davidak

Just curious- did you know, that the copper strip is only thing of design? Only those early models had it because of function, after that, luthiers found better technology how to drill holes in the bass and ground the bridge "under the surface" Sorry for little OT.

I've sold my HK combo and EMG pickups to Kurcatovium and bought some minor stuff from him. He is really great to deal with, very communicative and gentleman, fast payer, I would really recommend him as a buyer and a seller, too. You can deal with confidence.

Kev is great basschater to deal with. I've just bought Roland DB-500 from him. He was very fast in communication and in shipping too. Everything looks exactly as described, amp sounds fabulous. Had no problem with shipping to Czech Republic. Thanks a lot, hope we will make another deal in future

[b]EBS Microbass II[/b] [url="http://gdavidak.rajce.idnes.cz/EBS_Microbass_II/"]http://gdavidak.rajce.idnes.cz/EBS_Microbass_II/[/url] I've purchased this unit recently here from Badass(thanks again, Cliff!) and made some tweaks with it today, so I decided to make several sound samples, especially of Drive function. Used bass is Spector 4 Euro LX, with VERY old strings and bad setup(but who cares about it ), both pickups, eq set to taste, same settings through whole recording process. Alder fingers, variable dynamic and rhytmrate, sorry M-Audio MobilePre soundcard, Sony Soundforge, post-processing- only normalize function. [b]1.[/b] Bass directly to soundcard, there is some clipping noticable- Tonepump is VERY powerful onboard preamp [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-225528-clean.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...25528-clean.mp3[/url] [b]2.[/b] Spector->Microbass. No input boost, no EQ, just flat [i]channel A[/i]. [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-225932-ebs_clean.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...2-ebs_clean.mp3[/url] [b]3.[/b] The same as point 2, but [i]Tube Sim[/i] button engaged. Added nice smoothness to the tone, compressed some peaks, hope it is noticable. [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-230320-ebs_clean_tb.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...bs_clean_tb.mp3[/url] [b]4.[/b] [i]Channel B[/i] added. Everything is still flat, no [i]Edge[/i], no [i]Mids[/i] tweaked, just slightly turned up the [i]Drive[/i]. [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-230509-ebs_dist1.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...9-ebs_dist1.mp3[/url] [b]5.[/b] More [i]Drive[/i]. [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-230602-ebs_dist2.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...2-ebs_dist2.mp3[/url] [b]6.[/b] Even more[i] Drive[/i]. I don't like distortion like this, just wanted to show how capable is this unit. [url="http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davidak-170810-230641-ebs_dist3.mp3"]http://ulozna.soulslavers.com/soubory/davi...1-ebs_dist3.mp3[/url] Microbass is VERY versatile unit, those clips are just fragments of HUGE amount of sounds you can dial in. I tried to show especially Drive of this Preamp/DI. Hope you liked it little bit Enjoy.

I've just bought EBS Microbass II preamp from Cliff. He is one of the best sellers I've met- very informative, friendly and also gentleman- I had amount of stupid questions and haven't decided to buy quickly, but he was just cool and patient with me Shipped very fast. Thanks for great pedal and very nice deal, really not everyone here on Basschat wants to ship to Czech Republic David

This is davidak's feedback thread

Just bought Aguilar AG500 head from Mark. He is a great person, responding very fast. I'm located in Czech Republic so we had to arrange overseas shipping, but it was very smooth, no problem at all, everything was as described.. Thanks Mark, I appreciate our business.

[quote name='TDM' post='884495' date='Jul 3 2010, 01:28 AM']Thanks for the info. So by the looks of things, it shouldn't be too difficult (not impossible, at least) to rewire my vol/vol setup for vol/balance?[/quote] Yes, rewiring it to VOL/BAL should be very easy, you'll just need a new balance pot. I'm very satisfied with my Tonepump, too, the only thing which irritates me a little bit is very powerful output- it doesn't matter to my Eden head, but my little practice amp doesn't handle it without distortion even when the amp gain is set to minimum, so I have to adjust both volumes on bass to lower levels(and it is the reason why I'm thinking about balance knob). And at the end, one pic of my amber darling and others [url="http://gdavidak.rajce.idnes.cz/Spector_Euro_4_LX/"]here[/url]

