tauzero

Ebay do seem to take their time over reports of excessive postal charges...

That's the wonder of Woolworths...

[quote name='The Admiral' post='930518' date='Aug 20 2010, 05:38 AM']See here : You may need to sign in to eBay to read : [url="http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threadID=1200362756&tstart=0&mod=1282138121392"]http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?threa...d=1282138121392[/url][/quote] You may also need to lower your litrucy standuds and be prepared to read stuff written by people WHO CAN'T FIND THE CAPSLOCK KEY.

[quote name='Golchen' post='929067' date='Aug 18 2010, 08:55 PM']Do you have to offer Paypal?[/quote] Yes, it's an ebay condition. If you try and get round that by saying that you won't take Paypal in the description, your auction could be killed by ebay. I always state clearly that collection is available and cash on collection is welcome.

You could always ask on the EBMM forum.

[quote name='flyfisher' post='926921' date='Aug 16 2010, 08:59 PM']Come on, honestly now, how many people on here have not realised when it was time to change a battery?[/quote] That's easy. The trick is to realise it's time to change a battery ten minutes before you start the gig rather than ten minutes after.

[quote name='dood' post='926887' date='Aug 16 2010, 08:43 PM']Actually, I just had a thought - if there is no lead plugged in when you take a reading from the battery terminals - then that will be an unloaded circuit as the ring and shield terminals won't be 'closed' or 'shorted' to complete the circuit. So I guess to get a loaded circuit, you'll need to have a lead or dummy plug inserted as well![/quote] Yes, that's why I said "leave the battery connected, plug a lead in". I suppose I could have been more specific about what lead and where.

I've just been down there. Shutters are up. There's a note in the window saying that instruments in for repair or private sale will be returned after 27th August. There's a letter in the window saying they've gone into administration - accountants are PKF and IIRC the contact name was David Blizard but I haven't made a note of the contact number. Best bet would be to try the Birmingham office on 0121 212 2222. I suppose that means there'll be another auction...

[quote name='BigRedX' post='927209' date='Aug 17 2010, 09:14 AM']I had a friend who had one of these violin basses except it said "Grant" on the headstock. Pretty much the most horrible bass I have ever played.[/quote] I had the opportunity to buy one of those violin basses with "Hofner" on the headstock. At the time, however, I was actually looking at a bass to play, and it was a deeply unpleasant experience playing the wretched thing. If only I'd known then what I know now.

I finally got round to reading the three linked threads today. The first one was, I thought, pretty trivial. Somewhat obnoxious company proprietor, but the worst people posting on there were the EBMM fanbois. On to the second, and a description of poor customer service by one owner who puts in many caveats about knowing that EBMM generally give good customer service and specifying which bits were bad, and also saying what EBMM were doing to make it right and that he was happy with that. I don't see a problem with that, a motorcycle list that I'm on regularly has reports on good or bad service from parts or services suppliers and no-one gets hot under the collar about them. I assume from what has been said that the fanbois piled on and largely got deleted when the thread was closed. The third one was ridiculous. Obnoxious proprietor starts it, fanbois pile in, the original complainant (whose name gets misspelt all over the shop despite being rather obvious in his username) makes a long, reasoned, and reasonable post explaining why he posted to TB, what his issues are, how he doesn't think EBMM are generally bad at customer service, and what EBMM are doing to resolve it. Then it all seems to start gently evaporating until the obnoxious proprietor piles in with an extremely unpleasant final post that lays into the original complainant. Is being a Stingray owner the equivalent of being a BMW/Audi driver?

I use a [url="http://www.sportube.com/pages/skis_multi_pair.php"]Sportube Series 3[/url] (I think, might be a Series 2) for my Ergo. I think the WAV-4 in its soft case would fit in no problem but haven't felt the need to use a hard case to transport that.

I've just had a look at some numbers, and if you use average earnings as the yardstick for the pound's worth, a tenner in 1970 would be £209 today. That's about one and a half SXs IIRC, and there's quite respectable Ibanethethetheth, Peaveys, Yamahas etc for one and half times that.

PS. The plug is a TRS one, it just doesn't look like it in the Sam Ash photo. Check out the [url="http://www.keithmcmillen.com/products/batt-o-meter/"]maker's website[/url] where its TRSishness is visible in the gallery (I suspect it's deliberately shaped that way to avoid the plug tip contacting the signal contact on the socket). There's also some extra information in the FAQ - looks like it will sort of do 18V but its maximum reading is 10.23V (if only they'd extended it to 20.47V).

