Mottlefeeder

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='150797' date='Mar 4 2008, 03:56 AM']This interesting tidbit came my way today: [url="http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hangers-sound-as-good-monster-cables"]http://consumerist.com/362926/do-coat-hang...-monster-cables[/url][/quote] I bought a new CD player and found it too bright for the rest of my system. The shop advised me to use solid-cored mains cable (1 sq mm) to link it to the preamp. It did sound less bright, but did not fix it for me, so I had to exchange the CD player instead. I have also 'upgraded' from Maplins thickest white figure-of eight speaker cable to their transparent figure-of-eight speaker cable, and found the speakers sufficiently brighter that I found them tiring to listen to. I am back on the original cables now. YMMV

Those of you who are interested in BFM designs might like to know that I am bringing an Omni 12. It seems to be the least favoured of the three Omnis, since most go for the easy built of the 10, or the massive bass of the 15. I like it - you can make your own minds up. Here are the response curves from the BFM site - [url="http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=889"]http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=889[/url]

[quote name='Smash' post='148623' date='Feb 28 2008, 09:13 PM']Cheers Mottlefeeder, but I really need to travel light as I can as I walk to this place which is about 1.5 miles and even a 10kg amp with bass can be hard work, well for weedy me that is. Does anybody play acoustic bass here with acoustic guitars? any ideas?[/quote] The message seems to be that whatever route you go down, it is not going to be light emough to carry 1.5 miles. Time to look outside the box? How about a lightweight porter's trolley. We use them to load in/load out, but there is nothing stopping you taking one further afield.

[quote name='Smash' post='148508' date='Feb 28 2008, 05:05 PM']Having to do quiet practices with an acoustic guitar, took along my standard bass with a mini boss recorder and headphones but that's no good as guitarist didn't know what I was playing. There is no power in the room so I am looking at either an cheap acoustic bass or a very small battery powered amp, but.... worried incase the acoustic bass would be drowned out and also the only battery amp I can see is the new Roland Cube RX but its not out until April/May. What do you reckon would be the best option? PS. sorry if this is in the wrong forum, thought it was more to do with monitoring[/quote] I have used both my Hartke kickback 10, and my Hartke HA 300 (but not at the same time!) with a 12 volt caravan battery and a 12 to 240 volt convertor. The only problem I had was a slight buzz, which disappears when you touch the strings, or turn the treble down. It's not a safety problem, it's the harmonics from the invertor. An invertor is about £20, and a 12 volt burglar-alarm battery should be about £10 to £15, so you could use your existing amp for £35-ish in extra parts if you felt comfortable putting it together. That's a fairly comon set-up for buskers.

[quote name='trevthebass' post='145503' date='Feb 23 2008, 11:24 AM']hi ya nik ive played all over the world matey for all top cruise ships in the jazz trios, QE2, P&O, royal carribean e.t.c i was londons premier coparate bands bass player www.chanceband.co.uk working along side toni kiley drums chris de burgh, and sessions for bmg, warner bros, what is it you would like to learn nik how to play a waltz or how to slap a million miles per second i teach all styles and bass playing whilst singing and my rates are fair im going to be loading up some sound clip demos on my space page www.myspace.com/trevthebass soon thanks for the interest trevor.[/quote] Do you do punctuation?

[quote name='Leowasright' post='146791' date='Feb 25 2008, 06:07 PM']Listening to what my current band have recorded, there a low Bs being played, and apparently he had a 5 string... ...Has anyone tried setting up a 4 string as the bottom 4 strings on a 5 string ie .065" to .125" guage tuned to BEAD? I cannot believe nobody has tried this...... David H[/quote] I have a four string fretless that I strung BEAD for a couple of years before I moved to a 5-string. The biggest problem that I had was the confusion it caused my bass teacher. The down side is that you have to buy 5-string sets and waste the G, or buy singles and pay extra. Some US string companies do sell BEAD sets, but I have never seen them advertised over here.

