therealting

My OLP 5-string originally came wired with a vol-vol-tone setup, but would tend to hum if the two volume knobs were not set at exactly the same level. This was generally tricky to do, so I pretty much always had them both fully on or fully off. I decided to rewire the bass with a single volume and tone, and use a mini-toggle for parallel / split wiring on the humbucker. I ordered a DPDT switch (it was a pack on 5 on eBay), some cloth-covered push-back wire, and they arrived a couple days ago. While I was at it, I decided to get some copper foil to do a full shielding job. The soldering in the bass is pretty bad... I'm not very good at soldering myself, but I don't do it very often and certainly not for a living, but I think the wiring is neater now than it was, in spite of the added wires required for the switching. I quite like the new look - I replaced the middle pot, so it now has the two knobs on the "outside", with the mini-toggle between them. Plugging in, I found out that the cheap pickup in the OLP had incorrect colour coding, so I was getting phase-cancellation. Switched the wires around, no problem. End result - the bass sounds much better than it did! In parallel mode, it sounds just like it did before, except now I have full control over the volume without fumbling or hum. The series mode has a little more volume and has a nice midrangey quality which works well for fingerstyle. I think everyone who owns one of these OLP passive basses should consider this mod... it costs practically nothing and makes the bass much, much more versatile!

You could use a dummy load device such as a THD Hotplate or a Sequis Motherload to act as a "speaker" for the amp, and take a line out from that. This way, you get the full benefits of pre and power tube colouration.

You'll all be relieved to hear that I bought an EBS Neo 2x12" cab this evening. Can't wait to hear it at full tilt in rehearsal tomorrow!

[quote name='Steve Lawson' post='34074' date='Jul 19 2007, 12:20 PM']Anybody going to this? anyone know if there's a charge? I could just call them, but y'know, the interwebs is always better than the phone. steve www.stevelawson.net[/quote] Good fun clinic it was... Tony is a genuinely cool guy!

Again, thanks for all your input. I'll definitely not get these cabs! Sure, the low cost appeals to me, but I'm also attracted by their compact size and light weight. What about something like this: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AudioPro-Proel-500-watt-12-Mini-Sub-Bass-Bins-Pair_W0QQitemZ280131804159QQihZ018QQcategoryZ23794QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/AudioPro-Proel-500-w...oQQcmdZViewItem[/url] Or should I generally avoid bass bins in favour of bass cabs?

Ok, I'll repeat... Is the poor sensitivity a question of a bad speaker driver, or poor cabinet design? If it's mostly a bad speaker, I certainly wouldn't mind swapping out the speaker... I was more wondering about the general idea of the thing. Some of the bass bins come with mid-range Eminence drivers which are probably better? I know they have bad frequency response, but that's mainly because of the low-pass filter. I'm mainly wondering what they are like as cabs. For 50 quid a cab, I don't mind paying to put new speakers in.

Is the poor sensitivity a question of a bad speaker driver, or poor cabinet design? If it's mostly a bad speaker, I certainly wouldn't mind swapping out the speaker... I was more wondering about the general idea of the thing. Some of the bass bins come with mid-range Eminence drivers which are probably better?

Was wondering whether anyone's tried using speakers like these in their bass rig: [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PAIR-New-300-Watt-15-Bass-PA-Disco-Speaker-No-Reserve_W0QQitemZ270144714685QQihZ017QQcategoryZ69967QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PAIR-New-300-Watt-15...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url] They're inexpensive, compact and pretty lightweight... I know I'd have to remove the passive low-pass-filter, but otherwise, is there anything to stop me getting a pair of 15" bass bins to use as bass speakers for pub gigs where I don't want to worry too much about beer being spilt over my equipment?

Wow, really nice site. I'm looking purely for a black plastic dot though, and they only have fancy things. Maybe a single different dot could be cool though... Does anyone know the exact dot size for these basses? I don't have a ruler accurate enough.