Mottlefeeder

One of the nice things about talking to other players and makers is what you learn without realising at the time. I was talking to @Andyjr1515 while he was filing the aforementioned nut, and afterwards I suddenly realised that his feeler gauge blade on the fretboard would protect it from scratches. This would also be a solution to the problem I have filing down excess superglue on a repair to the finish on one of my basses - so thank you Andy. David

Hi folks, Yes the battery combo is mine, and it was a feedback howl that took out a fuse. I sized the original fuse for the size of wires I used, so it did its job, but I need to rethink the internal wiring - anyone know a source of cheap welding cable... Mrs Mottlefeeder and I made a weekend of our visit, and only got home a couple of hours ago, so somewhat belatedly, may I now add my thanks to the organisers and helpers. David

Time for an update. I managed to buy the thicker superglue from a site with a 2 week delivery, so nothing happened for a while. I checked that the glue did not bleach the existing wood dye, and then put on the first coat. When it dried I noticed that there were now flecks of white in the original finish around the new glue, which was worrying, but they came off by wiping with a damp paper towel. To be safe, I shrouded the working area with masking tape, then put on a few more coats. Unfortunately, trying to get viscous glue to stay put on an external corner is much like telling a cat to do something. The result was the the glue spread as far as the masking tape, and also created bulges that I am now in the process of filing down. In summary, superglue is going to work, but it is going to be a long job. David

Mine would be shorter - easier to sneak into the house

Time to cross that one off then.

As well as the Ibanez ABG I will be bringing a couple of headless basses, a Hohner B2V (passive 5-string, twin pups, VVT, cricket bat shape with soft case) and a kit built passive 4-string, originally Hohner Jack shaped till I trimmed its wings, twin pups, VVT and with a soft case - both will be for sale. David

For the benefit of the DIYers attending, my band has managed to write off a couple of speaker enclosures, but I salvaged the drive units - I can bring them if anyone has a use for them: I have the speaker and crossover from a Soundlab 12 inch PA speaker and the speaker, crossover and horn driver from a Studiospares Crescendo 10 inch speaker. David

Having a double bass to play through the smaller speaker cabs would be interesting, but not if it causes you loads of hassle. David

Another point worth considering, if you choose to make text files with chords above lyrics, using tabs between chords wil be unlikely to put them in the right place when imported into another app. Using only spaces gives a much more stable layout. David

Chordpro puts chords exactly where you want them in the vocal line, but unless you also put the bar lines [also in square brackets] in the vocal line, it will only display chords over vocals, which gives you insufficient information to be confident how many beats you have until the next change. If the song is one chord per bar, and always on beat 1, this is not an issue, but something like 'Easy' with it's occasional lines starting on beat 4 will give you problems. A lot depends on whether your chord sheet is a one-gig learning aid, or something you plan to use, without further refreshing, at some point in the future. David

My preference would be for chords above vocals, and bar lines where the chords are not on beat 1. This probably rules out Chordpro as a format. I use the Chordle app on a Windows tablet or my home PC. It imports from lead sheets or Chordpro sheets, and will then very easily change the key and/or show the real chord or played chord if a capo is used. David

I've used this supplier for a couple of projects and been happy with the service and the quality of the products. http://www.speakergrills.co.uk One point worth mentioning is that it will probably be cheaper to get Mark to powder-coat the grill than to paint it yourself. Priming, undercoating and top-coating a surface that is 60% fresh air means that you spray a lot of paint onto the backing news-sheet or whatever. David

I'll take that option too. David

I'll be there with an Ibanez 5-string ABG strung with flatwounds, and a couple of home-brew battery combos, an 'Even briefer case' 150W twin 5 inch, and a 75W/150W 1x10inch & 1x10 extension speaker, plus a Vong HPF/LPF/DI pedal and an MXR 3-band EQ/DI pedal. David

I use a behringer xenyx302 mixer as my headphone rig. It can be powered by a phone charger, or connected to a pc to create a daw. Channel 1 is mic/instrument (active bass good, passive bass loses top end) and has 2 band eq. Channel 2 is stereo, switchable between usb or phone/mp3 player, and also has 2 band eq, which works well for suppressing the bass of the track. You can record bass to pc while playing a pc track to headphones, but it has no fx. It is light, cheap and one box. David

Assuming I can make it, is there any interest in battery-powered combos and/or a comparison of sub-10-inch cabs? David

I've been using battery powered rigs for some years now, and my preference is to go for a car audio booster amplifier rather than a 12v to mains invertor feeding mains powered gear. The advantages are - 1. they are almost bulletproof. 2. they are more efficient, so your battery lasts longer. (they convert from 12v to amplifier voltage in one step while the invertor goes from 12v to 230v to amplifier voltage, two sets of losses). 3. If you stop doing battery powered gigs, you can probably sell them on more easily than an invertor. David

Thanks for that, but at the moment I'm going with superglue. Did your epoxy set transparently or with a bloom? David

The bass solo reminded me of something, and I finally worked out what it was. If the bassist was attempting to play 'Auld Lang Syne' in the middle of a song about moving on, it might be more clever than we give them credit for? David

I have no experience of Soundbox gear, but I have built a couple of battery powered bass combos using up-market car amplifiers running off small 12v lead acid batteries. the build threads are linked below. David

Found it. David

Gigging on Saturday, may be coming back by bus. David

I checked the bass this morning and found part of my PVA had peeled away from the original finish. I pulled at the loose end and the whole lot came off, so I am almost back where I started, except that I now know more. The original tint appears to have gone into the wood, so by next job is to find out whether superglue will change or move the colour, or whether I can just start building up layers of clear. David

Sorry if I seem to be tiptoeing round nail varnish - it is solvent based, and I'm worried about what it might do to the original finish. David

The body wood has a nice grain and is heading towards mahogany colour, but the original finish has a tint to give the final walnut colour finish. The original finish is around 1mm thick, so I don't think I can just use an oil as a finish. That pointed me towards 'seal, tint and layer up to fill the crater', and thinking that a water-resistant PVA would do the trick. I'm now looking at superglue. I'll start by checking whether it bleaches out the existing tint, and if not then I'll layer it up to fill the crater. I'm trying to minimise the amount of sanding due to the risk of creating more damage to the surrounding area. David