BOD2

Is this the one ? [url="http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1795"]http://www.samsontech.com/products/product...cfm?prodID=1795[/url] Harke support is handled by Soundtech in the uk. [url="http://www.samsontech.com/main/internationalDealers.cfm?country=U.K.&x=11&y=13"]http://www.samsontech.com/main/internation...p;x=11&y=13[/url] If it is this model then note tha the 3500 head is just a rack mount head so I would imagine you can slip it out of the casing and perhaps put a strengthening plate inside the case around the handle ?

It's safest to ask the manufacturer. In theory it shouldn't but this is one of these things that could vary, depending on how well the DI circuit has been designed.

Welcome back..... Milk and one sugar please

[quote name='alexclaber' post='294412' date='Sep 29 2008, 11:23 AM']The main reasons the bass guitar replaced the double bass were that it was easier to transport and much louder. Once you add decent amplification then electronic drum kits have neither advantage over acoustic kits. Alex[/quote] Yes, that's a good point if you don't already use a good powerful PA.

I should maybe add that we were a general covers band that leant more towards rock. We didn't do "disco" covers so the sounds we were looking for from the drums were traditional rock sounds and not electronic drums sounds at all. I think the drummer used 2, maybe 3 of the V-drum preset kits, with only minor tweaks to those kits sounds, and to my ears these kits sounded good. Not at all artificial. It does help of your amplification is up to the job, of course, so it's important that the V-drums are played through a good PA or monitor setup. If your band only has a vocal PA then the V-drums start to make less sense, as you'll need some fairly powerful amps for the V-drums themselves to be heard. But if you already have the PA and especially if you mic up the drums, then they certainly make setting up and getting a good FOH sound a lot quicker and easier - and with fewer open mics on the stage the headroom of your PA will be better.

Interesting discussion. I played in a band for 5 years with a V-drum kit so here's a little more on my experience of it... Initially we only had a vocal PA so the drums went through their own two Makie SRM450s. That made the stage sound and FOH sound perfectly loud enough, but there were no problems with crash cymbals exploding in your ears on stage. As the band got bigger the PA got bigger, so we just put the V-drums straight into the PA. The drummer usef in-ear monitoring and everyone else had floor mionitors with as much of the drums as they wanted. This gave good controlled volume on stage and as much FOH as we ever wanted. In the band mix the V-drum sounds were good. The only criticisms we ever heard were from drummers with acoustic kits who were negative towards V-drums in the first place. When we listened to those drummers play live ourselves it has to be said all we could hear was the snare drum - the toms were lost completely or sounded like cardboard boxes being hit. So we considered that, in the environments we were playing in (i.e. less than ideal) the V-drums sounded better and it was much easier and quicker to get a good balanced sound. Rehearsal was much easier as we could all turn down and retain the balance of the drum sound. We fitted the kit frame with locakable castors and left all the pads on the kit for transport - only the cymbals were removed. The whole frame was rolled into the van in one go. To setup, it was rolled out, cymbals fitted and it was ready to go. 10 minutes could see it done. Yes, I accept that an acoustic kit will always have more dynamics and better sounds in ideal conditions. But in a mix in real life conditions I always felt the V-drums were a big bonus.

There are no problems with a good electronic drum kit. The drummer in my last band used Roland V-drums for 5 years with barely a hiccup. It's best if you can put them through the PA, though. Also, you'll need to be able to hear the kit yourself so some kind of monitoring is required. Our drummer used in-ear monitoring and the rest of use had wedge monitors somewhere to hear the kit. Excellent drum sounds, no hassles with mic'ing up the kit, and no deafness for the bass player from being too near that loud snare drum ! Not everyone likes them but they definitely have their place.

Just a point worth noting ..... On a passive bass the "Tone" control can only cut and not boost treble, therefore it's common to play with the "Tone" control full on for maximum bite. On an active bass the tone controls cut AND boost. The neutral position (where the tone is neither cut nor boosted) is at the middle of the control's travel (there's usually a "notch" you can feel as you turn the control through this point). If you play an active bass with the tone controls full on (as you might do if you were accustomed to playing passive basses) then you will get a lot of noise as you are working at the limits of the preamp. The best way to get a good sound from an active circuit is to start with the tone controls at the midpoint. Adjust the amp EQ for a good basic sound then use small boost or cuts on the bass EQ to fine tune the sound.

I've not done this but I have read about it. The key seems to be lots of very light coats, allowing time for each coat to dry, and gentle sanding down between coats. Don't apply a heavy coat of lacquer or it will most likely run, and don't be tempted to rush the job and put the next coat on before the first has dried sufficiently. I think you might also have to buff the final coats down to get a smooth finish.

If it's a solid colour then the difference may lie in the number of pieces of wood joined together to make the body. It's most unlikely to be made of one piece but it could be 2, 3 or even 5 pieces edge-jointed to make the body blank. There's not necessarily any sonic difference, but making a body from smaller cuts of wood is cheaper. If you can see the grain of the wood, then a cheaper body may not have such an attractive grain (wood is often graded so that attractively grained wood is more expensive to buy). Also, with a cheaper body they might not take as much time to match the grain when the body is made from several pieces. Finally, check the thickness of the body. Cheaper bodies are sometimes just a little thinner.

[quote name='ahpook' post='284864' date='Sep 16 2008, 11:28 AM']any ideas ?[/quote] I'm not familiar with that socket. Can you post any pictures ? It maybe a standard component but witout seeing what it looks like I don't know.

