tauzero

[quote name='thedarxide' post='174601' date='Apr 11 2008, 03:07 PM']It's gone, but I just want to have a rant about postage charges since I've bought 10 basses in the past few weeks. I know it's postage *and packing*, but ParcelForce 48 (the cheapest) is like £9.99. Hell, next day by noon is only £13.99. What the hell is he spending the other £15 on?[/quote] How much do you think a bass in a hard case weighs? I took an educated guess at 12kg and it's £17 PF48, £21 PF24. Add wrapping it, wrapping paper, the cost of taking it to the post office, and a few bob for his time. From what he says in the auction, he'd be amenable to other arrangements anyway.

Dammit, went ten minutes ago. I could definitely have been tempted at that price.

[quote name='matty589' post='174501' date='Apr 11 2008, 01:10 PM']I recently read a Jonas Hellborg interview in Bass Player where he was talking about his signature bass and amp. He said that onboard eq never works because it runs on 9 or 18v batteries - nowhere near powerful enough to provide the headroom and frequency response of a good mains-powered eq.[/quote] I really don't understand that. If you're using a 9V supply then theoretically you could put out around 8V peak-to-peak which is well above what a live level input is, let alone an average pickup output. And what has voltage to do with frequency response? It sounds like utter bollocks but of course I could be wrong.

[quote name='TheRev' post='174208' date='Apr 10 2008, 10:49 PM']My Aria's got the same thing - a button on the heel and another roughly behind the bridge so if you were that way inclined you could strap it on and play it like a bass guitar. Feck knows why you'd want to though.[/quote] My BSX had a rather odd bit of shaping on the G string side - the only logical reason I could see for it was if you played it like a bass with it sat on your lap (it was a 34" scale). [attachment=7515:BSX_1.jpg]

[quote name='Maxcat' post='174024' date='Apr 10 2008, 05:10 PM']absolute disaster.Stagg turned up at 1030. Feverish unpacking followed by loads of wows. Then reality dawns. Its only got a chip out of the laminate just below the fingerboard that can be seen clear across the room. After major examination there are numerous dinks and dents in the neck, by the neck bolts and in the string housing. However there was also an inch crack in the laminate leading from the neck join to one of the neck bolts.[/quote] Hah! You have a woman's absolute disaster. [attachment=7513:palatino002.jpg] [attachment=7514:palatino001.jpg] My first Palatino on arrival...

Most of mine are active. I don't actually tend to use the tone controls on the basses much - in fact, one annoyance about the fretless Warwick is that the centre detente on the stacked tone pots is dead, so I have to find midpoint by wiggling and guessing (well, don't we all?). However, the twin-neck BatBass is passive and if it seems a reasonable instrument I shall activate it, as there's only one thing worse than the volume/dullness controls on the Precision, and that's two volume/dullness controls, one for each pickup, on a twin pickup bass. Sorry, quad pickup bass. I did actually activate my Precision a couple of decades ago (delicately butchering the scratchplate and making a Jazz-like control plate out of brass - looked great when it was polished, which it seemed to need every two hours). I repassived it later though. Can't remember why. Mind you, all my experiments with the Precision taught me that actually basses all sound the same. DiMarzio pickups, active circuit - I couldn't tell any difference. And with brand new strings and the treble on the amp turned up full, a Precision sounds just the same as a Warwick with five year old strings.

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='174234' date='Apr 10 2008, 11:27 PM']Yes the HD broadcast was in 5.1 and no I could not see Alison Goldrapp's nickers.[/quote] Were you looking at her ankles?

[quote name='gafbass02' post='173540' date='Apr 9 2008, 11:35 PM']Cool. Bob did backing vocals on my old bands album (Doublecross: time after time)[/quote] I may well be seeing him tomorrow night, he's a fairly regular visitor to the pub in Tamworth that I mostly use. Although he's so small, you actually tell where he is by the fact there's a gap in the visible people...

[quote name='BassManKev' post='173916' date='Apr 10 2008, 01:53 PM']they are all uploaded onto photobucket, which can resize pics, so il probably do that when i have the time[/quote] That's not quite what I meant... If you load them into a photo editor or viewer with a save facility on your PC, then save them, the file sizes will shrink, probably quite dramatically. That will reduce download (and upload) times immensely.

