JPJ

[quote name='BigRedX' post='7091' date='May 26 2007, 12:27 PM']Thank you, that's a useful site, and should save me from asking a million stupid questions here - bookmarked.[/quote] Routers are fairly easy to operate, the secret when doing neck pockets and pickup routes is to make templates and use the template following adapter which fits into the bottom of the router and guides the cutter around the edge of the template. I make my templates from 6mm mdf because its easy to work with. When you have made your templates, test them on a piece of scrap before you commit to your body blank. When making bass/guitar bodies, I usually make two templates, one for the outline and one for all the cutouts i.e. neck pocket, pickups, bridge. I route the pickups, neck pocket etc when the blank is still a square blank as it makes alignment simpler and then route the profile of the body. This way I hopefully end up with the important bits in a straight line and central in the body. For bass pickups with lugs (like fenders, musicman's etc) I drill the lugs with the correct size drill bit before routing the pickup, rather than trying to cut them with the router, that way I get a much sharper fit around the lugs. Finally, routers cut in one direction, which is normally marked on the top (i.e. visible side) of the baseplate. If you move the router in the wrong direction, the machine has a tendency to run away from you and can lead to some unpredicable results! You'll know if your going in the right direction as they squeal like buggery if you are going the wrong way. Final finally, depending on the wood you are using and the size of cutter and power of your router, you will need to vary your depth of cut. For example, cutting the profile of my project P which is made from swamp ash with a 6.3mm straight cutting bit, I found I could take about 5mm per pass. Cutting mahogany with the same cutter, I could only take around 3mm per pass. Hope this helps!

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='7775' date='May 27 2007, 07:48 PM']Thanks guys - I know and have worked with letraset often in the past at work. I should have thought about that before posting really. I was hoping for something that didn't rely on the eye for letter spacing and level just because I'm lazy more than anything when it comes to doing this. The coat of lacquer might do the trick as far as protecting it is concerned. Marker pen and Dymo tape is possible although I'd prefer something better quality.[/quote] Providing you are not tying to achieve white text on a black background, you can achieve great results using iron-on transfer paper, the stuff you can use to print tee-shirts. A coat of lacquer helps fix this too, and this way you can lay everything out on the computer and then print out and iron on to the front of the rack unit. I did a rack with black text in little yellow boxes which looked great against the black facia of the rack unit.

[quote name='OldGit' post='3751' date='May 21 2007, 04:04 PM']60 squid new from [url="http://www.millennium-music.co.uk/home/products.pl?ProductCode=AL0008&mode=detail"]Here[/url][/quote] Wow, now that is a bargain that may be just too hard to resist!

There used to be a guy advertising plans on eBay a while back, in fact I bought some P Bass plans off him which my in-build project is based on. Unfortunately, I am away from home until the weekend, but if you can wait, I'll pm you his email address. However, in the case of neck pockets, I find it best to scribe the neck pocket from the actual neck I am going to use, as manufacturing tolerances mean the actual neck you get can be as much as 0.5mm wider (or narrower!) than the designed dimension.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='2436' date='May 19 2007, 08:52 PM']I am a fan of it but have yet to find a compressor I like. Most compressors I've tried have either been too coloured (removing some of the sparkle and low end) or too severe in their impact (sucking volume and adding an unnatural thup at the start of a note because the attack setting is too coarse). The kind of compression I've liked the most has been just from valves. They tame the high end (which is really all I'm after for when I'm slapping) without removing low end punch and (particularly) the mids. The Trace Elliot dual band compressor is the best I've tried so far but I still don't want to use it in my rig because the tone still isn't right. Dave Hall is going to send me his valve compressor prototype to try out soon and I'll pop a review in the reviews section.[/quote] Hey CK, Did you try the Alesis 3630? I found this to be the most uncoloured of all compressors I tried, and I'd still have one if I still had a rack to keep it in. So Dave Hall is building a prototype valve compressor! Now thats something I'd definitely be interest in, looking forward to the review!

[quote name='d-basser' post='1358' date='May 18 2007, 12:47 PM']Looks good, I am considering (if i can muster the cash) getting one made but with a compression driver added for those highs, i PM'd JPJ and his prices are very reasonable. quick Q, how does the 12" handle lows? i will be playing a 6 string through it.[/quote] Well in testing, it handled my low B with surprising authority. Remember this cab has the Delta 12LF speaker, so its designed to go a little lower than a stock Delta 12. Mounting the speaker on an angle like this and effectively giving it a flare certainly helps with the dispersion. If anybody is interested in one of these (or any other format for that matter) drop me a pm and we'll sort something out, ok?

Forget that dumb ass question , A quick google turned up his contacts and website

Anybody got Dave Hall (DHA) contact details?

Yes, I have a punch factory that I use all the time live. Can be subtle, but I wasnt looking for that heavily compressed (Bon Jovi) bass style, I just wanted to protect the front end of my amp from my own ham fistedness. Used to have an Alesis 3630 which is the dogs dooh dahs if you have the rack space as all parameters are adjustable and its possible to get a very effective but transparent compression effect along with a good noise gate for between song moments.

Reading this thread is like being at the first bass players annonymous meeting! "Hi my names JPJ and I'm a bass player....."

Thanks for the help guy's, the 27k option is probably the one I'll go for as fitting a variable is probably a bit beyond my electrical abilities!

