tauzero

On the original topic - drove to a gig and found that the silver aluminium case I'd brought was the one with Mrs Zero's wireless mic in it, not the one with my bass amp in. "I'll use the Crate Powerblock that I leave in the car for emergencies" I thought. Then I found that I didn't have a jack to speakon lead, which was the only way I could connect amp to cab... On a completely unrelated occasion, after a break, we did the first number and I got a message from the guitarist's wife in the audience that she couldn't hear the vocals. I'd taken the mains down and left the foldback on, so I hadn't realised.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1421215324' post='2658465'] Any of you older guys want to chime in on this? [/quote] Yes. I'm 57 and I have both a Zoom B3 and a Zoom MS60-B. They're very good.

Up and down or forwards and backwards? I had one which was my first bass (barring that unfortunate brief episode with a Rosetti 7). Pickups adjust vertically, not horizontally. The pickups are switched rather than blended. The bridge is a rather odd mix of perspec/acrylic and steel. Truss rod adjustment is with a cranked rod at the body end. I shouldn't have PXed it for a P.

Could I add my covers band please? [url="https://www.facebook.com/TheLightningUK"]https://www.facebook.com/TheLightningUK[/url] Just finished going through the list and liking everyone else, and discovering that there is another band that does Don't Speak (hello The Carbonites ).

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1421407912' post='2660802'] There's an old thread about this where one of the basschatters (Stevie) did some measurements to show that the effects of running in a speaker are negligible. In any case just using the speaker will run it in so it's not something you can avoid and not probably something to worry about. [/quote] Although this is focussed on hi-fi systems, the principle is the same: [url="http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction"]http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction[/url]

I should add that I use the kettle system because it's handy (kettle's ten feet from where I do my soldering and other electronic playing around). I've used a cigarette lighter in the past. There is no one right answer. Just don't burn anything, including yourself.

[quote name='Biglump' timestamp='1421275782' post='2659423'] I was wondering (and searching) if anyone has converted a defunct practice amp to 12 volt operation successfully. I was given a Rocktek amp with a duff power supply. A dead PC donated its PSU to get it going again. But I am just wondering about converting it to 12 volt operation by striping out the PSU and wiring 12 volts direct. (though an appropriate fused connector, of course) [/quote] So you've used the 12V off the PC PSU and that's doing the job? You'd probably be OK running it off the nominally 12V supply, though as Dad says it's actually more like 15V. If you feel you may worry unduly, there's 12V regulators you can get (off That Ebay for example). Assuming there's an 8 ohm speaker in it, the maximum current that it will need to cope with is 12/8 = 1.5A (roughly, the speaker will never be taken up to the maximum 12V but then again the circuit won't be 100% efficient).

[quote name='MarshallBTB' timestamp='1421432590' post='2661233'] Thought this was worth sharing.... a lot of effort but still pretty cool. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy3IFQjP-4k"]https://www.youtube....h?v=Xy3IFQjP-4k[/url] [/quote] Is it your work? Rather more sophisticated than what I've put together.

[quote name='BILL POSTERS' timestamp='1421402863' post='2660726'] Wont it get sealed in by the shrunk tubing ? [/quote] I only use it on the barrel of the plug, not covering barrel and cable end.

Look very handy. I've got a Behringer CT100, which falls between those two in price, and it doesn't do speakons and only caters for 3 cores on the DIN sockets (so it's fine for MIDI but anything using 5 pins won't be fully tested). But it does show the interconnections all at once, and also has "intermittent" indicators. I don't think I'll be replacing it but should it ever die, one of the Studiospares ones would be a definite candidate.

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1420800773' post='2653497'] By the way, do you ever have any problems with condensation or water affecting the cables if you're using a kettle to supply the heat??? [/quote] No. It's pure H[sub]2[/sub]O and it'll evaporate off reasonably quickly.

I use a Zoom B3, or when space is definitely at a premium, an MS60-B.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1420145325' post='2646154'] Convert it to a 2-string, replace the pickup with a cheap Jazz unit jammed into the cavity at an angle, and put it on eBay for £269 as suitable for people with fat fingers. Don't forget to drop a hint about the possibility of it being an early Fender prototype! [/quote] "Made when Fender's Custom Shop was just finding its feet" should do it.

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1421313629' post='2659624'] I think the point I was making in the previous is that a used but mint bass might lose value if dinked, a used relic probably won't. It's a safer investemnt all other things being equal. [/quote] I wonder when we'll see the first bass being advertised as a mint relic.

[quote name='Andyjr1515' timestamp='1420666232' post='2652034'] Haha! I used to manage a quality department, too...never thought of that In that case, it must be just the un-pictured jack-plug panel...very minor. It must mean their quality standards are pretty high even for economy ranges... [/quote] The only thing I could see wrong with mine was a scratch in the lacquer about a centimetre long.

