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I play in a band with an uncomfortably LOUD drummer. Having been in bands for the best part of half a century my hearing has a bit of wear and tear so I need to do more to protect what I've got left. I find playing with earplugs quite difficult as everything sounds muffled and I feel disconnected from the band. I currently use a fairly old set of ACS ER20 plugs which claim to 'preserve the fidelity of the sound' etc. However, to me it just feels like playing underwater. Ideally, I'd rather have some sort of hearing protection that works more like a limiter and only kicks in above a certain threshold, rather than knocking everything back by 20dB or so even in quieter sections. Are there any earplugs out there that work like this? I can't find any, so I'm looking to upgrade my earplugs to ACS Custom Pro series with moulded earpieces in they hope that they'll be better quality and more transparent than my cheap off-the-shelf ER20s. At around £150 I'll be disappointed if it still feels like playing underwater! But with my already dodgy hearing it probably will. If I get the ACS Customs, I'm also undecided which filter to go for (see chart below). I'm tempted to go for lower attenuation (eg. PRO 15) in order to reduce the underwater/disconnected feeling. Alternatively the PRO 17 which seems to be a popular choice. Or, with the snare/cymbals in mind, perhaps the PRO 20 which is somewhere between the two at lower frequencies but attenuates progressively more in the higher range. I'd appreciate any advice or guidance from anyone who uses ACS Customs or anyone with similar hearing/drummer issues and can recommend other solutions. Thanks for any input.

As mentioned above, have you tried using the allen keys you already have to narrow down the size? Metric sets usually increment in 0.5mm steps so if none of these fit then it's most likely an imperial size. If you can identify the metric size that's just too big and the one that's just too small, that should give you a pretty good bead on the imperial size which will be some multiple of 1/64". Here are a few imperial to metric conversions. It's easy to see how imperial sizes slip between the metric keys, and not all imperial sets will include odd ones like 7/64 or 9/64 etc. 7/64 = 2.778125 1/8 = 3.175 9/64 = 3.571875

I'm sure it will sound just as good in a band setting. USA SUBS are great no-nonsense workhorse basses.

These are great basses, I love my active USA SUB. Out of interest, do you find any use for the bass cut control on the passive version?

What type of bass is it? If it's US built the chances are it will be an imperial size. Anything else most likely metric. Using the allen keys you already have you can then narrow down the size to be somewhere between the ones that are too big and too small.

This sounds good to me. A clean boost pedal before the input on the amp, set at a level that pushes the gain stage into the desired level of overdrive. Overall volume may also increase which may (or not) be a problem depending on the context of how you intend to use it (eg. stepping forward for solos or just adding drive for tone). That's where having a switchable channel on the amp with it's own gain and volume setting comes into its own.

You might find something useful here:

I did exactly this and it works perfectly

If you're after 1/4" solid shaft pots (ie. typical US size) then another option might be to get some of these little brass sleeves which convert 6mm split shaft to 1/4" solid: https://www.wdmusic.com/wd-music-products-brass-potentiometer-shaft-conversion-sleeve-details.html That opens up your options to include metric long shaft pots which may be easier to find (although I'm not sure if they are!).

Excellent 👍 I wonder why the other two strings don't have the same problem!

It could well be a grounding issue. I found the following post on the Line6 forum which seems to refer to a problem similar to yours: If any of you want to diagnose your piezo as a ground issue, you should be able to hear the string, but it should be quiet and possibly crackly. If it cuts out 100% with no sound at all then you have an issue with the signal wire, not the grounding connection. The problem is that the piezo has lost contact with the saddle, which transfers all grounding to a wire connected to the bridge. You could try to use contact cleaner, but it might go out again, so I suggest you secure the grounding contact by inserting conductive material on the side/under the piezo between the saddle. It's working great.

Thanks, I'd forgotten the voicing switch. The wording on the switch is a little strange for that though ...

What does the 'feedback' switch on the right do? Looks like it has 3 settings - Usual? / Amp/ On.

I asked Leszek about the changes and this is what he replied: Hello, English musicians like the Middle knob, so we made the middle tones. There was a Contour knob on the R-400 and WB-100 and nobody used it in the UK, and in the US, the contour tone is the norm. The biggest changes concern the inside of the amplifier, i.e. some very time-consuming assembly operations have been eliminated.

Worth mentioning maybe that the James/Baxandall circuit is quite different to the Fender tone stack and similar to a regular 2 or 3-band cut/boost eq in operation.