BOD2

[quote name='woolleydick' post='16171' date='Jun 12 2007, 12:41 PM']What a timely thread - just received our lighting set from thomann with 8x8 PAR 56 plus dimmers and controller, however I have no idea whatsoever of what to do with it all and the manual for the controller desk is in German (I have emailed thomann to ask for an english version) So................... Has anybody found any good online guides to using dmx controllers? I do not know what half the labels mean on the front panel so it will be a long guessing game, and we have to use them for a guest band next week who are coming over to Libya from UK.[/quote] General purpose DMX guides tends to be very confusing as they cover every aspect of DMX control as opposed to just what you need for a simple lighting show. DMX can do loads of other stuff that's irrelevant for simple lighting (e.g. scanner control, strobe light control etc.) so it's quite mind boggling. Also, most lighting controllers have built-in programs that mean you don't need to know much about DMX itself, whereas the DMX guides take you through everything ! Your best bet is probably to get an English manual for your controller. If it's from Thomann then it might have the "Stairville" brand name but the chances are the exact same controller is available under several different brand names and you might get an English manual from a website of one of the other brands. What model is the controller ? Also, do you know how to connect it all up ? If not, then let me know what equipment you've got and I'll have a look (give me the Thomann part numbers and I can identify it from these).

You could try [url="http://www.spider-engineering.co.uk/index.asp"]Flightcase Warehouse[/url]. I think they stock, or will make, just about anything.

[quote name='Painless' post='15858' date='Jun 11 2007, 08:15 PM']I'm happy with the sound, but am still having issues with the action in the first couple of frets, it's way too much work fretting the first couple of positions compared to the rest of the fingerboard. Either the new graphtec nut needs to be sanded down even more or some more aggressive shimming is needed.[/quote] If the problem is confined to the nut end of the neck then that suggests that the nut slots might be too high. Shimming the neck has more effect on the bridge end of the guitar and is usually done to allow full adjustment of the bridge saddles. You have two options. If the nut is not glued in then you could remove it and carefully sand down the underside of the nut so that the whole nut (nothing to do with Cadbury's ) sits lower in the slot. If the nut cannot easily be removed then you'll need to deepen the slots in the nut to allow the strings to sit deeper. You'll need very thin files narrow enough to fit in the nut slots. Either way, go carefully. If you remove too much material then the action will be too low and you'd then have to replace the nut and start all over again.

Just a thought ... are you using the different amps in the same room or different rooms ? The reasoning being that here might be something electrically "noisy" that is being picked up in the room where the Yamaha gear is being used. There's a pinned topic about humming/buzzing in the Repairs/Technical forum that might be of some help.

We've used that system but without the foot-controller. It's a good system. Very powerful lights but there's a dimmer on the controller to adjust the brightness as required. We actually use them to light the dance floor area (and have used them at some big venues) so they'd certainly be up to the job of lighting up the band. They're quick and easy to setup and can operate fully automatically so need to for anyone to monitor them once you're playing. Also available here [url="http://www.ebdj.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?product_id=11139"]www.ebdj.co.uk[/url] but without stands or case and you could build up what you need from here [url="http://www.terralec.co.uk/floods_and_blinders/i_colour_light_mixer_4_x_500_watt/15831_p.html"]www.terralec.co.uk[/url]. I'm not sure how useful the foot-controller is but that's something you could judge yourself. The other options are traditional PAR cans (the 300W or 500W variety would be necessary) which are often sold as complete packages. They do a great job but are more time consuming to setup. Examples here [url="http://www.terralec.co.uk/stage_lighting/stage_lighting_sets/213_0c.html"]www.terralec.co.uk[/url]. Better still are LED PAR cans. Essentially the same setup/operation as normal PAR cans but they use very little power and therefore generate very little heat, which is great for keeping the stage cool and also enables you to use more without overloading the power supply at a small venue ! Bear in mind that the i-Colour lights are potentially 2000 Watts each (4 kWatts total = 17.4 Amps) if they were on full, although in normal use they are unlikely to be on full. From what I recall from the old thread the LED PAR cans from [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/search_dir.html?sw=LED+PAR&x=0&y=0"]www.Thomann.de[/url] were probably the cheapest and seemed to do a good job.

