Beer of the Bass

It would look great in some sort of 60s style garage/psych band.

I have one, mine is the black rubbery single-element one. It sounds fine to me - not the most faithful reproduction of the acoustic sound, but still a good solid, balanced sound you can work with. Whether you need a preamp depends on your amp - check the manual to find out the input impedance. If it's 1M ohms or higher you're good to go, but few piezos sound their best with anything below 1M ohm.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1457265128' post='2996798'] We have an unspoken rule that no-one drinks until after the gig. If you rehearse sober then drink before a gig there's a good chance you're going to have some kind of problem, either with hearing or with memory loss! Everyone has to be on the same page. [/quote] I've known a few bands who get around this inconsistency by drinking at reheasals too!

[quote name='Passinwind' timestamp='1457337399' post='2997386'] Here's how they did it in my guitar amp: http://ampwares.com/schematics/fender_30.pdf As I said, balancing it would just be a matter of adding a line level 1:1 output transformer. I have one in a separate box, comes in handy for all sorts of things. [/quote] That's very similar to the method used in the tubetown link above, though one uses 47K/5K for the divider and the other uses 100K/10K. I'm not sure what the purpose of the capacitor in parallel with the pot on the first example is - it looks like it could bleed some highs to ground, but I haven't tried calculating the corner frequency.

There was a thread on Talkbass where somebody upgraded the drivers in the HB 2x10", with pictures of the inside of the cab. It looks like a decently made box, in proper plywood rather than MDF or particle board. At that price I'd be inclined to go secondhand though, as you won't lose much if you sell it on later.

It seems very likely that they're Rotosounds of some sort, so why not drop them an email?

Didn't Rotosound change to red, white and blue ball ends a year or two ago?

I'm also not an amp tech, but I do build and tinker with valve amps as a hobby. A simple check of earth continuity between the chassis, input jack and mains plug is the first thing I do before plugging in anything I've worked on or picked up secondhand.

I used long scale Ernie Ball flats on a medium scale bass for several years without any trouble. I think it's less of an issue than people make it out to be.

It would be nice if I could still hear the Upsetters' Return of Django without being reminded of Her Majesties Revenue & Customs!

Does yours have the valve sticking out of the back like the one on the website? I'm surprised he did that - mounting something made of glass on the outside of a pedal meant to go on the floor seems like an odd decision!

With everything running on DC adaptors, the ground of each device is connected together, but the whole system is floating with no earth connection. I think it gets quieter when touching the strings or casing because you are functioning as the earth connection. Have you got a mains-powered amp in the house, even a guitar amp? If it's quiet with with that, it may just be that it needs an amp with an earth connection, rather than the preamp being faulty.

Does the Yamaha THR have a three pin IEC connector, or does it use an external DC adaptor? It could be a grounding issue, if the THR doesn't have a power supply ground. Since the preamp runs on a DC wall-wart and steps it up inside the unit, that won't be grounded either. I reckon the preamp will probably be quiet when used with a conventional AC-powered amp - that might be worth checking. The preamp does look like a nice bit of kit, but it does seem like a design flaw for a valve preamp to rely on the output cable for grounding.

Would a ss preamp/valve power amp hybrid be against the "rules" of the thread? I'm doing a recap and general refurb on a Dynacord Eminent II at the moment, and could probably post some gut shots.

JJs are usually fine, I've not used their 6l6 but I like their 6v6 and I'm about to use a pair of their E34L in another amp. They're made in Slovakia and generally have a reputation for being quite rugged. I'm not sure why he would go for second-hand, as they're in current production and not overly expensive, but if they test OK and he's not charging you new prices I wouldn't worry.

The bolt-on does allow for a certain fudge factor if you don't get the neck angle and bridge elevation spot-on first time, because you can shim or modify the pocket. So the bolt-on could be seen as a bit more forgiving even if there might be more steps involved. Finishing could be a little easier with a separate neck and body too.

[quote name='mike257' timestamp='1455207696' post='2977079'] I'll have to fish out a pic of my Fender. Early 90's Champ 25 - was only around for a couple of years, a bit of an oddity as it's a solid state preamp, but a valve PI and valve power section (25w from a pair of 6L6) into a 1x12. It's REALLY bloody loud and very clean. Seen people describe it as a "mini Twin". As per usual, the drive channel is a bit iffy. It's got tons too much gain on tap, with the gain right off I get some nice breakup tones with a Tele, but anything with humbuckers is just too much. Clean channel is ace though. [/quote] I had one of those for a couple of years. I liked mine, but it was definitely the sort of amp where you run it clean and use pedals. I found that the reverb on mine was very much improved by fitting a full length type 9 pan rather than the short one that's in there.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1456165057' post='2986154'] That's right. When I built a 1 X 12 cab I waited until it was finished, then released the photographs and build posts over a matter of days. It's only polite and is the right thing to do. No-one is going to wait around forever for someone to put a J pup in a P Bass. [/quote] This method also has the advantage that if you mess something up, feel silly about it and end up shelving the project, you don't have half a dozen people waiting to see what happens next! Speaking purely hypothetically, of course...

I'm hoping that the 80 watt Dynacord valve amp I'm fixing up at the moment will be a good middle ground, as it's surprisingly small and light at 12.6Kg, and should be loud enough for most of what I do. Between 10 and 20kg in any one item seems to be an amount I can lift without regretting it the next day; any more than that I try to avoid.

[quote name='geoffbassist' timestamp='1456163947' post='2986128'] BTW, I'm off to see Danny Thompson in Leeds on Friday and predict a serious bout of Spiro GAS coming up! :-) [/quote] Doesn't he have a signature Elites set now? Or has he quietly stuck with the spiros?

Giving everything a thorough clean and seeing how I get on does seem like a reasonable thing to try first. I'll probably budget for a new set some time later in the year though. It might be interesting to give the S42 Mittel a try next time too - my current set are the 3885 Mittel.

I can think of a couple of reasons for not going micro, but neither of them are related to performance. One is that older style class A/B amps are often comparatively good value when bought secondhand and still aren't [i]that[/i] hard to move around. The other is that as someone who likes to tinker with their gear, I have a decent chance of being able to troubleshoot and repair most things that could go wrong with a transformer power supply, class AB, through-hole PCB built amp, while fixing a class D, SMPS, surface-mount PCB amp is way beyond my skill level. That's not to say that it can't be done, just that I haven't developed that skillset. Having said that, I'm still using a GK MB200 for most things - it's just too convenient!

The implementation of limiters can differ across different manufacturers too. I came across a schematic for my GK MB200 online and there is an LED/FET optoisolator fed by the speaker output which reduces the gain of a stage at the end of the preamp. This will affect how the amp responds to peaks even compared to another using the same module.

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1455996961' post='2984449'] Blue: "Why don't we do it in the road?" <SLAP> [/quote] No one will be watching us!

The only time I've been to Liverpool I didn't really take in anything Beatles related either. My old band played at the Pilgrim and stayed over at a friend's house. In the morning we found a good secondhand record shop, had a fried breakfast somewhere and bought a massive bag of ripe bananas that we couldn't finish. I also recall spending some time giggling at the name of Menlove Avenue when we passed it, completely unaware of the Beatle significance of the address.