'd be looking at the following - Ampeg SCR, Palmer Pocket Bass, Laney Digbeth, Eden WTDI, GK Plex (assuming issues with early units have been sorted), EBS Microbass, PJB PE, Two Notes ReVolt, Nux MLD, Genzler Magellan.

I just need a bit of eq, mute switch, compression and a tuner so use a Fishman Pro Platinum as a single do-it-all box. I wish more bass preamp/DI pedals included a tuner tbh.

2 minutes ago, sandy_r said:

Sounds like a good setup - it's good to know about other options if/when the mics fail

 

The Fishman range seems to have some great options for acoustic-oriented audio - well-featured and good quality. A nice match for Sinsonido support

 

I hope your awaited delivery meets expectations 👍

I have the Platinum Pro and Stage, they're excellent for electric and acoustic. Prices have gone wild in the last year or so though.

2 hours ago, sandy_r said:

hi, yes i kept the original mics in place, and used them as input to the preamp

 

On the schematic (mics on the left), there's a 10k resistor from the positive rail to each mic. This acts as both a load resistor and a power source to its mic

 

The 2 mics are then each isolated DC-wise from the circuit, by a 0.1uF capacitor. This resistor/capacitor arrangement, with a DC voltage source, is common practice for connecting this sort of mic insert to a regular preamp input

 

There's a 500k trim pot in series with the ouput of 1 mic, and 47k with the 2nd. This allows the outputs from the 2 mics to be balanced for relative level, as their signals mix at the JFET

 

The 5k trim pot acts as the gain control for this stage (set and forget)

 

The Volume and Tone controls need to be physically small to fit in the preamp cavity (the original controls were tiny IIRC) - I seem to remember having to increase the mounting hole diameters somewhat

 

Hope this helps - feel free to ask away

 

PS  I recently tried to mount a piezo strip under the bridge of my DIY bass build and was very disappointed to find almost no audible signal output - I presumed this was due to the very intense compression of the bridge onto the body, and almost total lack of body vibration (1.5" solid mahogany!). I live and learn!  😞

Ah excellent, thanks.

I have a piezo strip in there at the moment and it works pretty well but I'm using a traditional acoustic type bridge. I always run mine through a Fishman Platinum Stage when plugging in so the preamp is just a buffer really.

2 hours ago, sandy_r said:

hi KB (and fellow Sinsonido owner?)

 

I wonder if you're still looking for assistance with that Sinsonido preamp - if so, i might be able to help...

 

It appears that their original (at least) preamps were a load of Carp (instead of Bass?):  i've seen many reports now, of people looking for replacement/repairs;  i bought my Sinsonido second-hand, and i'm guessing that it was being sold due to the Tone & Volume controls emitting rather fetching electronic fart noises over most of the control range

 

The preamp circuit was problematical from 2 additional points of view:-

  a) it used a (possibly bespoke) IC;

  b) it acted as both a preamp and headphone amp; 

  c) it chewed through batteries like a Gremlin (10-20mA current drain)

 

...er, so that's 3 additional points of view...

 

There didn't seem to be any help coming from the Aria direction, other than, for some, replacing the board (...and who wants to have one flaky-design board replaced with similar?)

 

Soooo - i decided to scrap their board and build my own (blind faith, or what?!?)  Anyway, i've managed to come up with a handy single-JFET arrangement which can power and balance the 2 bridge-mics, preset the gain, and add volume and tone, centred around the range of the bass.  It sounds good - and the battery drain has dropped to a few mA (i use rechargeables).  Goodbye to funky farting noises (well, ok, goodbye just from the preamp)

 

i should point out that this is just a preamp, it doesn't drive headphones (i use a separate small battery headphone-amp to mix the bass with an MP3/CD i/p)

 

Hoping i can attach the schematic & photos here - i'm a (wrinkly) noob here, so be gentle with me  ...er, yes, well...

 

Did you use the original stereo condenser mic bridge tube arrangement or replace it with a piezo strip? When I spoke to Soloette who designed that pickup they said it needed to be powered so hooking up a conventional preamp wouldn't yield great results.

