caitlin

probably a crime for a bass message board but PIIIICCCSSSS!!!

I LOVE those bouncy basslines that use an open as a sort of root or drone or whatever, the one that comes to mind is 'hey man, nice shot' by Filter: nice grindy intro and a wild mathy kind of chorus. This of course is a ONE string song, done by down tuning to D which you couldn't play on a standard BEADG 5 anyway, so why do i bring it up here, oh yeh... open strings. I hate em, except for this.

I love my self built 5 string and did a sort of 'awww' when i realised today's impossible transcription challenge started with the first note below the lowest E on my fretless 4... i had a horrible feeling I might 'need' a fretless 5 but happily, for TODAY at least, I could suck up downtuning the E to a D and that got the low I did need. I hate open strings AND needing to retune so I guess that's my problem isn't it?

One thing about the lower end kits is that they come with a tiny rack. everything gets scrunched up in front of you and it can be a bit of a shock to move to a 'real' kit later and find everything is much further away. A bit like learning to play bass on a uke perhaps. I'm another vote for roland with meshies if at all possible. They're much kinder on the wrists, translate to real drums much better. When I gave up on building a sound proof room I went for a Roland TD30KV and it's aweeeesssooommmmeeeee. Huge so I can set it up the same as my accoustic kit and stuff is in the right places and it sounds fun enough to not make me want to slit my wrists as a purist

well, it's NOT silent, but it is very very much quieter. Certainly now when it's plugged in the buzz *reduces* but I've almost no idea what I've changed. the wiring scheme is the same. I did resolder a couple of things which always carries the *chance* of magically futzing the electrons a bit. I think most of the noise is now down to things being connected with JST connectors rather than being hard soldered. this because I knew stuff would need to go in and come out a few times. I've learned basically nothing, but have a quieter bass now, which still makes bassy sounds when I wiggle the stringy bits. I guess i should solder all the wires directly now and commit to it to see if that makes it *really* work right

Sadly when I measure from the preamp output to the ground it's showing 47K so I think it comes pre-equipped I'll get the soldering iron hot this afternoon and try and stumble a bit further with this. I wonder how receptive artec would be to being asked about this directly.

wellll ok then. I take it back. it is of course fine on batteries. it's PURELY because it's being fed noisy power totally against the instructions in the manual. I am categorically doing it wrong. The thing that *interests* me is why two basses can silence it, but this one can't.

Thanks for reading the topic

ah, yes, I should have mentioned that I'd tried two leads. Good shout, that's one way to lose an earth if the shield has failed on the wire.

I have three active basses (I blame this forum in many ways) two JHS 'Vintage' 4 strings, and a 5 string that I built from a kit, guess which one is being weird. I have a Zoom B1x 4, which generally I've used on batteries, but it can also eat 5V up its USB socket. The Manual carefully ALWAYS mentions powering it with batteries, either the internal AAs or 'A USB Powerpack' so NOT from a wall wart. So I'm using a wall wart. With nothing plugged in, it's quiet, but with JUST a cable plugged in there's a hum, no complaints there I just attached an aerial. Plugging either of the professionally built basses makes the hum go away, totally silent, I assume shunting it to ground but what do I know? The 5 though quietly sings to itself and the quality of the hum changes with the treble and bass controls. Notably it doesn't matter what ways I wave the bass around the hum doesn't change, it's not coming through the air, it's coming up the wire. I've shielded the cavity with copper tape which beeps out with a multimeter but it's made no difference to the hum. If the preamp (ARTEC BE2) is unpowered the hum DOES stop and interestingly if I disconnect the pickups the hum is unchanged (i was going to carry on and shield the pickup cavities, but this suggests I'd get no benefit) Does this suggest that the preamp is unable to reject the hum from the stomp box or am I likely to be able to wire my way out of this? Obviously I shouldn't use the zoom guy from a crap power supply, but this has me intrigued.

I've smashed the BE2 in with extreme violence, Forstner bits and chiseling a plenty, here's where we stand as of now: I had some trepidation about plugging it in, I checked as many things as I could think of with my multimeter and then whacked it into my zoom pedal on batteries as a sacrificial object that could make noise. I can hear it doing a balance between pickups, I can hear it doing a bass boost and cut and a treble boost and cut which to be honest is more than I could hear the original electronics doing. That cavity is tight as anything and I have to admit that the board and jack socket are an interference fit, the saving grace is that it's an earth that's rubbing against the earth of the board so there's no electrical risk there. I am underwhelmed with the sound, I expected it to be night and day, but there it is. I guess the pickups are potentially at a price point but it's not a lively responsive instrument at present, and the other day when this was gutted and I went back to my 4 string, I was stunned by how much more articulate and dynamic that one sounds in comparison. Of course I did get to play a friends' very modern Ibanez a month or three back and I found that almost unmanageable, by which i mean it really laid my crappy fingers out plain. I'll give this setup some time, and prod it a bit, perhaps muck about with pickup heights but it's interesting how this experience is going. What fun.

Aw flip, I thought my socket was a stereo one, but its not, the third pin is connected to the barrel, but never to the sleeve of the jack, there's no switch closing taking place. A stereo socket becomes ordered and should hopefully land with the other junk on Thursday. Back to working on the motorbike for a bit then.

The BE2 is HERE. I'm started soldering JST tails to it so I don't need to mod the plug and fail nature of the existing electrics. Still need to work out how the hell the wiring on the socket works, it is a three pin dooble but i'm going to need to shove leads in and out of it to understand which bit is the 'switch' and how that goes between plus and ground in any case. The BE2, with a little violence, slides into the existing holes, but since some move cavity needs to come out to allow the battery to fit I've got some forstner and some wood chisel in the post. Should be able to get this hammered in by the weekend for much grin and more drive and hopefully a lower noise floor into the bargain..

Shoulda stuck to drums.

ha looks like none plays it there. meh. back to the thinking about it.

Well, I knew changing to 5 strings was a paradigm shift and not playing the B string was the lamest thing any 5 string wannabee could do. It's *fun* re-working out fingerings for songs but damn, some are confusing. I have a stupid book with I Wish in it but it LIES and has it written for 4 string in E when the real song is in E flat, right. So I'm tuned B E A D G and I'm starting the first riff at fret 11 of the E string (which is obv Eb), does that sound mental? It's dropped the 'shape' of the pattern into a scale box shape I understand and the pitches seem sensible but I can't help wondering where the 'best' place to phrase it is. Better go look at some videos and peel my eyes for the bassist.

That's an astonishingly kind offer, however I looked at those very options and think the boards might be too tall to fit in this cavity which is why I leaned towards the BE2 which is horizontal. As it goes, I've a BE2 in the mail so I'll give you a shout if that doesn't show up or doesn't fit. Thanks.

Hah, wonderful! Having looked up what they are; if I have to do this again that's a decent shout, also useful if I expand from TIG to MIG in the future

How much does intonation vary on different strings? Obviously this is still settling in, and i have few clues, but my saddles are currently really far back, in fact the B is out of travel, but I adjusted the truss rod and now the 12th fret is a bit flat so the saddles will need to move forward for a couple of strings. The B is really clanky and buzzes a bit, but higher action would be insane, it's already like trying to crush a railway sleeper, my left hand *hurts* I've reworked two of the songs I like to play to use the low B and it's nice not needing to change hand position but there are a few more fret to fret+4 reaches than in the 4 string positions, so it's an interesting trade off between three fret and 4 fret reaches and staying in one position.