Dad3353

You'll have to take it to a qualified, reputable tech, I'm afraid. I have several valve amps; they are, in general, very reliable for home use, but they do age badly, some more than others. Your Vox has a valve diode rectifier; it may well be that which is failing/has failed, which would cause the hum (the amp must be shut down straight away once it starts doing that...). There are also several electrolytic capacitors in there, which dry out over the years, whether used or not, and need inspecting, and often enough changing. The EL84 valves in there are not the most robust, being quite heavily loaded to get the thirty watts, so may be tired. In short, find a Good Technicien and get it thoroughly checked out. On no account try to open it up and poke around in there yourself; there are very high voltages that can take your fingers off or kill you dead. Get it seen to, and enjoy it for years to come afterwards. Hope this helps.

Duct tape..? Luxury..! Now when I was a young lad ...

Yes; I listened to and played with singers.

Out of stock..? They've all been bought already..? ...

I presume that you don't use a pedal-board, so not dependant, nor chained to a spot, ruining your spontaneity..? ...

Note to self : get these glasses checked.

I'd just like to point out that I have no hostility towards this player, and am not criticising her free choice of how to pursue her career. Just put me down as being of a more Puritan opinion, and, without going to the extremes of full-length burkas or nun's robes and the like, would not want any daughter of ours to follow such a style. She would, of course, have the freedom to do so, but I don't approve of such blatant, and to me, vulgar, accoutrement. I'll likely be chastised once again for expressing my opinion, but it's not the lady in question, nor her playing, nor the bass; it's just the question of role-model portrayed in that way that I find difficult. Sorry if that rankles with the popular view, but there it is.

Catchy lyrics, though, no..?

I'm not sure that I would consider this to be a suitable role model for young girls, from a sartorial point of view, if this is the image that one is required to project. To me, it's the equivalent of the old, male, 'cucumber in your pants' image so prevalent in certain rock/pop bands. There are more sober ways to promote oneself and the bass, without the, to me, tacky fake call-girl look. I've no comment to make on the playing, nor the bass; I'm a drummer.

Fixed.

Why would it bother you..? Does anyone remark on your 'need' for pedals, or the colour of your bass..? He's the Front Man; he does what he thinks he 'needs' or wants for that role. Roll wit it, it's all Good.

In a perfect world, and an existing layout, there may never be an issue. When cabling and installing stuff, however, I would want to be able to be certain that, when I trip a 'live' feed, all the stuff downstream is effectively cut off, with no voltage at all anywhere. This was not the case in the layout I was working on. Tripping the part I was working on did not isolate all the sockets and cables; some were still 'live', and on differing phases, so that, if I start working on one, supposedly 'dead' wire which had not, in fact, been isolated, and touch another equally 'live' phase, I would fry. The phase distribution was all wrong, and not at all as per the 'house' wiring schemas. The company doing that part of the building were severely reprimanded, and their work tightly inspected. The discotheque opened on time, however, and ran successfully for many years (The Empire, Laval...).

I was installing the lighting Fx in a brand new disco, just been built. As I was fitting the various units into and under the lights console, out of some 'je ne sais quoi' feeling, I checked the voltage from the sockets under there. All were 220v, but I decided to check the voltage between the rows of sockets; it was 400 volts. The rows were on different phases. I stopped, and pointed it out to the company installing the wiring; it got fixed for the next day so that I could continue. Without my check, I would quite likely have been fried under there. A Lucky Escape. I have a younger brother, rather inexperienced in electrics, hired by a touring band for roadying, in France. He (with colleagues) rigged the PA, lights, backline etc in one theatre. When the PA was turned on, all Altec-Lansing and JBL rigs burned up, immediately. I was working as a technician; they brought me the whole sorry lot to sort out, replacing every driver in every column, and all of the power transistors in all of the power amps. I can't remember the total cost, but somewhere in the tens of thousands. Each side of the stage had, apparently, a different phase, unmarked.

I spent a long drumming career with only one drum kit.

Does Carole Kaye have her own signature model bass..?

It may be too late, or you may be already using it, but I would recommend using aerial lime (chaux aérienne...) as a mortar or rendering instead of ciment, everywhere except for floors. It's a far better product from a restoration point of view, not really expensive, and easy enough to work with. The great advantage is that it allows ancient stone walls to 'breath', and helps keep old buildings healthy (sain...). We've used pretty well nothing but, here, and it'll outlast all of us. I use it outside, too, for rendering, and it holds up well there, too. Just sayin'. (And what, pray, is this 'foot' nonsense..? )

That's just about the state of our cottage when we bought it, with holes in the roof, where there was a roof, and open to the sky for much of it. I would recommend at least doing a minimum of work in order to preserve what's there, as things deteriorate quite quickly once it's exposed. Even a stout tarpaulin over the pitched roof, held down with battens, would keep the interior dry, and a light screed over the top of the open-to-the-sky walls will stop them coming apart over time, until something a bit more appropriate can be done. Damage limitation, really. If the inside floor (I'm assuming just hardened earth..?) is dry, I wouldn't worry about the fountain, if its run-off is away from the barn, with no accumulated pond. When does the water run off to, though..?

Once wet, the boxing will have pretty well no protective qualities, so any mishandling from then on will result in disproportionate damage. May I suggest, for future shipments, by any carrier, to sacrifice a roll of cling film, wrapped around the entire box..? This will keep water out in most reasonable (and some unreasonable...) situations. The cost is slight, but will ensure that all the contents are kept dry.

If the roofing is not good, and/or the ground is not well-drained, nothing will dry it out. The building has to be sound, first, and will then dry out once ventilated. A good roof and guttering and a dry base are the essentials, before thinking of any inside work. Simple stuff, really, but can become expensive, depending on local conditions, such as being built over a spring, or surrounded by earth embankments along the walls. Got any photos..?

From the look of it, that's water damage, and not recent. I'd guess that it was dropped into a deep puddle or something early on in the shipping process, or got soaked being left on the tarmac in the rain whilst loading the 'plane to the US. Cardboard doesn't get like that in just a few hours.