stewblack

Do it. Demand satisfaction. Don't take no for an answer etc

I haven't bought from Dv247 until last week. The last thing I had from them was when they were Musicstore Cologne and sent out a paper catalogue listing all their stock. So a long time ago. Happy to report the item arrived a day earlier than expected. The quality of the item is another story for another thread.

Took delivery of two new exciters today. One male fowl-up straight away - bought the AR-30s and not the AR-50 which would have been better but ho hum, on with the show. Why 2? Well it seems in the world of these little vibrating wallahs if you want wattage you end up buying a 4ohm speaker thus maximizing the output of the amp . My littlest amp is 200 watts so I bought two 8ohm exciters, wired them in series, attached them to the seat and off I go. These are different from the previous speaker which got hot and melted. Better designed, don't get hot, and produce a different sound. They're more hi-fi is probably the best way to describe the difference. So good in fact that I can listen to music through my chair! The trade off is that the bass is more 'precise' if that means anything to anyone. Whereas I used to hit a low E and feel my innards liquify this is a smaller, tighter sensation. It still shakes through the seat, but with less violence, it's also louder in the room so less good for late night noodling. However I am already scheming! Another two linked together in series and both sets then wired to one another in parallel would, if my maths is working, give me a 120 watt 8ohm speaker system which should be much more capable and thus not need to be run so hard. I await, with a growing sense of nervous excitement to be told exactly why everything I have just said is wrong and in fact I can't possibly hear anything from the love seat because I don't have ears in my bum. Oh and lots of numbers I won't understand too. Bring it on!

OUCH!

I've had several Trace heads over the years and the SMX is the absolute king. So many astonishingly useful features. The valve pre is probably the least of these. @Lfalex v1.1 raises a question I've often asked myself. My favourite valve pre was in the Ashdown ABM. Subtle but not subtle like the SMX. It had a gradual impact on the sound which felt 'real' like others sometimes don't.

Gosh darn it. I'm after a rack shelf.

How much for the BF-2 😂

When typing (android phone) the return key has started taking me out of the message rather than just starting a new paragraph. Thought it was my phone but it only happens here. Driving me nuts! Please can someone help?

The last time I tried for a completely clean take of a song, I ended up recording the audio with multiple drop ins and miming on the vid. I mimed so badly - that didn't even work.

What annoys me most about the channel is how damn effortlessly good you are. Harumph.

I think Mama's Gun is sublime. We cover This Is The Day in one of my bands. Sounds such a simple breezy tune, but it's actually beautiful how it's constructed.

Will you make an announcement here when the emails go out? Just something like "hey Stew, check your email for once will you?" That should cover it.

I recommend installing one of the desktop applications - makes it a breeze to alter the parameters of the effects when using it like this.

Martha Reeves is Quoted in Standing In The Shadows Of Motown as saying " He never played the same lick twice. They'd give him some chord sheets and they'd say, 'Give me something James' " As I'm working through a few bars of the great man's work I often have pause to remember this. It's like a keen chess player recreating one of the games by the grand masters. An enthusiastic snooker player carefully setting up the table and trying to recreate a series of shots as played by a world champion in a final. He started out ahead of me by such a margin it seems impertinent of me to discuss his work never mind pretend to understand how he thought. However I know there are those here who are better trained and qualified to explain what's going on. It's my hope that you'll join this thread and help me deepen my understanding. I'm looking at Gladys Knight's version of Grapevine right now and there's a lovely section where you can imagine Jamerson being given a sheet, scanning down and seeing "6 bars instrumental, F" and then just coming up with this He did this all day everyday and knew his way around the fretboard instinctively. If I had improvised this it would have been different every bar because I'd be flying by the seat of my pants on every single first beat. When you start studying Jamerson there's a sense that he knows by what he's played at the start of the bar what he needs to do at the end to end up exactly where he wants to be to start the next bar. Like the chess player he thinks several moves ahead. My timing goes whenever I have to think to hard about note choice or finger placement, because he had such mastery over what he was going to play he could have fun with the feel he lends the piece. The line before the chorus in this song is a perfect illustration of this ability to think on the fly. It's two bars, nearly identical to the chorus, except he jumps up the octave a whole beat earlier, realising (at 113 bpm) that he's going to land a beat early he throws in an eighth note and a couple of sixteenth notes which not only follow the upward run of the preceding notes but then drop to the perfect note to lead us into the next bar. But I could talk about that chorus line all day - I think I'll leave it for another day, today I'd love to know what people think of the part quoted above.

I remember you have a particular sensitivity to extraneous noise. I wonder if a more expensive version is a good idea. I think the design itself will always be vulnerable to damage.

Any particular thing drew you to this one? I see they have one with 'Bass' written on it. Although I'm skeptical as to what real difference this makes.

Any Valeton stuff I've had has been well made. The vulnerability with my Vox amplug was me. I trod on my own headphone cable and rather than just unplug it ripped the guts out of it.

Got a photo? All the ones I've removed have been screwed in.

I know you won't regret it. A great practise tool, (and a very useable gig tool) , and you can power it with batteries too.

But yes I strongly suspect I gave it way too much juice.