dmccombe7

My nephew is a qualified electrician that does PAT testing. Might be cheaper to get him to do it. Dave

I retired 2 yrs ago (early of course - ) but was a qualified electrical and electronics engineer at one time and served an apprenticeship as an Instrument engineer. Last qualification were the 16th edition so well out of date on them. Altho i was an Engineering Manager / ABM for last 15-20 yrs i was still very hands on. Not sure if that would count. I haven't done PAT testing before but didn't look like much to it. Would that qualify me ? Dave

Haven't read the full thread and this may have been asked already. If so my apologies but i have to go out now. Can anyone buy the test kit to self test the gear or does it need to be a qualified electrician. ? Obviously its not just about doing the test but also keeping the register of all gear with results taken. Dave

Good luck to both of you. Although i've been thru a few bands in past couple of years i've not gigged since early 2017 and current band is in rehearsals at moment. Only half way thru our set list of Glam Rock covers but that's because guys all have other commitments with other successful bands and are trying to slot this project in the gaps but hopefully will pick up once we start gigging. The talk within the band is that this band will take over as the main band for them all so that's nice.

Good call Nick Beggs has simply gone from good to great these days. Steve Priest i'm a big fan of and is very under-rated as a good solid bass player. And he pulled some amazing faces and costumes with Sweet back in his hey days. Dave

JT was great in The Power Station. One of my fav albums from that era.

But he used to be a drummer. Maybe we shouldn't hold that against him tho.

I'm mainly a Rock or Prog fan but some of my bass heroes are from Jazz or funk. I'm certainly no expert of these styles at all but i like listening to them and occasionally will use something from their repertoire if its easily mastered. Alain Caron Jeff Berlin More recently thru fellow BC'ers i've started to appreciate Marcus Miller who i always thought was just a standard slap and pop player but boy was i wrong. He's probably one of the most versatile bassists i've heard. Adam Nitti Recently heard Jerry Barnes from Chic and he was exceptional too. Dave

Sorry to hear the loss of another great musician.

Altho i laughed a fair bit i'm not sure why you took the claw hammer Dave NB : i was laughing at the claw hammer bit and not the fact your bass was stolen.

You take your bass and Ampeg rig on holiday with you. WOW that's dedication Dave

My Overwater Custom 6 fretless is never gigged but taken to recording studios only. My Warwick Thumb 89 NT i don't gig mainly because its a bit too heavy but i just couldn't part with it. Dave

Quite a few amps suffer from the effects return jack getting dirty connections and should be easy enough to clean the contacts or as you say just use a jump lead. I've not had any issue with crackling jacks to be honest although the amp has only been used very occasionally at rehearsals and very rarely leaves the house. So its not had much use. Think what i need to do is get the rig into a rehearsal room and crank it up first and then start tweaking things to get a more realistic interpretation of tone. Dave

Cheers Martin, I've been experimenting at home with it but i realize that isn't best idea but it will give me a starting point. I'll give that a try as i've always ran the pre-amp side up to clipping and back a notch typically 12:00 on most amps using my Jazz bass.Then control my volume using the master volume (woofer in this case) The boost is the control that confuses me thru all of this but seems best around 2:00 or 3:00 no matter what i try. I've tried presence at 12:00 with varying levels of Contour and that's given quite a change in tones too. Its turning out to be quite an interesting amp now that i need to use it. The more i use it the more i like it thru my Berg HT322 Dave

What you got there ? Dave

Too dangerous to my ears. Might take it to rehearsals soon and experiment a bit with it. Dave

That's where i was getting all my info but thought i would ask what others did on BC. What you say is what i was trying out but found at home volumes the power amp volume or Woofer volume is literally just ON and another slight touch is deafening at home so really not a workable set up at home so i need to turn down pre-amp a bit. Still to gig with this amp even tho i've had it for approx 5-6 yrs as a back up amp for my Ampeg SVT (which is in for repair again). Just thought i would experiment with it to see what i can get from it. Its never been out of the house I've also been using my Markbass or Orange rigs over past few years. Dave

I have been mucking about with various volumes, boost and EQ on my GK1001RBii to see if i can get a nice mildly overdriven sound. Having read threads from other forums the amp is capable of achieving that sound using a combination of BOOST and pre and power amp volume settings. I've also been reading threads about how many isolated bass tracks have shown the bass with a slight overdriven sound when it sounds clean in the band mix. ie Rush, Kansas, The Who and even Sting as being some examples but there are so many to choose from. Normally i would be using the following :- Gain : 12:00 Contour : 9:00 Presence : 0 EQ : all 12:00 Boost : 9:00 Woofer : adjusted to whatever is required for either at home or gig volumes (almost OFF at home up to approx 9:00 - 11:00) To that end i was curious as to what settings other owners are running their GK1001RBii at and what style of music are you playing. ? Dave

I've only just started reading thru this thread today after experimenting with the various settings on my GK1001RBii to achieve overdriven sound and was curious about the comment about the pre-GAIN or Volume being a passive Pot. If i turn up my pre-gain or volume without touching anything else the signal starts to distort before clipping (at home volumes ) which leads me to wonder about being able to turn it up full. I don't quite understand why it distorts based on your comment above. I had always assumed its because the input signal to the pre-amp is being overloaded. ? So i'm assuming that the pre-amp has a tolerance or limit of some kind. Maybe i've misinterpreted what;s being said but i've always been under the impression, like many others, that volume on left is pre-amp input and volume on right is power amp volume too. Based on whats been said i should in theory be able to turn up my pre-gain or LHS volume fully without any distortion appearing and that sound should then be sent as a clean sound to the power amp stage. So how do we manage to get that overdriven sound from the amp. ? Is it just the fact the voltage is now to high for the pre-amp circuit ? I'm not being facetious here at all and only looking for more understanding. Appreciate this is an older thread and i haven't gone thru everyone else's response so far. Dave

That's some line up will need to check that one out. Cheers Dave

RIP Mr Hiseman. Such a great drummer. Enjoyed his playing with so many great bands i enjoyed years ago, Jack Bruce, Colloseum II, Barbara Thompson, Tempest. From memory he was one of the goto session guys back in 70's. Dave

How do you set that up live if you don't mind me asking ? Dave

I use the GK1001RBii head and have always kept their overdrive control almost off but might try it running with a bit more grunt. Dave

To be honest i never really picked up on that even after 40 years of playing. We didn't have isolated bass tracks in my day LOL Just listened to a few of my fav bass players from Geddy thru to Gene Simmons. Songs i always thought had a nice clean bass sound also have that warm valve distortion sound when you listen to them as isolated bass. Carry On Wayward Son and Detroit Rock City being good examples for me. Maybe its time i had a little re-think about my live tone. Thanks for posting that. Very interesting topic. Dave

Yep that's the way i work. Listen to song few times and play along to get a feel for it then write out the bass line note for note. Occasionally i write down the song structure before the bass part and by time i've done all that i already know the song enough to gig it. Have you checked out what keys the band play in or was that mentioned on the outset. ? Think you've already nailed this job sir. Good luck and well done in advance of getting it Dave