[quote name='dood' post='926408' date='Aug 16 2010, 01:27 PM']The better option is to buy one of those cheap battery testers from maplin, physically remove the battery from the active circuit and test it stand alone, certainly not whilst it is connected to another circuit. daft daft daft . com! [/quote] No, the better option is to buy cheap battery tester/reasonable multimeter (look on it as an investment), leave the battery connected, plug a lead in, and then check the battery voltage. The voltage on an unloaded battery will be higher than a loaded one, sometimes by a large margin (depends on the current draw of the circuit).

I'm another one who benefitted from his advice on websites, both for the bands and for some company websites I've done. I met him at the Northampton bass bash and was hoping to meet him again some time. RIP Si.

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='924948' date='Aug 14 2010, 03:34 PM']For myself, I'd consider a bass player 'awful' if they suddenly broke into a contrived, shuffling dance-step, concluded with a little wave to the audience.[/quote] You bastard. I'd been practising that for ages.

[quote name='Stag' post='920018' date='Aug 9 2010, 08:28 PM']What would you, wonderful BassChatters, do? Have you been in a similar position where you have seen "The One" and sold your basses / amps / kidneys / eyes to pay for it?[/quote] Yes. I first encountered a JD Thumb back in 1987, and immediately decided I had to have it. Traded in my Precision (the second-best Precision I've played), my Burns Bison, and a Kramer that our singer had and wanted rid of (yes, I did pay him for it) and still needed a loan for 50% of the price. It was worth it.

[quote name='Philboyo' post='924002' date='Aug 13 2010, 03:17 PM']I say this with a great sadness in my heart as no one likes to see businesses fail in these trying times. I also say this with a great anger too as they owe me £250...[/quote] How did you pay them the £250? If it was credit card, you should be able to reclaim it if they've gone titsup.

They were going a couple of weeks ago when I last went there. Will try and remember to drop down there next week, they're only a mile down the road from me.

If you're PAYE and want to declare expenditure and earnings, can you just do the music expenditure and earnings and rely on HMRC to tie the two together or do you need to declare both? And I'm still not clear as to whether (if I'm running at a loss) that would result in a rebate.

I ran my 500W Superfly uncased with no problems, though it was always a bit warm to pick up after a gig. I now have the 1000W version (which has a fan on the top panel) and it gets luke-warm at the best. [quote name='lemmywinks' post='919685' date='Aug 9 2010, 02:52 PM']I wonder if anyone has tried hooking up a USB fan to the square port on the back (assuming it provides power)? Hmmm, might have a go at that tonight....[/quote] It's the wrong end of the USB lead to provide power. As the MIDI port is an IN port, that also doesn't have 5V available on it.

Horrible neck though.

Two gigs, one on Saturday, one on Tuesday, but it's been a bit hectic (you'll see why): [b]Open mic night, Highbury, Birmingham[/b] A friend of mine used to run an open mic night at the Roadhouse in Birmingham - in fact, that's where I met him, and where Mrs Zero started singing. He packed it in a couple of years ago but the bug stayed with him, and he's been running another unplugged singers' evening. He did a plugged open mic on Saturday, and Mrs Zero and I attended. I got cast in my old role of house bassist and finished up playing with various people, all of whom were familiar from the Roadhouse days. I shall be reprising the role at one of the performer's party this coming Saturday (looking at the weather forecast, that could be in his massive conservatory). [b]Wedding, Solihull[/b] The first gig for me with The Lightning - and it wasn't any old wedding, it was Sub Zero, my stepdaughter's wedding. The audience were mainly Sub Zero's age group, early twenties, plus a smattering of fortytofiftysomethings and a small number of eightysomethings (my parents, who were seeing me perform for the first time ever, and Mrs Zero's mum). So it was quite interesting for a band who only know (badly) one number from the current millennium to play to large quantities of goths. It was rather hot inside the room and the audience was largely composed of smokers, so the audience in the room was pretty small for the first set, but after the break Mrs Zero and new son-in-law Zero Offset rounded them up and herded them in. I was glad we'd chucked Mustang Sally into the set at the last minute, Mrs Zero got them dancing to that. We'll be gigging at one of their favourite pubs in September so I expect the place to be rammed from the compliments we got afterwards. Plus it looks like we'll have a fair selection of good photos for the band web page, as the photographer is a friend of Sub Zero's (and also a musician, as it happens) and took lots of photos of us.

[quote name='Geek99' post='912480' date='Aug 2 2010, 08:23 AM']Newbie question alert ... Does using Di out defeat the speakers ?[/quote] No, but unplugging them would. There's a mixer that you could use to run off the DI in the For Sale section [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=97506"]here.[/url]