[quote name='BassInMyFace' post='172365' date='Apr 8 2008, 04:06 PM']currently im based in Brum after leaving uni last year, im sticking around whilst im playing with an indie/electro band called Prospect Lane who are doing pretty well right now.[/quote] Well, there's a coincidence. It's not named after a road in Solihull is it?

[quote name='Paul Cooke' post='173870' date='Apr 10 2008, 01:10 PM']Canned Heat - On The Road Again oh dear... it has three notes... monotonous pedalled open E and a G & A thrown in every now and again...[/quote] The same as all their other songs, in fact.

[quote name='BassManKev' post='173853' date='Apr 10 2008, 12:44 PM']ye sorry about picture size! we all have broadband though surely [/quote] Load the pics into something like Irfanview and then save them and they'll be the same size image but smaller files. Even better, resize them in Irfanview too so they're shown at actual size.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='173191' date='Apr 9 2008, 03:10 PM']I'd still like to know if capacitors failing gives these symptoms.[/quote] I have a Laney DP150 combo that started distorting somewhat - rather scrapey sort of noise. Over headphones, it sounded fine. I was worried about a failing speaker driver but somehow (can't remember how) worked out it was the amp. Replaced the power supply capacitors (summat like 22000 uF) and that solved the problem.

[quote name='Boy Thunder' post='172903' date='Apr 9 2008, 10:21 AM']Thanks to those that answered the question and from my reply it is obvious that I still didn't get the gist of this issue... However at least I know what I can do and what it will mean...[/quote] To summarise why series and parallel wiring act as they do (and using the specific case of two identical resistances): In series, the electrons have to push their way first through one resistance, then through another. Therefore the resistances add up. In parallel, the electrons have a choice of resistances to go through. If you've got two equal resistances, half the electrons are going through one and the other half through the other, so it's easier for them to go through - in fact it's twice as easy, so the overall resistance is half of the individual resistances. If you're rewiring your speaker in series, you will have to pay attention to phase. As current passes through a speaker, it either pushes the cone out or pulls it back, depending on the current direction. You don't want one to be going out while the other is moving in, as the combination will cancel out all the hard work each individual speaker is doing. Normally, terminals will be marked - if they're identical speakers, it doesn't really matter if they're marked or not as the terminals will correspond. You want the current to run from the socket to terminal 1 on the first speaker, from there it will emerge at terminal 2, and this should then be connected to terminal 1 on the second speaker. Terminal 2 on the second speaker then goes to the socket. Note that anything marked "Terminal 5" will disappear and never be seen again. Ask Naomi Campbell.

[quote name='benwhiteuk' post='173740' date='Apr 10 2008, 10:35 AM']Yeah I see what you're saying. I wasn’t really having a dig, just trying to make the point that a 1mb pic isn’t that large and is increasingly becoming the norm.[/quote] It still takes time to download. And one point is that if you take the photo, load it into something like Irfanview and then save it again, at exactly the same resolution, it will be considerably smaller.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='172378' date='Apr 8 2008, 04:13 PM']I can see your predicament and I sympathise. I appreciate that on this forum many (most?) members look to me for guidance. Just for you Cantdosleepy here is a list of approved artists that you can listen to without fear of upsetting me. There are more, but these should see you through a few cold and lonely nights: ... And here are some things that you definitley can't listen to: ... Cream ... I've kept the second list short to prove I'm not a negative person.[/quote] I'm pretty much with you except for Cream, who did some jolly good music. Not all of it, some of it (like "Sunshine of your love") hasn't worn terribly well. I would add: Approved list - R&B Reject list - r&b and I think it's terribly selfish of the young generation to appropriate a term used for Real Music and apply it to bland warbley sh*te. Get your own bloody terms, feckless lazy ignorant youth of today, and leave ours for us to apply to Proper Musicians. Oh, and Approved list - Queen (early and late) Reject list - Queen (middle)

[quote name='BigRedX' post='172444' date='Apr 8 2008, 05:30 PM']For me the "mwah" sound is directly linked to the sliding between notes. Without having had the luxury of playing a bass with this system fitted I can't see how this is really going to work... All the twin-neck fretted and fretless basses I've seen recently seem to have the fretless neck as the lower of the two, which to my way of thinking and playing is the wrong way around. You could only swap them if both necks were the same and on these they weren't.[/quote] The "mwah" appears to be the buzz of the string against the fretboard - hence no mwah even with sliding between notes on a double bass with fairly high action, and a more intense mwah as the action is lowered. It appears that this system isn't a perfect mimic of a fretless - comments are generally that it's different and one or two people liken it to a sitar. Fretted over fretless makes sense to me if playing any slap on the fretted bass. Of course, with two fretted necks, I have the option of which to defret.

