KingBollock

I'd love to have a go at an onboard preamp. But I have a feeling that, if I were to build the one I would like, it would be far too big to fit into a bass, because I would be building it on veroboard. I have yet to learn how to make my own PCBs and can't see me learning any time soon. The preamp I would like to make would be the John East U Retro 01: [i]Highly flexible on-board dual input preamp and EQ system. Its high quality circuit uses three stacked knobs and includes an active blend circuit plus a 3 band equaliser with bass, variable frequency mid, treble and bright function. The pot threads are 10mm long, designed to allow rear cavity mounting in the bass body.[/i]

Woo! I got me a 5 string set of Nanowebs in the post today. I didn't see any email because Hotmail is being a dickhead and won't let me in to my account when on my PC, only my ipad, and I can't see any extra folders, only the main inbox on that. So after a minor panic where I tried desperately to remember what the hell I had bought while in some sort of apparent comatose state, I was very surprised and incredibly happy to open a new set of strings. They're certainly not a string I would have tried at random, being so expensive, but if they are good and last as long as they claim, then the survey will have successfully hooked them another customer.

[quote name='gadgie' timestamp='1421368856' post='2660579'] haha. I made a pedal board once. Out of MDF , all slanted and everything, sprayed in camo (what was I thinking). It weighed more than the 4 pedals on it. Gave up on pedalboard as such. Got a kind of gigbag board thingy with tuner, wah, J&H . All I need really. Even these 3 tend to drop in to the middle of the bag when I carry it over my shoulder. Not tried pedals with bass yet. [/quote] And what exactly is wrong with camo?? And you should see the pedalboard I have planned for this year, it wouldn't look out of place on the set of Aliens (I am even going to incorporate a UV reactive Weyland - Yutani logo). I rather suspect that, should I ever get around to gigging again, I will have to check the strength of any stage I might have to use. I haven't even got that many pedals, I just like making sh*t.

My personal favourite is Stand oil, a very thick Linseed oil.

My first bass, a Westone Raider I. I sold it to the Nuneaton branch of Cash Converters about a million (somewhere between 15 and 20) years ago. I adored that bass but it was either that or not eat that month (odd how having a wife can effect you. I had gone hungry many times in the past without ever considering selling my bass. And it wasn't even my fault we were skint!). Having said that, if I hadn't sold it It would probably still be my only bass, and I do love my BC Rich and my Cort.

Not a band gig, but we always used to finish our discos with Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life. It made people happy and they'd walk away singing it long offer it was finished. Which meant it was less likely a fight would break out (Gawd, I f***ing hated doing weddings.).

[quote name='Bassman Sam' timestamp='1420413510' post='2649229'] I have no bum, I'm so skinny. If I did this, I'd look like a boomerang. That's just a throwaway comment. [/quote]I also have no bum and it's a damned curse! The thing is, I'm a gre't big fat bastard, but I have nothing to hang my trousers on. I have to tighten my belt until I hear my pelvis start to creak, just for them to stay up for a bit. And I can still take them off and put them back on without undoing them. So I am constantly having to pull them up, which makes me feel really self conscious. That's why I prefer joggers that have elasticated waists, but gre't big fat fatties in joggers is just wrong, so I wear Real Tree style camo ones which don't look so bad. I look more like I should be sat by a lake trying to pull a ten pound Carp out of it instead of looking like I should be running around the lake trying to shed ten pounds.

Sometimes it is a small change that makes the difference. I like hats, but hats hate me. I got a nice leather Australian style cowboy hat a few years ago, and that sort of looks ok on me, if I am wearing the right sunglasses with it. I have always fancied a flat cap, but every one that I have tried over the decades has looked naught but utterly daft on me. But then... We had a day trip out to Hay-on-Wye a few months ago and went into a country sports store where they had a lot of hats, many of them of the flat cap style. I tried a few and they all looked stupid, except one... A Stetson Baker Boy in red leather. It didn't look much different to the ones either side of it, but where they looked bad on me this one whispered "I'm yours now... People will know you by your hat from now on. If anyone ever hears you ask "Where's me 'at?" they will know which hat you are talking about. I am YOUR HAT!". But it was £75, so stuff that for a game of soldiers! And it's [i]red![/i] I don't [i]do[/i] red! I do black or camouflage, that's it. Guess what I got for Christmas... I'm wearing it now. I am wearing nothing else and I am lying on the bed, looking beautiful. So, what I am saying is, don't stop trying, one day you might find the suit that was looking for you.

