Bassybert

For anyone interested I’ve started a build diary thread. You can find it at…

Hi Rob, it’s just the preamp. I was planning to use it the same way I use my Sansamp by running it into the effects return of an amp.

If anyone's eagle-eyed enough to see that C18 is missing, that's intentional and part of the design. The extra cap is there if you want the TS-60B version as that was the only difference between to 50 and 60 apparently. Now it's just a case of waiting for the enclosure...

As I mentioned in the DIY Effects thread, I've recently purchased an Aion FS-50B kit from Musikding - The kit is based on the pretty awesome sounding amp used by players like Bob Weston from Shellac and David Wm Sims from The Jesus Lizard. It's a 50watt solid state amp from the late 70s/early 80s I believe, and has a pretty big following in alternative music, especially for recording. The Tronographic Rusty Box pedal is based on the same amp and used to great effect by Adam Devonshire in the Bristolian behemoth that is Idles. Think snarly, mid heavy growl but thick and chunky and you're in the right ballpark. It took couple of weeks for the kit to arrive from Germany, and when it did arrive it was sans enclosure - I had a card in the box saying it was on backorder. A bit annoying seeing as I had to chase the guys from Musikding up to see if the kit had been posted (They say allow up to 7 working days for the kit to be marked as shipped but I didn't hear anything for 8 days so dropped them an email which seemed to get the ball rolling). Hopefully it won't be long before the enclosure arrives 🤞 Kit looks decent, all quality parts with the PCB being a really nice matte finish, all components organised into bags and the hookup wire has been recut and part stripped so it should be easy to hookup once I get the enclosure. 1. Ready to rock and roll! I printed the instructions out from the pdf, everything is really comprehensive. 2. The PCB comes with a perforated link that you can snap apart if needed, hopefully I'll be able to keep it all in one piece within the enclosure and just run the jumper wires for power and signal to the main part to the power/switch part. 3. All nicely organised - FYI all pots have plastic covers which helps avoid any accidental grounding to the soldered side of the PCB 4. I always start adding parts from smallest to largest, so it's resistors up first! 5. Even though all values are labelled, I still double check them with a multimeter just to be sure as I've been caught out with this in the past. Thankfully these were all spot on. 6. It also helps my brain if I check the values off the list when I've soldered them in. I tend to solder 3-5 parts at the same time but depends - If there's loads of the same value I'll do all of them together. 7. Working through them all... 8. With added inductors (These look like larger resistors in the bottom left) and diodes - only 3 small ones in this circuit. 9. Capacitor time! Again working from smallest to largest, I tend to add ceramic/film caps first then electrolytics at the end 10. Once they're in, it's time for transistors and ICs. I pretty much always socket transistors and always socket the ICs - It's a lot easier to swap them at a later date if needed but more importantly they're really sensitive to heat and it can be easy to cook a transistor. So sockets in first. I also added the big ass power supply chip (TEC 2-0923) in the bottom left of the smaller board. Never used on of these before, but it's a one stop shop for converting 9V DC to 15V DC. 11. All ready for the trannies! 12. That's the board pretty much as far as I can go without the enclosure - I tend to add the pots and switches to the enclosure and then add the PCB to that before soldering all in place, it makes it much easier than soldering them to the board then finding out they're misaligned!

The instructions say 1590BBS so 94mm x 120mm x 42mm - I ordered the pre-drilled enclosure to make things easier

Kit has just turned up today - Unfortunately minus the BBS enclosure which is on backorder 😢. Hopefully won't be long before it arrives. In typical German style everything looks top notch, all labelled and bagged into different part types. They've even included pre-cut hookup wire with the insulation partly stripped which I haven't seen with a kit before. The PCB itself from Aion looks really nice, well laid out and has a nice satin finish, again a first for me as I've never seen a PCB with that kind of coating. Might do a little build diary!

Hi mate, that would be great if you could thank you. I'm still waiting for it, have chased it up and have had an email from Klaus today saying it's been shipped so hopefully won't be long 🤞🏼.

Looks great Rosie! Are those the EBS flat patch cables? I was thinking about getting some of those as I've got some cheapie Amazon jobs at the moment and the connectors are quite bulky.

Bought a Pedaltrain board and case from Danny - great communication, well packaged and arrived very quickly. A top Basschatter to deal with ☺️

SO MANY KNOBS 😂

Being a fan of Bob Weston's grinding/snarling bass tone in Shellac, I've just ordered a TS-50B kit from Musikding - https://www.musikding.de/TS-50-Bass-Preamp-kit I believe it's pretty identical to the Tronographic Rusty Box bit with a toggle switch instead of a foot switch for the boost function. It's the first time I've ordered anything from them - Has anyone had any experience with Aion/Musikding? Cheers

Bought some Ryan Adams CDs from Dave, a throughout nice guy to deal with. Paid for them and promptly received them the next day, top stuff ☺️

Stopped using evilBay for selling items a few years ago when they decided that treating sellers with total disdain was the ideal business model. Looks like they're reacting to other platforms taking a big slice of the pie, but nothing much seems to have changed in how they bias everything towards the buyer and have 0 interest in sorting out the idiots who are abusing the system.

That looks absolute class!

Man I love listening to his music too, such a tragic waste of talent 😔

A big fan of Karate (the band), going to see them in December when they tour the UK. This track is insanely good and still sounds fresh as a daisy over 20 years later. Jeff Goddard’s playing on this track is so good, the perfect amount of space, but keeping everything rock solid and melodic.

I'm trying to get my head around a bit more theory and develop a decent practice routine, and whilst doing this I started looking on't interweb for some decent info that had scales, arpeggios etc. I found a few, but all of them required either buying something, reading loads of text to get to the bits I want, or signing up for someone's mailing list (Where I know I'm going to get bombarded with promo stuff). So I thought, coming from a designer background why not create my own and maybe I can learn some more theory stuff along the way. After thinking about it for a bit I thought why not create an e-book for the forum that doesn't involve a cost or any signing up shenanigans. I started to put together a couple of examples of what it might consist of attached below. Before I get in too deep, I wanted to check if I'm reinventing the wheel and something like this already exists, or if it's worth it? I know it would be useful for some people out there - if it is something people want, are there any essentials/elements that should be included or would help? Thanks, James

I love the sound of the bass on its own (which makes it great when practising), but the feeling of playing bass in a band or with others is the best feeling even if you’re just locked into playing root notes with the bass drum, that feeling of locking in with a drummer is like a drug I can’t get enough of. I’d say get out and play with others ASAP, especially a drummer if you can. Life is short, grab it by the balls. Jump in and go for it, it’ll make you a much better player in a much shorter time. Plus you get to share the love of music with others into the same thing which is another bonus 😊