Nice one (breathing sigh of relief because the advice worked !) The wiring was actually very simple but I think you got confused because of the apparent complexity of the blend pot.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='13776' date='Jun 7 2007, 07:53 PM']Its likely that the installation didn't fully detect the card (again). The only way I've solved this problem in the past is by doing a complete rebuild with Windows, letting it detect the card during the installation process. I might see if I can do a repair or something though. I've got the OS backed up as an image on CD so I can reinstall it no problem.[/quote] Can you not completely uninstall and remove the card then re-install just the card ? (you've probably tried this already). I've used MIDI a little, but only to program a MIDI controller to talk to a Bass POD. I found it useful to have [url="http://www.midiox.com/"]MIDI-OX[/url] on my computer to help figure out what was going on. Other than the that the only problem I had was that I had to add 1 to all the MIDI Program Change values listed in the manual to get things to work (they ran from 1 to 128 rather than 0 to 127).

Good to hear another positive post about Line 6 products - they do seem to get slated by an awful lot of people. I think Line 6 could do more to provide usable factory default patches instead of showcasing some of the more wierd FX but most of the multi-FX boxes seem guilty of that too. I have the Bass POD XT/XT Pro manual as a PDF file - PM me with your e-mail address if you need it. Another interesting feature is the ability to blend the DI sound of the bass with the modelled sound. This can thicken up a sound or add a subtle depth to the sound. Very useful.

I play mostly with fingers but occasionally with a pick. I find the pick does wear off the coating and the strings go a bit "furry". It doesn't seem to affect the tone at all, though. It doesn't take long with a pick for this to happen. I've also had some discolouration of the strings at the fretboard - not sure why this should be. But again, the tone doesn't seem to change. Mines are Nanowebs in the green packets, so that using them won't make any difference. It seems to be the pick that does the damage.

[quote name='ali-stare' post='13209' date='Jun 6 2007, 06:36 PM']that does make sense but its only a 2 way switch with either bridge OR neck selected. but not both thats evne simpler than i thought so i could have a STDP switch and have the brown wire to the centre pin and the neck on one side and the bridge on the other. sweet one question the grounds just need to be all connected and connected to the blak preamp wire right?? cheers ali[/quote] Yes. A two position switch will give you one pickup or the other but not both. On a simple three pole switch you would connect the brown wire from the preamp to the centre pole on the switch and the wires from the pickup to each of the other two poles. All the ground wires should be connected to the same earthing point, and this should be traced back to the earth side of the jack socket. The back preamp wire is just another ground wire too. The diagram below should do it (note any other wires from the preamp are not shown - only the two mentioned) [attachment=496:2pups.jpg]

[quote name='ali-stare' post='13156' date='Jun 6 2007, 05:17 PM']its just supposed to be a selector for either bridge or neck pickup[/quote] OK. This should be fairly esay to sort out but I need some specifics. Is it a 3-position switch ? i.e. 1. bridge pup only 2. both pups 3. neck pup only Do you know what contacts on the switch are made/broken when the switch is operated ? According to your diagram there are 12 contacts on the switch so I'd need to know what happens when you operate the switch. In principle, what you need to do is connect all of the earths to a common earthed point (usually the shell of one of the pots). This will include the earth wires from the pickups which were the wires connected to the top left connection on your "Pot" diagram. You'll also need to connect the black wire from the preamp to earth. Once you've done that all you should have left is a wire from each pickup and the brown wire from the preamp. All the switch needs to do is - Position 1. connect bridge pup wire to brown preamp wire Position 2. connect both pup wires to brown preamp wire Position 3. connect neck pup wire to brown preamp wire It [i][b]should[/i][/b] be fairly simple - much simpler than the original blend pot wiring. Does this make sense ?

[quote name='ali-stare' post='12958' date='Jun 6 2007, 12:04 PM']ok here are some wonderful diagrams[/quote] What does that switch do ? (i.e. which contacts are connected to which when you activate the switch) And is the aim for the switch to operate as a selector switch for the pickups or is it something else ?

