Rosie C

Well, we are planning a farewell party at our local boozer and naturally I will be booking my own band as headliner 😉 so maybe, just maybe... Edit: Maybe one of those man-and-van services with a tail lift Luton!

Sadly, yes it is. I would like to gig it just once, but I'm not sure I ever will.

Yes, I didn't like to show off, but I guess it was obvious from the size of the stack that something was up

Not any more! The postage from the USA for the new badge was brutal, but this rig is all about the look of it, so it had to be done! In other news, our emigration plans have moved up a gear. I don't have time to fix the foot switch and I'll not really need it - so it's available here for postage:

This foot controller came with my Trace Elliot amp. It's faulty - it's suspected that the switches need a clean and some use, as it's been stored for 10 years. No charge, just cover the postage - or collect from Chepstow.

A trip to my friendly local motor factors later... I stuck the badge on with number plate sticky foam. For completeness, I hacksawed the fixing bolts the badge came with and glued them in the bolt holes with black gasket silicone - and ran a thin bead around the edge of the white sticky foam so you can't see the white.

It has occurred to me that there are famous musicians who are associated with drinking, drug use, etc. who still manage to be healthy enough to be touring musicians in their 80s and I can't quite tally the 'rock and roll lifestyle' with reaching old age in good health. I am suspicious that there's not as much riotous behaviour as we'd be led to think. We went to a small rock festival of cover bands back around 2011 and quite a few of the musicians on stage were drinking straight from 70cl bottles of Jack Daniels in between songs. Call me dubious, but I strongly suspected they were full of Irn Bru, or similar as they were all playing extremely well, not at all inebriated.

Sad news. I only managed to make the one last year, but it was fantastic. Thank you to all of you for the work you've done organising over the years.

Thanks. I'll probably just leave them, and stick the badge on with that sticky foam you fit car number plates with.

Can anyone advise how to remove the from grille on my TE 15" cabinet? I've removed the 4 screws but the reflex tubes still seem firmly attached. Reason for removing - I bagged a shiny Trace Elliot badge to go on

I used to think the same about Classic FM's 'Hall of Fame' 300. Then I joined a Facebook group for choir members and as the Hall of Fame voting came around there they were - deciding which obscure piece they would all vote for this year and congratulating themselves at last year's success at getting an obscure piece in as a new entry at 180 or something.

We had a bonus gig today. Given that we are a Blackmore's Night style renaissance-folk-rock band, the chance to play in this genuine Tudor manor house was irresistible. 2 hours of ballads accompanied by octave mandolin, interspersed with seasonal tunes on recorder and tambourine. We have an invite back, and we've also agreed in principle to use the location to record videos for our forthcoming album of renaissance tunes & ballads. The venue: The owners suggested we play by the log fire and so we did our first ever acoustic set.

Just a little MIDI progress this holiday break. @Chienmortbb made me up another two patch leads, so all 6 outputs are available at the front of my rack. We had some success using the synth for recording our first album - one track has a low E drone, a sort of Celtic pipe sound. That was played live and recorded as a WAV file to share with the studio - so easy-peasy. The album also has a self-penned jazz number on it - featuring a band mate on solo clarinet. I played bass (of course) and recorded it at the studio, but there was also a piano accompaniment. I recorded this as MIDI straight into Logic Pro at home. I tweaked the odd out of time or quiet note then played it back through the synth to record as a WAV. We did the same for the percussion for the jazz tune, recording the high hat, toms and cymbal separately, but next time with the patch panel I'm set up to record them all in one go as my Zoom recorder has 6 tracks. Sorry a very blurry photo from just holding my phone at the back of the rack and hoping for the best. Of course, I could just go straight in the back, but the rack is heavy and has no wheels, and I like having a front panel

Happy NBD! I'm loving the colour

I placed an order for mandolin strings with Strings Direct on Saturday evening. They arrived this morning which I think is pretty good service over the holiday break - so a 👍 for them from me!

I've no advice to give, but congratulations on getting a JT Dingwall, and on starting on lessons! John Taylor inspired me to take up bass, though I've never really been able to play his lines

Thanks for that - it's definitely worth trying, and would fit with the suspicions that the foot pedal switches need cleaning - if they do, maybe other jacks and switches do

That's a shame! I'll probably still give it a go. It wouldn't be a problem on stage, but I only need the main volume knob at '1' for home practice and it's a little annoying.

I know! For bonus fun there's that little capacitor beside them, just asking to be damaged

Already done and dusted!

Fretless jazz with flatwounds. Fingerstyle. 100% neck pickup, 0% bridge. Tone knob set right round to the most mellow. GEB7 pedal with the lowest band set very low and the rest in the middle position. A clean amp with the EQ set level across the bands.

None taken! Nice work! I did look on ebay earlier for new capacitors, but immediately realised that I don't know what sort of pins they have soldered to the PCB - some of the new ones have wires, while some of the larger values have flat blades - so I can't progress until we open the amp again and this time look at the underside of the PCB.

My friend is a knowledgeable amp tech She explained it to me (though I've since been to Google to make sure I get it right here)... The 50Hz AC mains is rectified, converting it into a series of positive DC pulses, and the capacitors smooth the pulses into a steady DC voltage. If the capacitor isn't working properly, the ripples aren't fully smoothed and you can hear a ripple frequency in the speakers. But because it's between the peaks of the rectified wave the frequency has been doubled to 100Hz. I found this drawing which sort of shows the frequency doubling...

Thanks for all the responses. To answer the various questions: I don't know if it's the right foot switch for the amp - it came with the amp, but it was an estate sale so there's room for error The problem seems limited to the foot switches, it works fine when I just use the front panel switches None of the switches seem to be latching, they are just momentary Our best guess is that as @Sparky Mark says, the foot switches need some switch cleaner and a bit of use In other news, I had a friend stay over Christmas and she's an electronics engineer, so we took the amp apart to look at the front panel illumination. Inside the amp: Confirmation of the age: It turns out it didn't need great electronics skill. The front panel is connected to this board, and there is a 2-pin connector on the board (yellow ellipses) which comes directly from the mains transformer (yellow arrow). So the panel AND its drive circuit have been disconnected all this time! I had worried that maybe the panel was disconnected but the driver had still been live and was possibly damaged. I re-plugged the connector, and voila! Mmmm! While we had the case open, I took a photo of the power supply capacitors. There's a bit of 100Hz hum on the speakers and we're suspecting dried out capacitors. There's a bit of work to do to remove them though.

Before. It seems to power up OK. The pre-shape lamp is the only one lit and that's on both sets if lights. I was thinking of doing some testing today, see whether it's the panel switches or foot switches that cause the problem, and whether all five switches have problems.