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1420274075' post='2647331'] I mean wierd tunings when I say muck about , not simply tuning the whole bass down [/quote] I can see the appeal in drop tuning on a guitar, such as dropping the low E down to a D, making fifth power chords on the bottom two strings possible with just one finger. But it feels like cheating! I don't see the point on bass, though, so I don't bother. In fact the main reason I bought a five string in the first place was to play drop d songs without having to retune. I keep my five strings in standard and my four strings tuned half a step down (on all strings), which seems to cover everything I need.

And now I'm going to get all complicated with an idea that will make you say "Yeah, I'm not going to do that, Dude.", again... I have an old PC hard drive caddy (it's actually a tray that sits inside the PC case) with a thermostat and fans built into it. It was cheap and works well, I just don't need it anymore. This year I am finally going to get around to finishing my pedalboard, including building the power supply myself. And I am going to include the large heatsink and thermostat in the PSU, but with larger fans. I've designed the PSU in such a way that the thermostat will probably never, ever kick in, but it will have a nice little display and by making the heatsink a feature of the case, it will look cool, too. I have been trying to decide whether to try to find a fanless, lower powered, power amp for my music room because the one I currently have has two very noisy fans in it, on constantly. So now, thanks to this thread, I am thinking of either buying another one of those caddies or trying to build my own adjustable thermostat and build it into the power amp (there is plenty of room in there). Also, someone already made the very good suggestion of changing the fans to quiet running ones. Most amps use standard PC sized fans, so they are easy to get and fit, not expensive and some of them have pretty lights in them! So I will replace the two in my power amp and the one in my main bass amp (Peavey T-Max 500) with quiet ones (and maybe with lights in, too...). You can get fan controllers, but I really think that a set and forget thermostat would be the safer option. Just for added safety and confidence, you could also have a look inside the amp to see if any of the components that should be attached to heatsinks, such as transistors, in fact are. You can buy little clip on ones and they make a huge difference. Get your DIY on, Dude!

There's a large musical instrument shop just down the road from me. I went in there just after it opened a few years ago, looking for DR strings. They did have a couple of sets but not what I was after (I wasn't being overly strict, there were three sets I couldn't make my mind up on, so I would have bought the first one of those I came across), they told me I could buy one of the sets they had or I wouldn't be able to get any because, he promised me, they were the only DR stockist in South Wales. Except that the next shop I wet into, down on the coast, had them, too, but only the same sets that the first shop had. One day I visited every instrument shop I could find west of Cardiff. The choice of bass stuff was absolutely woeful. I had always preferred to go to a local shop rather than buy online, but that day changed that for me, Strings Direct every time for me now.

I don't like that this stuff bothers me. Why the hell should I care if someone with more money than sense spends it on something stupid? Except that it is the same cynical well of bullshit that gets plundered by those selling sugar water to the parents of children with cancer. Why should I care if an adult goes to get some woman with too many earrings and bangles wave at him a bit, or stick needles in random places? Because that's what allows chiropractors to snap babies necks or give vulnerable people strokes. Or gets the families of soldiers, conned into using fake bomb deviners, robbed of a loved one. There is no good side to this. It is selling lies. I'm sure I'll get some stick for this. Perhaps anyone bothered can find a Y shaped stick, use it to find their arsehole and shove my give a sh*t up there?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1419249862' post='2637924'] You could well be right there, but again weight and power are the issues. [/quote] You could use a nylon screw instead of metal. The motor wouldn't have to be too heavy, and if fitted under the bridge of a bass that suffers with neck dive, it might actually help. You could install a socket on the guitar that could take power from a foot pedal, one that rocks backwards and forwards. The cool thing about that would be that the harder you press in one direction the faster the screw would turn. And with your hands being free to play, it might even work as an effect. I know I'm over thinking this, but I'm trying to take my mind off other stuff. Talking about over thinking... Imagine having a small pickup for each string, each mounted on a screw that can be turned individually so that each pickup could be anywhere along the string. I wonder if you might be able to create some kind of perfect tonal balance? There are probably a million reasons why this wouldn't work, but it is an interesting idea, I think.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1419248832' post='2637905'] Hard to do, but how cool would it be to have a lever or switch that quickly changes the position of the pickup on the fly? Might be a problem weight-wise if a motor needs to be used, but hey - I just have the great ideas, it's up to other people to put them into practice! [/quote] I think an Archimedes screw would be ideal for that.

