JPJ

Hey WoT, Keep an eye on the crowd on Sunday, 'cause if it stays dry I'll make the effort and get down there with the family, especially sayings as I've missed you the last twice you've been at the George! We will of course wave.......

Alreet indeed bonny lad, Wallsend eh? My home town, born and bred just off Station Road opposite the Forum. Welcome aboard the goodship basschat! [quote name='sub6' post='30419' date='Jul 11 2007, 08:12 PM']I live in Newcastle upon tyne, or if you are familiar with the area, Wallsend which is closer to the coast.[/quote]

Alex, I can only describe the room as being dead because when you fire off a note, it travels across the room but the decay is almost audible. Even the cymbals sound muffled and the kick drum doesn't 'kick' if you know what I mean. You have to work really hard to get a mix you'll be even 80% happy with. The room is glass on three sides, with a low'ish ceiling and a carpetted floor. The windows have really heavy tapestry style drapes/curtains. Lots of damping that even beats the mackie drive rack pink noise generator automatic setup thing, which after about five mins of trying, gives up with an error code which doesn't even feature in the manual!

Apparently, the landlord had a problem with a resident on the other side of the metro tracks complaining about the noise! As a result, the 'conservatory' is triple glazed with four layers of insulation in the roof under those acoustic tiles. What with those heavy curtains and the carpet, its about the dead'est room I have ever played in, absolutely no natural reverb at all! [quote name='warwickhunt' post='30333' date='Jul 11 2007, 04:19 PM']TRUE... absobloodylutely, I believe I had that room in mind when I typed that. First time we played there, I glanced around and thought the sound would be fine. How wrong could I be! Not the biggest room in the world by far but I hadn't realised that it was essentially a carpeted conservatory. The singer swore never to go back as the sound was abysmal.[/quote]

My '96 Jazz V DLX has five in a row, were Gotohs but I've changed them for schaller ultralites to reduce the shoulder strain on long gigs. On my self-built P V Hamm mutant thing, I have Wilkinson elephant ears in a four over one arrangement. Despite the added weight of the elephant ears, the P actually balances better on a strap, no uplift from the left hand required. I put this down to the moment of the 'G' tuner being nearer to the fulcrum (failed engineer speak).

I once turned up at a pub, got there before the rest of the band I was depping with, loaded in my gear, only to find that I was a day early when the band that were booked to play that night turned up to find me all setup stage right.....

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='29310' date='Jul 9 2007, 08:20 PM']Occasionally you get the room from hell that no amount of positioning is gonna help and in those circumstances I go back to square one with EQ (everything flat with filters etc off) regardless of my 'normal' settings.[/quote] Room from hell eh, I guess you've played Sleepers @ Boldon then?

[quote name='alexclaber' post='29676' date='Jul 10 2007, 12:00 PM']I know I keep banging on about this but it really matters. If you place your bass cab the wrong distance from the walls or floor you will make getting a good tone impossible. Here's a great excerpt about this: "Boundary Cancellation throws another wrench into the cogs. If the bass cab is not in a corner, there will be a notch in the frequency response that is related to the distance from the cab to the wall: 2 feet will notch at ~140Hz 2.5' at ~112Hz 3' at ~95 Hz 3.5' at ~ 80Hz 4' at ~ 70Hz 5' at ~ 57Hz 6' at ~ 47Hz 7' at ~ 40Hz 8' at ~ 35Hz So, no matter where you put the bass cab, try to place it within 2 feet of a room boundary (wall, floor, ceiling), or at least 8 feet from a boundary." This isn't just techy geeky theory - it matters in the real world! Alex[/quote] Alex, Sorry for the merciless edit but your quote above is well worth saving for posterity. In fact, a copy has been added to my gig bag along with a tape measure ready for the next time I encounter dead stage syndrome. Thanks mate!

A shop will tell you that my SWR750x is happy to run down to two ohms and will give you 850w if you elect to go down this route. A quick read of the excellent SWR manual will tell you that yes the amp will run at 2 ohms and yes it will give you 850w BUT at the risk of higher heat loads and premature component failure (they dont specify what is premature). Hence low impedence and high volume = long term unreliability.

