cheddatom

Can USB 2 give me the full potential of a 7200RPM drive? Is there a way to see if i've recorded with glitches or not? (Cubase SX3) I generally record at 48K 16bit but I know that's probably frowned upon these days.

You would have the four outer sides all attached along the edge with a flexible plastic, so that they fold down. They have a little lip on the inside. The baffle and back sides have a bigger rubber lip on the inside to lock into the outer frame - no need for clips etc? Tupperware cab! But i'm no engineer.

Yeh I have no problem with moving between PCs, it's just the speed of the thing really. At home I regularly transfer between the two machines, but I just copy to the local drives before I start working, as I assume it's going to crash if I try working from USB. I didn't realise you could get firewire drives. I shall investigate, ta!

Does it REALLY need to be THAT airtight? If you had the sides made of moulded plastic you could get a pretty decent seal I think. A patent would have been a good idea before I spouted it on the net! Never mind.

My mixing and recording set ups are several miles apart. At the moment, I carry my PC to and fro. I'd like to stop doing this, but what's the best solution. An external drive? Can I record 16 channels at a time onto a USB drive? I have another computer I could use at one location see.

Can't you do a flat-pack light weight cab? Like a neo 12" or 15" mounted to a "baffle" (or whatever the front peice is) then 4 peices of light wood (or plastic?) that all clip together. Then it'd fit in a ruck sack.

Balls, I have one of those patch bays but i've already bought the stereo jack plugs. To be fair, an insert loom would have cost much more than just putting these plugs on the mono jack loom i've already got.

I got a whole warehouse for free for four years (until the roof collapsed) just by asking the guy who ran the industrial estate I worked on. Maybe there are some industrial estates near you who can't rent all their buildings and will cut a deal.

[quote name='Chimike' post='706659' date='Jan 9 2010, 03:34 PM']Have I put this in the wrong forum, or do I need to get out more ? Should I move it ( how ) to the Technical Forum ?[/quote] Ask a mod to move have it moved.

Well, I was determined to do it this week end. I'd already ordered the replacement caps. I was seriously nervous about turning it on as it was near impossible to determine the polarity of the old caps. Anyway, it's all worked out, ta for all your help

The footswitches on my B2.1U stopped working properly a while a go. Sometimes they'd stick, sometimes they just wouldn't work. The other day I decided to get off my lazy arse and fix it, so I thought i'd share my findings here. The foot switches are actually micro switches underneath the things you step on. On my pedal, the poles you step on weren't reaching the micro switches. I searched for ages online looking for a good fix, but it seems people either replace the micro switches, or stick tape onto the poles to make them longer. I didn't feel like either of these were a long term option, as the micro switches seem fragile and tape can come off. I bought two momentary (non latching) footswitches from maplins. I soldered these to the back of the little PCB which had the micro switches on. Then, I got out the old footswitches and put my new ones in. The only problem is the little PCB with the micro switches on it won't screw back into place, as my new switches are taking up room. I've just taped it into place instead. Sorted!

[quote name='Sibob' post='736455' date='Feb 5 2010, 05:32 PM']See that's the thing, my covers band is fundamentally a three piece (and then plus vocals), but when I first joined and tried using any effects to 'beef' up the sound while the guitarist solo'd, I found that they still got lost......[/quote] If you try effects, and they just "get lost" then, you're doing it wrong! Obviously, as loads of bassists use effects. [quote name='silddx' post='737411' date='Feb 6 2010, 05:12 PM']I have come to the conclusion that no-one has demonstrated anything useful or constructive about the core tone of an electric bass. It is purely subjective, but people have to justify their (more and more expensive) choices by talking pointless rubbish. In so many years, no-one has gone beyond, "pleasing mid-range honk", "Jaco-like nasal burp", "deep mid-rangy punch", "accents the upper mids", "The lows are 6.3 on the Richter scale", "Lovely top end sizzle", "Superb slap tone". Almost every bass you buy can demonstrate these qualities with the right amplification, speaker box and a bit of eq.[/quote] I totally agree! [quote name='JTUK' post='737608' date='Feb 6 2010, 08:53 PM']If a bass didn't have a good tone, first off, it stays in the shop..[/quote] Yeh, but when "good tone" is subjective, there isn't a bad sounding bass in the shop. [quote name='JTUK' post='737647' date='Feb 6 2010, 09:32 PM']You can, of course, have too much tone..or too many options.[/quote] Noooooo!! Say you get to a gig with your rock band. On stage all the low end is disappearing so you turn up the lows on your bass and amp. You're in the middle of a song where it kicks into a big chorus. Normally you'd boost the lows on your bass at this point, but it's maxed out!! If you have tone "patches" set up for each section in the song, then no matter what room you end up in, you will be able to create the same contrasts in tones. This might mean a multi-effects, or it might mean a huge pedal board. If your tones don't contrast to such an extent as to contribute to the overall contrasting sounds of the band, then you're missing out on a big area of being a bassist IMO. I used to play with loads of distortion, but say I joined a classic soul band. I would sell my 6 string and get a P. I'd set up a new pedal board - 2 EQs, a compressor, a blender, an octave etc. so that I have the ability to effect the overall sonic texture of the band.

