Leaderboard

I recently sold my bass rig in favour of an FRFR cab and great it is too, however it did leave me in a dilemma as I only owned one amp head (a trusty LMII) and now have nothing to power my little EA cab which I use for home practice which I can leave set up in the front room. I had my eye on a Trace Elf or the little GK amp (MB200 or something?) but they are a bit overkill for plugging in around the house. I did think about a cheap combo but I want the sound quality of the EA cab which is lovely and crystal clear. So what to do? Enter this total POS, a local collection won on eBay for the princely sum of 99p (yes, 99 English pence, excuse my cluttered workbench). It's a cheapo Kinsman 10w kiddie's practice amp, same thing you see rebranded under 100 different names but it's essentially a BB10. As you can see it's had a hard life, it's completely crushed and it sounds terrible. Originally I was going to rehouse it but the little 4" speaker is shot to pieces (or more likely just wasn't any good in the first place) which leaves the amp. No prizes for guessing what happens next! So out comes the screwdriver and we can see what's inside! Here's the details: As we can see the amp was born on the 23rd of July 2011 and is called Jim. Now Jim and I have become firm friends I can see about liberating him from his awful particleboard prison and making him a new home. Time to snip some wires and get the dremel and soldering iron out. Luckily there's already a couple of holes here so both will be widened so I can fit an IEC socket and a Speakon combi jack, the Speakon I already had (bought a pack of two when I fixed an old cab) and the IEC socket was £1.30 on eBay. Originally I was going to fit a 1/4" jack for pure convenience but that would mean actually buying one and not being able to use my short speaker cable so that idea went out the window. I did have some pics of the widened holes but my old phone died, the combi jack hole was incredibly neat and the IEC hole much less so. Any untidy edges were covered with a layer of black vinyl (99p - eBay again) on the outside anyway so my cack-handed metalwork is well hidden. I decided on semi transparent acrylic for the case which was £3.49 for an A4 sheet including delivery, wood would be easier for me to work with (I hate cutting plastic) but I thought the acrylic would look smart and I already had a bag of M2 hex screws to hold it together, unfortunately I misjudged the sizes due to the amp frame being slightly uneven and bulging slightly (probably happened when it got damaged originally) but meh, it will do for now. I used the original feet and screws from the original combo where possible so I didn't have to buy anything else. So here's Jim in his new clothes! So seeing as I had some screws and a Speakon socket lying around to begin with all in all this cost me: Amp - 99p Acrylic - £3.49 IEC socket - £1.30 Black vinyl - 99p Total - £6.77 As you can see there's a few rough edges there along with some poorly cut acrylic, I didn't sand anything down as at some point I'm going to redo the acrylic sleeve entirely - I seemed to have got the hang of cutting it with a jigsaw on the very last cut I had to make and know where I went wrong the first time. It will do for now though, besides another £3.49 sheet of acrylic would push the cost of the build right up and I'm not made of money. So I bet you all think it sounds terrible and has no volume when paired with my EA cab right? Well it actually sounds surprisingly good, more than loud enough for home practice and isn't at all deficient in the tone department either. Sure it looks like a child's lunch box but it makes for a solution a problem with the absolute minimal spend which is ideal for me. Now I can buy another expensive preamp pedal and not feel guilty about it.

A good gig id imagine for a singer / actress trying to pay a mortgage

Kind of. Made me laugh anyway

I don't know how she does it.... It's a mystery

Money money money...

Charlie Harper from The UK Subs is a big inspiration for me now. I was never really into the band, liked them, but not a major fan or anything. But having been on the same bill as them a good few times, seeing how much he is into the music at - 73 now I think - and how much time he has for audience members wanting to chat/have autographs/pics taken with him, after doing it for 40 years, well it shows me the way a real musician conducts themselves. His love for it is evident, and apparently he still tries to write a new song every day. That to me is someone who is doing it for the right reasons. Whenever he is at gigs he literally isn`t left alone the whole time through people wanting those pics/chats/autographs yet never has a bad word to say about anyone, always has a smile on his face.

