BigRedX

IMO the Rockbass version with standard bridge pins, inlay around the sound hole and without the thumb rest, looks loads better.

Better known for being the bass player in The Monochrome Set.

They don't. But they'll assume that most people who don't want coil switching options will want to use the pickup in standard (series) mode. Less chance of someone making a mistake an joining both hot wires together and making the pickup everything cancelling.

And as a result was noticed driving badly as was pointed out on another thread.

The only thing to watch with non-velocity sensitive keys is what MIDI key-on velocity value they actually output. Some will always send maximum velocity (127), but IME many will output a constant value of 64 which may make your drums sound rather weedy, as not only will the volume be down but so will any additional parameters (or sample layers depending on how the sounds on the Alesis module have been created) controlled by velocity.

Thanks! Did the pickups you bought have the magnetic polarity marked on them?

When I was living in Loughborough in the 70s The Three Nuns was notorious as the underage dinking venue. One Saturday evening teachers from the Grammar School descended on the pub and cleared out all those they knew were under 18, resulting in a significant reduction in the clientele for next couple of months. I can't remember there ever being any kind of live music on back when I was drinking there. However I doubt I've been in since 1978. Once you're old enough to drink anywhere legally there were plenty of nicer establishments to frequent.

I saw Bow Wow Wow at the Boat Club in Nottingham in 1980 just after Cassette Pet had been released. The band were great but the gig as a whole was an exercise in winding the audience up. Despite the fact that The Boat Club had a music curfew at 10.30pm the band didn't come on until just a couple of minutes before then. Before that there was no support band just two and a half hours of really boring dub reggae played over the PA (I like dub, but none of the tracks they played were any good). The place was so rammed that having spent 30 minutes slowly working my way to the front, getting back to the bar was impossible, and besides as far as I knew the band would be on any minute... When they finally hit the stage all they played were the 8 tracks off Cassette Pet plus the C30 single and it's B-side. It all seemed to be over in no time at all.

Do have a URL for that? I couldn't find anything on the StewMac website.

Whatever is on the bass when I buy it.

You want to be able to trigger the drum sounds on the Alesis module using either the NI keyboard or the Akai pads? I'm not 100% with USB over MIDI because I try and avoid it where ever possible, but my understanding of USB in general is that it is a "dumb" protocol and requires a "computer" host somewhere in the chain to organise everything. Although the protocol has been abused by low-cost manufacturers over the years the original reason for having USB A and USB B connectors was that USB A sockets were on the host device and USB B on the one(s) being controlled. All your devices have USB B sockets so they will be expecting to be connected to a "smart" host like a computer in order to function. MIDI over USB isn't the same as MIDI using old-fashioned DIN sockets, even though the end result appears to be, how the data is managed is entirely different. MIDI DIN to USB leads all have USB A plug on them because they are also "dumb" devices and need to be connected to a computer to function. You have two options. Either buy a stand-alone host box or replace the keyboard and pads with ones that also have traditional MIDI DIN sockets on them.

Those two diagrams just confirm that red and white are from one coil with red being "hot" and green and black are from the other one with black being "hot". Overall it makes no difference unless you are intending to use the split coil option where the KA and WD Music versions results in a different single coil being the active one. This is why being able to read and understand circuit and wiring diagrams is important.

Since you'll replacing most of the existing wiring does it matter that the diagram and the actual wiring don't match? Having said that, it would be useful to see where all those wires disappearing out of the left side of the photograph go.

Wooden neck.

I don't really have a problem with the interface, as I do the vast majority of my programming using the HX Edit application, and I certainly wouldn't want a touch screen on the Helix Floor version, and I'd only want a touch screen on other versions if they also had standard controls (I'm one of these people for whom touch screens don't always work reliably and IME rotary encoders are always more accurate). There are improvements that could be made to the HX Edit app, like the ability to have multiple windows open showing different things and the ability to have all the parameters for two or more modules visible at once if your screen was big enough, rather than simply scaling up the whole interface. However they are minor niggles.

More crap form our German "friends" MOS. Once again I have saved you the trouble of clicking the link.