The trick is in how you store them. There is a way to loop them that takes the twisting tendency away. I'll see if I can find the video. I know someone posted it on BassChat not long ago. http://youtu.be/wXU0yA3GedY

If it was me I'd shield the cavity first, though I suspect it'll take more than that from the way you describe it. Then I'd replace all the pots and wiring. If this sorts it out but you want it as original as it can be, you could use the new parts to eliminate the faulty part and then only replace that. Even good pots don't cost much so buying all new parts won't be expensive. In the end, if you only end up replacing one pot, you'll then have spares.

Lots and lots of Amon Amarth.

[quote name='Karl Derrick' timestamp='1417969100' post='2625569'] I chose to withdraw so as to avoid confrontation. It was clearly a bad idea to ask here. Thanks to everyone who took the question seriously. Karl [/quote] You were correct about the first reply being sarcastic, it just wasn't meant in a nasty way in the slightest. After that it seemed to snowball a bit. I don't think this was the wrong place to ask, it's just that this seems to happen sometimes and I have no idea why, it's quite embarrassing to see when it does. Sometimes I feel guilty when I accidentally stand on my dog's foot, and I end up shouting at her. I don't know why that happens either. Don't give up on us dude!

Half the songs play I learned by accidentally playing bits, recognising them and going on to work the rest out. What annoys me more is when I come up with a line that I think sounds really good, and then start thinking that I might recognise it but not what from, so I can never be sure or not. But even if I did come up with something brilliant I'll never be able to use it just in case.

[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1417125775' post='2617397'] Just had to look that up [/quote] That's the one!

The only thing unusual about mine was that it didn't look anything like I wanted it to. I desperately wanted it to look like this: But my Dad decided he wanted to manage a band, so it ended up looking like this: Not my actual bass. It came from a shop, but I ended up getting some lessons from its original owner who gave me an LP that he had used it on (Dickens - Standing Out (with the worst album art I have ever seen)) on which it also got a mention on the back of. Which was nice. I loved that bass and it broke my heart to have to sell it.

They answered my first question straight away in the article, it's analogue, which is good. It's rather expensive for my wallet, but if I were a professional musician or even an amateur that records a lot, I think it would be worth it, going on the samples given. I do see them more as a studio thing than for gigging. And it has pretty lights! The batteries are a worry, how close to the end of their life do they start to degrade the signal? As I understand it (I have never tried it personally) fibre optic cables aren't difficult to work with, but is the cable they use a common type or specially made? Are they tinkerable? Will you be able to eventually buy separate plugs and cables for them? Or will the warranty be good enough that you don't have to worry about doing your own repairs? I'll probably never have one. They're too expensive for what I would use them for and over the last year or so I have added a bunch of cheap and homemade pedals between my bass and amp, I think the difference in sound quality would be entirely lost in my rig.

I didn't suggest this for labelling cables because because I don't know how hardy it would be if gigged regularly, though I do use it for labelling cables that aren't going to be moved much. Unfortunately there is no name, not even a brand, on the dispenser, but it looks like Sellotape but with a milky colour. When you apply it to a surface it goes almost completely transparent, but when you write on it, which is easy to do even with a ballpoint pen, the ink is very visible (even if it's on a black surface and the ink is black) and doesn't rub off. It is quite good for temporary solutions, or in places where it's not going to be seen much (because my handwriting sucks), like labelling all the plugs behind the telly or computer so I don't go pulling the wrong one out by mistake, but it can be difficult to remove. For prettier, permanent solutions I use my Dymo labeller (shame the damned tapes are so expensive! And 9mm tape is getting harder to find, it's all 12mm now, apparently).

You could paint the plug casings with something hard wearing like Smoothrite, or enamel. icastle got his idea in before me, but I was thinking of using silver or gold coloured scratch on lettering and then covering with clear shrink tubing.

Somewhere around 1990 I was working in a guitar shop and I was asked what my ideal bass would be, basically a black Warlock with the Widow headstock. A couple of years ago, having never even seen one in the flesh, only in magazines and posters, nevermind actually played one, I finally bought one, the Warlock NT, because it was cheap, they didn't even make this model back then, and they don't now, either. I absolutely adore it! It still takes my breath away when I look at it, and it plays and sounds ace. I had to do some mucking about with the bridge to get the strings at a sinsible height, and I worried about the sound for a while, thinking I was going to have to gut the electrics, but that turned out to be the flatwound strings I put on it, they sounded awful, but it sounds great with roundwounds. Go for it!