Two basses amp cabs gig case containing three instrument leads four speaker leads two mains leads two DI leads tuner compressor (Aphex) Exciter (Aphex) strap x 2 spare fuses toolkit containing screw drivers, pliers, cable stripper, spanner, soldering iron, solder, allen keys set list (when given) pen & paper Mini-torch The wife (just so as I don't enjoy myself too much!) Oh and i forgot to mention my life saving RCD breaker thing, if you aint got one, get one, it might just save your life one day

I've owned both the Redhead and the Black Beauty. The redhead is a versatile combo, but as somebody mentioned, the PAS drivers dont last very long if you really crank it. I used mine with a 1x15 extension cab and it was a smooth sounding setup though in truth it was more suited to blues or jazz or pop than all out rock. I changed to the Black Beauty as I liked the idea of going to a 2x15 setup. The BB is much more rock-centric but suprisingly sounded decidedly dull with a 1x15 extension. I ended up running mine with a 2x10 cab so pretty much ended up back where I started! However, the BB is a bit more powerful (350w @ 4ohm, 400 @ 2.8 and 450 @2) and it sounds it to my ears. However, I have since moved on to a 750x head, simply because if you like the SWR sound (and I do) you just want more of it!

GHS Boomers on both the Jazz V and the P V beast, hate them when they are brand new, but settle down after a week or two and last about four/five months before they sound too dull. Roto flats on the Ibanez fretless, cant remember the last time I changed them as the fretless gets very little playing time.

Same topic, slightly different subject but sort of links with the aspiration thing, did anyone notice the Warwick custom shop advert? If you look closely at the 'endorsees' shown on this add, you will note a certain Daryll from Profane. If I am not mistaken, this is the same Daryll who used to be on the original bassworld under the username Profane who I went on to buy my SWR750x off some years later and who is a top bass bloke. So I guess this proves that if you work hard at your craft and continue to aspire to great things, sometimes it will actually work out.

[quote name='paul, the' post='23797' date='Jun 26 2007, 10:51 PM']Cheers Chris, it's sad that I need it, but that's very reassuring. I do get jealous when I look at that Mexican one that I've posted the picture of - but painted the same colour, mine ought to look the same. Except with three control knobs and a rosewood neck - which I prefer. I'm not sure why they didn't last very long, perhaps they were expensive to make - routing different bodies, drilling into metal. Perhaps setting up the machinery wasn't cost effective and the bass wasn't selling being a bit of a mongrel. It's basically a Vintage Reissue Precision with a thinner neck and a little extra tonal versatility. - Perfect for me, although I had to get use to the neck.[/quote] Why choose between a P & a J, why not just do something like this? [attachment=935:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg] [attachment=936:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg]

Look Egor, it lives.......... Well, as at 1am Monday, the beast is complete. [attachment=902:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg] [attachment=903:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg] [attachment=904:P_Hamm_B...Finished.jpg] [attachment=905:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg] [attachment=906:P_Hamm_V...Finished.jpg] Only played her through headphones so far, but wow, am I happy The five-way switch (Schaller super switch) is wired to give me: 1) (Neck J - 25k ohm) + Bridge J 2) Neck J + P 3) P on its own 4) P + Bridge J 5) Neck J + (Bridge J - 25k Ohm) All switch options work really well, although I had to set the P pickup considerably lower than the two J's to balance out the power of this beast. The John East circuit is fab, and the variable mid helps smooth out the edge from the Bart's. I originally built this to be a back up to my faithfull J bass, but somehow I have managed to build something equally as good imho. I can see this rock monster getting as much gig time as the J now!

[quote name='pete.young' post='16158' date='Jun 12 2007, 12:21 PM']I have a jazz body bought from someone on bassworld which is an OK plank but the pickup routing is abysmal. The neck pu will be OK because I can fit a scratchplate, but the bridge one is horrendous, the bumps are in the wrong place and the slot isn't wide enough. If I fit a Seymour Duncan MM pickup or a Wizard combo set I reckon that will give me a way to use the body, but it'll mean re-routing the cavity and making a template. I've got loads of 5mm acrylic and reasonable fitting skills so I'm reasonably confident that I can make a decent set of templates up. Question is, how much space do I need to leave around the outline of the pickup cover to make sure that the hole is the right size? It's quite critical for the bridge pickup. I was thinking along the lines of the pickup plus the thickness of the router guide sleeve. Someone must have done this. What are the pitfalls? How much clearance do I need?[/quote] It will depend on your router. Most routers come with a collar which fits in the bottom of the baseplate to act as a follower to go around a template. To work out the offset, fix the collar to the router and fit the bit you are going to use for the routing. For pickups I use a 6mm straight cutting tungsten carbide bit (about £30) because this gives you nice tight corners (3mm radius) and nice sharp edges. Measure from the outer edge of the collar to the outer edge of the router bit and that will give you the offset, or how much bigger than the pickup the hole in your template will need to be. Word of caution though. Most router collars are too big to get into the 'blisters' for the pickup mounting screws. So what I do is drill the blisters using a 13mm drill (or rather a 6mm followed by a 10mm followed by a 13mm) BEFORE I route the pickup cavity. This way you get nice sharp blisters and your routing template only needs to be a square hole. I have a fairly high power router which has a 4mm offset from the collar to the bit, but this means the collar is something like 14mm across making it too big to get into the corners of pickup routes. So to do the corners, I 'plunge' the router in at the four corners before routing out the meat of the pickup route. Alternatively, you can get the same effect by drilling the four corners with a 6mm drill. Hope this helps, and good luck, and practice on some scrap before attacking your bass body!