It depends on the band I guess. I was in a 3 piece and kind of had a free reign to take up as much sonic space as I wanted. If you took away my pedalboard, 90% of the audience would notice.

[quote name='51m0n' post='736321' date='Feb 5 2010, 03:40 PM']I think you miss a core point here though. If your original provider of tone (the bass) sounds pants, then you can never enjoy that bass without extra help. You must always be goosing it to get something useable. That means you are in effect missing an important possible useable tone, that of just your bass, which if you would have if your bass' tone was good enough (great even). You havent lost anything by having a great tone from your bass on its own, you've gained something instead......[/quote] Sorry for snipping the post, but you basically just made the above point in detail (I think). Yes, if my starting point is with a pedal, or with the EQ on my amp set, (or with the pre-amp engaged on my bass?) I am (in a way) not starting from 0, which limits my possibilities to a degree. Say there is + - 10db on my graphic EQ and i'm already using 3db for 2Khz. That means I can't push 2Khz to 10db. So, say with your rig you can select any one of 100 different sounds, and I give you a bass which requires a little more EQ than usual to get to the starting point, that could cut you down to 70 sounds or so. When you have an infinite number of possible sounds, you can't by definition lose any possibilities. I'm not saying that I have an infinite number of sounds available, but it's not far off. It's true, with my Brice bass, I would never play (live) with it plugged straight into my amp. I would always use at least 3 pedals to get a great clean sound out of it. Just because i've used 3 pedals on the floor, instead of an 18V pre in the bass, doesn't mean my tonal possibilities are limited. No, I can't go straight from bass to amp, with everything set flat, and have it sound great. But, no, that doesn't mean I am limited (other than it takes me an extra 20 seconds to set up).

Just bought a Traben 5 string from Mike. I got it for my bassist friend. Mike was happy to accept bank transfer from my friend, even though "yeh i'll just give your bank details to my mate you've never heard of" sounds a bit dodgy!! The bass was really well packed and arrived the same week we paid for it. All wround a thowroughly gwreat bloke.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='736242' date='Feb 5 2010, 02:56 PM']I guess what I am saying is that, rather than spend all that time and money trying to find 'that' sound, why not learn to love the one you have and save yourself the heartache [/quote] But then you're stuck with the same sound for the rest of your life. You'll be able to hear other cool sexy sounds, but you can't try and get them else your current sound might run away and leave you with a life of regret. Does that ring true for any older, wiser, embittered players?

[quote name='bigjohn' post='736216' date='Feb 5 2010, 02:23 PM']Your position, if I understand thee is that you can modify your tone through effects to such a level that some parts of your chain are inconsequential ie you can't hear the difference.[/quote] I was talking about tonal shaping in general, and the way in which these days, you can get any sound from any number of methods. You don't need an all valve head, to get a sound the same as someone with one. You don't need a precision bass to sound like you're playing one etc. I don't mean to say that there are inconsequential parts in the chain. Everything in the chain has an effect, but lots of different chains, long and short, can create the same outcome. If that much scope is available for changing your tone, then the initial "core tone" of a bass becomes almost irrelevant. I mentioned that I would prefer one of my basses for certain sounds, because it has an active pre-amp. Well, if I wanted I could take the pre-amp out of the bass and put it in a pedal, or buy a similar sounding pre-amp to use with my other bass. I guess there some merit in the "if i'm spending X amount on Y bass with Z rig, I don't want to need any pedals to get MY sound", which is fair enough, but you've probably got a boring tone :-p I think the "everything needs to sound good set flat" mentality is crazy. You buy an amp, and it sounds amazing if you roll off some low end, but no, f*** that, you'd rather keep trading in amps until you find one where you can leave the EQ flat.

swapping the wires round on one end of the jack lead should make it act in the opposite direction, I think!?

