ShergoldSnickers

[quote name='ped' post='17069' date='Jun 13 2007, 05:32 PM']To be honest mate if its just for muckin about you might as well go jonesin' for some semi decent hifi speakers. There is a shop full of bits and bobs near me with some lovely pioneer boxes. You can always get big old decent speakers pretty cheap in the free ads.[/quote]


+1

A few years ago, I helped a friend set up a commercial recording studio, and did loads of research into monitors. The principles will probably still hold today. The first point is that the biggest asset you have is your ears. Your partner may disagree but that's another topic . Go listen to as many as you can using music you know inside out. We did, and found the usual studio suspects, the Tannoys, JBLs etc were exceptionally good at going loud but very little else. Resolution of fine detail and finesse were not strong points. You wouldn't try to monitor orchestral or choral works on 'em. Things may have changed since, dunno.

After several weeks we settled on a pair of 'Hi-Fi' speakers made a by a company called Epos. Sadly, no longer in the hands of the bloke that set it up. We knew the quality of the sound was better than the other stuff we listened to (in our opinion), it just meant monitoring at sensible levels - a very, very good thing. Your situation means that high levels probably wouldn't be appropriate anyway.

We were still a little unsure about the robustness of the drivers, so after explaining our situation to the speaker designer, he sent us a spare treble driver FOC, as we intended to test one to destruction just to see. As for the bass driver: "The only way you'll break that is by putting it across the mains".

After crafting a drum track from hell using any part of the kit that gave off high frequencies, we did eventually manage to break the treble driver. It took wiring it directly across an amplifier output with no cross-over, at full whack on the desk and from the output stage of the amp. After 20 mins the aluminium dome shattered.

The moral - the word monitor does not guarantee anything. The word Hi-fi doesn't preclude anything. Use your ears and don't fall for any clever marketing spiel.

As a final quality check for minor tweaking I use a pair of Grado SR125 headphones. Grado make the most cost effective real quality 'phones out there, and are excrutiatingly revealing of mistakes and fluffs in a recording. As I know to my cost.

Time to shut up now, I've prattled enough.

It certainly puts my gear into perspective. One bass, one combo, one lead, one strap, one soft case, no stand. If he gave me all his stuff it wouldn't make me a better player*. Just popular.


*There's plenty of room for improvement.

Another great Precision user – John Wetton. Check out 'Lark's Tongues in Aspic' 'Starless and Bible Black' and 'Red' all by King Crimson. Everything from full fundamental solidness to raucous overdriven long before Jean-Jacque Burnel and others later cornered the market in overdriven sublimity.

One 'o these....

Splendidly playable neck and nothing else quite sounds like one.

I recently sent an original Shergold Marathon pickup to Wizard Pickups in Carmarthenshire, Wales. The pickup is similar in design to a 'P' type with two offset coils, both encased in a single rectangular block, rather than the two separate small blocks of the usual 'P' type.

Andy at Wizard suggested that he could replace the coils with hand wound ones that stretch the full width of the casing, and that the original magnets could be replaced.

I sent the pickup off on a Saturday, phoned Andy on the Tuesday to see if he'd got it, only to be told that the job had been done and it was on the way back. It arrived back on the Wednesday. Pretty smart turnaround if you ask me. Smart turnaround if you don't as well.

The original magnets couldn't be replaced, so were re-magnetised instead.

Soldered up and back in place, I found the new pickup coils to be out of phase, and guessed a simple reversal of the wiring for one of the coils would sort it. It did. Easy peasy. Andy was genuinely and profusely apologetic on the phone when I brought this up.

Previously the pickup was rather mushy and indistinct, with an over full bottom end emphasising things around the 100Hz to 150Hz mark. Now it's clearer with greater bandwidth, delicacy and just sounds several classes above. Hi-fi but with character and soul if you like. Before, I would always hesitate before using this pick-up alone. Now I don't. That's the difference.

I can't give Andy 10 out of 10, due to one coil being incorrectly inserted (don't take up gynaecology Andy ), but the sound is so transformed that anything less than 9 would be insanely churlish.

Cost? An extraordinarily reasonable £45. I'd heartily recommend Wizard anytime. Great job and a joy to deal with. Top man.