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Beer of the Bass

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Everything posted by Beer of the Bass

  1. Beer of the Bass
    Hopefully all the people not bidding will serve as a hint to the seller.
  2. Beer of the Bass
    Hi Clarky, these look great. Could you put me down for two please, one jack and one XLR size?
  3. Beer of the Bass
    I remember seeing an old BBC performance of it, followed by an interview with Edwyn Collins where he reminisced about how they couldn't get the synth to work live and used a Mutron on the bass instead. It sounded not spot-on, but close enough, and you could get there with a modern equivalent like the Qtron - any envelope filter with a reverse sweep, really.
  4. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1352947835' post='1869755'] Too much work. Just go to the Peavey site, get the T/S specs, find a similar driver. Similar, but not the same, as the 2.8mm xmax of the 1502 is marginal at best. The CA 154 is not compatable, and xmax is no better. As for replacing the basket, the 1505 is a much better choice, specs are compatable, but I don't know if the 1505 basket will work with the 1502 magnet. It's worth checking it out. [/quote] Fair comment. Checking the different available drivers in WinISD was what I did in a similar situation to the OP (i.e Peavey cab needing new driver), but taking the shorter route is probably a more elegant approach. To those of us without a background in cab design, it's not always obvious which specs are most important to match when replacing a driver.
  5. Beer of the Bass
    Although it'd be unwise to substitute in other drivers blindly, the Peavey cabinets are a fairly standard size and tuning, so chances are good that you can find another speaker that works in that box. If you measure the box and port dimensions, you can model the performance of different drivers using a piece of free software called WinISD, until you find something that performs similarly or better than the original driver.
  6. Beer of the Bass
    One example who springs to mind would be Charlie Haden. I have difficulty watching his left hand, but I love his sound and his lines, and his body of work speaks for itself.
  7. Beer of the Bass
    I've seen some positive reports on the Bugera 1960 for bass, although it's intended as a guitar amp. There are also a load of 1970s British valve amps which might do the job - many of them will be cleaner than the Marshall, but could be modified by a tech.
  8. Beer of the Bass
    And another bump!
  9. Beer of the Bass
    The Connex modules look very well priced compared to the other suppliers. I'll be interested to see how you get on with them.
  10. Beer of the Bass
    This is something I've also been looking into, but the funds to buy my parts are dependant on stuff shifting in the classifieds, so I may not go ahead with it at the moment. I have built and repaired a few bits of valve kit in the past, and I'm regularly gigging with a guitar amp I made, so building something for bass seems like a logical step for me. There are a few different suppliers of Class D amp modules and SMPS, like the Coldamp stuff used in this build thread; [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/20284-compact-power-amp"]http://basschat.co.u...mpact-power-amp[/url]. I was also looking at modules from Hypex. As Mr Foxen alludes to, the voltage swing at the output of a valve preamp is likely to be bigger than the input sensitivity of the amp module and there can also be large, damaging transients at switch-on so you would need to look at reducing the output and limiting transients to avoid damage to the module. This could be as simple as a resistive divider and a couple of diodes (to clamp the transients) on the preamp output, but would take some fiddling to optimise. Also many of the popular valve preamps like the Alembic F2B want to see an impedance of 1M ohm or so, but most amp modules have an input impedance of 10K to 100K ohms, so you would want either a cathode follower on the output of your preamp or some sort of buffer in between. If you're new to building valve amps, it might be wise to build and test your preamp first using an established design and layout, before laying out the cash for the amp modules. In terms of expense, it's unlikely to be a lot cheaper than just buying an amp, but you could end up with something rather classy if it's executed well.
  11. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='Stealth' timestamp='1352632526' post='1865282'] Great cabs but the finish is a bit pants for £750 [/quote] Whether that opinion still applies may depend on how long ago you had one. From a discussion with Alex C, I got the impression that they've put a lot into improving their tooling and finishing since the earlier days when the company was one bloke in a small workshop.
