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itu

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Everything posted by itu

  1. I had the previous version of the Tyler. Now I use the IE Divaricator as the smaller size suits me better. But the main point is that it is a wonderful tool for us, bassists. Clean low end and screaming highs. You can put chorus/flanger to the high side, too, but an envelope does not work too well there. Put that before or after the KMA. If you have two compressors, you can put them to separate bands. If you have not nailed the placement and the cabling, yet, please do some experiments, like put the distortion to the low band. Crazy trials may open up new horizons. Tightening the sound may be possible with the HPF. Try something like 30 - 60 Hz. That reduces both handling noise and the lowest end, which consume lots of power.
  2. This may become one long post... After reading this some may think I am into Hi-Fi. No, I am after expected functionality. The power restriction is true, but I would say "partially". A preamp consumes energy depending on its components. There are many very good opamps (operational amplifiers), that consume only a little energy. Therefore I do not see the battery powered preamp to be so much less powerful than a power supply powered pedal. But it is true that a pedal may have extra features, because of the extra power capacity. John East is making excellent preamps with very convincing specs. I have no reason to believe that his creations are already flashy without any extra power. On the other hand Alembic has been using the power hungry NE5534 (which is a neat opamp), and because of that they have used their external supply. Modern components and layouts allow lots of parts in a small footprint PCBA. I do not see space is a restriction. OK, you want tubes, then the space and power are an issue. About high impedance circuitry (passive, pots, caps...), it is very cheap, usually made with the cheapest quality parts, and mostly degrading the audio quality. But it is also the basic choice, and common in every price point. (Note: AJ Fodera has only the pickup and the output jack, but AJ surely connects his instruments to very high end boards, and does not want any degrading stuff between his fingers and the end result.) You want better performance, omit all pots and do the adjustments in the amp. This takes you to the amp, and on the fly adjustments sure are slower. Lo-Z circuitry ("active") has few interesting features. One is, that the pots (most of which are of mediocre quality at best) do not have to be in the signal path. But, and here it comes again, most "active basses" are only partially "active". Pickups are followed by the blend pot (hi-Z; lo quality). Blend is followed by the vol pot (hi-Z, lo q). Then there is the simple preamp that can tweak tone somewhat. Artec's T&B pre costs about £20 and Sadowsky is around £200, but they are not mixers. Yes, there are few true mixers like John East, but they are rare. Others that I know of, is one EMG, and the other is a US company that I have forgotten (VAT, shipping etc., you know). Why would I need a mixer? Because the high impedance circuitry affects the performance of the pickups. When any hi-Z pot in the signal path is tweaked, the response of the pickup(s) is affected. For example the frequency response is reduced. That may be fine with you, but I am not happy with that. Not any more. I have heard the light. No... no... it was... how was it?
  3. Now we have two... out of four. Actually I have never even thought about it. I've been playing in bands where the male singer may have been very "girlie" (I hate this word, but the connotation was given here), and there has been ladies that represent very aggressive style and genre. I would call them musicians rather than male or female singers. Sorry, I want look the music from the music side. Music is not about gender.
  4. If the cassette has been played back and forth a lot, it may be wise to put it to deck and use the FFWD once (or twice). The tape will run smooth after spooling.
  5. Loading affects the pickup response. Active mixing does not load pickups. This is especially feasible with hi-Z pickups. Buffered output is very stiff, therefore the blend can be a simple pot. If the 250k is too big, you can solder metal film resistors in parallel with the individual tracks. Then the pot tracks look smaller in resistance. Few alternatives: 100k resistors in parallel - 71k tracks 68k - 53k 56k - 45k7 47k - 39k5 33k - 29k 27k - 24k And so on. EMG has 10k output impedance, 27k resistors would be a nice match.
  6. True, we can go much further, as the two piece bridge is very common in violin family. Warwick has one very interesting invention, which is the adjustable nut. But we were into jeffs and bridges, so that needs to be saved to another thread.
  7. Yes. If you want the size to be bigger, it is usually OK. efficiency - low end - cubic volume You make the enclosure smaller, either the efficiency becomes smaller, or the lowest reproducible frequency rises - or both. This is similar to the ISO - aperture - time trio in photography.
  8. What is slightly different with your pickups is that they are lo-Z, compared to most others (which are high impedance, "passive"). The blend pot is the first in signal path after the pickups. You can use a hi-Z pot (250k MN or 500k MN), but the feasible area of the pot tracks will be short. From this point of view two volumes would work. You can also opt for the "active" mixing via the battery operated Noll Mixpot.
  9. Thiele / Small. The parameters will tell you whether a certain element is meant to be put to a reflex or a closed enclosure. Read this short text: https://audiojudgement.com/thiele-small-parameters-explained/
  10. Warwick bridge seems to be copied from Alembic. I think the first Thumb I saw in the 1990's had a one piece Schaller bridge.
  11. What was that bridge-through-body years ago? Lots of metal, Hamer Cruise bass had it, 2tek?
  12. Remember that the speaker has to be chosen after the cab: sealed construction needs different T/S parametres.
  13. itu

