tauzero

New gadget day. Mentioned recently in a topic about changing batteries, it didn't seem ridiculously expensive and I thought I'd get one and give it a try. It seems it's only available from Thomann at the moment, so I felt obliged to buy something else (an sE V7 microphone, as it happens) to slightly reduce the pain of the £10 shipping. I've very recently bought an OLP Tony Levin, and the battery in it was a non-name brand of indeterminate age which was still able to make the preamp work. I left that battery in so I'd have a reasonable test subject, along with the other basses I have knocking about. First thigs first, I put in a new Procell 9V battery and checked the self-test, which was fine. The first volunteer for testing was an Antoniotsai dragon bass which showed a healthy 9.06V and 404 hours of playing left. Then I went for the Tony Levin, and that was 6.6V and showed LO. The Sei Jazz BC bike was a little under 9V with 240 hours remaining, the Sei Flamboyant 5 was rather lower and only 36 hours remaining. I wanted to try it on a Variax but either the socket is recessed a tiny bit too far or the switching is done by means other than shorting ring and sleeve. That did make me wonder about recessed sockets, so I tried an Ibanez SRF705 which I think has the same recessed socket as all the SR range, and that also didn't work. I need to make up a short stereo jack extension lead to test recessed socket basses, or get a stereo coupler and use a stereo jack-jack lead with at least one straight jack. My one and only 18V bass showed 10.2V, as expected. So it's an effective measuring device but with a minor design flaw. And I've got two basses (at least) to replace batteries on.

A batch recently became available so I ordered one. No sign of it being dispatched, a week after it was supposed to be, and they're showing as unavailable again. I have emailed them but no response yet.

The venue. Forgot to mention, it's an easy load in/out as you can back a car up close to the doors which are just out of picture to the right.

According to the Grauniad, every artist was worthy of five stars. <checks> Tell a lie, Nile Rodgers and Chic got four stars and well-known Enoch Powell fan and Reform supporter Dino Rod only got three.

"For interest I looked up the Trace Elliot 1200. I was very disappointed to see that it is incapable of driving a 2Ω load. In my mind such a capability in a bass amp is almost a necessity!" OK, you were lamenting.

I brought my Barefaced One10 home from That London in the topbox of my Tiger (illustration is of Tiger and topbox, not of the landscape en route): However, the sound quality of any LFSys speaker (judging by my BC 112 which is the distant ancestor of same) is definitely higher than that of the One10.

Did you have to take the dead body out first?

The Behringer app won't install on the most recent Android (15), as I discovered after I bought a new tablet largely for it. There is a new app called MX-Mix but it seems to be an alpha or beta version.

That's the ancient dinosaur rocker? Dino Rod?

Neil Innes: "I've suffered for my music, now it's your turn."

The description: "Increase the speed of your favorite Precision Bass with the P to J Conversion neck." Surely the terminal velocity of a Precision will be almost exactly the same when dropped off the official Relicing Building, regardless of whether a P or a J neck is fitted.

Yesterday morning got a phone call asking if I could dep that evening as their regular bassist had got sunstroke, so I said yes. Got there and found that the drummer was also a dep. Very hot day but we were all prepared with a fan apiece - ironically the drummer's fan was the smallest (the tiny little black thing tucked under his hi-hat). The stage (a real stage!) was next to open doors just by me, so it was bearable. The thugball was on on two large tellies but we carried on anyway to a smallish but appreciative crowd. A slight hiatus when after the break I plugged my wireless dongles back in and was rewarded with silence. I switched bass but that didn't help, I swapped the wireless out for my spare wireless dongles and continued. When I got home, I checked the wireless and it was fine. My conclusion was that I'd managed to swap them over and plug the receiver into the bass. Note to self - look at the big Dyno labels on the dongles saying "Tx" and "Rx". Basses used were Sei Flamboyant 5 fretted and Sei Original 5 fretless, through Lekato WS-90 and then WS-50 wireless dongles and Zoom MS-60B to a Tecamp Puma 900 and GR Bass AT212, and footwear was once more the Caravelle memory foam trainers.

Plus the bottom two pins are insulated to halfway up so when the plug is partially inserted there isn't an exposed bit of live pin (though older plugs don't have this feature).

I had a couple of Grind BXPs, a 5 and a 6. I tried a US Cirrus 5 string and decided I preferred the neck on the Grind. I'm sure the original Cirrus was quite a bit cheaper than the reboot version.

They hang a bit strangely with the neck strap button in the original position as they tilt forwards (assuming the same thing happens as on the Hohner B2). I have seen a picture of one (must have been a Hohner B2 as it was natural finish) with the strap button moved to the shoulder but never managed to find the picture again. You may find more useful information here:

Nice.

There's a collection only one on FB Marketplace in Ashford, Kent at the moment. Price was OK but not the distance.

Generally better than the alternative though.

It's about 20 years since I worked in car insurance software, but back then putting "musician" as your profession (as I did for some test data) would give a rather higher quote than other professions (like, er, "computer programmer").

Well, it is still a current topic. Sorry, couldn't resist.

No, it's just another inaccuracy in the reading. It does mean that if you have two identical preamps, one with a diode protection and the other without, then the one without will continue working while the battery drops a further 0.6V after the one with the diode has died.

I'd rather do it with someone else's skin.

Sire have actually come up with the solution to that themselves.

Most of the basses I take to gigs are irreplaceable. I just try not to treat them like Fenders.

But think of the money, money, money. Damn, beaten to it. SOS - I need an ABBA pun quickly.