I'm afraid that the problem is there's no such thing as a "standard" 2-band preamp. They all use their own wire coding schemes. So unless you can identify the preamp model (which might be difficult as it could be Vintage's own brand) or someone else had the same bass/preamp and can describe where the wires go then we're stuck. Or contact the distributor as The Burpster suggests. Good luck.

[quote name='MoJ' post='12736' date='Jun 5 2007, 11:03 PM']Im wondering how to go about getting a low pass filtered sound and full range sound togeher though, without investing in the Aguilar preamp (and although the XT Pro has a model based on an Aguilar I doubt it imparts any of its features other than tone).[/quote] I'm not trying to sell the XT pro here - it's quite a big step to go over to that for a live rig. But...if I'm interpreting the manual correctly you can setup the biamp on one pair of outputs while having the full range signal on another pair of outputs. As I mentionbed earlier in this thread, the manualsuggest that the baamped outputs are only available on the "Unbalanced Analog Out" jacks. The "Balanced Analog Out" XLRS always have the full range signal (or so it would appear). This should give you what you want, but I would recommend confirming this first. And you'd still need to check that the XT Pro can produce the quality of sounds that you want.

It makes a very slight difference but not so much that would cause any problems. The pole piece heights are meant to compensate for the difference in output due to the different gauges of the strings. The problem is that not everyone uses the same gauge strings ! Some pickups have small screws for the pole pieces and this allows you to fine tune the height yourself. Pole pieces are not essential on a pickup, they are just part of some designs. Some pickups use a single bar magnet along the width of the strings - this is what you'll sometimes find inside pickups with solid covers. It's not an inferior deisgn at all, just a different one. The cover is usually plastic so is "invisible" to the magnetic field of the magnet in the pickup. Just to show that this doesn't matter too much, the pole-piece height on vintage Fender Strat pickups were originally calibrated to match the string gauges available at the time (i.e the 1950s). Strings at that time used a wound third (G) unlike todays electric guitar gauges which always have a plain third. The pole piece for the 2nd ( string is usually sunk below the pickup cover while that for the 3rd (G) string is the highest on the pickup. This is actually wrong for modern gauge strings and can lead to an imbalance between these two strings. But it's not so bad that anyone ever complains that their pre-CBS vintage Strat doesn't sound right !

[quote name='BigRedX' post='12501' date='Jun 5 2007, 02:02 PM']Certainly on my BassPod XT Pro the balanced outs reflect the jack outs - I'm also pretty certain it says this in the manual. I haven't had a chance to see what happens at the digital outs yet...[/quote] I'm just reading from the manual (which isn't always a good thing). Bi-amping is detailed in the section that describes the function of the unbalanced outs. It does not mention bi-amping when describing the balanced outs. Also, the labelling on the back of the unit has "Bi-amp mode hi/lo" beside the unablanced outs but nothing beside the balanced outs. As I said, I've never tried this so I don't know for sure what happens but the manual is [i][b]suggesting[/i][/b] (though not actually stating) that these outputs are different when biamping. Note that this applies only to the rackmount XT Pro and not the kidney bean XT.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='12478' date='Jun 5 2007, 01:44 PM']I would consider bi-amping but only in the way The_Funk has described with one full range output and a second bass only. However AFAIK only the Aguilar DB680 has this facility. It might be possible with some creative thinking on a BassPod but it would involve at least one piece of extrenal kit...[/quote] Hmmm... the Bass POD XT Pro manual suggest that when Bi-amp mode is enabled, the split "bi-amped" signal is sent to the "Unablanced Analog Out" jack plug connectors. There are two of these - one gets the Hi and one gets the Lo. It further suggests that the "Balanced Aanalog Out" XLR connectors are not affected by the bi-amp mode. If this is correct you could get a lo-only bass signal from one of the "Balanced Anolg Out" on a jack plug at the same time as a full-range signal from either of the "Unbalanced Analog Out" XLR connectors. Of course, sometimes these manuals are not correct....

