Mottlefeeder

[quote name='stevie' post='955289' date='Sep 13 2010, 07:52 PM']If you're willing to put in the time and effort, I'd suggest creating a decent vent area somewhere near the front of the case - probably on the top or at either side of the front panel. Then turn the fan round and have it pulling air in from the front and venting through the back. Block up any other vents at the back to prevent short circuits...[/quote] Don't try and pull the air - push it. Think of a desk fan - you stand in front of it, you feel the draft. You stand behind it, you don't. 'Blocking up any other vents' means sealant on every join, tape over every jack socket, etc. and even then you cannot be sure that the air from 'somewhere near the front of the housing' will flow over the heatsink on its way to the fan. David

[quote name='steve' post='953738' date='Sep 12 2010, 05:48 PM']I have a Fender Rumble 15 practice amp which my (wifes) cats have used as a scratchpost once too often, and where the carpet has once just sported a wooly afro, the holes are about to join into an absolute (to quote Superfurryanimals), so I need to re-cover it. Has anyone got any off-the-wall suggestions that would be neither too expensive or time-consuming for me to use as covering before I just splash on some red tolex? Must be cat proof! tia[/quote] There are some textured paint finishes that you put on with a roller - there's Duratex which is water based [url="http://www.acrytech.com/store.asp?pid=14119"]http://www.acrytech.com/store.asp?pid=14119[/url], or Protectakote truck bed liner, which is solvent based [url="http://www.protectakote.co.uk/"]http://www.protectakote.co.uk/[/url].

[quote name='chilievans' post='953829' date='Sep 12 2010, 06:44 PM']I'm also starting back after a lengthy break and in all honesty I wasn't very good in the first place . I realy like the look of this gadget. I'm thinking of ways to drop the hint to Mrs Evans as I speak[/quote] The Tascam GT R1 is also worth considering. It plays wavs and mp3s, and covers the standard training functions; filter out bass/vocals, etc, speed change, key change, drum samples, etc; but also records from a pair of built in microphones, so you can record the rehearsal, drop the recorded bass out, slow it down and practice what you should have played in the first place. It's not cheap, but is is versatile. David

One of the problems with fans is that they do not suck directionally, but they can blow directionally. It is likely that the fan blows onto the heatsink to make sure that more of it gets cooled. If you change the direction of the fan, only the closest part of the heatsink will get cooled, unless the entire assembly is an airtight tube so the air can only flow through it and not sneak in through other gaps. David

I'm also interested in this topic, but for slightly different reasons. I am being assessed for neurological problems which cause the ball of my thumbs to go into cramp after about two minutes of gentle gripping. I can probably work around that in my fingering hand by adopting a sloppy technique and putting the palm of my hand on the back/far edge of the neck, but a french bow gives me problems. Is a german bow likely to be better for me? I've had a year off, and at the moment I am just trying to get back into bass guitar playing, and my EUB is still packed away. I'm coming round to the idea that I may never be much good, but I may still have fun at my level. All comments gratefully received. David

I've also been looking, on the basis that someone must be making the pedal enclosures that the manufacturers use. No joy - googling 'foot pedal' brings up things like industrial foot switches, etc. One possibility would be to buy two die-cast rectangular enclosures, cut and re-join them to make the shape you want, and use car body filler to smooth over the join

From what you said, it is the lower two cones in a four by ten that have gone. My understanding [citation needed here] is that reflected waves from the floor put more stress in the lower cones, which if true, may explain your problem. Many years ago I was using column four by twelves for the vocals (anyone else remember those), and the evening we put them on the floor, and not on chairs, we lost the bottom cones on both columns. David