Have any of you seen Toyah on her recent acoustic tour? She is 3 weeks of being 60, she looks amazing and sounds fabulous. All the hits plus some rarities done with 2 acoustic 6 strings and a bass (fretless and double). Musically outstanding which is remarkable because one of the regular guitarists was rushed to hospital earlier in the week to have his appendix removed so a dep was used. Not that you would have known if we hd not been told!! Toyah is doing some gigs with a full electric band in November and on the strength of last night I have booked my tickets. I recommend you do the same. N PS I have no connection to Toyah or members of the band.

It varies almost daily, although I have my 'idols' that I blame for helping to mould me as a musician. For example I felt musically nourished today after listening to the new Lydian Collective album. Some really tasty tunes on there. Sophie Alloway's drumming is superb and the grooves are just stellar. Tomorrow, who knows. David Maxim Micic? Meshuggah? Jean-Michel Jarre? I bloody love music x

Fixed

Brilliant cheers. I never thought I'd end today gassing for two thirds of a Stratocaster.

Maybe he misspelt granite?

It has an Eminence Deltalite II 2512 driver (120 quid at Blue Aran), which is what most makers use in their price point neo loaded cabs, so yes, the price is insane, even in the US, where the street price is $799.

Yeah, it is. I wonder how the Aguilar stuff compares?

It even comes with a handy little attachment that could be used to give your coat a quick going over before you leave Hooverkill???

I think Aguilar are soon going to be in danger of having priced themselves out of the market.

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We got it cheaper at least! Hope we're not far behind in the queue though.

Having thought about this pedal - and given the fact that I love the sound on the clips - I reckon it will do a job for me pretty well. As many bass cabs are voiced to be, well, bassy, it kind of makes a bit of sense to me that what comes out of the 1/4" has more highs, as this will compensate for the added lows of the cab being used. Initially I was a tad unsure when I heard about the possible difference between XLR and 1/4", now I reckon it will work fine - and my thinking is maybe Dug himself had it designed this way for this reason. Only a guess but it - now - seems a pretty good idea.

and from the more glam part of the 80s music scene

Good man! If we had a Recycler of the Week Award you would get my nomination.

Interesting thoughts on this, couple I especially like is use of the job title engineer. I have the same angst against the term ‘consultant’ for me, it should be reserved for the hospital doc. I get the room thing too, it must be difficult, but I have been to gigs where I have seen multiple acts from the same spot on the same night with varying quality of mixes, and the number of people in the venue did not change appreciably. That surely is poor craft

Not leaping to the defense of sound engineers here: some are certainly better than others. But here’s a fun little test you can try at home... Play a song you know well over your hi-fi, if you have one. And what the heck, play it loud. Now walk around the room, pause and listen to how the sound changes: boomy bass in some places; weak bass in others. Now imagine trying to control that on a grand scale, in a room where no investment has been made on acoustic treatment. It’s just not possible; and there will always be parts of the room/venue where the sound will suck. And it’s always sucked. We just hear the ‘suck’ more as we get older, because we’re less drunk/ more experienced/ discerning/ fussy/ whatever. I remember seeing Motörhead when I was 18 years old. It was an indiscernable wall of noise and I loved it; but I wouldn’t tolerate more than 10 minutes of it now. Yes, some live enginneers need a good talking to. But there’s only so much you can do with bad acoustics. And even purpose-built music venues often have major flaws in their design. If you want great acoustics, go take a seat at a grand old theatre or opera house and give your ears a treat. If you want to swing your pants, be prepared to compromise on the sound... most of the time. Thus it has always been,

The DB bash blog is finally here! https://wp.me/p2ZbyY-Er As always, please let me know of any errors and omissions.

Don't forget the Legacy and Outback - the higher quality and more understated Subaru models

I still think of that episode in TV's Shoe-string that sort of broke her into the punk scene, well, Glam Punk. A form of product placement i guess - always fancied her since then. Just found it on the Tube But very sad - Story is about the Bass player who gets thrown off the Pier Maybe that's why i subliminally took up playing the bass, she was looking for a bass player.

Indeed. Here are mine - a Squier JV and a Maruszczyk Jake 5

This is mine, 75 body 77 neck and now emg pick ups. Made up of bits bought on here and assembled by BassDoc for me , by god it’s magnificent !

Haha. Yes, 800,000 strings, NOT bass strings. I'm not sure of the precise breakdown...hmm...

Thread needs an 8-minute song inspired by an H G Wells story:

I’ve worked that out as 429 miles of strings based on an average 34” scale. That’s London to slightly past Edinburgh!