All of the above are excellent sources. You could also try [url="http://www.axesrus.com/axenecks.htm"]http://www.axesrus.com/axenecks.htm[/url]

Screwfix direct ? [url="http://www.screwfix.com/prods/35451/Ironmongery/Castors/Braked-Castors/Rubber-Tyres-Swivel-Braked-50mm-Pack-of-4"]http://www.screwfix.com/prods/35451/Ironmo...-50mm-Pack-of-4[/url]

I've heard that PCB etchant (nasty stuff so use with care) can be used for this.... [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uq3JOzubQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1uq3JOzubQ[/url]

It does sound like some kind of resonance. It could be the amp itself, or the amp within that room. Try changing the EQ on the amp a little to see if that affects anything, then try moving the amp. The amp will be louder if it's against a wall and louder still if it's in a corner against two walls. Moving the amp a few feet in one direction could make a difference.

They are OK as a last resort. They usually have several parametric notch filters (these allow the centre frequency, filter width, and attenuation to be selected). The filters can be fixed or set "roving". The usual mode of operation is to switch the Feedback Destroyer on then bring up the PA volume. When feedback starts the filters will be activated and will cut the troublesome frequencies. Then you bring the PA back down a notch and everything should be ok, in theory. This is the same principle used by experienced sound engineers manually with a graphic EQ and is called "ringing out". You then also keep one or two of the filters on auto roving mode to catch any feedback that occurs later if mics are moved etc. But remember - they work by cutting frequencies, so your sound will suffer from the lost frequencies to some extent. It's much better to take more care over mic placement and basic EQ first. Make sure any monitors are immediately behind a mic - not to the side. Keep mics away from a solid back wall where reflections will come off the wall and into the mic - if this happens, moving the mic 6 inches forward may cure the problem. Always try and identify which mic is causing the problem - is somebody turning up towards the end of the gig ane messing up your carefully created soundcheck levels ?

If you want to be 100% safe the best advice is to go wireless and always use an RCD with your gear. The wireless transmitter makes it IMPOSSIBLE to get lethal voltages through your guitar. The RCD will protect you against faults on other equipment. There's a PDF file about shielding a Marcus Miller Jazz Bass on the guitarnuts website here [url="http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/bass.php"]http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/shielding/bass.php[/url] If you can't get that site to open them PM me with your email address and I'll forward the PDF to you.

What ? You have a problem with potentially lethal voltages on the guitar strings ? I would refer you to this article... [url="http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electrical/safety/index.php"]http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electr...afety/index.php[/url]

[quote name='Cernael' post='269890' date='Aug 25 2008, 11:07 PM']It might be a scout thing, I don't know. What you do is magnetize the needle as outlined, then put it on a cigarette paper or somesuch, which you proceed to, very carefully, place on the surface of a glass of water. After a while, the paper is soaked, and should fall to the bottom of the glass, leaving the needle floating (yes, floating!) on the surface of the water. If left undisturbed, it will align itself with the earth's magnetic field.[/quote] Scouts with cigarette papers ? Surely not !! You'll be telling us how to rub linseed oil into the school cormorant next....

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='268179' date='Aug 22 2008, 10:15 PM']Bunches of pickups in a drawer is what I do, generally the pairs of humbuckers stick together, I'd figure that would strengthen the magnets if anything, as their fields are lined up and the tendency would be for the atoms to line up correspondingly.[/quote] I knew I'd read this somewhere ... [url="http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/Pickupology/magnets.htm"]http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/Pickupology/magnets.htm[/url] Be careful how pickups are stored in a drawer.

I'm not a metal band player but perhaps you can take an example from a cliched rock classic. "Smoke On the Water" - Deep Purple. The guitar and keyboard play the famous cliched riff together. The bass, however, pounds out a solid G under the riff only changing with a "twiddly bit" at the end of the riff. So the bass and the guitar are playing completely different things - no "following" going on there. Sometimes you can use this "tool" to bring contrast into a piece. Trying playing the same single note under part of the riff(say for 3 out of 4 repetitions of the riff) then play the riff in unison with the guitar on the 4th repetition, but an octave lower. Also, staying on the same bass note when the guitar changes to a different chord (provided the two don't clash) can create a real tension in a song - AC/DC often do this in a chorus. Identify a few "tools" like those above then play around with how you might place them in a song.

[quote name='Toasted' post='269265' date='Aug 25 2008, 01:35 AM']Oh my lordy. I epic fail. I need to go and do something cool to make up for that.[/quote] You should have written "My Bad" - that would be cool (apparently) lol

+1 to what Cernale said The other bigger issue is if you take the pickups out and throw a bunch of them together in a drawer for a long period. I believe that can affect the magnets....

Are we talking about the pickup height adjustment screws, or do you have screw in polepieces on the pickups ? If it's just the height adjustment screws then I wouldn't worry about it at all. Most screwdrivers are magnetic these days and I have never seen any "warnings" anywhere about this. The magnetic fields are relatively weak so the chances of them influencing anything are negligible. There's more chance that the screwdriver will be affected rather than the pickup. Even if it's the actual polepieces then again the risk is negligible. I wouldn't worry about it at all.

I have a Fostex MR8-HD. The same machine as Earbass describes above except that it has a hard disk drive inside and uses that rather than Compact Flash cards. It's very easy to use and gets good results. The other good thing about the MR8 series is that you can connect and record up to 4 sources (e.g. 4 separate mics) simultaneously, whereas as most other multitrackers a limited to 1 or 2 sources simultaneously.