tim126

Ta for the reply - So not essential, but a nice-to-have?... Can replacements be fitted? (Are replacements available?!) - I note that there's a screw holding the turning piece in place... :-)

Can anyone spare some wisdom on this: I have an Ibanez SR505, around 5 yrs old... it's got the original machine heads. There's a minute little band of something (plastic? nylon?) between the bit you turn with your fingers and the shaft that enters the gear enclosure. These little rings are starting to crack and disintegrate - one has disappeared altogether, another is split and will eventually fall off. I'm thinking they must be there for a purpose - otherwise, why put them there. So: what is that purpose, and is it catastrophically disastrous if they split and fall off? I haven't got a pic to hand of the genuine article, but the attached pic shows the bit I'm talking about as a pale-coloured collar. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?....

Cheers chap! Chat again someday...

PM mate...

Oo Oo!!! I got one of these, held together with a tie-wrap, cos all the screws have fallen out! ... If you're offering it a good home, I'd take it in and make it comfortable?.... :-) Tim.

A triumph of fashion over function. What a ********** Liberty...! Meh!

Understand. In the world of Pro AV install, speaker specs are often given with not only a freq response range, but also a SPL expressed as dB @ xxHz, 1W @ 1m. Which is the technical level of mathmatical/physics/science detail. And I think there is a danger in over-simplifying... speakers (amps, and all the rest of the stuff) can't really be judged by just one criterion - there's loads of measurements and aspects of performance that must be considered as a whole, not in isolation. But I guess the bottom line... well, I was playing last night (for a primary school production of "Joseph" ... great fun, lots of enthusiasm, the band and cast started together and finished together - mostly - and that ticked all the boxes that needed ticking!)... My ears were telling me that my rig was producing nice big fat deep round sounds when I wanted it to, and more punchy middle-y sounds when played that way. And it was mostly down to how the strings were played. So I think I'm going to put this particular worry to bed ... it's raised a lot of useful info, and may continue to do so, which is all good. But, as I keep seeing around this forum, there's a certain pragmatic approach, which is: if it sounds good (to your musical/aural taste), then it is good. Tick that box, job done, get on with the main business of life which is having loadsa fun making music! (IMO anyway!) Keep it moist, chaps and chapesses!

Now that is a collection of some bloody useful stuff! Cheers, chums... Stuff to read, ponder and learn from...

Oo! Well Bagger me! How bizarre! I need to ponder that for a while.... Ta for the response!

What-ho chaps. In a recent idle moment I was pondering the curious array of terms and specifications we use to describe our rigs. Mine includes a 5-string Ibanez (SR505), a MarkBass Little Mark II and a Schroeder 410L. So: the amplifier/cab spec includes a rating of the frequencies it'll handle... bottoming out at 40Hz. The bottom "B" string on a 5-string bass has a fundamental frequency of 30.87Hz. Now I have heard about harmonic frequencies and stuff (not sure I understood it, mind you!)... but, putting it in really dumb terms, if the bottom B is producing a frequency below the rated/stated capabilities of the amp and the cab, how come I can still hear it when I play it?... And how come my rig makes by bass (esp the bottom end) sound so nice?! I suspect the discussion may have a lot to do with why the amp/cab specs a frequency response of up to 20KHz, when the highest note the guitar can play is G2, at 392Hz... But maybe some intelligent being out there can put an explanation together for a simple-minded plucker?...

I'm with Grand Wazoo and JTUK on this. I switched to 5 about 10 years ago (I saw someone playing one and just fancied having a go for a while)... once you get all that "using the lowest notes possible just because you can" sh*t out of your system, the best of it is being able to pick those end of the neck on the E-string notes from up the neck. And I find (and notice in others) that it is those huge jumps up and down the neck that are not only often way inaccurate, but also very inefficient and, ultimately, bloody tiring! It took me about 3 months to get comfortable with my first 5-er (a Yamaha BB5GS, I think)... and I now get quite confused if I have to play a 4-string (what key are we in? ah yes... G, not D... oops, my mistake! ) Guess it's one of those things that polarises opinion. Bottom line, I suppose, is: get one, try it for a while (like several months), try to use it exclusively, don't keep swapping and changing, and assess and evaluate after that. One other factor: 5-string sets cost more than 4-string set... I use Elixir nano-coats, the bottom B is sold separately, so puts the set at about £7.something more than the base 4-string set. But then, a set lasts me about a year, so it's no big deal.