Roots are important to emphasise the chord changes. Between the chord changes you can choose what you play. For example, 1) If the chord changes every 1st beat, you should play the new root every 1st beat. But, if you have the same chord for several bars, you could play chord tones every 1st beat. 2) To get from one root to the next, ideally you should play something that is melodically interesting, harmonically strong, and fits in with the drum pattern. In practice, you compromise, e.g. walking up the scale to a new root note is melodically interesting, but harmonically weak. Playing chord tones for the chord you are on, or the chord you are going to is harmonically strong, but melodically weak. And, what works in one song, may not work so well in another. How you get from knowing this to applying it is something I am still working on! Next...

I'll be travelling from Lymm with a Ford Focus estate, and space in the back. I can detour by Altrincham/Sale, or by Warrington (but not both!) if anyone wants a lift.

[quote name='Linus27' post='133520' date='Feb 4 2008, 12:02 PM']Thanks Birdy but a bit out of my price range. Good luck selling it though. Does anyone know what the Hartke VX115 speaker is like? Its a paper cone, can handle 300W at 8 ohms and is only £165. My other option is the Hartke 115 XL but this is only 200W at 8 ohms. Would Hartke be a better option that Ashdown?[/quote] The Hartke VX115 is solidly built, but not overweight, and when I auditioned it, it sounded warmer and cleaner than a second hand 1 by 15 H&K or a second hand 1 by 15 Peavey for the same kind of money. It takes a low B without problems, and does not seem to suffer from the boom of a big speaker in a small box that you will hear from some smaller combos. I used it in a church and occasional outdoor gigs (without PA support) and never ran out of volume. The only time I did run out of volume was at an audition in an empty club, where the lead guitarist had a large amp, and I only had 200 watts to play with. I stopped using it when I finished building a BFM Omni 12 (£250-ish for the parts + 30 hours work). You might be interested in buying my Hartke if we can work out a way of getting it from Warrington to Surrey without adding 25% to the cost.

[quote name='bassman2790' post='137518' date='Feb 10 2008, 11:35 AM']That's really useful information Alex, thanks. The question is how do I solve the problem? Judging by the information you've kindly supplied, if I had a cab where the roll-off didn't start until about 50-60Hz, I should notice a difference in the 2nd harmonic. Is there anywhere where I can find the specs of mass produced cabs? Or a guide to how I could make a 1x15 cabinet that performed well down to 50Hz?[/quote] If you think you can make a cab, Bill Fitzmaurice designs will probable have something to suit. I'd recommend you consider the Omni 15 as a simple build which will do what you want. [url="http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Omni15.html"]http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/Omni15.html[/url] I am taking an Omni 12 to the north west bass bash in March if you can wait that long.

Sennheiser HD485s - sound good, and carry bass well. I chose them by taking a personal stereo into a hifi shop. The 485s were the furthest up the Sennheiser range I could go without running into sensitivity problems. The next ones up distorted on my personal stereo, but not on a mains amp. The next ones down did not sound as good. The only problem with them is that you cannot get a shorter cable for them; a 1m cable would be useful for use with waist or belt mounted units, e.g. Pandoras etc.

An option that has not been mentioned yet is a cheap 4 string back-up tuned BEAD on the basis that you use the B string a lot more than the G. With regard to the "I'll borrow someone's bass" brigade - would you lend a stranger your pride and joy? There have been threads on this before.

Warwick Corvette 5-string fretless - Swamp Ash/Ovenkol Warwick Corvette 4 string fretless - Bubinga/Wenge (if not sold by then) BFM Omni 12 - horn loaded 3-way speaker review [url="http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3324"]http://billfitzmaurice.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3324[/url] Hartke 3000 - if needed

