NJW

Dag John! I'm Nico, living in Scotland, but originally from Nieuw-Vennep, near Hoofdorp. I haven't visited Nederland for a while but must do soon! NJW

I've been using the same 2 canford/neutrik leads I made myself for 7 years now without even so much as a crackle. People who are constantly breaking leads, I do not understand. Look after your gear and your gear will look after you.

The cure is to get off this forum and keep busy doing something else!] The cure is no fun.

[quote name='GarethFlatlands' post='1290137' date='Jul 2 2011, 02:43 PM']I interviewed Steven for a website back a few years ago. I was hoping to meet Caleb but it didn't happen. He'd just started playing a P bass regularly and I didn't get to see the Grabber.[/quote] Such a great band though, through all their different sounding phases!

I got to play Calebs bass once. That was a good day.

In both my bands, I have played the songs so many times over the course of the years that I can completely zone out and my fingers just do the work. This has meant that I am free to (try) to sing in tune.

Oooh thats interesting... Any chance you would be able to find out the number of it? I'm trying to see how many of the 500 I can track down and list their current relocation because, put simply, I am a [b][i]MASSIVE[/i][/b] nerd.

Jerrold Tiers - ex ampeg employee --------------------------------------------------- "The SVTs of all flavors used output transformers from a company in Chicago called 'Electrical Windings", who were the supplier for the original SVT. That lasted until Electrical Windings were absorbed into another company, who then continued to supply them until recently. E-W made a number of other specialty transformers for the Ampeg line as well as the SVT transformers. In many cases, they had the original production documents still, and could re-produce the same unit essentially precisely. In fact, early on, the engineer who had designed the original SVT transformer was still there, and able to assure the parts were the same. Similarly, the faceplate extrusions were from another Chicago company called "Lightning Metals", another original supplier. In as many cases as possible, the original suppliers were identified from documentation, and used if the parts could be obtained from them. So in a way, the 500 were a more true "re-issue" than even the VR."

I have listed this straight from the 'other' bass forum, but feel it's good information and I'm sure the original poster won't mind his knowledge being shared. Posted by Dave Ryan, who was part of the 'Skunkworks' team in the 80's. ------------------------------------------------------- I see a lot of strange things from time to time. As with all popular things, esp guitars & amps, there are a lot of myths & rumors out there. I wanted to give a little insight to the begining of Ampeg as it relates to the SLM erra of the "Harley Davidson" of bass amps, I was there. I started working @ SLM Electronics in 1985, I was the line assembly supervisor in the "Skunk Works" re-issue project. SLM Inc purchased the rights to Ampeg 1986. When we bought the company there wasn't much left. 2 tractor trailer loads of misc parts, documents & some amplifiers. There were about 50 unfinished MTI SVT-HDs & 100 MTI V-5s & some misc units, a couple of V-4s, some V-3s, a VT-40 etc... What SLM decided to do was build up any stock we had & get it on the market ASAP. So we built cabinets for the SVT-HDs chassis, we used the "Skunk Works" cabinets as we did not see the advantage of having to build 50 MTI style cabs, then building 500 SW cabinets. They were also missing back plate panels, so we used the "SW" panels that say "Made in America by SLM Inc 1400 Ferguson Ave". This had lead a lot of people to believe, later on down the road, that these are "SW" SVTs, they are not. They were assembled by SLME from left over MTI chassis. Myself & the chief engineer put these 50 SVTs together, biased & tested them, out the door they went. The 100 V-5s we had, were converted to bass amps by changing the preamp slightly, we had new face plates made for them to reflect the new model # [those were usually the only differences between Ampeg's guitar & bass amps anyway] We named them SVT-100s We did this very quickly to get Ampeg's name back in the main stream. Marketing started a campaign blitz in all the music magazines world wide to let everyone know SLM owns Ampeg & Ampeg is back. This kept the pubic busy for several months while we annexed some office space in our new 45,000 sq ft building, recently purchased for production of all SLM products. We tooled up & did all the wire preps, established our testing procedures, recruited personal from the assembly line in the factory & away we went. Everything was made in house. Woodshop made all the cabs, Engineering, Tolex, Chassis Assembly Test, Electronic assembly, Wave Solder, Wire preps, Customer Service, all under one roof. It took us about 9 to 10 months to complete the run of 500. Most of these were sold before they were made. The "Skunk Works" SVT-HDs were the first American made Ampeg's since Magnavox owned them in the 70's. There was NO "post MTI, pre SLM Skunk Works" SVT's. There is no such thing, they do not exist. So in my 23 years here I am not aware of any "rare jems". The only thing I can think of is the confusing 50 MTI SVT-leftovers we assembled & the 100 SVT-100's What ever else you hear to the contrary is rumor, speculation & myth. If you have the Ampeg history book, [dont know the page #] look at the picture of the Skunk Works crew. I am the guy in the front row on the left, behind me is George McKale, engineer, to the far right front row was the man who made Crate, Audio Centron & Ampeg huge players in the music industry, John Karpowitz. He died some years ago from cancer. He was the driving force behind SLM Electronics in the 70's 80's & 90's It was an exciting time @ SLM for a 26 y/o young aspiring bass player, it is only in the last 10 years or so I realized the importance of what we did, & how it impacted the music industry. It was a lot of fun & the moral & energy was indescribable. Everyone did the best they could & I believe SLM engineers did a great job of not only bringing back the Ampeg name, but to go way beyond that with a complete full line of tube & solid state amplifiers that set the standard for several years to come & put Ampeg back on the map.

