Ed_S

Just a quick report back which may be of benefit to anybody else who is less than inspired by the stock preamp in their 2010 USA Deluxe Precision. I went with TRBboy's recommendation above, stripped the original preamp out yesterday and fitted a Glockenklang 2-band model, so having played it for a reasonable time today, thought I'd briefly share my thoughts. My biggest worry was that the thing wouldn't physically fit, but it went cleanly into the route with no modification necessary. The only thing I would say is that the pot shafts, washers and nuts are smaller on the Glock than on the Fender, so if you're keeping the original pickguard like I did, be prepared to either find some larger diameter washers with the correct size hole, or to cheat and put the Fender washers back on first to get the diameter down before putting the Glock stuff in over the top. I went with the latter and it feels perfectly solid. The soldering job I guess you either fancy or you don't, but if you do then rest assured it's not massively awkward. I finished the job off with a set of black dome-top Schaller knobs for a more understated look than the original flat-top chromes. The only hang-over from the original config is the toggle switch hole which I contemplated putting a dummy switch into, but eventually went with a bit of PVC tape until I can find an appropriate stopper. And the important bit... for the first time since I bought it, my Deluxe P actually sounds like it's worth the money I paid for it, rather than feeling and playing right but only sounding 'good'. It's an incredibly transparent preamp that's gone in there, but it's so clearly a better quality sound than the stock unit provided, and as such has brought out a much more refined tone from the stock pickups than was ever possible before. Well worth the bit of extra cash to properly finish off an otherwise very nice instrument.

Alternatively, if you find that your settings on the BDDI are causing problems with tuning speed or accuracy from the amp's tuner-out, then put your tuner on the parallel-out of the BDDI itself, because that's as good as putting the tuner first, but it's not actually in the signal chain to your amp.

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1331146397' post='1568524'] I'd kinda hoped that it'd be like an Promethean P110 but without the 'bells and whistles' and reduced power output. The only other one that matched my criteria was the AER, but at £1000+ it's gonna have to wait for quite a while... [/quote] Never used a Promethean, but I'd expect it to be better than the Line6 if only because it has a native tone; it is what it is rather than trying to be five things it isn't!

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1331140078' post='1568375'] I was quite upset actually. I'd half set my mind on getting one of those little Studio 110's for acoustic gigs and studio sessions but the HD750 episode soured it. [/quote] You didn't miss much! I used a Studio 110 for small acoustic gigs for a while when they first came out and actually managed to persuade myself that it sounded alright just because it was reasonably built, fairly loud and had some useful features packed into a smallish space. I soon came to the realisation that I was merrily fooling myself and it actually sounded mediocre at best. It wasn't a bad practice amp for home use but lacked any clarity of tone for live work when cranked, and I certainly wouldn't have recorded with it. It's currently sat in the corner of my lass' living room for her to plonk through when the mood takes her!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1331121770' post='1567908'] This might be the case... I hear he's more of a Behringer guy [/quote] Heh, I suppose you're right... Line 6 works on magic, but only Behringer requires true faith

Are you sure that wasn't the disapproval of the LORD at your playing[i] a Line 6[/i] in his house?

[quote name='Gwilym' timestamp='1330678737' post='1561298'] buy what sounds good, don't think a set ratio of monetary value needs to be / should be the yardstick [/quote] Totally. If your cab is well built, a suitable size and weight for you to move and giving you the sound you want to hear, that's all you should need to worry about. It also kinda depends what you call an amp; my new main setup is a rack that cost a fair bit to put together and I'm [i]more than happy [/i]to 'slum it' with a Super Twelve worth maybe only 40% of that figure.

Something like the Yamaha [url="http://www.gak.co.uk/en/yamaha-stagepas-300/7920"]STAGEPAS 300[/url] would probably be a good system for that sort of application.

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' timestamp='1330523852' post='1558803'] Ha ha - I did exactly that too and on Elixir's Strings Direct were cheaper than Stringbusters who I normally use. [/quote] I[s]'m cheap [/s] have inexpensive tastes! Nice basic Rotosound and D'addario plain steels were a good couple of quid cheaper t'other way round

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1330512712' post='1558509'] I don't know why but I went to Stringbusters (my usual), not Strings Direct. So I bought some strings with no discount in the end. [/quote] When I priced up my order for the same thing from Strings Direct with the 10% discount and then Stringbusters (my usual, too) with no discount, Stringbusters still came out substantially cheaper.

[quote name='Jack Cahalane' timestamp='1330394161' post='1556867'] once the drummer counts you in it's like an out of body experience for a few seconds where you're just watching yourself play. [/quote] heh, yeah, that's quite a good way of describing it! Just watch out for the bit where you land 'back in the room' and realise that yes, you are doing it and yes, it is going ok... that's usually when you balls it up On that subject, don't mentally kick yourself for any mistakes - chances are it's going to happen so just recover it as quickly as you can, smile and go on. The temptation is to either start thinking over the mistake (especially if you've fluffed a tricky bit that happens again later in the song) or just start over-thinking in general, both of which will pretty much guarantee another mistake!