[quote name='BigBeefChief' post='172966' date='Apr 9 2008, 11:26 AM']So who else here can claim to have faced down a razorblade weilding serial killer?[/quote] Anyone, obviously. Whether it's true or not is another question, but anyone can [i]claim[/i] to.

[quote name='pete.young' post='172922' date='Apr 9 2008, 10:42 AM']If the live show was anything to go by, you might want to wait until next week! That was the worst line-up I've ever seen on Later, even worse than last weeks. I wouldn't want to listen to it more than once. Bring back Estelle![/quote] I quite enjoyed Natty, which surprised me. Generally leaden, dull and ponderous though. I think I'll revert to not watching Jools, it seems destined to sit looking forlornly at the bar that OGWT put up and never even try to attain it. Did anyone else notice that from certain angles, Ms Goldfrapp looked as if her knickers had fallen down?

[quote name='bassjamm' post='172846' date='Apr 9 2008, 08:53 AM']One thing that can be done to counteract the scale length on the B string is to re-arrange the tuning pegs so that the B string has the peg furthest away from the neck, that obviously depends on headstock deisgn a lot, but i've seen this done before in order to increase B string tension on shorter scale basses!!![/quote] As other have said, that won't affect the tension directly - regardless of the overall length of the string, it'll need to be under 25lbs or so of tension (for a .130) to tune to a low B. The only difference it might make is that it would take marginally less effort to fret a string which is longer overall, as the displacement would be a smaller proportion of the overall stretchable length of the string. That might make a noticeable difference with a high action (although "noticeable" might be one of those things like the difference in sound between using $50000 speaker cables and a bit of mains lead), but I suspect it'll be a difference in theory only.

I actually found BC because I was googling something that was on ebay for information and found a for sale advert on BC featuring the same product (but not the same actual item), so the classifieds do have a role to play in attracting new members. Not everyone is aware of forum etiquette (I'm pretty much a newbie to forums, despite 15 or so years on email lists and newsgroups) and not every forum has a meet and greet subforum. And some people (like me) are a bit shy about actually introducing themselves. So it's not necessarily about decency, it's about knowing local custom. I think the best idea would be a follow-up post to unintroduced sellers asking them to post in introductions.

[quote name='thedarxide' post='172311' date='Apr 8 2008, 03:16 PM']What does the selector do on yours? I assume it's for the outputs, rather than a neck/bridge pickup selector?[/quote] Swaps between the necks. Centre position is both necks on, which I suspect I will not find a use for...

[quote name='thedarxide' post='172261' date='Apr 8 2008, 02:37 PM'][quote name='tauzero' post='172223' date='Apr 8 2008, 01:57 PM'] You'll be pleased to find out that the twin-neck is identical to the Artecs twin-neck I got for £70 (except that I have a fretted 4-string neck, but that means I have MORE BATS!!!)[/quote] I think I've seen one of those on eBay, but I didn't see the point unless you use altered tunings.[/quote] I've got some pincers, and I'm gonna use 'em... If it turns out to be a good player when I've got it set up, I shall be looking at an Artec active circuit to replace the dual VT setup.

[quote name='jjl5590' post='171116' date='Apr 7 2008, 02:10 AM']Any other amp/cab suggestions welcome, but please don't continually bring up brands like Mark Bass, Trace Elliot, Eden Nemesis etc because they are too expensive![/quote] BFM Omni 10?

I use an elderly Nady system (I've got a 101 and a 201, in fact). Couldn't notice much difference in tone A/Bing them with decent leads, and they're 173MHz, so they're in the license-free band. Obsolete but cheap if they ever come up on SOS or ebay. Power supply lead breaks at the jack plug, put a replacement jack plug on (with correct polarity!) and you're off for another 20 years...