[quote name='bigjohn' post='736126' date='Feb 5 2010, 01:14 PM']Ok. So lets suppose you can model a valve, or whatever amp you like down to imperceptible differences that the player, never mind the audience can't hear. And your cabs do the biz. Do you think you should / could put a crap bass (in terms of tone) into the chain at the beginning?[/quote] "crap bass" is subjective. I have a Brice 6 string which cost me around £100. I like the way it plays, and I like the way it sounds thruogh my rig. If I could get a laptop to model exactly what my rig does to give me "perfect modelling", i'd put my £100 bass through it, yeh. Depending on the sort of sound i'm going for, it might be better to use my £500 schecter 6, as that has an active pre-amp, but I wouldn't be fussed if I forgot to bring it.

[quote name='bigjohn' post='735992' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:49 AM']Set right is a bit vague though innit? Set right for what? Valve amps don't just have one particular tone do they? (although my marshall JCM800 was pretty close) A Pod can't replicate a particular valve amp preamp / power amp at all it's EQ/gain settings can it? So therefore it's easy to tell the difference. Especially if you're using it! At best, the settings on models are approximations, which then get further from their original intention the more you EQ them.[/quote] Set right means setting them to the same sound. I suppose i'm not just talking about modelling specifically. Using my pedal board and a PA, I reckon I could approximate almost every sound. No, I couldn't set up an absolute copy of a head including it's EQ. As far as models go, I wouldn't know how advanced the latest ones are, but it's clearly withint the realms of possibility to model exactly the behaviour of a valve (or SS) amp. You stick white noise in one end, monitor the other end, and attach actuators (or whatever they're called) to the amp's knobs. Simple!

[quote name='51m0n' post='735965' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:34 AM']Even half an hour of mucking around invalidates your ability to truly make an AB comparison without switching back to the orignal.[/quote] Yeh, I do agree, and regularly try to "refresh" my ears when mixing. [quote name='bigjohn' post='735966' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:34 AM']I'll agree with you on that.[/quote] Thank god i'm not alone! [quote name='bigjohn' post='735966' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:34 AM']I'm not agreeing with you on the Pod thing. They're not like valve amps at all. Although you can make them sound like a valve amp. It's the same doing an impression of somebody. You might be able to impersonate a certain mannerism or someone's voice in a certain situation. Though that might be useful / amusing. It doesn't mean that you've magically morphed into the person your impersonating does it? I can completely agree that Pods and the like are far more useful and practical than a great big valve amp... but to say that there's no difference? That's a nonsense.[/quote] I didn't say that there's no difference, or that they're the same. I'm saying that set right, the two can sound (to the most discerning human ear) exactly the same. It's obviously possible. Then, if two things sound exactly the same, there is no inferior choice. You do then have to take other things into consideration IE the whole signal chain (as 5imon was saying). Perhaps they sound exactly the same until you feed in a load of fizz with a fuzz pedal, at which point the high frequency response "seems" to change, etc etc.

[quote name='51m0n' post='735942' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:17 AM']But you didnt test the entire end result against the entire "best of breed" chain did you..... Because you have to trade one for another as often as not. So you swap one imerceptible (but measurable) inferiority for its superior original, and over time you introduce perceptibly inferior tone, but YOU cant tell, because it all happened so gradually.[/quote] Well, in the situation I was describing, I did compare with the "best" chain, which means it's technically not the best chain. I take your point though. I wish I was rich enough to worry about whether my modelling sounds as good as an all valve head. I'd love to be rich enough to try different cabs! Fortunately, I can use my pedal board to re-create my sound through my cheap sh*t rig, and through FOH PAs, without worrying about tiny (im)perceptible nuances.

Also, I can't beleive you people rolling with green papers! Yuck! They're so thick, they give me a sore throat and make me cough (more). I always use silver.

[quote name='51m0n' post='735925' date='Feb 5 2010, 11:03 AM']I think what BigJohn is saying is that you may not tell the difference with any one inferior choice. After all the difference from that particular item, although measurable, may be imperceptible. But if you continue with that mindset, replacing many things with inferior items in your signal path, then the total difference will become perceptible, even if the difference at any one stage is imperceptible. As he states, that is the route to a substandard tone.[/quote] Surely you listen and re-asses with every new peice of equipment in the chain? If I have an all valve rig, but then I try a POD and realise I could carry the same tone around much easier, I chose the POD, and it's not an inferior choice. Then I try the phaser on the POD and realise I can get it to sound like the vintage boutique pedal I spent £500, so I chose the POD and it's not an inferior choice. Then I try the squire VMJ and it sounds the same as my £4k super jazz, so I take the squire to gigs..... etc. I just think there's a hell of a lot of b*llocks said about tone, usually by people with more money than sense (or listening ability).