I'm about to trail my Sinsonido with a piezo preamp from AnalogWorkshop.eu, just waiting for it to arrive!

Bump!

44 minutes ago, Jolltax said:

 

Yeah, I think I will order some, the stock ones are fairly horrible anyway

Worth checking what type of shafts you have, IIRC my Sire V7 had split ones for the regular ones and solid for the stacked whoch meant I needed screw on and push on knobs respectively. Not sure what they put on the M series.

Yeah slacken the hex screw off and move the top knob up slightly. Tbh I'm not keen on concentric knobs that are made from plastic/rubberised material and also the type where the upper knob sits in a recess inside the lower one as both of those factors make them more prone to this problem.

I'd probably just fit better knobs tbh, the East knobs (or the Guyker clones on AliExpress which are always in stock) are a good bet provided your pot shafts are standard 6mm and 6 & 8mm diameter.

EDIT these are the ones I bought to replace the junk rubber ones on my Ibanez, may not be suitable for Sire due to mix of split/solid shafts:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001707768926.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.27.787e1802v8RgCp

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002683252060.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.28.787e1802v8RgCp

 

On 08/08/2023 at 13:06, Gasman said:

We still play a couple of WMCs with bingo in the middle and a meat & bottle draw at the end to keep the punters there as long as possible, not for the bands sake but for the bar! North Dorset traditions die hard...

Haha same, they're some of the better paying regular gigs we do. Playing sets in between bingo, open the box and Joe 90.

Surely this is the problem of the guy you were paying to work on your bass?

On 08/08/2023 at 10:05, Woodinblack said:

 

Although that is OT, considering this is about sales of basses on BC, so not commercial stuff, but the taxes / duties is no issue at all. The reason my wife cannot export to the EU any more is the codes and regions of manufacture stuff - there frankly aren't enough hours in her day with everything else she is doing to come up with the paperwork to export stuff to the EU, even if she could understand it, so it is not something she can do any longer. She could get someone else to do it, but she doesn't earn enough to make it worthwhile. She doesn't get too much money, she is a small online shop, but it was 1/4 of her business, and her customers were very good so it is quite sad.

Even for the company I work for which only uses a handful of codes it can still be a ballache, especially when some countries decide they are no longer accepting certain codes and your shipment gets returned to you. We have to use a broker for things like that which is another expense, for small businesses choosing between more overheads or increased workload has no good side.

We export a lot worldwide but we lost a lot of European trade straight away and what used to be a typically fast shipping process is now much more complex with every item having to be described down to its component parts, value etc.

On 02/08/2023 at 13:31, BigRedX said:

 

That's what the channel fader in the desk is for. Give him plenty of vocals in his IEMs and mute him FoH.

We do this with our guitarist, lovely lad but can't sing for toffee although he loves to try.

Hope he isn't a member here.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/671260178204062/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A5ce8848f-9c39-46a2-8924-19f197b7b657

Scratch a V itch for not much money

8 hours ago, Rodders said:

I've got an earlier Commando 12 with the Rat Fur as opposed to Tolex.

The speaker needs a recone or replacing. Its at a rehearsal space at the moment but once I can get hold of it I'll ask Celestion what they would suggest replacing it with.

I'd chop the cab part off and use it as a head tbh, probably not worth throwing money at unless you really like the amp.

I had the rat fur 15" version, never liked it but our family cat at the time (RIP Timmy) loved it - a giant scratching post and a comfy bed rolled into one! Never sounded as loud as it looked/weighed and was always struggling for clean volume at rehearsals/gigs.

With Elixirs you're best buying from established music shops or dedicated string sites, not worth the faff trying to distinguish genuine from fakes on eBay/FB/Amazon etc as usually they aren't legit.

I recently went back to them after a long time away, had a set on almost a year now and they still sound fresh.

10 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Neither. They're not headless bridges.

While this is the correct answer if I had to choose it would be the Hipshot due to the aforementioned easier string changes.