In a metal band, literally anything goes. Our singer is Hindu, and turned up at one gig having just been doing some dance or other in the temple. She couldn't be arsed to get changed so went on stage in the full bright orange traditional Indian dance garb with the face paint and henna and strings of bells on her wrists and ankles. Everybody just seemed to mentally go "yeah... different but alright.." and the show went down just great.

[quote name='bigjohn' timestamp='1330355787' post='1556082'] The function of that box is allow you to connect speakers or arrays of speakers into amps with different impedances without causing damage isn't it? [/quote] Yeah, appears to be just a matching transformer, so will turn 8 to 4 or vice versa for whatever reason you like. I was more replying to the OP than commenting on your setup, though. Sorry for the confusion - I should have quoted!

Maybe something like [url="http://www.glockenklang.de/en/products/bass_systems/impedance-transformer.htm"]this[/url] would do what you want? Don't know what effect it'd have in practical terms or how much it'd cost to try, but I saw it when I was reading up on onboard pre-amps the other day, so thought I'd mention it.

Our ex-ex-drummer told us that he was leaving the band because he was moving out of the city to live with his lass, which was fair enough so we wished him all the best and waved him off. And then got an email a couple of weeks later... "I had a dream last night, and think it might just work... if you guys pay for my petrol I could drive back and still come to rehearsals. I probably couldn't do gigs, though. Let me know what you think!" Needless to say we messaged back to say we had dreams of our own, and they included the ability to do more than rehearse.

The basses I like the look and sound of as 5s tend to be too heavy or ergonomically awkward for my dodgy shoulder, and the basses that I find ergonomically suitable tend to either look or sound wrong as 5s. So I vote for 4s on 'other' grounds.

[quote name='pantherairsoft' timestamp='1329936151' post='1550079'] A splitter 'might' work, though I have no idea how it would cope with large amounts of power and would not image that each side would receive exactly half power so they may be imbalanced. You really need to be running in Stereo. [/quote] The splitter box in the OP's link is rated to 30A continuous (same as a basic NL2FC speakon) so I wouldn't have thought there'd be any need to worry about the power issue. What makes you doubt that a passive Y-splitter hooked up with suitable cables would deliver the same juice to each one of a pair of identical cabs?

Yeah, be comfortable first and foremost. I have neck and shoulder issues so sympathise completely, but for me it's less about weight (though it is still a factor) than it is ergonomics; the Warlock 5 that I used to play looked great and forced me into some very 'metal' poses, but it hurt like hell so it had to go! Was a sad day, but better than living on Diclofenac.

I bought a Crown XLS1500 Drivecore a few weeks ago and am using it bridged into a Barefaced Super 12 - so far it's all looking very positive, not to mention sounding quite ridiculously loud. I bought the 1500 rather than the 1000 because there's a chance I might want to use it for PA duties at some point so wanted the extra power more than the few quid left over, but as long as you use your ears and be careful not to push your cabs too hard, who cares if it's 1500W or 15kW?! As for the speakon Y-splitter box, it looks like it'd do the job just fine. Alternatively you could use two leads with speakons at the cab end and bare wire at the amp... binding posts maybe aren't that fashionable, but they still work

Well, you learn something new every day - I didn't even know those flush versions existed! Sorry for the unintentional half-a-story

[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1329824903' post='1547860'] My old man once said to me that when Gibson launched the Explorer and Flying V nobody bought into them because they were aesthetically unpleasing and too radical. My dad actually bought a Flying V and was laughed at for a while. But, they did eventually evolve into appeal and fashion and still selling after all these years. [/quote] Shame the Moderne didn't survive, though...

Nah, it shouldn't cause you any problem - it's just a flat-backed strap button (about the same size and shape as a normal non-locking one) held in with a normal screw. In fact the screws tend to be so much-of-a-muchness that I've used the original screws that come with the bass to secure the locking buttons in the past to save packing the hole. Glad to be of service

Simple as unscrewing one style of strap button, maybe packing the hole with a matchstick if it's started to feel loose at all or the new screw is smaller, then screwing in the other style. 5 mins work if you take your time.

[quote name='TRBboy' timestamp='1329696626' post='1546204'] I can highly recommend the Glockenklang systems. You could have a vol, blend, treb, bass setup. The vol ppt is push/pull true passive bypass, and in passive mode the treble pot acts as a passive tone control. Don't know what you would do with the mini toggle hole....... wire in an LED? Install a dummy switch? [/quote] Cheers for the suggestion! I'd sortof glossed over those on the Thomann website because their description had lost clarity going from German to English and suggested they were all stacked pots. But yeah, on closer inspection that 2-band looks a reasonable system for £120ish. Next bit of research will have to be the depth of the controls Vs the depth of the control cavity. And, of course, what I'd do with that mini toggle...

I'm fast approaching the conclusion that what I should probably do is replace the pickups with EMGs and the preamp with a BTS System, but it seems such a shame given that there's nothing wrong with the pickups... I notice that the BTS control is supposed to work with passive pickups - anybody got any experience of that kind of setup?