[quote name='Paul S' post='1275160' date='Jun 19 2011, 07:54 PM']Hi, welcome aboard. I hope your bass playing is better than your maths... [/quote] I enjoyed this.

Hey Adam, Welcome to BC!

I got impatient and ripped all the carpet covering off the GS410 today. Will post pics of the new cream tolex covered 4x10 soon

Im not surprised the shop shut down if they take 4 weeks to (not) set up your bass! Great news on the free string though, well done D'Addario.

You could buy an Aguilar DB750 and DB410 2nd hand for that kind of money, if you find the right (and/or desperate) seller. Your G&L would sound lovely through that

[quote name='gilmour' post='1279279' date='Jun 23 2011, 01:12 AM']To flame proof them you need only buy something like Lanceyln Flame Retarder (IIRC) i's about £10 a bottle - you just spry it on. It's what they use to flame proof theatre sets.[/quote] That won't do in a lot of places (like mine). We need 'proof' in the form of a piece of paper that its fire retardant, not just your word that you've sprayed it with flame retarder.

My mate has a pedal which is just a jack socket, wired to another jack socket straight through... theres a big knob and a footswitch on it, just fitted to the chassis and wired to nothing. Lend it to other players, 50% of them will hear they improvement straight away! (Not saying this is what the z-cable does, just an amusing story about a pointless pedal).

[quote name='matt_citizenbass' post='1274315' date='Jun 19 2011, 12:59 AM'][/quote] This looks awfy like Bar Bloc in Glasgow. Correct?

[quote name='fattybassman' post='1270433' date='Jun 15 2011, 06:42 PM'][url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJV_GuTTihM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJV_GuTTihM[/url] check the video...all sounds made by line 6 M9 run through ableton... all you effects geeks like me might be into it... enjoy www.fattybassman.com[/quote] This... is... just.... AWESOME

[quote name='EddieG' post='1271320' date='Jun 16 2011, 12:29 PM']One of my friends, Scotty Donald, is doing live looping just like this, and it is the absolute bollocks! He's doing everything from trip-hop, dn'b, dubstep, all sorts of nutty stuff. Check out some of his videos: [url="http://www.youtube.com/user/scottydrumbass"]http://www.youtube.com/user/scottydrumbass[/url] He's also doing stuff with a band called Man's Ruin, which is a mashup of Celtic music, funk and jazz. Think he's got some videos on his page from when they did a BBC Radio Scotland live broadcast. This was his first wee experiment using the Roland SPDS, and a scaled down set-up. [/quote] Scotty is some boy... this video doesn't really highlight just how good he is but it's still very cool. Was telling me about it in Rainbow Music a while back.

I think I'm one of the only people I know who used D'Addario PROSTEEL strings.

Hmm I wish I had a way of trying the two options out. I'm guessing then by the sounds of it then that if I wire the cabs up in series then I won't have issues with the 10's and 12's getting different amounts of power per cab?

[quote name='Roland Rock' post='1272623' date='Jun 17 2011, 12:20 PM']Fair enough - I didn't mean to give a false impression of the leads.[/quote] I'm not sure why I chose to pick up on your post really... I'll blame it on being nearly 3am and frustration with not being able to get to sleep! My apologies!

Not nonsense then if its your experience, but it sounds like you were really suffering from bad cable-itis and now obviously are much more pleased with your cables! I think it would be inaccurate for people to expect more output with new cables because theyre only going to be dissapointed - a new shop bought jack to jack lead isn't going to be all that different from an OBBM one except it's going to break soon, it won't coil as nicely and the jacks on the end won't be as good/tough/pretty/well fitting. Speaking of valve pre sections, I just looked at the link to your Red Iron Amp photos. Do you have a thread up on BC about that anywhere cos it looks lovely! edit - yes there ARE differences in cables in terms of capacitance and resistance but generally - unless using REALLY unsuitable materials - these differences are minor (but relevant!). I would never underestimate the audible benefits of good cable, but I still can't see a situation where 2 healthy jack to jack leads with different cable would produce such a big difference in signal level.

Yeah that was a good tour for us, I think that was us on our way down to meet up with Statistics (ex-Desaparicidos / Cursive). I remember having a Red Pen Letter demo CD in the van for the duration! We enjoyed it Anyway, back on topic Buy bassic bits/OBBM cables!

Ha! Hey there mate I remember you. That was upstairs in.... *think think think*... the Phoenix? Is that right? Did Tellison play too?