This. I think they may have already done it to be frank...

In listening to some so-called 'mainstream/chart' music (as I do, but as little as possible...), I often get the impression that most of the players are 'fifth wheels', as there is little real virtuoso in there, what with a drone of a bass, a 'disco'-style 'One-One-One-One' thud from a synthetic bass drum, a cheesy 'hook' line from a keyboard of some kind (or even an arpeggiateur..!) and a robotised, auto-tuned vocoder vocal track (usually heavily harmonised to overbrimming...). Yes, I'm exaggerating slightly, but there's an awful lot of over-produced sludge out there, and a well-played cowbell is often the high-spot of the whole piece. Mozart has been dead a long time; most modern 'pop' music hammers this home to us on a regular basis. Sad..? Yes, it is. Old..? Yes, I am.

Actually I think they have beefed it up a little - mine is an older TecAmp one and the Each ones have some kind of fan or fan looking gubbins on the bottom. Mr Eich told me they are the newest version that is more powerful. That said, I often find mine too powerful so I can't imagine it being much of an improvement!!

Loads of people have influenced and inspired me over the years, mostly bass player but a few drummers and other instrumentalists too. But as a bass player, I've always been drawn towards the players with a great sense of melody, those who play a line or riff that you hear once and can still hum it to yourself months later. It doesn't matter if it's simple, the feel and melody are more important to me than the technicality of a riff or the number and sequence of notes it contains. For me that means guys like Peter Hook and Bruce Foxton.

Or a gong..?

Much like @dannybuoy I'm absolutely certain that I'd get this pedal to work for me. However, due to my inquisitive nature, I like to know how stuff works and why it's so. I hasten to say this that I don't actually care if the XLR and 1/4 inch outputs deliver the same signal or not as long as I know whether they're different or not. We asked simply if that was the case or not and an answer wasn't really forthcoming. That was what I found curious. Almost like you don't know the answer. If that's the case, then that's fine, just say so. Neither of us (or anyone on this topic) have criticised the pedal. All of us are really excited. Stoked, for the most part is an accurate description. It sounds brilliant. None of this is in doubt and I've said it many a time. We wouldn't have bought it if we didn't like it would we? As to the point of having played something to be able to criticize it, that's slightly flawed I'm afraid. For example, when Darkglass brought out the M900 amp they left in a design quirk that meant that when you turned the volume control up, the volume of the DI increased as well. I don't need to play that amp to realise that's a problem easily avoided now do I?

Wow. She's a beaut!

Unless, like Joe Brown said when his guitar went 'off' during a gig, "Now for a little Chinese ditty, 'Tu-Ning' ".

Thank you all for a great day and thank you bluejay for the photos.I saw this post as I was leaving for Heathrow to fly back to Canada...what a good way to end my trip.It will be good to get home and play my bass(rehearsal Sunday!) and try to learn to live with the GAS that I acquired at the bash.

The nut width was,if I remember fairly slim.Not as slim as a jazz.Never got round to doing the bass up. I was going to uprate the pickups,maybe change the neck for a Mighty Mite. Played it a few times,but as I had a few others,including a Rickenbacker,it just never got gigged. I ended up selling it to a guy in Edinburgh who bought it for his wife who was wanting to learn bass. Thoughts on it? Yes well made,good looking,sounded fine,I had it at a band practise. Worth buying? Deffo...go for it!

Nice project! Just the job!

Another unavoidable truth is that there are some bargains to be had. I can't stress enough how much the Alto stuff, especially the TS range, punch well above their weight. We got our two 1x15 tops and two 1x18 subs for £1000 all in second hand and they're brilliant. That's the band system, complemented by my Behringer XR18 it's the easiest PA system ever. I even enjoyed the Alto stuff so much I bought myself a pair of TX10 (the cheaper range) just for me. Whatever specific models you decide on, digital mixer and powered speakers are certainly the way to go.

Great strings and not too pricey either. I had a problem with a rogue medium scale that had found its way into my long scale set. A quick tweet and 3 days later a whole new set arrived. This is the sort of customer service that generates return custom.

800,000 per day? :-o I've just restrung my P with some of your nice rounds, like what I always do where rounds are concerned. They're lovely.

Perdone me, señor mcnach.