itu

6 hours ago, paul_5 said:

Jazz basses with the metal 'Bell Plate' provide a mahoosive ground connection to the pots, because both the output jack and the pots are in contact with it the whole time. This is fine until a pot comes loose on a gig, and you start to get intermittent drop-out.

Exactly. A pot not soldered = problems. Sooner or later.

The easiest option is to buy a decent iron, powerful enough, say a 40 - 60 W unit. Big power equals short soldering times. Pots can take the extra power when the time is short.

3 hours ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

...Vigier Series III, which, whilst not being balanced adhere to the 600 ohm standard.

I see, you mean XLR-based lo-Z outputs. Yes, balanced is one speciality, and directed to studio people.

31 minutes ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Active pickups are another story again, as are low-impedance outputs.

What do you mean here with the term "low-impedance outputs"?

Lo-Z output is any bass with any battery powered unit in the signal chain, like active blend or boosting tone stack.

pickups - blend - vol - tone stack - output

Show me the bass which has a fully "active" signal chain, please. If the blend and the vol are plain pots, only the tone stack is battery operated. (Yes, I am excluding those buffered EMGs and few other specialities.)

I wish the word "active" would have another word beside it which would separate hi-Z adjustments + battery tone stacks from true mixers (like some EMGs and John East stuff). Mixer would be fine but because so many people do not understand the difference, thus mixer will not be a widely used term.

I do see that the tone stack itself can be the issue (and is easily replaceable), just like the poor blend+vol stack (which is maybe worth £2). Take a look inside a studio mixer channel, and think why it probably has better sound than your "active" preamp that is worth £10. And I do not mean the price at the dealers. I mean the price of the components and the PCB.

You want to compare something, take a good hi-Z set (like @KiOgon) and try the same bass with a mixer (like East), then this discussion has a better start. Cheap tone stacks are just, yes, cheapo.

They were just around 30 people seeing each other after a long time. They seemed to have fun together and happened to have some money for the live music. I would guess this was not the first time for them to have a private party.

A strange one. A group wanted us to play in suits. After the very quiet set of jazz standards they wanted to talk and eat by themselves. After long time together, they decided they want to sing and dance.

Yes, we were slightly whizzed off but could push ourselves to a good drive - and everybody was happy. There haven't been too many gigs around, so everything is fine at this point. They seemed to need time together after all this quarantine thing, and being afraid of the disease. They nearly shouted the songs they knew.

An hour of jazz from 5 pm.

Five hours of wait.

A bit more than an hour of dance.

Home at 2 am.

Basic stuff.

Man, you are so productive!

About to buy an interstellar OD. Works as a practise amp and a preamp.

Tom Waits - The piano has been drinking (live)

Pogues - The fairytale of New York

Randy Newman - Short people

Sure there are childish humour songs, but these are well made, I think.

D class can be seen reliable because if two things: there are very few solutions available (lots of testing), and they are built in pretty big numbers. This means that the amps can be seen built under only few power sections and few amp sections. Big amounts of stuff equals testing and reliability.

It is easy to understand that there may have been first batches of amps that were not so reliable. On the other hand the repairability is the result of making the units small and light. (I've seen a switching power changing from a powerful box to smoke. The components were practically turned to dust. Most of the PCBA and the components just vanished. Yes, it was a tad too small.)

This may mean that the jack is faulty, or rather its soldering has broken. This is pretty easy to see by opening the base plate. Put the power plug into it and move it a little bit.

Have you tried it with a fresh battery?

The first thing to do is to contact local customs. They tell you the details to this particular case. It should be no costs (nor VAT), because this is about repair, and the only company is out there to be able to fix your dear effect.

If there is something you have to declare or anything, my experience has been positive with them. If the first contact does not work, call another office. At least I have had good discussions and gotten good piece of information. It may be good to have the serial number, manufacturer, and the model at hand while calling.

1 hour ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

Which is not to say that I think a wooden board on a graphite neck is a bad idea.

My MG Genesis has chechen board, and the neck is a combination of wood and carbon (spine). There's a truss rod, too, but it is useless. Functional, but useless.

Both Passion II basses I own have similar fretboards that could be phenolic resin.

There's a neat story here about Overwater. Use find.

Would it sound strange, if you would go and tell the drummer, that the hihat is ugly, or the keyboardist should only play Rhodes?

I parted from my Quantum 5 only, because the string spacing was 17 mm. Now I play a Genesis 5, which has 19 mm spacing and suits me better. I did not ask my fellow players whether it fits their taste.

8 hours ago, Doddy said:

I never said anything about the price of big pieces of wood being the same as smaller pieces. I don't know where you got that from.

 

Sorry, but I'm going to take advise from the various luthiers I've spoken to, and from my own playing experiences, and say that there is nothing irrational about talk of woods or construction. They all make a difference to the sound of an instrument, no matter how subtle.

Bolt-on neck can be put together from shorter wood strips, and the warping can be handled a bit easier. Also the bolt-on neck can be shimmed, which is not an option with a NT. Well, the bridge is...

The comments, or rather descriptive words, are not possible to use everywhere. My Quantum SPi had far more compressed sound than my fretless NT, or Passion II. I do understand that there is a need for simple words. There just isn't a list of terms that is comprehensive and mutually accepted.

You are right that instruments vary a lot. Sometimes I wish woods would be more even in quality. We are able to find the subtle details, because the variation is there.

55 minutes ago, Doddy said:

I don't think it's a cost cutting decision at all, especially where the high end luthiers are concerned. When you are looking at multiple thousand dollar instruments, it's all about the tone. A number of big name luthiers talk about bolt on necks having more punch and a quicker attack, while neck through is more compressed and has more sustain.

You tell us that bigger parts of instrument quality woods cost as much as smaller. I don't think so. Those big chunks of usable wood are rare, and expensive, than let's say a fretboard. Try to find a one piece body of some hardwood and you may be amazed of the price.

If a luthier wants to produce instruments that are loyal to some design, or that the construction serves the machinery of the shop, it is another story.

This bolt-on vs. NT and those irrational comments about sustain and "punch" are just funny. Without real world blind tests the words are meaningless. And as woods are not as consistent as many man-made materials, the same design sounds very different from unit to another. Tonewoods, constructional differencies, no more of this, please.

2 hours ago, visog said:

So we're into the tone which is brighter for a bolt-on but more compressed in the attack for a neck through with a longer sustain. 

Pretty grave simplification. I would say this is a feel-based opinion rather than scientifically measured and ABX tested. What's your research data, and where can we find it?

Stan the Man

- Alembic

- Carl Thompson

- Löwenherz

- Spellbinder

- EBS

- strings, power amps, cabs... 

- all the double bass stuff...

The kink should be bent back. It is not easy but far more effective than trying to break it with higher tension. Take your time.

9 hours ago, Misdee said:

...in over 40 years of buying and often subsequently selling lots of basses I have only really found one bass that was perfect to my sensibilities.

And that instrument is...?