[quote name='Belinda' post='873906' date='Jun 21 2010, 09:30 PM']At first I had a thought ..... and the thought grew stronger ...... then I discovered this forum ..... and Hey Presto, the thought became a reality I will shortly be taking delivery of an Aria SWB Lite One Oak It's all your faults - this forum has been most enlightening and does not appear to be elitist. You have provided so much information that I felt confident enough to take the plunge - and indeed, it is a plunge because I have neither seen nor played one of these Several years ago I borrowed a DB because a string group needed some low end and basically I played it for just a few weeks. I was then asked to play in a band as the bassist but having carted the DB (I'm 5ft 2) in and out of the car and up a down stairs a few times I soon bought a very cheap bass guitar and amp (£200!!!!). It wasn't long before I outgrew that and have gone through various amps and guitars and am currently playing a Fender Jazz (not an actual Fender unfortunately) with a Mark Bass combo amp. The band is a swing / 40's 7 piece and the sound is good but I feel that a DB sound would enhance it - hence my thought process I do have questions and they are probably silly ones but .... here's the first .... am I right in assuming that my combo amp will be fine with the Aria?? - Told you!!!! Also, people seem to be changing strings - is this necessary or preferential? Being a complete girl (I wish) I don't understand what people mean about a pre amp - this has caused me a fair bit of confusion, hence my first question Anyway - I'm sure I'll have more if I can't find the answers in older posts Your's expectantly Belinda[/quote] Strings that are designed to be plucked will have good sustain, but strings designed to be bowed will have very little sustain. That may be the cause of the string changing discussions you have picked up. David

Bump? My (limited) understanding of soloing is that when someone else solos, you stay out of their way, but in this video Jaco is embellishing the groove while the guitarist is soloing, and breaking in to the drum solo, while both the other band members tone it down when he solos. Is this normal band behavior, or normal Jaco behaviour? David

My (limited) understanding of soloing is that when someone else solos, you stay out of their way, but in this video Jaco is embellishing the groove while the guitarist is soloing, and breaking in to the drum solo, while both the other band members tone it down when he solos. Is this normal band behavior, or normal Jaco behaviour? David

[quote name='Arjimlad' post='868571' date='Jun 15 2010, 11:02 PM']It has - I will try without the loop turned on. Would shielding stop this ? Thanks again[/quote] No. It's the pick-up detecting a magnetic field - exactly what it was designed to do. In my case it was only a problem with voices between songs, so I was able to kill them by muting the amp when not in use. If you have a two pick-up bass, the chances are that the pick-ups are wired in opposite phase. Setting their volumes (or the pan pot) for an equal mix will approximate to a humbucking pickup, and may cure the problem but sound a bit bland. David

Before you change anything in your rig, check whether your church has a hearing aid loop, and if it has, see if you have the same problem with it turned off. If you are picking up from the loop, you need to move away from it (if you can) or move to hum-bucking pickups (as are fitted to P basses) David

Another variable that you may need to take into account is the mass of the body wood. A bass that was designed to balance as an ovankol neck/bubinga body may be neck heavy with a swamp ash body. I moved from a 4-string Corvette on a bubinga body to a 5-string Corvette on a swamp ash body, and could not get on with the neck dive, even with a decent strap. David

One problem concerns the age of the speakers. Bass units with foam surrounds will stiffen up over the years. They still cope with general music, but a bass transient can split the surround. Roll rubber surrounds do not seem to have this problem. David

I had a 4-string bubinga Corvette, which I loved, so I thought a 5-string Corvette would be the obvious upgrade. They use the same body blank, and the 5-string has a wider neck, so the balance is totally different. After about 6 months of trying to cure / live with the neck dive I sold it on. Whatever Warwick you audition, put a strap on it and try playing it standing up. David

[quote name='jimmybass04' post='797929' date='Apr 6 2010, 07:32 PM']hi there, my main problem is that when i record more than one track in to audicity they go out of sync. iv looked on you tube (audicity problems) and they go thru the step by step guide to sync the tracks (latency) my prob is that none of the tools ie at the top of the audicity page seem to work. playing any files thru windows media etc is fine. most of the editing features are grey. i downloaded a new version of audicity but to no avai. as i said earlier i can record my first track but everything after that runs out of sync ,and it wont allow me to use the tool i need to allign the tracks. can you help at all. thanks, jimmy.[/quote] I can't help you with latency on multitracking, but the effects require you to select part of a track before they become selectable. The welcome screen for audacity refers to an audacity user forum, so if you cannot select a part of a track, and select an effect to work on it, I would suggest that you contact them - [url="http://forum.audacityteam.org/"]http://forum.audacityteam.org/[/url] David

