JapanAxe

Correct. I have found that ceramic valve sockets can be very tight to get the valves in and out of!

I took the precaution of testing the Ruby Tubes that came installed, using my Orange Valve Tester. V1 (12AX7) tested 'worn' so I replaced it with a known good Tung Sol. V2 (12AX7) tested 'good'. V3 (12AU7) tested 'bad' - one of the triodes only scored 1 on Orange's arbitrary scale of 1-15, so I replaced it with a JJ that had a slightly better score. Fortunately the driver arrangement means the triodes do not need to be matched. V4 & V5 (6L6) both tested 'good' with closely matched ratings. I don't want to be swapping valves too often - the screws are fiddly to replace (and easy to lose), and it takes a fair amount of force to remove the pre-amp valves! I have a country gig tomorrow night, not a loud band, so an ideal opportunity to see how the amp fares against a drummer and two guitarists. (In case you're interested, it's the Crow Valley Band, and the venue is Middleton Cheney Social Club, Astrop Road, Middleton Cheney, Banbury OX17 2PG - it will cost you £6-£7 to get in.)

Ooh! I bought a Tung Sol 12AX7 recently, got to try that . There's enough gain there for me as it is, the Gain control mainly changes the character from smooth to furry!

Another Voice Memo user. When I get home I upload the recording to Dropbox, and I can then access it from my music room computer.

Short scale basses rock!

I've run an Orange Tiny Terror guitar amp through an Ashdown ABM cab at a jam (to save taking 2 cabs - also had a Class D bass head there) and it sounded pretty good to me.

I originally had the mid boosted on 2 (400Hz), but it immediately gained clarity when I set it to 3 (800Hz). Setting 4 (1.6kHz) is just getting into the 'presence band', which should zing it up nicely!

Took delivery of the PF-50T and connected it to my Super Twin, then plugged in my '73 P and played along with a classic soul compilation. Oh. My. God. Punchy, fat, touch-responsive sound. Smooth and effective tone controls, including a Treble control that actually has a useful effect with flat-wound strings. The Gain knob should actually be labelled 'Fur', as that's what it seems to control (in the best possible way). This amp is all that I hoped it would be - and no hum, I'm pleased to say. Here's the rig, and the settings I ended up with:

I can beat that - a drummer who wanted to feed a bass drum mic into my bass amp. I politely explained to him that it was not an option.

He has updated his listing to reflect what he has been told by potential bidders, so I'm call 'Not Tw@t'.

The knobs are off an 80s model like the Precision Lyte. The tuners are the lightweight ones that have been fitted to US Standards for a while. If it is a recent US Standard, I'm thinking there should be the option of through-body stringing, but no ferrules on the back. I'm guessing it's a bitsa.

I've had an MXR Carbon Copy die because the J-FETs in the switching circuit got fried by static (afaik).

Sorry to disappoint, but an incoming Ampeg PF-50T has somewhat disincentivised the bass amp project. When I do get round to a build, it is now more likely to be based on a Supro guitar amp like this.

Cheers, thanks for sharing.

Another vote for OBBM, especially for speaker cables.

I have a Neo D single coil installed in my Taylor. I will measure it when I get home. Btw I did have to modify it to make it fit, but that was because it was too close to the strings - I removed the top set of cork pads and replaced them with pieces of thin (1mm?) cork sheet.

So many amps, so little time!

Just ordered a PF-50T from Kenny's. 😎

The manual online says it's 400W at 4 ohms - and that's an old-school MOSFET power amp, should be plenty loud through a decent cab.

Leave the soldering iron alone for now. Assuming a passive bass, select one pickup only, connect your meter across the output. Slowly turn the appropriate volume pot through its range and note the maximum reading, which will be somewhere in the middle of the sweep. Double that for the approximate pot value. The nominal resistance of the pot will be a 'round' figure, so if you get 257k, that would indicate a 250k pot.