prowla

On 14/05/2025 at 14:22, oldslapper said:

Status Groove Basses. Best neck profile for my hands. Massive regrets selling mine. Never see them come up. 
 

All that aside….great to see Dave Grohl playing drums again. 😂

I've got a 5-er; it's a nice bass, if rather large.

It cost me an Epiphone EB0 plus a couple of hundred quid.

I like a bit of Roxy Music and even have a box-set of their albums.

I do have some negatives though:

• I could do without some of the over-affected singing - he's got a great voice which stands up on its own.
• I just plain do not like Virginia Plain (and we used to play it in a band I was in).
• I'm not a fan of Jealous Guy either, but I guess it made him a load of money! 🙂

I saw Bryan Ferry at Hammersmith Apollo (I think it was called the Apollo) some years ago; I parked at Westfield, so that puts it after 2008.

One or two of his old mates were in the band and it might've been Guy Pratt on bass; there were a couple of dancers on a raised platform at the back.

It was a rather good show.

5 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

What's interesting is the frequency/loudness curve that has perceived volume dropping off rapidly below guitar frequencies.

 

Which is why we need more powerful amps than guitarists.

I've sometimes wondered about nicking one out of some of the cars that go past. 🙂

1 hour ago, Downunderwonder said:

2kW in reality heats my lounge. That's reality.

 

Nobody needs a real 2kW. My real 250W amp with 4 ohm of cabs keeps up with enthusiastic drummers no problem.

As per notes a 2kW amp is just under twice as loud as a 250W one (all other things being equal).

Power rating is not a measure of how loud a given system will be.

As I understand it, a general rule is that 10x Watts = 2x volume (with all other things being equal).

So 1000W =  twice as loud as 100W (all other things being equal).

That's why a 50W amp seems surprisingly loud - I've had a 600W bass amp drowned out by a 50W guitar amp.

The "all other things being equal" is a variable, however; as noted speaker efficiency comes into play, as does the number of speakers, amp Class A,B,D, valves vs tubes, and so-on.

Now, on to the power rating of speakers and amps.

The general standard is to rate in Watts RMS (root mean square), which is a calculation of a stylised continuous average power.

Since there's a numbers game where bigger is better, some systems will be rated at peak power instead, which is perhaps 40% higher (1.4x).

One or the other may be more relevant in some cases, or both may be worth considering.

How to damage a speaker...

Now, there are three factors which contribute to a speaker's power handling:

• How much current the wires which comprise the speakers coils can handle before they fail.
• How the impedance varies under load and frequency range.
• Whether the speaker cone hits the end of its travel and stops behaving as it should.

If any of the above's limits are exceeded then damage is likely to ensure.

However, note that things like distortion (intended or not) change the profile of the frequencies being sent to the speaker (distortion is generally the introduction of higher frequencies), which might add unexpected stresses to the speaker if it is not designed to handle it (eg. it doesn't have a crossover or low-pass filter).

So, the Wattage numbers are not an absolute.

As a general rule of thumb, if you want to protect your speakers it's a good idea to have speakers rated capable of handling the maximum output of the connected amps and not drive things flat-out.

It's also an idea to have the speakers pointing at your listening devices (ie. your ears!) so you can hear them, rather than along the floor inaudibly flapping your flares.

But it's all a bit complicated!

I wonder if giving it a picture of a 1-string bass would freak it out?

I saw one in Wunjo on Thursday.

1 hour ago, mcnach said:

 

Did you follow the instructions for fitting? I had about, hmm, zero issues with them, and I've had a few.

Make sure the strings are not sticking at the nut (lubricate if necessary, soft pencil works well, graphite), and adding a -spot- of grease on the washer also helps. It's a very simple system, just make sure you remove friction as much as you can and it should work reliably.

You're a bit late with your barrow! 🙂

I have 3 Warwick Corvette 5-strings and they are each different; one in particular has a thicker neck which is not suited to my hands.

I would assume that there are per-instrument variations in the other models too and thus you couldn't have 100% confidence that the one you were looking at would be just like the one someone had let you have a go on.

TBH, though, the same applies to most instruments.

I've seen it for musical instruments, watches, and even a tool box.

The issue is probably that they train the system using its own output, which therefore reinforces its ability to output meaningless drivel.

It's the AI equivalent of inbreeding.

I don't see how it will improve without them doing a rethink, because (if it is AI and not just a rule-based search & replace falsely presented as "AI") the system has been in place for many months and built its knowledge base on poor data.

I did have a number of pages of predefined searches on eBay, which excluded the key phrases endemic in the "AI" descriptions to weed them out so I didn't have to see them.

But, alongside that, eBay have also chosen to endorse counterfeits, using another implementation of its "AI" to assess reports, and declare no contravention of listing policy found; as a result, I lost faith in their service.

They then introduced buyers fees (aka "buyer protection"), which states "If an item doesn’t arrive, is faulty or damaged, or doesn’t match the listing description, you can request a refund within 30 days of the delivery date." and "Experts verify the authenticity of your item for free and carry out a multi-point inspection all at no extra cost.", but how can you trust that when they are actively generating those descriptions and wilfully rejecting reports of counterfeits?

So I've pretty much stopped using eBay.

9 hours ago, rwillett said:

 

I'm trying to work out if this is actually an issue or not. I know nothing about Rickenbackers apart from Macca and Lemmy played them. I keep hearing that the bridge is difficult but surely after all these years they must have fixed this problem? Or is it just a running joke that nobody does adjust them?

