BigRedX

With a multimeter or continuity tester. TBH, If you don't have at least one of those you probably shouldn't be doing your own wiring as you have no way of checking what you have done wrong if it's not working properly.

2.4 has a better range and is slightly less worse in poor line of sight transmission situations. However it has to compete for bandwidth with far more devices especially at crowded gigs, which at the moment makes it far less reliable than 5.8. However that advantage may disappear in the future. IME if you are going to be suffering from range issues with a 5.8 device you probably need to be looking at seriously pro wireless systems and not ones based on WiFi.

It was discussed in this thread back in August. The general consensus then was that the bridge is by John Birch, and the rest could be anything. If it was a genuine JB it would have had John Birch pickups on it when it was originally made, and I can't think of any sensible reason to replace them.

If any of them are on the Mu:zines wanted list they will be more than grateful to receive them.

This came up on another forum, and the advice from several experienced electrical engineers was that a better and more permanent contact between the screw terminal and the wire conductor was achieved if you did not tin the wires, because the copper strands can compress and essentially cold weld to the terminal under the pressure from the screw.

You only need to worry about the core slipping on strings with a round core. Unless it specifically states on the strings that they are round core you can safely assume that they are hex core and it's OK to cut the strings to length before bending them.

Since all my old photos in this thread were on Photobucket, here's a more recent one of me that you'll actually be able to see:

IME scale length on its own has little effect on the sound and feel of low B. It is all down to the construction of the bass and the right choice of strings. If I was in the OP's position I would first try another set of strings, maybe one with a taper-wound B string. Remember that strings that work with one bass will not necessarily be the best choice for another. All my basses are fitted with different strings because each has a set that suits that particular bass the best. If the problem persists look first at the neck joint. With the strings fitted but not tuned to pitch very slightly loosen the neck bolts - about half a turn is normally sufficient. Then tune the bass to pitch and leave for a few hours to settle. Then tighten the neck bolts up again. What this does is to use the tension of the strings to pull the neck tightly into the neck pocket which makes the joint as strong as possible. If you are still getting dead spot problems then try a Fat Finger as suggested although be aware that this works by moving the position of the dead spot to somewhere where it is hopefully less obvious rather than removing it.

But it was way better than the finishes that followed - that partially see-through white that looked as though they'd run out of rattle can and couldn't be bothered to get another one to complete the job, or sh!t brown.

The break angle over the nut needs to be sufficient to hold the string in place whilst not reducing the compliance of the string. If you look at the first photo in the OP you'll see that the G and D strings pass under a string retainer and therefore their break angle is fixed by the position of the string retainer. Since this is obviously a sufficient angle, it follows that ideally the E and A strings should have the same break angle. That means the A string should probably have one more turn around the post and the E one less.

It was an auction so it would have probably reached a realistic price by the end. If it does re-appear with a significantly higher start price that might actually put some bidders off. I tried to buy a Shaftesbury-badged guitar version back in about 1976, but I couldn't persuade my parents to lend me the rest of the money I needed. IIRC although it was second hand, it was in immaculate condition and the shop only wanted £45 for it!

Unfortunately that interface has had to compromised in order to maintain the overall playability.

Fret sensing seems to be the preferred method at the moment. Alternatively have a look at the Roland V-Bass system which is based around modelling to process the audio output of the individual strings.

I used them quite a bit in the days when Alan at ACG was stocking them. They're nothing like Elixirs so if you are after something similar you may be disappointed. Since they have become less easy to find in the UK I've stopped using them and now favour Warwick Black Label for my basses that would have had SIT string before.

I've just been looking at getting a ticket to see Cabaret Voltaire at Rock City next year. The face value ticket price is £35.00 On top of that is £5.88 booking fee and a £1.50 E-Ticket charge bringing the total price up to £42.38, and this is from Rock City's own web site. If you want to buy them from any of the other ticket sites it's even more expensive. It used to be possible to bypass these fees by going in person to the Rock City box office. I'm in town for a client meeting tomorrow so I'll go and have a look to see if this is still the case. IMO if there is no way of avoiding these additional charges then they should not be additional and be part of the actual face value ticket price. And if they can be avoided by buying in person rather than on-line then this information should be made available at the time of purchase. I suspect that there is some creative accounting reason why they are additional.

