Bigwan

All true...

Just showed that pic to the wife and all she could see was all the wiring. Must tidy it up...

Ashdown didn't help their cause by writing a rating of 100w on some of these - mine was 100w, 4 ohm, but they are 300w. They're a nice cab. WAY heavier than advertised, but great vintage tones out of them. 20 was the number I had heard. If it starts to sound like it's struggling then turn it down.

AD5144ABRUZ100 I think it is (phone autopredicted that so assume it's right!). I hadn't given the current handling much thought to be honest, but for the initial project I think the 5 odd volt limit should be fine - it definitely won't work for every pedal for that very reason. I got lucky in that the Guma Antique I plan on grafting this to uses 4 100k pots, 2 lin, 1log, 1 inverse log. These chips are +/- 20% tolerance, again I'm going from memory as it's been a few weeks since I selected them and haven't looked at anything other than the i2c section of the dataset and the pinout since, but if they are that's same as the ubiquitous 16mm Alpha pot that seems to be used in most every analogue pedal nowadays.

That's great news. Keep us posted!

Somewhere between £320 and £350 would be my guess, but we'll see.

See my post above regarding the real terms price disparity of the Q-strip... Maybe it's a special case along with the amps - although I think the amp pricing basically says "we don't want to sell these outside the US".

Unlikely...

That was my first thought too... I would have thought for their first foray into the world of bass there would have been a balls out, fire breathing, all valve, loss leading, monster of a head with a ridiculously large cab, just as a statement of intent. This may be more practical, but it's a bit... safe...

So did I, hence why I set about doing this. I wanted to learn a bit more about coding with Arduinos/microprocessors too, so killed 2 birds with one stone, so to speak.

Initial thoughts... Darkglass Vintage Microtubes clone... with presets... But it should work with lots of pedal designs. It is restricted by the voltage the digital pot IC can handle and the configuration of the pots required. This one has 4 100k ohm linear pots (linear, log and reverse log responses can all be handled in software though). But a mixture of resistances would need more ICs which would get difficult pretty quickly. More of the same resistances should be easy as you can chain ICs together. Available values are restricted too - 10k and 100k seem the most popular, although you can get 200k and 1M just not in this device type as far as I'm aware.

I bought an Afterburner 4 just before Christmas to fend off D-Bird GAS... Seeing these pics... It hasn't worked....

Current project on breadboard. Not so much an effect per se, at least not yet... but certainly related! Arduino Micro controlling 0.96" 124x64 OLED display, quad digital pot chip and 4 status LEDs. Inputs from single rotary encoder (with push switch) and 2 momentary footswitches. Foot switches are notionally for bypass and selection of presets. LEDs for bypass state and current/next preset indication. OLED display for preset indication and menu structure for modifying and saving presets to Arduino EEPROM using rotary encoder for navigation. All sorts of possibilities with this!

Ha! Missed the Parkside logo before or i would have known! Don't often be in Lidl, but I'll get my folks to keep an eye out for ext time they're in stock.

I don't usually go in for natural Fender-type basses, but that looks wonderful! Health to enjoy! On a related note, may I ask where you found the soldering iron stand with the magnifier and solder reel holder? Want!

"Doing up" your current bass will not typically increase its value should you come to sell it (unless you remove the upgrades and sell separately), despite what some folks around here seem to think If you found an Ibanez at the right price I'd go for that instead if I were you...

I don't accept that at all, and neither should anyone else. The Q-strip is £143 more expensive here than in the states. Let that sink in for a minute because 250 and 320 look pretty close until you actually do the conversion. £143...

Both of those are interesting but you can straight convert those prices to £ and add a bit. Take the Tech 21 q-strip as an example - $250 on Sweetwater in the USA. £320 in the UK. Won't buy any new Tech 21 products while that's the case, and US outlets aren't permitted to ship to the UK.

Having just had a nosey at the aforementioned schematics, there is a valve section AFTER the effects return and DI output (just before the signal is sent to power amp) so you might want to try swapping valves before you go further.

Well there's obviously mains voltage in there that would have to be exposed to properly diagnose any issue so safer taking it to someone qualified. But it could be something relatively minor (he says setting himself up for a fall!).

I know early OTB500s suffered from an issue with capacitors becoming unseated on the power supply board which might be related, but it really could be any number of things. A single dodgy resistor would cause this and that's a 2p component! You mention that the problem persists when you plug into the effects return, but is it present on the effects send too? Maybe try a line out to something else. What about the DI out? All this info could help diagnose the issue. But yes, if you don't know one end of a soldering iron from another or don't know what an oscilloscope is, take it to a professional. By the way, if you (or anybody else) has need of the schematics for the Orange Terror 500 I have them.

Just been reading Julian Pohler's blog post on bassic.de. He's working on the new version of the Growling Krizzly. Given his recent run of form there'll likely be a CNC milled enclosure if he releases it as a kit (features: BB footprint, screwed-in potentiometers, top mount sockets, adjustable Contour + Freq switch (500 / 800Hz), adjustable presence, + 15dB boost for the jack-out, permanently active DI - see it here: https://www.bassic.de/threads/lazarus-bastel-blog.14857964/page-26 ). I'd be interested in building one of these myself!

I've just started browsing for pickups for my future PJ build... These sound pretty close to perfect for me. Thanks for taking the time to jot down your thoughts @Raslee!

The Le Bass will also work off 9v as I found out when I bought mine (used) and it came with an 18v supply... I suspect it's not sounding its best at 9v, but it still sounds killer. Alas GAS for a helix has me in its grip so mine may also be going up for sale soon...