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='125634' date='Jan 22 2008, 06:42 PM']I'm sure I've seen these discussed in a thread before, but a search for rocket did not reveal it (perhaps it was on bass world). Anyway, I'm doing a lot of traveling and spending nights away from home at the moment, so am looking for something portable (ie fits inside the bass case) to go between my bass and the headphones, preferably battery powered. The Pocket Rocket is one that springs to mind, but a few reviews on the 'interweb' mention excessive hissing. Does anyone have experience of these or equivalent devices, and if so what are your thoughts/recommendations? Thanks in advance people, Clive.[/quote] I have to start by saying that I am biased - I have a Pocket Rock-it to sell, but I took it off the market just before Christmas [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8475"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=8475[/url] They come with headphones which sound fine, - it is only when you upgrade to Hifi headphones that the hiss can get intrusive. They are designed for Fender-type angled jack sockets, and if you have an edge mounted socket, they tend to turn themselves upside down because they are slightly top heavy - not a big deal, but an annoyance just the same. The range of tones is good: practising with chorus sounds really nice, and you have the option of connecting a CD/MP3 player/drum machine to jam along with. I upgraded to a Korg Pandora, which does more, and costs more. I'm looking to sell my Pocket Rock-it for £25 +p&p, and you won't find anything better, new, at that price. Second hand, for the same kind of money, something like a Zoom BFX 708 will give you a headphone output, and a tuner, and a rhythm generator, but it doesn't come with headphones, and it is a lot bigger. For even more money, you might pick up a CD playing Tascam bass trainer. The Mk I does not have a drum machine, but the Mk II does (I think). They are bigger and heavier, and need a PSU and a wall socket. In summary, if you want something small and basic, a headphone amplifier would be good, and there is one readily available. If you want more facilities, it will cost you. If you are interested in the Pocket Rock-it, make me an offer.

The original transistor designs, with bipolar devices, let more current through as they heated up, so in a high powered amp you could get yourself into a destructive cycle where it runs hot, so it lets more current flow, so it runs hotter... then it burns out. MOSFETS let through less current as they get hotter, so they do not go into thermal run-away, and they have become the industry standard for high powered amps. Interestingly (for geeks) bipolar transistors have a smaller voltage drop accross them than mosfets do, leaving more voltage available to push current through the speaker, so for a supply of +&- x Volts, a mosfet amplifier will be less powerful than a bipolar one.

I am interested in adding an on-board preamp to a Corvette, and most of the circuits I have seen fall into one of two camps. a.) An active circuit coming between the pick-up and the pots b.) An active circuit coming after all the pots What difference does it make to the sound of a passive pick-up if you feed it into a hi-z buffer instead of the track of a 250K pot?

[quote name='Beneath It All' post='117308' date='Jan 9 2008, 06:47 PM']Reading music is pretty much like reading the written page - If you analyze what's actually happening,you'll realise that to make a sentence flow, you need to read ahead[as any reasonable reader automatically does]...Great readers tend to read further ahead than average readers; I work with lots of players who read up to EIGHT bars in front[dependent on how tricky the chart is]...I can manage two bars ahead, which seems to be enough...For anyone learning to read music, I would highly recommend starting with a drummers guide to basic rhythms - once you've got the hang of that,reading the actual notes is much less daunting..Good Luck[/quote] Thanks for your input, but I think we're talking about different things, although I have to say my reading probably has this problem too. I read the part and learned all the given variations of notes for each chord in each bar. What I am now trying to do is play them (and others that come to mind) without the page, and without too much repetition, or too much jumping around to avoid repetition. Where I fall off it is usually because I have not thought about which root note I am aiming for, so I try and do it all after '4and', and it doesn't sound too good.

I'm not sure where to start on this, it could be a long post if I gave you all the back story... I have recorded myself improvising over a Band-in-a-box 1451 backing track with its bass muted, using that original bass line and variations as my building blocks. My timing and intonation are a bit shaky, but I am confident that they will improve with practice. Where I stumble, my analysis is that my mistakes tend to be on the 1 beat because I don't look far enough ahead. My plan is to work on that track, building up the speed as I get better, and then move on to other chord sequences, other keys, and other rhythms. I wondered if there are any specific exercises that anyone can recommend that have helped them plot a course through a chord sequence, or does it just come with practice?