BigRedX

AsI mentioned earlier in the thread, one of my bands has been playing our cover of "I Believe In Father Christmas" and this year we've released it as a single. The video has just been released too:

And here's the video:

Hurtsfall played on Sunday in Sheffield on the final day of the "In The Black Midwint2r" festival. We were on first in the evening after a short break from the afternoon bands, which mean that we got a proper sound check which definitely helped with getting the mix right. Second outing for our new and improved backing control which allows me to run everything from a foot pedal which is used to start each song and then run a macro which closes the current song and loads the next one in the set. Now I'm satisfied that it works as intended we'll probably shift the computer to a less obtrusive place on stage for subsequent gigs. Also I've now got all my Helix Preset and Snapshot changes controlled by the backing track which means I can concentrate on playing without needing to worry about hitting the correct footswitch at the correct time in order to change sounds, which has resulted in a significant improvement in my on-stage performance. There was a proper photographer in attendance so there should be some decent photos up later on, but in the mean time here's something taken by an audience member...

Here's mine for Hurtsfall from Sunday night's gig at the "In The Black Midwint2r" festival: Apologies for the crap low-light phone photo. Eastwood Hooky into Line6 Helix and then straight into the PA via an EMO passive DI box. For this that are interested, the foot switch to the left controls the sequencer - middle pedal for stop/pause and right hand pedal to run a macro which closes the current song and opens the next one in the set list. The yellow cable going into the Helix is MIDI to select the correct Preset for each song (on load) and also send Snapshot commands mid-song to change the sounds without me needing to worry about hitting the correct switch as well as playing the right notes. I've used this twice now anomy live performance has improved considerably.

One other suggestion: have you tried ALL the USB ports on your computer? They will not be all the same and different ports may well be on different buses internally and sharing the bus with various other "hidden" USB peripherals such as the wifi and bluetooth as well as the more obvious ones like your keyboard and mouse. Also depending on where they are on the casing the earthing may be different. So reconnect your speakers direct to the interface and then try each USB socket on the computer in turn to see if it makes any difference to the noises. Edit: I've just looked at the computer in question on the HP web site and there appear to be 6 USB ports and since 4 of the them are UCB3 and 2 are USB2 there should be at least 2 separate USB busses, but try them all anyway. Does anyone know if there is a Windows equivalent for the System Profiler on Mac OSX? This is a very handy tool as it will let you see exactly what devices are on each USB bus and which physical ports are connected to which bus. The other thing you could try after this is if you have a POWERED USB hub to see if running the interface from this makes any difference. USB can be quite "eccentric". I fixed a USB problem with my Novation controller keyboard not working reliably simply by using a different USB socket on the computer.

If the problem started when you switched computer I suspect it is the culprit regarding earthing. Can you post a link to the EXACT model. Many desktop PCs these days are essentially laptops in a desktop box with the PSU built in and this may well be causing your earthing issue. I see that you are running TS jacks from the interface so you are not getting the benefits of the balanced connection between it and the speakers. It is also my experience with Focusrite interfaces (I've owned two different ones) that they work best when all the connections are balanced. I would start by taking your mate's (and @Jack's) suggestion and buying a pair of decent quality TRS jack to XLR leads to connect your interface direct to the speakers. Be prepared to have to cut the earth (screen) at one end of the cable if the static noise comes back. If that doesn't work have a look at replacing the Palmer DI box with an ART DTI Box which does the same thing as the DI box but maintains same signal the level either side. However this is a very last resort solution.

The problem may well be that your are using standard cables when your particular configuration will require custom ones, but we'll worry about that later if all the other solutions fail. Is this the DI box you have? If not could you post a link to yours? If it is does it make any difference to absence/presence of the static noise if you change the ground lift settings? Also what's your PC - a desktop or laptop?

If you want an Oberheim being used "back in the day" in a non-rock setting have a listen to "Heaven Is Waiting" by The Danse Society from 1983. Some great atmospheric synth sounds and nearly all generated by the Oberheim OBXa

I see a C&D letter from Reverend winging Ashdown's way....

IIRC I asked some questions about the set up when you originally posted this problem, and I don't think you ever answered. As I said previously, to me this sounds like an earthing problem. How are all the devices in your signal chain powered? Built-in or external PSUs? Is the interface powered via USB? Check the mains plugs on all the devices, I suspect that one or more of them will have a plastic earth prong which is where the problem lies. The Palmer DI box gets around the earth problem but at the expense of lowering the signal level and therefore is introducing a new problem while bypassing (rather than fixing) the old one. What leads are you using the connect the outputs of the interface to your speakers? IIRC all the inputs and outputs on Focusrite interfaces are balanced. It may also be possible to fix the problem by using special leads to connect the speakers that have the +ve and -ve signal connections but not the earth (that's pins 2 and 3 on an XLR and TR but not S on a TRS jack). HTH.

