Woodinblack

The original spec was 1981, I had it in print (you had to send of for it), the address was in ETI magazine at the time. The very original specification only allows (or recommends I guess) 5 pin din plugs, but obviously people can use whatever 3 pin plugs they wanted, the 5 pin was just for operability. Not arguing that they aren't a great socket as they deform when you tread on them, but they are cheap and commonly available anywhere. Certainly not a good choice if you have something that is mobile

How very dare you bring up standards! But not in any way comparable. And even as someone as negative as I am on the B word, even I hope we haven't inflicted the same damage on ourselves as we did then, because back then we had people to help us.

Now I checked the Midi 1.0 specification actually specifies Din 5 pin 180 degree connectors as the only acceptable connector. Later additions of the spec tried to introduce better connectors, but once everything has the sockets and leads you are on to a non starter trying to change it. Connectors: DIN 5 pin (180 degree) female panel mount receptacle. An example is the SWITCHCRAFT 57 GB5F. The connectors shall be labeled "MIDI IN" and "MIDI OUT". Note that pins 1 and 3 are not used, and should be left unconnected in the receiver and transmitter. Pin 2 of the MIDI In connector should also be left unconnected. The grounding shield connector on the MIDI jacks should not be connected to any circuit or chassis ground

Although I agree that it was a bad choice of socket, if it had been an XLR, you would have had a life time of accidently plugging microphones in the wrong place! And now a lot of smaller devices use 3 pin stereo mini jacks for midi to save space, or other connectors and quite a few 90s and early 000s devices (most korgs) use a mac serial port!

Althought midi is the old skool thing now, it still has some big advantages over USB. USB is a directional protocol, you need an smart host and a largely dumb controller. So you have a keyboard, the dumb bit, and you have a computer, the smart bit. The keyboard sends data to the computer and the computer sends it back. However, if you have two keyboards, you have two dumb sides, two keyboards can't talk to each other over USB, you have to get something smart in the middle to pick up the keys from one and send it to the sounds of the other. With midi, you have a send and recieve as separate sockets. So with two keyboards, you can send data from one to the other without having to have a computer involved anywhere. This is why in this day and age, most musical devices still have an interface designed back before charles and diana got hitched. In your pictures, one of those is a Mic XLR socket, not a midi.

Well the new president of the US of A has promised everyone will get the vaccine regardless of medical insurance issues. But yes, didn't Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine refuse to allow it to be owned, as it belonged to the world. Unfortunately the scientists are the one coming up with the RNA vaccines. The politicians are the ones distributing it, and have shown a particular skill in a lack of organisation. Although I am sure one of their friends can turn his christmas card company into a succesful logistics company for a few million. No, I don't think we remember. We romantisise, we glorify but we don't remember. We were good at fighting the wars, but following generations haven't got the enthusiasm to fight for the peace. Very symbolic. Even amoungst those to whom it means more than sticking a poppy on and being quiet for a couple of minutes once a year so people don't judge them, it doesn't really translate into action to keep the peace does it.

Sorry, I didn't see the original post, I was just diving in at that post. While still not having read it thoroughly, I seriously doubt it is possible to any commercial audio device by accidently having phantom power on. Especially not a device where that is a reasonable possibility. Not only is phantom power generally fairly low current, it goes straight into a set of capacitors before it does anything which takes the DC out (which is in fact the whole way phantom power can work). Its not something I would ever worry about and I know I have fed phantom power accidently to all sorts of inputs (I need phantom for the sax players mic, and I have had that switched on when many other things were plugged in).

Impedance is also another whole minefield but not really important there. Generally speaking, balanced lines have lower impedances than unbalanced. There is no technical reason for this, just convention based on where they are used. A lower impedance will also have less noise injected (or will be less affected by that noise).

Great description but would just clarify something just to be super picky and make sure things are accurate! There is no reason for a difference in distortion between balanced and unbalanced, they are the same signal. The reason you use balanced is for noise. Electrical noise exists all the way around you and whatever precautions you take, a certain amount of noise will be radiated into your cable. If your cable is unbalanced that noise will be added to the signal that is being sent to your output, and if it is big, will be noticable. If your connection is balanced, the same noise will be added to both your positive connection and your negatvie connection in equal amounts, so when the signal is put back into an input (where the input will be differenced), the noise on the negative will (within bounds) cancel out the noise on the positive. All other things being equal (length of cable, quality of cable, impedance), a balanced line will give you a less noisy signal than an unbalanced.

Was always big with my wife. She was fascinated by them when she was a kid, so when she was a young teen she used to write to them and they wrote back, so in the end she hitchhiked down the usa (from montreal) to LA to see them. So she has a pretty long term friendship with them and their original band

Its like waltzing up to something, but its a different time signature of steps!

Yeh, a cab with an amp built in. If only there was a name for that. Or a PA speaker.

Forget it and move on. If there is something you can't do now that you want to do, and a midi cable solves that, get one. If not, don't!

It certainly didn't help the people who were beaten up by the police because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or looked like someone else, or who were black. Luckily we have got a bit better than that.

Maybe if you wanted to make a headless one it would be a start!

Ah - gotcha, sorry, not thinking of the small stuff like tonewoods

Then we are both not bothered. I thank you for measuring it as now it is pretty tempting, even if it is a 6 which I know I struggle with and I am not supposed to be adding before I remove.!

You are, I'm not bothered if it is 16.5 or 17, just as long as it's under 18 as that is when it falls apart. more accurately for the people who pile in at times like this and say "I don't know what your problem is, I don't mind a foot between strings", obviously I can play whatever but what is very clear on my basses is that when something has a spacing of 18 or over, it will end up not being overlooked for others when I go to pick something up, and thus eventually sold. but obviously, maple or wenge, all sounds the same to me!

You said it is the one that you originally called the 'bridge tone', which is the one nearest the socket in your image? I would see that as the bass pot, the treble pot appears to be doing what it should isn't it?

Sorry, I meant R6 (in the diagram - above the pot that says 'bass'). But it may not be that, just that if there was a break at some point around that resistor, it could lose all bass when turned down. So the bass control is the bottom one on the outside, so on your circuit board picture it is the one on the top left. So around here: Check nothing is obviously broken or badly soldered or something.

I would say that it sounds like the top connection of the bass pot has broken off or has a bad connection. If this is the circuit, which google says it is, if there is something missing around R8, top of Vr1, you would probably get something like that

I was going to say, are they not bass and treble? It wold be odd having a tone for each pickup

I don't care about the tonewoods or the pickups, but I really do care if the strings are the right distance from each other!

Oh yes, I am sure it is fine, I was just a big disliker of shergold headstocks. I had one many years ago, and my friend had a guitar by them. They were actually ok, but never got on with the headstock