pete.young

To me, practice includes working on a skill, a technique or a short passage from a piece, that you're having difficulty with. Take it down to component parts, understand it, build it up until your fingers know where to go. Then start to put it back into context by playing the few bars leading up to it. This is a bit different to just playing along to stuff or rehearsing your set (there's value in that sort of thing too of course). It's hard and takes concentration, but definitely pays off. I'm also a firm believer that practice is more effective if you can develop the habit of listening critically to what you're playing. One way to do this is to record yourself and listen to the playback for missed notes, off-timing etc. It's really painful sometimes to listen to yourself but it will improve your skills.

[quote name='Evil Undead' timestamp='1337432187' post='1659837'] My stuff is priced so well that it's worth the journey from within 200 miles easily to come collect it IMHO. [/quote] At current fuel prices, it costs me 20p/mile in diesel, so a 400 mile round trip would cost £80 in fuel alone.

Glad you're having fun Wayne! Heres a sad story with a happy ending. I bought a really nice Eko mandolin off the bay a few weeks ago, one of the new-old-stock instruments that Roberto Brandoni is assembling. I took it to a gig where we had a request for 'Maggie May'. I opened the boot of the car, the mandolin case fell out onto my foot. When I'd stopped hopping about in agony, I opened the case to find that the headstock had broken off , the same way that Les Pauls with mahogany necks do. Turns out that the OK-looking case was (a) chipboard and ( b ) not supporting the neck of the mandolin, so that even a small impact transmitted the shock right to the weak point of the instrument. The happy ending - I took the broken bits to the local luthier and guitar genius, Colin Fulton, who has done an incredible job of fixing it. If you know where to look you can see the repair, but it's stronger than ever and I think it looks pretty good. It's been strung up for a week now with no apparent signs of moving so I think it's going to be OK. Photos, some before, some after the repair, can be found here: [url="http://photobucket.com/ekobrokenheadstock"]http://photobucket.c...brokenheadstock[/url], not for the faint of hearted! A new case is on order. The old one will probably be made into a pedal board!

[quote name='tauzero' timestamp='1337779273' post='1665311'] Well, the actual description is "ex Black Dyke Mills Band owner, old and rare", although whether it's the banjo or the owner that's old and rare is open to creative interpretation. I thought pete.young must be making some reference to political correctness, as I'm sure that there would be great exception taken to a Black Dyke band these days if it didn't contain a significant number of Afro-Caribbean lesbians. [/quote] I haven't seen them play for a while, so they might well. I've had a nice chat with the seller who seems like a thoroughly nice chap, and he's edited the description. I was just baffled by the idea that anyone could think Black Dyke would have a banjo player, but maybe I'm too Brass Band geek for my own good.

Sometimes you just wonder, and shake your head. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150820923661

[quote name='Hutton' timestamp='1337586251' post='1662193'] What is the difference between 'export' and 'non-export' CIJ Fenders. I only ask as I am about to receive a personally imported Fretless Precision 62 RI. [/quote] Non-export are made out of ash or alder instead of basswood, and have US hardware.

An update - like KingBollock I couldn't get the stripping tool to work, so resorted to separating the strands for an inch of the cable and stripping them individually. All soldered back together, but I still have a mostly-dead amp on my hands. There is some output but very very faint, when gain and main volume are on full you can just about hear it. I think I've about timed-out on this, so if anyone here is interested in acquiring a dead Crate Power Block for the cost of postage please let me know. I'll stick it into the 'freebies' thread in a couple of days if no-one here wants it.

I bought a Madarozzo gig back for the Prosebass headless, on the strength of seeing the one that Happy Jack's Status came in. I thought it was good value for money. Like any gig bag, you wouldn't chuck it into the back of a van and expect it to survive, but the padding and protection was pretty good. There has been some criticism of the zips, but mine never gave any trouble during the time I owned it.