  12. Beer of the Bass
    [quote name='gjones' timestamp='1352604243' post='1865139'] Oh go on. I'll not tell anyone. Oh and by the way it wasn't my band honest. I wouldn't dream of carting an 8x10 around. [/quote] I don't think the bassist is a BCer, but in any case, he and the guitarist were quite friendly when we were chatting with them. It was more the frontman who was arsey towards us, which was unfortunate as he was running the show!
  13. Beer of the Bass
    I've just got back from a gig at a beer festival. It was a nice event in many ways though the guy who was running the stage and doing sound (also singing in the last band of the evening) seemed to be doing his utmost to make things difficult for us. When we were booked for the gig, we were told that there would be backline so we wouldn't need to bring ours. I arrived to find a clapped out 80s practice amp, which must have been brought especially for us, as his own band had brought their own 8x10 rig which they weren't sharing. If we hadn't been told backline was supplied, I'd have cheerfully brought my own amp, and even shared it with other bands if necessary, but we had been effectively told not to. The sound guy alternated between uncommunicative, sneery and patronising, treating us as though we were kids playing our first gig. When we played, we only used two vocal mics and a bass DI in the PA, yet we were plagued by constant booming feedback. The sound guy responded to this by muting the bass but not touching the mic channels, which obviously made no difference to the feedback but made us sound even worse, with only 30 watts of knackered Laney for the low end. Mysteriously, when his own band played, they had not a trace of feedback from the mics despite being a lot louder than us. I have a strong suspicion that he was trashing our sound intentionally, out of general arsiness. I'm not going to describe the bloke or his band, as his dress sense and demeanour had "local character" written all over them, so chances are some of the Scottish BCers may have encountered him. I'm kind of taken aback, as this is the first time I've encountered quite this degree of big-fish-in-a-small-pond adversarial pettiness on a gig. Still, on the upside, we got fed, watered and paid and the organiser expressed an interest in booking us next year, but didn't sound impressed with the other band...
  14. Beer of the Bass
    A 5'0" friend of mine gets on OK with an Ibanez GSR180. The neck is shallow, they weigh next to nothing and they're not too expensive. A 34" scale can be fine, though she'll end up shifting around more in the lower positions.
  15. Beer of the Bass
    In a lot of machine wound coils, the windings on each layer sit neatly side by side, with no variation or overlap. In a scatterwound coil, they're deliberately wound in a more random pattern, typically by guiding the wire by hand, though some of the more sophisticated winding machines can do it. How much difference this makes to the tone is up for debate, but it does make a difference to some measurable properties of the coil, so I can picture there being[i] some [/i]difference.
  16. Beer of the Bass
    Another gem; [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-wide-necked-Jackson-electric-for-guys-with-seriously-big-hands-/190748846290?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2c698468d2"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-wide-necked-Jackson-electric-for-guys-with-seriously-big-hands-/190748846290?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item2c698468d2[/url] I almost feel a bit guilty about laughing at these, but it can be hard not to.
  17. Beer of the Bass
    Lace Ultra slim acoustic guitar pickup, good for resonator guitars or any application where a low-profile pickup is needed. Full details can be found here: [url="http://www.lacemusic.com/USA_Acoustic.php"]http://www.lacemusic...SA_Acoustic.php[/url] I bought this several years ago, but didn't use it as I preferred a different pickup. When I got it out of my drawer recently, I found it was not working properly but was still under warranty, so I sent it off to Lace for repair. I have just got it back from Lace, and it is working perfectly now, but I have a different pickup on my guitar so it is surplus to requirements. It has a short cable fitted with an endpin jack, which is sleeved in rubber so it can be used internally or externally, and it's packaged in the original box. New, these would cost around £85-90 from US dealers (before postage, import duty and VAT) or around £170 from UK dealers. I'd like £65 for mine, including UK postage. NOW GONE!
