Ancient Mariner

With the EVJ it should be fairly easy to mod - the biggest improvement to bass response (works for guitar too) would be to add a bigger OT, and for bass I'd have thought either a 125DSE or 125ESE (from Hammond - Bluebell Audio sell 'em). The amp I built uses an OT from ampmaker, and although it's smaller than I expected it didn't roll off too much of the low E. If you're serious about modding (can you read a schema & solder?) then I don't mind offering hints/advice.

Picked up my first bass cab from Alien yesterday, and this afternoon as an experiment I tried it with a simple 5W valve head I built a couple of years back. Sounds great (with the tone rolled off on the bass). Run flat out, it's pushing into overdrive and sounds a little odd, but up to about 2/3 volume it gives rounded warm tone with the P type I used. What also surprised me is how loud it would get. Certainly too loud to practice with a family member around (unless they love your playing) and too loud to accompany acoustic instruments. Anyone else use such a thing?

I like a mix, although some artists are particularly worth finding live recordings of because you'll hear extended solos etc that just use the studio version as a starting point. Other bands only seem to reproduce what they did in the studio as near note-for-note as they can. But as has suggested, some live recordings get all the life sucked out in protools etc. Very disappointing when that happens. I was given Paul Baloche's latest CD at Christmas and all the live tracks are as lifeless as the studio versions.

Just picked up a cab from Andy - great bloke to deal with and a good cab too.

Nice idea, but I wonder what they weigh with a (largish) maple body.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='798484' date='Apr 7 2010, 10:44 AM']Lots of people want to be a musician. Some of us have to be. I could no more walk away from playing than I could give up food. The older I get (46), the more excited I am about its potential. I want more and more from it not less. Its your call.[/quote] For a variety of reasons I've had to give up (playing out, at least) for the time being - incidentally it motivated me to start playing bass again. I don't claim to be a great or hugely talented musician, but it's also so much a part of me that the last few months last year I went through depression and all sorts. It also doesn't work for me to play alone: I need to play along with others, even if we're just doing tedious or unappealing stuff, and I need to play in front of people too. It's been a time of learning, but not much fun.

If you want a more authentic distressed look then find an old sweat shirt and glue pieces of coarse abrasive paper to every part that might contact the instrument. Then play. You might have to add the odd ding as well, but the coarse scratches will polish out with natural wear. On a quite different note, a friend has recently acquired a Giffin custom guitar from the 80s that appears to have received the full relic treatment, despite a poly body. I've seen and played it, and it's dinged to hell and back, crazed all across the front, frets worn into notches. He wanted it refinished to look decent, and it's taking persuasion from all sorts of people, including the original maker, for him not to do it.

I was given a good piece of advice at my first real gig (by the sound guy - Eel pie island, and a great guitar player too). He said "If you play a wrong note, play it twice, and everyone will be astonished at the way you created an amazing turning point in the music." But this is bass, so like someone said, no-one will notice anyway.

[quote name='4 Strings' post='798511' date='Apr 7 2010, 11:12 AM']My first bass was given to me and, ungrateful wretch that I am, I found it so horrible I broke it. It was an Avon EBO copy. Sounded horrible, played horribly and had a horrible dodgy jack. Better things could have been done with the materials. It was a bad bass.[/quote] My first bass too (when I was 17). Fortunately they don't make 'em like they used to. Mostly.

Surely the point of a compressor is to affect dynamics, although whether you can adjust it in a way that you like is often as much to do with the user as the effect. I like the GLX limiter I bought from a forumite a few weeks back. As was suggested, I practice with it off, but prefer to have it on when playing with others. Fattens the sound out, stops the drain-darts effect of an un-limited slap and just makes the whole instrument feel more responsive.

If it'll do that much then it's certainly repairable, and provided the tech is good it shouldn't be ridiculously expensive (probably need the caps replacing amongst other things). It probably warns against using it for bass because the output transformer can't cope, and while it'll give you that distortion for a while, you may find that one day it lets the magic smoke out.

Well, it went for a good price, considering. Congrats.

Yes, I've been watching and wondering too. There's not really enough info to know, but I'd suspect it got used in anger (no-one noticed the speakers going with a full band) and then popped away in storage. Next time it's taken out "what's that buzzing?".

Muscle memory is essential - without it you would have to think about where you put your finger every time you wanted to fret a new note. It is what allows us to play what we want without having to create the movement step by step.

Generally it's to make them look old - vintage necks were not tinted originally AFAIK, although there may have been a faint colouration to the nitro that would reduce the utter bone-whiteness compared to a new poly-coated neck

It seems that very often the difference between a bad instrument and one that's perfectly OK is just a good setup. I spent a couple of hours yesterday on an Encore P type (hey - it's an authentic looking sunburst too!) levelling frets, shimming the neck and generally setting it up following the G&L specifications. It's transformed a bass that was difficult (high action - lots of uneven frets) into one that's really easy to play. Because of the lower action chords sound happier and it doesn't rattle anymore. But sometimes one does come across an exceptional instrument regardless of price point: I bought my MIJ strat after trying more than 25 strats in a single afternoon, it's taken 6 years of looking to find a Les Paul I want to play (it's made by Tokai ).

So cool you could keep a side of beef in it for a week.

Thanks OG - that may be a touch large. I've already done a fairly exhaustive ebay search, and some of the best deals are actually right here in BC. Something will probably 'turn up' in the next week or so.

*warning - this could render the amplifier unusable if done badly* If that Laney is anything like my Carlsbro, the front and rear panels are separate, rather than being part of a wide U chassis. There should be about 4 bolts each side that hold the panels in place - unscrew those and pull out the front and rear (or rear only if it bothers you to have a slot running through the top of the cab). Unclip the front panel from the cable that connects them together and separate them. The speaker cable will either be soldered direct to the rear board or will (most likely) be on some kind of plug that plugs to the output section on the rear board. You'll need to snip this off (leave some length for reconnection at a future date) and solder on a jack socket in it's place (Maplin). You can plug your speaker cable from the head into this socket. If you want I'll post pics of the amp I have dissected on my kitchen table right now. Store the amp sections careful to reverse procedure if you want to sell it. *edit - pix You can see the 2 halves of the amp - front Rear Here you can see the speaker wire where it disappears into the top of the cab, sealed with a large blob of hot glue. The cable connects to the board with that yellow plug. I am about to do exactly what you want to do - clip off the plug and replace it with a jack socket so I can use the dead amp as a cab.

Thanks Bigwan - all hints gratefully received. I'm slightly torn between a mid-sided combo (150+ watts, 1X15) and separate head & 2X10 cab. I'd like the latter, but the former is a lot tidier and somewhat smaller.

I do - just the thought of finding another £200+ isn't so inspiring right now.