[quote name='jimmybass04' post='797868' date='Apr 6 2010, 06:34 PM']i downloaded the new version and all features are still disabled,? any ideas anyone[/quote] Most of the features stay greyed out until you have a file that they can be used on. But, if nothing at all works then it sounds as if you do not have some software or settings that Audacity expects to see. So, what exactly is it that does not work in Audacity, and what can you prove is working on your PC? For example: Can you play CDs using windows media player? Can you play MP3s using windows media player? Import the same files into Audacity - can you see that signal showing on the meters when you play them? If you can see it on the meters, can you hear it? - If not, check your soundcard settings, look for something muted or turned down. If/when you get sound from a file opened in Audacity, go through a similar process on the input/record side to confirm that your sound card is routing signals to the right place. Good luck Regards David

[quote name='steelman' post='782079' date='Mar 21 2010, 08:38 PM']Been advised to ask this question on here.. Didn't know this bit existed!! Just did a gig with a 'proper' sound engineer who advised me that he was getting no signal from my D.I. output from my Hartke ha3500. This worked fine 2 weeks ago. Any ideas what could have happened and is it potentially an expensive repair? In anticipation!!!! C[/quote] Possibly a daft question, but did you swap the lead with another to confirm it was not a faulty lead?

There was a post recently where the neck dive was cured by taking a loop of string (or something similar) from the bridge-end button to the player's belt. Assuming it didn't make him sing higher, that might be worth investigating. David

[quote name='JonnyB' post='752710' date='Feb 21 2010, 12:21 PM']I've been considering getting band in a box - to speed up the songwriting process; you know, get some chords together, input them into biab to hear approximately how it sounds in various different styles, then polish it up with further, posher, software. Amazon are selling the 2007 version for £70, but they're also selling the 2010 'megapak' version with 'real tracks' and 'real drums' or something for £199. If there's anyone out there who has biab or is aquainted with it, could you advise me? - Would it be worth getting the 'megapak' one or are all the add-ones not worth it? (would the megapak one be so 'all singing and dancing' as to make all my other music software redundant?) How much of an improvement on the 2007 one is the 2010 one (or even the 2009 one)? Cheers![/quote] I have the 2007 version, which still uses midi files, although you can download realdrums to use with it. For home use, I would not bother - midi drums are good enough. I find it useful to be able to type in a chord pattern, select a style, and have biab put together a rehearsal band for me. I also find it useful that it can take a wav or mp3 file and work out a chord sequence for it. It means I can spend more time playing to a chord chart, and less time trying to work out what I should be playing. I'd class it as a rehearsal aid rather than the hub of your music making system. What it won't do is enable you to set up your own drum pattern - the drum pattern comes with the band style. Also, you can define the boundaries of what your 'band members' play, e.g what kinds of chords, or what kind of chord progressions, but they will improvise within those boundaries, so your control is limited. So, if you work from chord sheets, it is useful to have: if you work things out by ear from MP3s, a Tascam bass trainer might be a better way to go. As other posters have implied, it does what it does very well, but it is limited in what it does. Hope that helps David

[quote name='grumble' post='747526' date='Feb 16 2010, 05:51 PM']Thanx for the offer lemmywinks, I'm Bolton based but I've decided to get a Stagg this weekend anyway. I figure that if I dont like it then I shouldn't lose to much when I get rid. As to getting a teacher, yeah I will eventually but at the moment I have a couple of DVD's on the way to get me started (The Evolving Bassist by Rufus Reid and Jazz Upright Bass by Ed Friedland). I will get lessons when the strangeness has worn off a little, no doubt by that time I will have a mass of bad habits to break [/quote] Can I suggest an alternative? - Get one lesson to start you off on the right track. Much of the traditional DB sound comes from the high action, which means more effort, and if you do not start with the right fingering and wrist positions, you can cause serious tendon damage quite quickly. David

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='747196' date='Feb 16 2010, 01:26 PM']I don't know why the advice given above was to avoid the dean pace - I thoroughly enjoyed the one I owned & it gave a sound & feel very different to a fretless bass to make it worthwhile. It isn't designed to be bowed as the target market (people like me?) are probably not interested in using a bow. They sometimes come up secondhand at a good price. A set of TI JF354 & a cheapo behringer ADI21 preamp made mine sound very good. I've since upgraded to a Ned Steinberger CR5M which is in a totally different class, but its in a different price range as well.[/quote] I have to start by admitting that I haven't played one, but I read around a lot before making my own shortlist. The messages that I got were that - a) they were not different enough to a fretless-on-end to be worth buying if you already had a fretless (you've been there, I haven't), b) with a standard bass guitar string length, they were little use as a toe in the water for a 42 inch scale 3/4 EUB or DB c) with a typical bass guitar string spacing and neck radius, you could not bow them. One of the reviews that I read suggested that they were designed to allow bass guitarists to cross-over to an upright-ish kind of instrument, but were not intended as an entry level EUB or DB. That is how I think of them. David