  18. Beer of the Bass
    One more bump. Any interest at [b]£XXX[/b], or shall I hang on to it?
  19. Beer of the Bass
    If you do buy one, make sure you put a set of Fender strings on, just to confuse everybody.
  20. Beer of the Bass
    I spotted this video linked from another bass forum, about Danny Thompson having helped develop a signature set of strings. There doesn't seem to be any more info out there, but I guess they could be worth keeping an eye out for. AFAIK he's used Spirocores for many years, and as a Spirocore player myself I might be interested in them if they have that sort of vibe about them. It's a shame he's just talking about them and not playing them in the video though! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbsZvnlR8Cg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbsZvnlR8Cg[/url]
  21. Beer of the Bass
    If you were going to use a dedicated bass for the job, I wonder if you'd get better latency from pitch to MIDI devices like the Sonuus by setting your bass up as a piccolo bass?
  22. Beer of the Bass
    Would you be using coated strings, by any chance? The poles on typical Fender type pickups aren't usually connected to anything (you may want to check this with a multimeter), but if your fingers are grounded by being in contact with the strings you don't get much noise when you touch them. With coated strings, your hands aren't earthed so the noise when you touch the polepieces becomes more noticeable. As long as your polepieces aren't shorted to the windings, which would indicate a faulty pickup, the solution will either be to insulate the polepieces or ground them as suggested above. I've just been through much the same thing after changing to tapewounds, which is why I mention strings.
  23. Beer of the Bass
    I love the old Meters stuff. I feel like they've influenced my guitar playing more than my bass playing, though George Porter is great too, economical and effective. There's almost nothing in his playing that doesn't need to be there, which I guess is what you mean by "dry".
  24. Beer of the Bass
    Up for sale is my Carlsbro CS100 PA, from around 1970. This is a great loud and clean 100 watter, it's in good health and working nicely. This has been my main bass amp for the past couple of years, and I have done a fair bit of work on it. It's had new filter capacitors, a number of out-of-spec resistors replaced, new ceramic sockets and EH 6CA7 valves in the power amp. Channel one has had the tone controls changed to a Fender type tone stack for an alternative sound, while channels two to four have the original, less mid-scooped James type stack. The preamp valves are Brimar ECC83s which appear to be original - the date codes on them check out to June 1970. Around the back, there are selectors for different international voltages and 3.75 / 7.5 / 15 ohms impedance. The mains connector has been changed to a modern IEC connector. This amp tends towards being clean sounding, with a relatively low-gain preamp and high voltages for lots of headroom. With my band I've never had to turn it up far enough for the power valves to distort, though the preamp can be overdriven if you use a clean boost in front of the amp. It's very usable as a gigging bass amp, or would be good as a loud, clean guitar amp for pedal freaks. I have been very happy with it myself, but it's not the best fit for my situation of city centre dwelling, tiny cars, non-driving drummers and soundmen who refuse to mic a cab! It's quite weighty at 18kg/40lbs approx, but the chassis is only 49cm wide (narrower than most valve heads), so it sits on top of typical 2x12" or 1x15" cabs without overhanging. I'm looking for[b] [s]£XXX[/s][/b], no trades please. That's cheaper than most vintage valve gear, and louder than an Ashdown LB30, making it a good way to get into the whole valve amp thing. A local sale would be ideal, but I can pack and get it couriered in the UK for about £25. If you're in or near Edinburgh, you're welcome to come and check it out in person, otherwise it can be heard on Jen and the Gent's bancamp page below, where it was used on all of the electric bass tracks. NOW SOLD! It'll be missed, but I have a valvey project in the works...
  25. Beer of the Bass
    The goo looks like glue from a gun. It's used to stop the heavier components from flexing around and stressing their solder joints. Re. valve suppliers, Hot Rox have been fine when I've bought from them, though I've had no problems with Watford Valves either, and they were helpful on the phone.
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