[quote name='lukeward2004' post='17644' date='Jun 14 2007, 03:39 PM']Unfortunately the company doesnt allow for vans - however they have a pool of cars consisting of a few VW's, Audi's, BMW's and Mercs - most of the other Engineer's drive BMW's or Audi's, either of which I would be very happy with!!!![/quote] Sounds nice, but check the tax position before signing on the dotted line, something like a 3 series beemer with petrol for private mileage will probably cost you around £6k a year in tax! Best tax dodge on company cars is to go for one of those double cab four wheel drive pickups as they are very tax efficient and with the cover on the back can carry a lot of gear.

[quote name='dood' post='12191' date='Jun 4 2007, 11:34 PM'] She's here! She's here! Yippeee!!! Though it's too late to crank her up... noooooooo... so I plugged into the stereo to see how it fairs. BLIMEY! Already I am surprised at how good this cab sounds with just normal HIFI audio. I cant wait to hear what the cab sounds like up loud. I guess I'll be doing a full review for you all at the weekend.[/quote] Dood, I'll be really interested to hear how this works out. I have fancied a 6x10 setup for quite a while but have been put off by the low end rumble most of them produce (like a fully laden jumbo jet taking off). Both the Ampeg and the SWR I have tried have this run-away low end sound that I couldn't tame with the amp eq. Let us know soon how yours works out please?

[quote name='OldGit' post='11668' date='Jun 4 2007, 08:07 AM']Hiyah Loadsa work eh? So what Bart P Pup will you have? Will it be equal sided or lop-sided like mine?[/quote] I got mine of a guy in the US on eBay. Mine is the old equal sized cases with the uneven coils so that the top half covers the B,E & A and the bottom half the D&G.

[quote name='ali-stare' post='11676' date='Jun 4 2007, 08:42 AM']looking forward to the end of this cant wait!![/quote] That makes two of us!

Time for an update. The electrics arrived from John East (thanks John) so I was able to finish the body route. Then started the sanding and sealing. First lot of sealer just showed what a crap job of the sanding I had made, so I sanded it all off by hand and re-sanded the body and applied several coats of sanding sealer before flatting it back to result in this: [attachment=419:P_Bass_S...ed_Front.jpg] [attachment=420:P_Bass_sealed_rear.jpg] Then I applied three coats of white primer (wet on wet) like this: [attachment=421:P_Bass_F...t_Primer.jpg] [attachment=422:P_Bass_Rear_Primer.jpg] and will leave this for a week before flatting back, adding one more coat of white primer, flatting back again and then adding two or three coats of finished colour. After letting that cure for a week in the airing cupboard, I'll flat it back and apply probably three/four coats of lacquer to bring up a nice high shine. The lacquer will need about two weeks of curing before I can flat that back and polish with a 'T-Cut' to a perfect smooth shine. All in all, she should be ready for assembly by the end of June.

Live = DI straight to desk, from amp so after compression. Recording = Mike off-axis for a big full sound [quote name='woodenshirt' post='11228' date='Jun 2 2007, 11:34 PM']Preferably, both for me - DI'd and an AKG D112 (is there a better bass mic?). Mart[/quote]

Alex was like Luke Skywalker to Bill Fitzmaurice's Yoda of speaker design theory. He's missed and should get his arse over here sharp'ish [quote name='pete.young' post='10810' date='Jun 1 2007, 10:05 PM']+1 for that.[/quote]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='11087' date='Jun 2 2007, 04:50 PM']I've just come back from Maplins and they're selling rubber mats for sticking on top of car dashboards to stop things sliding around. You could get one or more of those. They're about the size of half a sheet of A4 paper. They've also got [url="http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=217606&criteria=slip%20mat&doy=2m6"]these[/url] [/quote] +1 for the grip mat. I use one of these on my work bench when routing etc and I can assure you that they are amazing and nothing slips around on one of those. Suggest you try one under the cab and one under the amp. That should keep the little light weight buggers from shuffling around.