TRB 1005 is nice, a TRB 5P Mk 1 is better still. Made in Japan, through-neck, ebony fretboard, perfectly balanced, fantastic sound. You can see why mine's not for sale!

Almost right, it's "The best thing to play on a bodhran is a flamethrower" :-) Not everyone sees things the same way as oggiesnr, unfortunately. All too often the bodhran finds its way into the hands of people who want to join in but aren't interested in investing any effort in learning the basics or listening to any of the other musicians. Worse still, they frequently hunt in packs.

[quote name='thepurpleblob' timestamp='1336406643' post='1645148'] Just a thought - perhaps it failed because it was too short and under stress. Consider replacing with a longer bit? [/quote] In an ideal world, I would. A contributory factor appears to be that the cable had a very sharp bend around the pre-amp PCB, so that it came in through the front of the board. Instead, I'm going to run the cable in from the back of the PCB so that it should be long enough and not be under tension. Replacing the ribbon would require me to take the amp completely to bits, remove a load of silicone sealant, break and remake a perfectly good joint at the main board end. I'd rather not do this unless I have no alternative.

It might also be worth having a chat with Lean Business, they stock a good range of drivers including Celestion.

Thanks for the help, guys. Not sure whether it will shrink with a bit of heating. I will have a ratch about in the spares box to see if I can find anything similar and practice on it. Can't quite make out the detail on that stripper, though it's a nice red colour! I was thinking though that it might be sensible to separate the individual cables for half an inch or so, then strip each one individually, is that what you recommend?

[quote name='fatgoogle' timestamp='1336387999' post='1644730'] Going to order my Reidmar and a single genz benz focus lt 2x10 today. Very excited. Is it a bank holiday today in the UK or are the shops open. [/quote] It is a bank holiday in England. Dunno about Scotland. The Internet will still be open for business.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1336376574' post='1644521'] The 210 might rate around 400w whereas the 212 should be closer to 600watts with 8 ohms cabs.. [/quote] The 212 is rated 600W 4 Ohm, the 210 is rated at 500W 4 Ohm, for what it's worth. Neither is available in 8 Ohm and the EBS HD350 happily runs at 2 Ohms. I think Kiwi had one of each, might be worth giving him a shout. I'm not sure what it would add. The 210 is slightly more portable, but the 212 is pretty good in that respect. For more noise (though I'm with borntobeloud on this one), the OP would probably do better to pick up another 212. These seem to be much more common than the 210, at least in the For Sale forum here.

Decided to see if I could find out why my Crate Power Block is dead, and sure enough the 12-way ribbon cable from the pre-amp board to the main board is coming away at the pre-amp board end. I can clean up the holes on the pre-amp board, but how to strip back enough conductor on the ribbon cable to solder it back in place? There isn't very much slack in the cable, so I've got maybe one go at this before it becomes too short and will require replacing altogether.

[quote name='drdanny' timestamp='1336317617' post='1643910'] i am confused because the blend has only one wire going to it on doctor j's diagram and already has 2 one mine ... [/quote] Um, the blend in Dr J's diagram has 4 wires going to it - one to the front pickup one to the back pickup, an earth to the volume control and a yellow one going to the pre-amp.

You need to search for threads like this one: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/167088-best-compressor/ and what you're looking for is posts by 51m0n .

[quote name='tividalebass' timestamp='1335961934' post='1638635'] I might have an issue with my [color=#ff0000]Reidmar[/color]. At loud volumes it's cutting out when I slap...as if it was hitting a limiter. It has only started to happen over the past couple of weeks. Even when the compressor/limiter control is off it still happens. Has anyone come across this yet? It could be that I am pushing the amp to its full capability, but it's a concern nonetheless Hi my man where did you get to with resolving your problems [/quote] See post #350 on the previous page of articles.

Dropkick Murphy's might be worth a listen too if you're more into the electric side of things.

If you want totally clean, you need to put Euphonic Audio on your list.