I thought of the diode, but that's starting to get way beyond my electronics capabilities to specify the right parts. I guess I actually need two diodes, one for the 'both on' option and one for the both on but reduced neck p'up option?

Here's the rock-n-roll shot [attachment=9:P1010014.jpg] And here's the silly cheesy grin (with multiple chin's) shot! [attachment=10:P1010024.jpg]

Possibly, I wasn't a fan at the time and just remember seeing him on Top of the Pops and the Tube slinging a Rick. There was one great shot on the Tube footage of the back of his marshall with the covers off and the valves glowing that lovely red colour that only well driven valves can create.

JPJ, talentless geordie numpty, who after playing bass for twenty-nine years still has nothing to show for it other than a huge pile of receipts from his frequent bouts of GAS. Can be seen playing a Fender Jazz DLX V fitted with an East J-Retro and hopefully soon, a custom P bass V thing [attachment=6:Jazz_5_F..._Frontal.jpg] [attachment=7:P_Hamm_V___Full.jpg] through an SWR750X with either a Schroeder 21012 or Goliath III + SoB No regular gig, dep of choice to one or two bands on NE cover band circuit, generally considered to be dangerous and not to be approached by members of the public.

A kill switch? What, you mean guaranteed opportunity to disconnect yourself from any sound at all mid-gig? Believe me, after twenty odd years (actually make that twenty nine odd years ) of playing bass, I have found every possible way of disconnecting myself mid-song without ever needing a dedicated kill switch Thanks for the input though!

This all started with a daft bid on eBay that resulted in me being the owner of a brand new Mighty Mite five string precision bass neck for £40. I later bought a set of those P'bass plans also off eBay. After thinking about it for around a year, I finally purchased a slab of swamp ash from www.craft-supplies.co.uk and set about making a sort of five string precision with the Fender Stu Hamm pickup arrangement (2xJ + 1xP in close formation). When finished, she will be vintage white ('cream') with a tort board. These are pictures of the body and neck, plus the first string-up to check alignment. [attachment=3:P_Hamm_V___Full.jpg] [attachment=4:P_Hamm_V___Body.jpg] I also wanted traditional elephant ear tuners, so its a bit crowded round the back, and I had to route the 'G' tuner into the headstock and slot the baseplate of the 'E' tuner to allow access to the 'G' tuner mounting screw. Well worth the effort in my opinion for the look of the elephant ears. [attachment=5:P_Hamm_V___MCs.jpg] Tools-wise, I have used a router, a belt sander, hand drill, bench pillar drill, B&Q own make dremel thingy, power file, and an assortment of hand tools. I am currently cutting the pickup slots in the tortoise shell plastic and will post some pictures of this when its done. Electronics-wise, I have bought a John East circuit comprising of his BTB stack & MID SWEEP stack along with a volume, jack socket and battery clip (all pre-wired because I am an electronics numpty) which will be coupled to a pair of Bart J's and a Bart P all via a stock Fender five-way switch. I'll post some more pic's at the weekend when I hope to finish the scratchplate and start on the body finishing.

Recently, on my weekly drive to/from the south west, I have been working my way through a box of old cd's that were lying in our loft. This week, it was the turn of the Jam (greatest hits) and it struck me what a great overdrive/distortion tone Bruce foxton had. I know his weapons of choice was a Rick 4001 through a Marshall amp head, but does anyone know of a reasonably priced pedal that can achieve the same effect? Sorry if this has already been covered on here but I am just too lazy to search! My SWR has an inbuilt distortion circuit but that is far fizzier than the Foxton sound. IN RESPONSE TO THIS THREAD ON BASSTALK, Acidbass suggested the DHA pedal line, but does this give the warm power amp type distortion a la Foxton or more fizz. BTW my SWR (750x) has a valve in the front end which is the source of the overdrive circuit!

Ok, I am currently building this [attachment=1:P_Hamm_V___Full.jpg] [attachment=2:P_Hamm_V___Body.jpg] a five string precision (mighty mite neck, custom body) which is going to be equipped with 2 x Bartolini 'J' pickups + 1x Bartolini 'P' pickups all going via a stock Fender five way switch to a custom East circuit (basically a BTB + MID Sweep pre-wired with vol, output socket and battery clip). The switching options I want are; 1) Both J p'ups with a slight bias towards the bridge p'up for a jazz bass style finger style setting 2) Bass J p'up with P p'up 3) P pickup on its own 4) P p'up with Bridge J p'up 5) Both J p'ups full on I can work out how to wire positions 2 to 5 but I am struggling with position 1. I was thinking of measuring the resistance of the pan pot in my J-Retro equipped Jazz bass at my 'stock' mix and bridging the No1 and No5 tabs on the switch with a resistor of equivalent value but then I thought that this will effect the number 5 position, as I was just going to put a jumper wire between 1 & 5 for the both pickups full on option. So now the exam questions; a) is it possible to do what I want to do? the five way switch appears to have two independent switch matrix's (ie either side). Should I wire all the signals to one side and the grounds to the other or do I just wire the signals and collect the grounds together (John E has helpfully attached two short wires to show me where the signal and grounds connect to his circuit)? c) if its not possible to do what I want, any ideas what I can do with position 1? All advice gratefully received!

JPJ signing in for duty. Huge shout of thanks to CK, Ped and all the mods. If I can help you guys in return (i.e. you ever have any problems with your large luxury yachts) just give me a shout, OK? Let's make this our permanent home peeps,