[quote name='Osiris' timestamp='1420727182' post='2652649'] [size=4][font=Calibri]How much does it stretch (if at all) before you shrink it?[/font] [font=Calibri]i.e. can you stretch it over a Neutrik plug or would you need to remove the plug, slide the tubing over the cable and then re-solder the plug back on?[/font] [font=Calibri]How exactly do you shrink it?[/font] [font=Calibri]I've read that you can use a hair dryer but some of the tubes quote a 70 degree centigrade heat required and I don't think many hair dryers would run that hot, would they?[/font][/size] [/quote] If you get it big enough, you could just shrink it onto the plug body. I do this with power connectors - I run a jack-jack with two DC power extensions cable-tied to it from amp to effects and wireless, and as they're different voltages but the same size plug, one DC lead has blue heatshrink on the connectors at each end and the other has red. I use a boiling kettle to shrink it - just hold the switch down or use a non-automatic one. Force of habit from using steam to shrink wine bottle capsules on...

[quote name='gary mac' timestamp='1419256195' post='2638031'] My schaller strap lock had a major fail a few months back and my bass would have certainly hit the floor if I hadn't managed to stop it. [/quote] How did it fail? I've been using them for nearly 30 years and never had a failure. As far as the nuts holding the straplocks to the strap goes, there's a Schaller clone made by Boston which has two nuts per strap end - so the first nut tightens down and the second nut locks it.

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1420627777' post='2651393'] Does look a bit odd. The gig bags aren't air tight are they? the metal parts on the gig bag are as corroded as you'd expect from something sitting round for 62 years and though obviously the bag protects the bass to some extent you'd expect some discolouration of metal parts over that period surely? the knobs, tuners etc look like they just came out of the factory. [/quote] The bag zips aren't heavy duty chromed. Have a look at the unchromed steel woodscrew heads, you can see the discolouration there.

[quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1420402541' post='2649012'] I'm in bands with people who are emotionally stable enough to play a a tune without it causing resentment! I'm not on about playing an entire setlist of songs everyone in the band hates. [/quote] We're hardly scraping for songs. And we're grown up enough that we can say why we don't want to do songs (it's very rarely because anyone actually dislikes the song). It's not as if I'm still in the old club band and playing "Red Red Whine" while smiling through the pain - that would be the wurst option.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1420307954' post='2647918'] IMO, there's no easy solution to this for them. They get slated for not 'moving with the times', but when they do take a faltering step in that direction they get slated for it. [/quote] They don't really commit themselves to it, though. They don't have to stop making Ps and Js to bring out something newer. What they do need to do is show some sort of commitment to doing it. And if people really don't want anything other than Ps and Js from Fender, then maybe they could use one of the myriad other brands that they own to demonstrate that they can innovate.

Consensus. We have an Excel spreadsheet with a list of suggestions on, and each member gives a song green (yes), yellow (maybe), or red (no). Anything with reds by it doesn't go forward. We've been building a set up so out of pragmatism we've put some three-greens in front of some four-greens if they're quicker to learn. Sometimes a song gets mentioned in rehearsal that isn't on the list and if we agree on trying that, it gets added. Slightly haphazard but it works. With the other covers band (now in hibernation), the singer, drummer, and I could suggest a sing that we all really wanted to do until we were blue in the face but the guitarist would then decide, generally on songs that none of us had suggested. We finished up with a reasonable set but there were some songs I'd have loved to play but never did.

Hedgehog's Flatmate

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1420287309' post='2647510'] It's an easy typo and one that auto-correct loves to use. And "dullards"? C'mon, don't start that! [/quote] I should have put a big smiley there really...

Scrape "Fender" or "Squier" [1] off the headstock and put "Walmart" there and you have the business model. Fender has always been about making basses cheaply and in great numbers. The haphazard machining techniques of the 60s and 70s meant that there was a fair amount of variation and you could get a good one or a crap one. As CNC took over the world, tolerances got better and you were guaranteed a mediocre one every time. There was mention of innovation and how Fender had tried and it hadn't worked. They didn't really try. Look at Harley Davidson, the motorcycle equivalent of Fender. sh*te old bikes with engines designed in the 1920s. HD decided to make a determined push forward and came up with a design that was radically different for them (bringing them forwards to at least the 1980s), and then stuck with it despite criticism from the small-minded HD fanbois. 15 years or so on, the V-Rod design is doing well. It's a shame that Fender have taken over brands like Genz Benz and Takamine. I really can't see those takeovers being any good for the products (Takamine) or the derivatives of the products (Genz Benz). Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if Fender, the bloated parasitic organism, died, and left its offspring, Fender CS, Squier in each country independently, Genz Benz, Takamine, and whoever else, to sort themselves out on the world stage. [1] It's not "Squire", no matter how many times you dullards try to spell it like that. You really should have it tattooed in mirror writing on your foreheads.