 

Thanks

Rob

Older Ric basses had a Tune-o-Matic style bridge sitting on a large tailpiece/baseplate which many didn't like.

It was recently replaced with a newer V2 model which is a different design and provides full adjustment; that's what's on the mapleglo one in @tvickey's post.

So my comment was a bit of a joke because that issue is resolved on that bass.

The bridge issue is a matter of opinion; it appeared in 1963 and persisted for 50 years, during which time Rickenbacker sold a lot of instruments.

Some people just complain that the Ric isn't a Fender, but if it was then it wouldn't be a Ric!

Back to the bridges...

The older ones were made with a curvature to match the fingerboard, so that never needed adjusting and there was just a screw at each end for the overall action.

The intonation is a little more finicky to adjust because: i. the trailing ends of the strings sit directly above the adjusters, making them difficult to access, ii. the bridge height adjustment sinks into the tailpiece and the curvature of the tailpiece casting can further block access, and iii. there is limited lengthwise travel in the saddles on a tune-o-matic, and it can be necessary to disassemble it and turn individial ones arround so the asymmetric "V" is orientated in the opposite direction.

Some folks also don't like the older Ric "hair-pin" truss-rods, but they're generally fine and virtually never need adjusting.

Plus there were two of them!

If you are an incessant tweaker then the important message is that they didn't work like Fender ones and you could damage the bass by assuming they did.

This led to them having a bit of a bad name as people would find out the hard way.

The instructions said not to use the truss-rod to shift the neck, but rather to flex the neck to position (by holding it over your knee and pressing against the 1st fret) (or you can use clamps on a workbench of you want to be more professional about it) and using the truss-rod adjustment to hold it in place.

Actually I've seen that recommended as a general approach for older instruments (even Fenders).

Rics have moved with the times and now they have the V2 bridge (I think it's based on a Schaller 3D, which was used on a couple of Ric models anyway) and they've shifted to a single dual-action truss-rod, so folks can adjust to their hearts content.

But there are a heck of a lot of older RIcs about, soldiering on, doing their job and generally they don't need tweaking: just get them set up once and keep buying the same strings.

So, it's not a running joke that nobody adjusts them; it's rather that they generally don't need a lot of adjusting.

53 minutes ago, tvickey said:

 

By any chance was it this Mapleglo at GG in Glasgow? 

 

The neck thickness is one thing (I play a lot of Warwicks, and so don't mind thin), but the setup on this particular bass in the Glasgow shop was complete sh*t... look at the bridge saddle positions!  They wouldn't be in more of a straight line if you used a ruler.  Intonation was way off.  String heights were also way off (in my opinion).  

 

Why would GG hang such a poorly setup bass on the wall?

 

That said, it is a beautiful instrument.  Schaller machine heads and strap locks, single truss rod, new bridge system.  The knobs on the 2025 4003 (all of them?) are just a wee bit smaller than on my 2023 4003 (which has 1" x 0.6" knobs).

It's the fabled "difficult to adjust" Ric bridge issue!

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

What if... what if... OK, stick to tee-shirts and hoodies, then. 

Got to cover the what ifs or you’re being negligent. 🤫🤔🫡🤐🤨🫢🤪😇😉

1 minute ago, Dad3353 said:

 

One wonders, then, who put the files on the USB in the first place. I was suggesting that the group did that, using virgin USB media. Would they inadvertently corrupt their own merchandise..? Hmm... 

What if the machine they were using had something on it, unbeknownst to them?

You would only need one error at some point in the chain by one provider to bring the whole method into question.

Hmmm, indeed!

6 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

Well, I suppose if bands are going to start putting virus files onto USB memory that they're selling to their fans, they deserve to lose those fans. Never mind; t'was just an idea that I had, naïve fool that I am. 

Well, they may not do so deliberately or even knowingly.

You could search for armoured or military-grade ethernet cable.

9 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

What a strange world some of us live in.  S'OK to download stuff from t'web, though, right..? 

Big difference:

• A USB stick can have embedded executables which run automatically when it's inserted.
• An mp3 or flac download is a data file.

Sofa so good with this thread...

You don't need to do the flash stuff to be brilliant.

A few weeks ago I went to a Hi-Fi show where one of the rooms was playing this and it sounded great; I looked around and Mike Lindup had wandered into the room and sat down behind me!

How to play it simple.

Fragile and Close To The Edge by Yes feature the best bass playing ever recorded.

Fly By Night, by Rush

Electric Blight Orchestra

1 hour ago, spongebob said:

I watched a fair bit, but it wasn’t a particularly engaging experience. 
 

JE was clearly a fab player (although I’ve never cared for much of his tone bar Live At Leeds), but doesn’t come across as particularly engaged or interested. 
 

It could be me - the band I heard on that live album I could never hear on any of their studio records (bar A Quick One)…leading me to a not particularly favourable opinion of The Who.

 

Who By Numbers is ok, but for me, what followed was pretty shocking - odd good bits - but…..sorry fans! 🫣

I agree about his tone; whilst he's acknowledged as having done great things for the bass as an instrument, the sounds coming out of the instruments don't do much for me.

52 minutes ago, bassbloke said:

Depending on genre, any physical format is viable, just make sure you have a quality digital option available too.

 

Popularity of different formats varies a lot by country too.  Vinyl is big in Europe.

The key word is "quality" digital there.

There's a band I quite like (https://whenriversmeet.co.uk/) and I have one of their CDs which is really good on the Hi-Fi, but their downloads are only mp3.