Rosie C

People seem to either love or hate theory. I have two friends who are both fantastic violinists and both saw grade 5 theory as a horrible thing to just get through. Whereas I have grade 6/7 theory now and can't enough. As well as it being necessary for progressing to higher grades I find it invaluable for songwriting and for improvising parts on the fly.

Here is my Squier jazz in classic sunburst and tort. It started life as fretted, but got a Fender pau ferro fretless neck during covid lockdown. It has a lighter set of tuning machines fitted, though I forget what brand (they were in my guitar tech's spares bin). The neck pickup failed recently so I had DiMarzio relentless J bass pickups fitted and better quality pots & jack. It's my only bass guitar, so I've spent a bit getting it exactly how I want. I play a fair bit of double bass so my bass guitar is setup in that sort of style - including XL chrome flatwounds.

No, my amp doesn't have UV, I believe it's the later model with the electro-fluorescent plate, which we think the previous owner disconnected. When my electronically-minded friend visits at Christmas we'll have a look inside. Hopefully no damage has been done to the drive circuit running for years without the panel connected!

The colour match is pretty good. The ASDA cable is actually a better match to the amp than the speaker cabinet badge. It's quite hard to make out but I think it says 1.25mm2

The cables that came with my TE amp weren't in the best condition. But I was in the electrical aisle at ASDA a couple of days ago and spotted this lime green mains extension reel. Being in the "mains flex is fine for speaker cable" camp a lightbulb appeared over my head! Edit: Jacks and XLRs for speaker leads do give me the heebie-jeebies and I did think about converting my cabinets to speakon but that was faff and I thought it might devalue them should I sell.

Hmm, fast wind 6-7 months... shortly after my last post we decided to put our house up for sale and make preparations to move to Ireland so the poor old synth has sat in a corner unloved until this week. I'm nearly at the end of recording my first album and in the last couple of days I've been using the synth a fair bit - soundscapes, jazz piano, drone notes, all kinds of things. Mrs C at the drum pads: For a retired computer programmer this is so much fun!

I have a friend who is similar - I played him a song I'd written - so it was the first time he'd heard it and he was playing along by the third line. A tremendous gift. After nearly 50 years of playing from dots I've been trying to play by ear for two years now and it is just starting to come... early days I guess!

I don't go to many open mics. The one above is a bit different as each person can choose to do a solo performance, or pick a song from a book the organisers provide for everyone to play together. Indeed! and playing fiddle while working out a harmony line from the guitar chords in real time is about as much as my brain can manage!

Eeek! I used to have one of the mains plugs that worked by removing a light bulb but only as a curio.

My iPad charger kind of has that...

I stopped taking my bass to our local jam night as it was just too much hassle - either lugging guitar+amp or double bass. Instead I've been taking my violin and improvising harmonies (sadly I do not take a good photo when concentrating on playing)

I received a Kala U-Bass for my birthday this year. Acoustic with internal pickup of some kind. It really is awesome. Having a much fatter sound than my bass guitar, I use [it] on those days when my back is too bad to contemplate lugging my double bass to a gig or practice session.

It was on my list and it's already arrived, though I'm not allowed to touch it for fear of eternal banishment to the naughty list. A Trace Elliot AH300 GP12 with 15" and 2x10" cabinets. It is sat in the corner of my practice room under a sheet and with just the occasional creak of the floor joists settling.

I found some purchase paperwork and everything was bought in January 2002, which might narrow it down. There was also a carbon copy of a TE customer survey and in "suggestions for improvements" the buyer has written "switch for light fascia light" so it seems likely it's not working because it is disconnected. I'll take it to my electronics expert friend for a look-see inside.

Thanks! Ooh, thank you. I did a bit of internet searching late last night and found this 15" cabinet on ebay which looks to be the same model as mine and the badge looks the same as your 3D printed one: Close up of the ebay cabinet badge: But this is the badge on my 2x10 and it is different. In fact it looks very like the badges on the new Elf cabinets so maybe it is a late model? Thanks for that, very useful and sounds right - I downloaded the service manual last night (which is when I discovered the 'valve drive' knob is connected to an actual valve) and couldn't find anything on the circuits powering a panel. I see some photos on the 'net of them lit up (see below) but there are so many different models it's hard to be sure which is which. Someone else's amp - of course there could be a blacklight behind the camera...

The badge on my 2x10" is riveted on but there are no holes on the 15". But then in that ebay listing the badge looks stuck on. Hmm... An unexpected bonus is the valve pre-amp. I wasn't expecting that and haven't had any kind of valve amp before 😊

Well I did it! We went to view an AH300 tonight. I took my fretless jazz to try it and it sounded fantastic! Lovely condition, and it came with original manuals, sales receipt and the pedal board. Flippin' heavy though. Sadly my partner bought it for me for Christmas so no playing with it for a few weeks. ☹️ I have a couple of questions - did the 15" cabinets not have Trace Elliot badges? There's no sign it ever had one. Also the electro fluorescent front panel doesn't work, the seller said he thought it was deliberately disconnected, so that's something to look at. Any suggestions where to start with that? Anyway thanks for all the advice and opinions, I'm very happy with it! 😊

Thanks @Chienmortbb Most of our gigs are open air or churches, etc. and the headset is fine. But we do a Christmas show of pre-1900 carols every year and the last two years that's where we've had awful feedback problems. This year I think I'm just going to rough it and go back to conventional mic.

We did the Fletcher–Munson curve in uni last week. I have to say you explained it better than my text book!

Indeed, and I've been looking for a project to justify a bit more regular bass practice 🙂

Cool transcription, thanks. I tend to be a 'nothing above the 7th fret' player but I'll give it a go...

Ah, this is the problem. The valve combo probably sounds awesome, but I really like the green/black aesthetic The amp is perfect, except it's probably a 6 hour round trip to collect But thanks for sharing!

It is a really nice little amp. I bought a Crush 50B later but the '10x power to be 2x louder' rule meant it was very heavy and not really much louder.

Amazingly that was my last job. We had a subsidised works canteen, everyone ate there and it had a really good atmosphere. Sadly I lost that job when covid struck and I doubt many companies still have a canteen.