If you are going to be doing your own electrics then you really should invest in multimeter or at least a continuity tester, otherwise you are reduced to "monkey see, monkey do" and run into problems like this when the product doesn't match the information you have, and you won't be able to work out why things have gone wrong when they do. The problem with "soap bar" when it comes to describing bass pickups is that it is essentially meaningless. Unlike guitar soap bars which are fat single coil pickups usually based on the Gibson P90 style, all you can say about bass soap bars is that the casing is wider than a typical J-style pickup. What is actually inside the casing is entirely up to the manufacturer and unless they specifically state what coil arrangements are under the cover you don't really know. Information about the Claymore pickups on the Kent Armstrong site is fairly sketchy, although the implication appears to be that under the cover is a standard (Stingray type) humbucking pickup with two full width coils. However there is nothing in the description that actually confirms this, and it could just as easily be a P-style split coil or any other arrangement with two coils that can be wired together to give a humbucking effect. I suspect that the reason they have wrapped the back and white wires together is that these are the ones that need to be connected in series humbucking mode, but it would have been less confusing if they had simply labelled each wire. In your OP you appear to have shown just a small part of the supplied wiring guide. I suspect that being able to see the other options would have clarified exactly what each wire does. Again the ability to be able to read and understand a circuit diagram would be most useful to you. If you simply want to have two pickups (with each pickup wired as a series humbucker) then for each pickup solder together the black and white wires and cover each join in insulating tape. Then follow the Standard Jazz Bass wiring diagram you posted substituting white on the diagram for red on the pickup and black on the diagram for green on the pickup.

If you are unsure get your multimeter out and check to see how the pickup is wired without any of the wires twisted together. While it is convenient, there is no logical reason why one manufacturer should follow the same colour coding for their wires as another.

I played about 15 seconds of each of the tracks that I was interested in and the thing that struck me was that how terrible most of the isolated sounds were, but how perfect they are when you hear the final mix. It all goes to prove that there is no great bass tone, just one that works well with a particular combination of musicians and instruments, and why for the most part chasing someone else's tone is a futile exercise.

Unless the jack socket fitting is recessed, I can't see that tool being any more useful that either the right sized spanner or a good quality monkey wrench.

That's you problem right there. As a band you all need to be "on the same page" as far as gigging goes. Nothing breaks up a band quicker than not all of the members wanting the same thing out of being in it, or what may be perceived as unequal division of labour when it comes to getting and organising gigs - even though some members may be much better at this aspect than others.

It's great pity that not everyone's experience of Ashdown's customer service is as good as that. Personally I'll never buy another Ashdown product again.

As you know sound proofing and acoustic treatment are two entirely different things and need to be tackled separately. What's on the other side of those wooden walls? The outside world? How close are your neighbours? How close is any noisy stuff going on outside? How much smaller could the room be without compromising the usable space? For sound proofing you need mass and lots of it if you want to prevent noises leaking out or in. The current structure won't be very good at this. Ideally you want to be building a room within this structure isolated as far as possible from it, but that will probably eat up too much of the space and be too costly to be practical. At the very least you need to pack the space between the studs with RW3 and then apply two layers of acoustic plasterboard to the inside walls bonded together with Green Glue. And then maybe consider floating a floor inside this. Don't forget the ceiling. It need to have at least the same amount of mass separating the inside from the outside otherwise will be the weak point in your structure from a sound proofing PoV. Don't forget about ventilation. Unfortunately there is no way of working out how practical this will be without doing it first and being/hearing the results. Once you have successfully sorted out the sound proofing, you can worry about the acoustic treatment. If it's also a living space but not a studio or somewhere where critical listening is taking place you won't have to do much unless you also need to install mirrors and a hard wooden floor for the dance studio functions in which case you will probably need to have additional damping elsewhere. You'll need to install all the essential non acoustic elements first and then work out how to get it sounding decent afterwards.

What sort of band is it? Covers, originals, tribute? what genre(s)? Where are you based? There is no one size fits all process to getting gigs. IME of originals bands once you've got a foot in the door through either contacts or sheer bloody persistence, you need to make the most of the opportunity by being brilliantly entertaining. At one point with The Terrortones almost every gig we were playing was leading to two others - a rebooking at the place we had just played and someone in the audience recommending somewhere else we should play and giving us a good contact to talk to. Even then you do need to be politely persistent. Mr Venom would spend at least an hour every evening on the phone or social media reminding venues, promoters, bands we would like to support who we were and why they should give us a gig. If you live somewhere where there a few "local" venues then you will need to be prepared to travel in order to play. Of corse you could bypass the whole system and just organise your own gigs. Book somewhere to play and do everything yourself. Easier if you are an originals band as you can book at better-known band of the same genre to headline and your band supports. This way you also build up an impressive gigging "CV" that can be used to persuade other venues and promotors of your band's worth. Of course if you are a covers band very little of that (other than the fact you need to be entertaining - which is not the same as being technically good musicians) applies.

I tried it once. The process ruined one of my pans and one of the strings snapped when I tried to put them back on. All-in-all a complete waste of time.