Wow, what a great feedback I'm glad it's clear now, interesting that so many people, especially on Talkbass, upgrade their Spectors "because Tonepump just sound bad when set flat" or because it has VOL VOL and no VOL BAL controls. 90% of those tunning ambitions are made just because of hype, not because of sound, IMO. In fact, hype is what made those "boutique companies" like Nordstrand or Fralin, maybe Lull or Valenti so famous. I can't tell anything against them, but this Spector's Tonepump is nice example, of how easy is to find reason for upgrade, "just read someone's new ULTIMATE sound upgrade review and you have to do the same"

Yes, it is like that. Spector web description says: • Active Tone Controls: Spector TonePump™ boost only active bass and treble And downloaded Spector manual says: The Spector TonePump® Active Bass and Treble control is provided by means of 2 continuously variable controls. There are no center detents on these controls. In that way, you are in control rather than having “normal tone” dictated to you. Slightly rolling in a touch on both the Treble and the Bass control will provide a flat frequency response. Continuing clockwise, the Spector TonePump® will provide 18 dB boost in both the Bass and Treble range. We have “A/B’d” the TonePump® against all of the major bass “pre’s” in the market and have found that it offers greater headroom, gain, and control that anything out there. The Spector TonePump® is a 9 vDC circuit and is our most aggressive preamp to date.

There is a lot of Tonepump Tonedump discusions over here, so I decided to bring some information from the source, since there's nearly no info on Spector's web. I live in Czech Republic, where are Euro Spectors made and know, that preamp also comes from Cze. It was designed for Spector and made by little company called [b]Michalik[/b]. They sell this preamp here under name BP-4, and sell it to Spector under name Tonepump. I'll try to translate it's description, apologize my english. It could be called stupid marketing talk, but I think it is useful: [quote][b]BP-4 preamp[/b] Active circuit BP-4 was designed for American bass guitar manufacturer SPECTOR. It is used in all European models and some US models since 2003 under business name Tonepump. Basic advantage of used wiring is, that it doesn't use operational amplifiers, like the most of other preamp manufacturers, but it uses special wiring with JFET transistor, which behaves very similar to valves. Operational amplifiers, when they're overloaded- which is on beginning of nearly every tone, are saturated. When they're saturated, there is a short recovery time(about several milliseconds) and whole circuit doesn't work in this short time. The result is, that we lose signal- beginning of the tone, its attack. Valve(and this preamp) doesn't behave like this and when it's overloaded, it softly distorts second harmonical, which is octave, which doesn't matter to the sound. And the first signal after peak is immediately played. Op-amplifiers based preamps often solve this problem using two 9V batteries. But the problem is not solved, it is just delayed and this peak could be problematic in signal chain in amplifiers, mixing consoles etc. The result of JFETs using is, that instrument „articulates“ (because there's no loss on the beginning of the tone). Instrument is cutting through very good in the mix in low volumes, too, and tone is clear in every EQ setting, in studio or live situations. BP-4 specifications: • Uses 9V battery • Power consumption 1,2mA • Battery life app 420 h, up to 1000 h when using hq alkaline battery • Basic gain +12dB • Controls: Bass: +14dB/-4dB @55Hz Treble: +14dB/-12dB @6,5kHz Volume Balance [/quote] Well, I was little bit confused from that Boost/Cut EQ parameters, so I've asked directly mr. Michalik. He told me that Tonepump is exactly the same circuit as BP-4. That eq is really cut/boost, not boost only, in spite of Spector says it is boost. It means, preamp is not flat at all when EQ is turned fully of! It is IMO very important fact. There's no middle dent on the pot, so it looks like on my old preEB MM Sabre,which was cut/boost too, with no pots dents. I asked him for some wiring diagrams- I would like to rewire my Spector to Volume/Balance, too. He sent it to me and I translate them from czech to english. Again, hope it's translated correctly, I've just edited it in Photoshop [b]One pickup wiring[/b] [url="http://img64.imageshack.us/i/bp41pickup.jpg/"][/url] [b]Two pickups with two volumes[/b] [url="http://img443.imageshack.us/i/bp42pickupsvolvol.jpg/"][/url] [b]Two pickups with volume and balance[/b] [url="http://img695.imageshack.us/i/bp42pickupsbal.jpg/"][/url] Hope it clears some doubts about Tonepump and will be helpful for someone. Cheers, David