@Misdee I'm obviously not going to change your mind, but I'm not at all convinced by the alternatives you put forward. Apart from JJ Burnel who had an interesting sound (if you could get past the thuggery and misogyny for which there was no excuse even back in 1977) they were just bass players in their bands and if they weren't also the singer, fairly anonymous. Sting is far more interesting as a songwriter than he is as a bass player. The only remarkable thing about him as a bass player is that most of the early Police songs were played on fretless bass, although if you hadn't seen them live you were unlikely to know that. I suspect that you and me were listening to completely different bands back in the early 80s, but IME if you weren't plodding away at 1/8 root notes or slapping, then you were trying to be Mick Karn or Peter Hook. Maybe it's because what Hooky did was easy and within the reach of almost anyone who picked up a bass that you don't like it? However you can't deny that he changed perceptions of how his choice of instrument could fit into a band and song arrangement. There's not many musicians playing any instrument who can say that.

Looks like the version with the full Moog circuitry.

Yes they did. Called the Decade 6. It only has an 18 fret neck though which limits the upper register.

One other thing that I have just remembered. What are you going to do in sections where there are no drums in the arrangement? Unless you all as a band have an impeccable sense of rhythm and tempo, you will need some sort of guide to get you through these sections. Of course if you are using IEMs then it will be easy. You can program a click which is just sent to the IEMs. Otherwise you will need to have something that is obvious enough for you to play to but subtle enough that it doesn't ruin it for the audience. You'll also need something like this for any intros without drums. No mater how good you think your timing is. I can guarantee that any more than 2 bars without drums and you will have drifted out of sync with the drum machine. You can't start playing and hope that when you start the drum machine the band will still be playing at the same programmed tempo as the drum machine.

My parent's house that they lived in from 1968 to 1980 had every single type of socket distributed throughout the rooms. Often it would provide challenging if you wanted to move an electrical appliance to a different room as it may not have the correct type of socket in the room and if it did it might be on the opposite wall to where you wanted to plug your device in. My bedroom had 15, 13 and 5amp sockets on different walls as well as a hard-wired connection to an electric radiator, and later another hardwire connection to the storage heater (on a different wall). I was well used to changing plugs on my electrical appliances before I was 10.

In the end it's all subjective so who cares? Make your own best bass lines playlist and enjoy it.

That's great thank you for your help. However as someone who works in graphic design producing items like user manuals, one of the main reasons why they are now only available as on-line PDFs is so they can be updated quickly and easily to reflect changes in the specification of the product through firmware and software updates. The block diagram in question has a date of 2015, and is obviously completely out of date. Without the extra help that I am getting on this forum, that would make me question the integrity of the product in question.

Many of which were highly "influenced" by various post-punk songs.

I hope that program makers also remember that some of the most memorable bass lines ever weren't written or played by bass guitarists - cf I Feel Love or Der Mussolini.

I just don't like external PSUs. I don't think that they are robust enough for gigging use when used separately. They are OK on pedal boards and in racks where everything is wired up once and then not touched again and are clamped and cable-tied in place so nothing can move in transit. The failures I have seen have all be on the low voltage side, usually the cable becomes worn and fails. The cabling and connectors when exposed and not hidden away in a rack or pedal board are fragile especially compared with an IEC mains cable. Also the low voltage barrel connectors don't lock in place, so if they are not part of some permanent installation it's too easy for them to become disconnected mid-gig. The Strymon Zuma looks great but it's too big and I don't plan to need to run any other effects so pretty much overkill for my requirements. I have a One-Spot adaptor somewhere. It used to be part of my previous rack set up. The only thing that worries me is that it was the only point of failure ever in that rack, because the wall-wart part doesn't fit as snugly into a 13amp socket as a typical UK plug and had worked loose in transit, and then bass vibrations through the rack caused it work further loose mid gig causing both my wireless receiver and Thumpinator which were at opposite ends of the signal path within the rack to fail mid song. At the time it wasn't obvious what the problem was so it was quicker to bypass my rig entirely and go direct into the PA. The One-Spot was replaced with a Thomann multi-way adaptor that connected to the mains via a standard UK 13amp plug and cable before the next gig. The reason I'm going for the FI and not one of the other filter pedals is that it appears to be able to do the one thing I have been missing from my setup which is the apply a filter effect to the input audio signal but control the cut-off envelope modulation via MIDI note information. So basically all I'm doing is providing an audio signal and MIDI control is doing all the filter shaping. Other than the VCF I don't intend to use any of the synth facilities at all. There are just two things that worry me: 1. The computer editor shows a full ADSR envelope for the filter, but I can't see it anywhere in the block diagram on page 99 of the manual, just a selection of the AD and AR envelopes. 2. There doesn't appear to be a controllable VCA after the VCF. On a normal synth there is always an envelope controlled VCA at the very end of the signal path. This is because you have more sound shaping options if the volume envelope and the cut off frequency envelope are separate. In fact there doesn't appear to be any envelope controlled VCA in the input signal path. This might be a major problem for the sorts of sounds I want to produce. Ultimately I think I'm going to have to buy one and send it back for a refund if I can't get it to do what I want.