I've not used the GT6B but what you say above is generally the best method for creating your own sounds on every other multi-FX thingy I've used. That being - 1. Pick an existing patch (or preset) 2. Go into "Edit" mode 3. Switch off any FX you don't want 4. Switch on any FX you do want 5. Adjust the parameters of the FX you do want 6. Save the patch At step 6 you can either save it over the original or save it to a new location. With a little practice it becomes easy, although if you've never created a new patch for 6 months or so and have to go back to it then it's like starting all over again. One last tip. Try to keep the patches that you will use live "close together" so that it's easy to go from one to another with the minimum of foot tapping. And don't worry about overwriting the original patches. They're usually crap and unusable but there will almost certainly be a "reset" procedure to restore the factory presets and patches should you ever need to do this.

Best to get as much advice as you can - as I said to begin with, I've not actually used a biamped setup so I'm only giving you the theory and not the practice. All of the PODs are standard MIDI devices and you can control just about any parameter from a MIDI controller. Not all of the effects are movable but you can put EQ, modulation and delay/reverb before or after the amp model. The main compressor (controllable from a "real knob" on the front panel) is based on the LA-2A valve studio compressor. It's pretty much an "auto compressor" though as you only have that one knob to increase or decrease the amount of compression. This one is post EQ. The other compressor(s) can be selected as the "stomp box". The stomp box can be set to a compressor, or distortion, or auto wah, or synth. This means you can't use this compressor at the same time as distortion or auto-wah, for example (bit you always have the main compressor available). This multi-function thing is always a limitation on multi-FX units. If you want to use the compressor here, however, you can choose a Boss CS-1, MNXR Dyna-Comp, or one of Line6's onwm models, and these have several controls available. I've PM'd you about the user manual.

OK, I see where you're coming from. To get any benefit you would need to have cabs with different frequency ranges and set the crossover to match those ranges. There doesn't appear to any problem with speakers reproducing a vast array of frequencies but every speaker cab has a finite frequency range and asking that cab to reproduce frequencies outwith that range is a waste of amplifier power. So the primary object of bi-amping is to get more efficiency out of the speaker cabs you have by not having them waste amplifier power on frequencies they are not efficient at reproducing. Using, say a 2x10 and 1x15 would not really be efficient, as both would have very similar frequency ranges (in fact sometimes the 10" cabs actually have a lower frequency response that 15" cabs, depending on how they're designed) so you wouldn't be getting the best out of the setup. With these cabs you'd probably get very similar, perhaps better, results driving both cabs with the same signal. I have no problems with the Bas POD XT Pro. But then I have only setup 3 or 4 sounds for use live (it seems overkill to have more than this for live work). Switching between them involves pressing one button on the POD, or one switch on a foot controller. So once your sounds are setup there's no difficulty in using them at all. You can tweak the tone live using a full set of rotary controls (exactly the same as the tone controls on any amp) in no time at all. You only use the menus and sub-menus when creating new sounds and storing them - which isn't something you'd normally do live ! I use a Behringer FCB1010 foot controller live (a standard MIDI one). I can do everything from that. There's a separate topic [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=669"]here[/url] about the accuracy of the amp models. There are two compressors on the Bass POD XT pro. A fixed one that's post most of the FX (you can actually move some of the FX around) and another optional one that's pre-FX. They seem to do the job OK. You might be able to download the Bass POD XT Pro user manual from the Line6 website. That will help give you a good idea of what it can do.

I've not actually used a biamped setup but there are a couple of considerations. Firstly, note that most bass cabs are "full range" (for bass guitar anyway) therefore if you use standard cabs you lose some of the advantage of biamping. By that I mean that part of the reason to biamp is to optimise the frequencies sent to each cab so that each cab handles only those ferquencies within its ideal range. If the cabs are full-range then this doesn't really make sense. Secondly, I suppose is to ask why you actually want to biamp in the first place ? Does this meet a particular need you've identified or do you just want to try it out ? I use the Bass POD XT Pro and can probably help with the operation of that if you have a specific question, but I don't biamp with it - I feed the PA directly from one output and a full-range monitor from another output.