    Mustang Rally

    Who was the first to sing this song, "Mustang Rally"?
  14. I have bought GHS Long Scale + sets since late 1990's. But only roundwounds. I suggest you should find some dealer and ask them. The local dealer I have used has had singles. I have done several trials with a set of 4, and a single. Then I found the right B, .120, that worked with my MG Quantum 5 SPi. Hopefully you can find a helping store.
  15. https://www.ghsstrings.com/products?categories=extra-long-scale
  16. Buy a X-over, too, and you can make extraordinary, or extraterrestrial sounds.
  17. Put a battery powered preamp to the cavity. The slight increase in the tone by bypassing the high impedance circuitry will not be enough for you. If that doesn't solve the issue, the next step is to put another pickup to the bridge position.
  18. If money wouldn't be an object... and this has nothing to do with Emerson, Lake, or Palmer, the Japanese elpj.com would be the ultimate turntable. There seems to be 7", 10", and 12" records, different CDs, CCs, and DATs there in the shelf. Have to take care of the equipment, too. Every recording is not available in the streaming services.
  19. Cold and dry is OK, damp is kill.
  20. Punch? Is it a German drink, maybe? Mesa 400+ was so heavy in sound, that the cab became meaningless. Nearly any cab sounded good. But the weight... EQ is the player's tool. If you are not able to tweak it, get someone, who is able. Settings at noon DO NOT MEAN FLAT. Every manufacturer decides the sound to their amps, so if you want flat, try some music from CD or similar through your rig. How does it sound? How much do you have to tweak the settings to get something out that is even close to your headphones sound?
  21. Musescore has quite a lot of stuff in its forum, but it seems to have varying quality in its offer. Standing in the shadows... has been one of the best books lately, but you knew that already.
  22. itu

    Status basses.

    From the material point of view the carbon neck does not need a truss rod. I have two Vigier Passions, have owned an MG Quantum SPi 5 (and currently own an MG Genesis 5), and a Status MM neck. No need to adjust. These are all super stable.
  23. itu

    Pickups

    Radically different is a radical expression here. And to your previous comment, there aren't that many parameters to tweak. Plain physics. I think there are many who want to hear a difference. Please take a look at blind testing. A fellow student - at the time - conducted two tests with speakers and amplifiers. The same speaker pair was covered with three different cloths, black, brown, and white. As the listeners could see the colours, they heard the speakers sound different. Brown was obviously the worst. Amplifiers, one model, two colours: brushed aluminium and black anodized front panel. The brushed got comments on its metallic sound, while black sounded more even... This is called psychoacoustics. You want to hear something, you can hear it. The next trial for you is to find a pickup with horizontal magnet or magnets, and describe its parameters compared to those vertical polepiece siblings. "Compressed and round, but airy... or was this about a white wine in a red wine bottle?"
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