[quote name='karlthebassist' post='736670' date='Feb 5 2010, 09:09 PM']So one of the bands I play with is an Indi/Folk sort of band with multi instrumentalists, acoustic instruments etc theres the link - [url="http://www.myspace.com/hoaxfuneral"]http://www.myspace.com/hoaxfuneral[/url] - I'm not on any of the recordings I've joined them last year for the new stuff they have been working on - the new sound is a bit different to that on the recordings. But anyway, I play acoustic bass guitar with them mainly (and dabble on some other things too), but I keep thinking "man that would sound sweet on upright" on SO many songs that I think it may be worth getting one. Problem is, what. If I could just go out and buy one I'd get an NS WAV 4. To me, they look cool, sound decent (im not going for uber authentic tone as I dont need it), are pretty compact and well made. But £670 quid... Only other one I've ever seen and played was the Stagg... and that's a pretty big no. Its massive, ugly and not very well made. So what are my options? Are there £400 EUB's that fit the bill? Do WAVs ever come up second hand, and what sort of prices would I be looking at? Any opinions, suggestions would be great. Cheers. Karl[/quote] I put this together for a friend - most of it seems to be relevant to your query. With regard to ERBs, there are several at the bottom end of the market, and most seem to be pictured on the Thomann site [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/electric_double_basses.html"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/electric_double_basses.html[/url] In general: budget ERBs can be plucked, and the higher the action, the more they sound like DBs; most budget ERBs also have enough radius on the bridge / fingerboard to allow them to be bowed, but most sound nothing like a bowed DB. 1. Dean Pace - a 34 inch-scale bass-guitar neck turned vertical - avoid. [url="http://www.deanguitars.uk.com/basses/pacebass.htm"]http://www.deanguitars.uk.com/basses/pacebass.htm[/url] 2. Stagg - Double bass height, 42 inch scale at about £350. Gets good reviews. Does not fit across a car boot. [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=344951&page=3"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.p...4951&page=3[/url] 3. Palatino - Double bass height, 42 (?) inch scale, hollow bodied - gets good reviews, but needs DIY modification to get the best out of it. [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22149"]http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22149[/url] 3&page=3 Also appears to be marketed by Thomann as a Harvey Benton. 4. NS Wav - 42 inch scale on a short body on a tripod. Gets good reviews, fits across a car boot, early models had quality problems with the tripod, now redesigned. [url="http://www.nedsteinberger.com/i"]http://www.nedsteinberger.com/i[/url] nstruments/wav.php 5. The Aria SB lite one is probably just out of your price range, but appears to be the model that Stagg copied. [url="http://www.ariaguitars.com/int/03_products/pro_e"]http://www.ariaguitars.com/int/03_products/pro_e[/url] b_swb_liteone.html The guy who runs AGC basses is also an Aria stockist, and may be able to get you a good price. Out of that bunch, if you just want to test the water, the Stagg is alleged to be fairly good, and easy to sell on if it does not work out. The Palatino will draw fewer frowns in jazz and folkrock environments because of its hollow body. The NS Wav is good, but you either love the futuristic shape, or loathe it. David

[quote name='Beedster' post='704781' date='Jan 7 2010, 09:11 PM']Mmmm, I'm inclined to agree, and not of course forgetting that it's a high signal to noise ratio that's desirable, not a low one, although I'm assuming 90db is pretty high?[/quote] The signal to noise ratio is what makes the noise inaudible because the signal is much bigger. It is not really relevant when you throttle back the signal to practice in a smaller room. Your problem is posssibly better described as having an equipment noise floor that is too high for your quiet environment. As a result, you may find the supplier claims that the noise floor is adequate for the amp's intended use, and therefore they will not do anything about it, like, for example, an amp with a fan that is always on. There is not much you can say to counter that argument. I had a conventional amp with a buzzing transformer that I could only hear when we all stopped playing. It still drove me nuts while I practiced at home, and I ended up trading it for one that did not buzz. David