What you describe above is normal (when you have a hum in the first place). The hum will be at it's loudest when everything is up full and will be reduced by backing off the volume and/or the treble control. In passive mode doing either will reduce the output signal level and the hum with it. In active mode, adding treble will boost the more audible harmonics of the hum. It is still possible that there isn't actually a fault - and that "they all do that, sir". One earth connection you probably haven't been able to check is the one that should go to the underside of the bridge. It's probably ok and requires removal of the bridge to check it. You could try temporarily fitting an external earth wire to the bridge. If it makes no difference to the hum then it's a fair guess that the bridge wire is ok. Get a piece of wire and wrap one end around the metal case of the jack plug where it enters the bass, then wrap the other end around part of the bridge assembly. Some tape might help hold the wire in place at the jack plug end. Make sure you have good metal-to-metal contacts at both ends, remove your hands from the bass and then see if this reduces the hum.

[quote name='The Funk' post='11936' date='Jun 4 2007, 05:27 PM']Is this true of all hum cancelling switches on US amps? Do they just cut the earth thingy?[/quote] Yes. You need to be very careful with this type of thing as the UK mains supply is different to the US one and this feature (which is more likely to be a feature of US spec vintage amps) can make the equipment unsafe. The problem is that rather than "cutting" the earth the supply the switch can actually connect the earth directly to the positive or negative phase of the mains supply, which reduces hum on a 110V US supply but is potentially dangerous on a European supply. If in any doubt then check with a service engineer or ask the manufacturer. Note that this is not the same as a "Ground Lift" switch that is often fitted to outboard rackmount PA equipment (e.g equalisers, compressors etc.). A "Ground Lift" switch operates on the signal cables and not the mains supply so is perfectly safe

I think this is a case of "supply and demand". The market for pre-70s Fenders is quite mature now and prices are very high. That means there are very few good pre-70s Fenders readily available out there without paying silly money. Plenty of people still want the Fender logo and now a that 1975 Fender is over 30 years old it has that "vintage" tag by virtue of its age alone. There were good and bad examples in every year of Fender's production so if you can find a good 70s Fender then, logic has it, you're getting a good vintage guitar that's only a few years younger than some of the really sought after stuff that's well out of reach price wise. The prices can only go up. As the years go buy then 80s Fenders will also become "vintage" so it's likely that these will start to fetch good prices too because all the 70s ones have been snatched up. But there were definitely quality problems in the 70s. As a guitarist, I bought my first ever Fender Strat in the late 70s. It was a big investment at the time and I had high expectations. I was so disappointed to have to return it to the shop after a few weeks as it was untunable with a twisted neck. The replacement I got was ok but the body contouring was very crude and clumsy and nowhere near as good as the Japanese CSL copy that preceeded it. Having said that not all of the production was flawed and, by the law of averages, there must have been some really good stuff made in the 70s as in any decade.

Yes, BeLow, the rack compressors tend to have a lot more controls to allow you to adjust the various parameters....and lots more flashing LEDs. I've always been underwhelmed by noise gates, but perhaps that stems from misunderstanding what they did when I first encountered them. For the benefit of those who've never used one before ... A noise gate does NOT remove hiss or hum or anything at all [i][b]while you are playing[/i][/b]. When setup correctly it will remove these things when you stop playing (i.e. in between songs). Basically you set a "threshold" volume on the noise gate. When a note you are playing dies off and the volume drops below that threshold, the noise gate "closes" and you get complete silence (i.e. no noise, no hum, nothing). As soon as you start playing again the volume will instantly rise above the threshold and the noise get opens - letting everything (noise, hum, your notes) through. If you set the threshold too high then long sustained notes will suddenly cut off as the level drops below the threshold. Set it too low and the gate will never close. So there is a bit of fine tuning to be done. It's useful if you have particularly noisy gear (some FX can create background hiss) and you need complete silence during gaps in your playing - or can be useful in a studio situation for the same reason. Not a very exciting effect, though and may not have any flashing LEDs at all !