JapanAxe

Managed to find time to mark up the main board, and mark and centre-punch a lot of the chassis - transformers, output valves, front and rear panels. I've re-positioned some of the rear panel stuff so as to sit between the valve socket positions. I'm leaving the rest until I can test fit some of the components.

Oooh! I'm not a big effects user when it comes to bass but that sounds very tempting.

Actually last week but… First full rehearsal with new singer. She is great, easy to work with, and sings in a positive way that’s nice for me to harmonise with. Mostly on IEMs (drummer has electronic kit) but ran a mix through the PA too and someone made a phone recording that I listened back to today - this is a band with potential methinks.

Nope, Mrs Axe is unreasonably supportive of my musical endeavours and the profligate gear acquisition that goes with it. The latter is (mostly) funded by gig money, and the bills all get paid, so the main sticking point is the space required - at present, an upstairs room, a downstairs cupboard, a chunk of the loft, and most of the space under the spare bed. I consider myself lucky.

Layout pretty much complete. I was going to stagger the 6L6 positions but I went back to Morgan Jones's 'Building Valve Amplifiers' and he says that (1) you can get away with mounting power valves closer together as long as they are not showing each other the wide faces of their plates, (2) mounting valves in the middle of a chassis limits convection cooling. Consequently I now have the 6L6s lined up just inside the rear chassis edge, oriented so that they each see the thin edge of their neighbours' plates. I plan to have a tag strip running parallel to the row to terminate the 1ohm 1% bias sense resistors, and possibly some other stuff. I've also marked up the hole positions on the bias board - each side of the output transformer will have its own bias pot. There's likely to be a couple of weeks' break now for holidays and stuff, so bear with me.

On lead guitar last night with an ‘anthems’ band (all the predictable stuff that has punters losing their poop) at a nice old pub just outside Portsmouth. When I’ve played there previously I’ve noticed that single-coils pick up a lot of buzz, plus we’ve been in a ‘box’ area in the middle of the pub which made it feel very loud despite the earplugs that I always use. This time, instead of a Strat I took my modded Steinberger Spirit with (noiseless) Lace Sensors as well as my Tele Deluxe (humbuckers). Also they gave us an area backing onto the front windows, which was much more open and allowed for better engagement with the audience as well as reasonable ventilation. What a difference! The on-stage sound was loads better and my Steinberger has never sounded as good. The landlord is great with us, providing free drinks (which for us means coffee and soft drinks) and paying above the odds. The only downside was the long drive home to Swin Vegas.

I got mine when they were about £570 and it’s still been great value for money. The learning curve is steep and I still have to refresh my memory fairly frequently as to various settings and operations but it’s a great bit of kit.

1. Yes, but there needs to be a consensus on how this will work, for example - first come, first served as far as gigs go. If I’ve agreed to do a gig, that gets priority. It goes in other band diaries as an unavailable date for me. If a ‘better’ opportunity comes along, I won’t blow out the existing one. I may try to negotiate an arrangement so that I can do the second gig, but I’ll never leave a band in the brown stuff. I’m in the slightly unusual position of being an actual member of two bands (one a startup not yet gigging, the other gigging infrequently) and depping with at least five others. I mentioned diaries - some of those bands use the Teamup app, which is free and pretty simple to use. It saves a lot of to-and-fro messaging about who is available for what dates. 2. It sounds like you’re the bandleader here. I’ve done that twice - never again! I don’t think I can help with this one, other than to ask: If they lack motivation to play with your band, they probably shouldn’t be doing it!

I agree, it’s bad enough having to think about how much to cut/boost the mids, without having to decide which mids!

Not a true analog split but I use this in a couple of bands. Only works on Behringer or Midas kit with the Ultranet system though. I have it set so that each output is a copy of the corresponding channel input immediately after the gain control - which you need to remember not to mess with, but thankfully the sound tech can’t either! It’s in the bottom rack space here, connected to to my XR18 via a single ethernet cable: And here’s a handy video from Scott Uhl, who I’ve found to be a great resource on all things wireless:

FWIW I once compared the Line Out from my Markbass Nano 300 to the untreated input signal. I couldn’t tell the difference.

Today I re-drew the main board layout and stuck it onto the full-size chassis plan. I need to do a layout for the bias board before I get too far along with this.

Yes. I take whatever is right for the gig, regardless of what I paid for it.

This is pretty much what I do on my one active bass. I tend to prefer passives but this approach works for me.