Strange that you lump the Junos in with the Jupiters because IMO they were completely different synths. Back in the early 80s absolutely no-one I knew bought a Juno out of choice, they bought one because it was the cheapest polysynth available. Unfortunately it's cost cutting single oscillator and EG per voice showed, and if hadn't been for the built-in chorus it would have been close to impossible to get any usable sounds from it. To a certain extent the JP4 suffered from the same problem with only a single VCO and not even a sub oscillator to fatten the sounds up which was certainly needed with only 4-voice polyphony. The JP8 was a huge leap forward in design, features and sound and IMO up there with the other classic polysynths of the era from Sequential and Oberheim - they were all about equal on features so you picked what you wanted for overall sound.

If you don't sign up it will be more money for those that do.

Generally used by guitarists with multi-effects unit(s) and all-valve amps to allow them to route some of the effects to the input of the amp and others in the amp's effects loop so that delays, reverb and other delay-derived effects come after all the distortion/compression generating ones including that produced by the pre-amp section of the amp. Requires 4 leads hence the name. Can't see the value on a stand-alone pre-amp as you can simply place it in the correct location of your effects signal chain.

I don't drive and therefore don't own a car. Besides, in the days when I was buying a lot of musical instruments on eBay a significant proportion of them came from mainland Europe, the US or Japan- hardly within driving distance!

In that case you don't want to know what a working JP8 sells for these days... My JP6 cost £400 plus train fare to Birmingham The person I bought it off had a bedroom that looked like Roland section of the mid-80s music shop (and was selling it all at bargain prices). I could have had a JP8 for about £100 more but I wanted MIDI...

I occasionally have nostalgia for the synths I used in the 80s and find myself searching for plug-in versions of them until I remember that none of them were bought out of choice, but instead because they were (relatively) affordable whilst what I really wanted (Roland Jupiter 8, Roland System 700, Oberheim Xpander, OSC OSCar) were all way beyond my reach financially. It wasn't until I bought a Nord Lead along with a second-hand Roland JP6 and Ensoniq ESQ1 and in the mid 90s that I had synths that I actually wanted. These days I'm perfectly happy with a controller keyboard and the plug-ins that come free with Logic.

My synth band in the 80s had one of first DX7s in the country. The person who actually owned it got very good at programming, but I found it impenetrable mostly due to the terrible user interface and partly down to the fact that it was nothing like an analogue synth. However silly noises was about the last thing it we'd get out of it. If you wanted tuneful sounds with a percussive attack then it was great (so long as you didn't mind having similar sounds to the ones everyone else with a DX7 had most of the time), but weird synth noises? - forget it.

So what makes these different from every other P-Bass?

Are you sure that's an actual collection and not the Backlund guitars showroom?

That looks great. Unless the neck is severely warped and the truss rod inoperative, all the problems should be fixable. OtOH at over $500 it's seriously over-priced even before you consider shipping and VAT/duty for the UK.

There's a point at which "mojo" just looks like a damaged/neglected instrument, and one which comes sooner if the wear has been caused by someone other than yourself. On the other hand the story of doing the refinishing or getting someone good to do it is just as valid.

Anyone with a spare 5 minutes can create a profile for a website like JMB and post an ad. Previous the effort required was considerably more. Before, you actually had to make the ad, either on your computer or before that hand draw/write it and then photocopy all the copies you needed. Then you had to actually leave your house to go and pin in up on the noticeboards of the local musically orientated establishments. You would also have to visit them ever other week to ensure that your ad hadn't been covered up or taken down. On the other hand once your ad had gone up any time-waster who frequented the places where they were visible could still mess you about. I've dealt with more than a few in the days before everything went on line. Also the proportion of weirdos (not in a good way) and time wasters definitely went up the more impressive your ad looked, and more so if you actually decided to place one in one of the weekly music "inkys". Looking back I wish I'd kept all the demo tapes and photos my band received when we advertised for a singer in NME and MM; some were beyond hilarious! Out of about 30 responses we got 2 sensible ones - one was the daughter of a very famous rock star who ultimately decided that we weren't good enough, and the other was the singer who actually joined the band.

It's done by the PA.

I've used JMB once. I was quite specific in my ad about what I wanted musically and the level of commitment I would put in and expect my bandmates to also put in. I didn't bother searching through the ads for a band myself, as at the time I was in no hurry and prepared to wait for the right band to come looking for me. I got one reply, about 3 months after I placed the ad, from exactly the sort of band I was looking for. I'm still playing with the current iteration of the band now.

Mostly on the B string, but if I'm playing that then either on the neck pickup or the edge of the neck depending on the tone I'm after.