chriswareham

Mesa Boogie refuse to provide schematics, service manuals or spares so techs tend to hate them. They're also not very easy to work on because they're very complex and the cabling inside makes access to most of the boards a nightmare. It seems they want all repairs to go through the mothership in California, which is somewhat ... inconvenient ... to anyone outside the US.

Which it would. Microsoft can be criticised for a lot of shoddy software development, but one thing they have been very good about is backwards compatibility. I've seen software written in the 90s that still runs on Windows 11 without modification. It's also why you may see multiple versions of C++ and .NET libraries installed on a typical Windows system.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?

Regardless of whether it's a manufacturer issue, the consumer protection laws state it's the vendor who is responsible for dealing with a customer's problem. It's then for the vendor to deal with the manufacturer.

Security or stability fixes can cause issues, although Android does a very good job of isolating the low level stuff that usually gets updated for these kinds of changes from the higher level libraries an app developer works with. But my experience of dealing with code written by less competent or just downright lazy programmers is that if you design something to be idiot proof, the universe will design a better idiot.

If the app support is advertised by the manufacturer as a feature, then it would make an interesting case for testing the applicability of the Sales of Goods Act and Consumer Rights Act. The laws in these kinds of areas are usually interpreted from the perspective of what an "ordinary" member of the public would mean them to be. So it would come down to whether a court decides that support on the current version of the most popular mobile operating system of a major feature is reasonable from the perspective of the purchaser of such a device. Edited just to add, based on my own experience developing software that includes Android apps, Mooer would have access to the beta and pre-release versions of any new version of the operating system. They don't have to scramble to catch up to changes only after a new version is released.

If the app is broken on current versions of Android, then the guitar is definitely not working as advertised. I'd take this as a warning to not buy any "smart" devices, since you're relying on the manufacturer to provide updates as the app platforms evolve. Most don't produce an update after the initial, often buggy, release. Others go out of business, and the device loses some or all of its functionality as the remote services it requires disappear. Same goes for software bought on a subscription model - it's the dream for software companies, as it generates a lot of repeat revenue rather than a one off purchase. Something like the subscription option for Roland's Cloud offering, where you'll lose all access to your virtual instruments or effects if you can no longer pay. Even if they offer an outright purchase, that's usually just for a license key not the software itself, so cannot be sold on even if it's an add on for a hardware device that you wish to sell it with.

Son of Giggles (hereafter SoG for brevity) had its first rehearsal tonight. Finished the first song and our drummer commented that it was the best bass sound he'd ever heard. He's right - the Bass Baby sounds awesome, even better than the V-S Bassamp, and is also incredibly loud. The amp is going to get the full works: - Plastic corners sanded and buffed to remove the scuffs. - All electrolytic capacitors replaced with top quality new ones. - All tarnished screws, handle fittings and so forth cleaned with wire wool and then nickel plated. - All knobs and sliders thoroughly cleaned with Deoxit. The tolex has barely any marks on it, so with the above work and a couple of new knobs I should be able to get it into lovely condition.

As Baldrick told Blackadder, there's good money to be made down the docks. Doing favours for sailors.

Email just sent to MAJ Electronic - looks like they have knobs available to replace the two mismatched ones! Also seeing if they have the service manual, as I'm going to strip it down for a service and give it a spring clean.

Kicking myself that I passed up the chance to get a black Alembic Spoiler that was for sale on evilBay for an affordable price a bunch of years ago. I think the black finish must have made it less desirable, since it hid the no doubt lovely wood the bass was made from. Always wanted one, as Peter Steele of Type O Negative used a Spoiler - it was his main recording bass even after it was retired from live use thanks to its fragile state from years of abuse.

So a number of years ago, a HH 2x15 bass cabinet nicknamed "Giggles" was sold on this here site by @itsat34. There ensued a fun tale of Giggles getting from Essex to France where it now resides with @Dad3353. Fast forward to the present, and I'm on the lookout for a HH cabinet to match my HH Bassamp VS. One popped up on Gumtree near(ish) to me, complete with a HH Bass Baby head. I travel over to collect it in a ZipCar that the previous renter and chums had clearly smoked copious amounts of weed in. The car stank, had lots of detritus in the back from the bout of munchies the weed smokers must have suffered, and to top it all the heating didn't work. It turns out I'm buying the HH stack from @itsat34, and after his lovely wife made me a cup of tea I learn the story of the original Giggles. So now I've christened the HH stack "Son of Giggles", although it's journey to a new home was far simpler - albeit in a freezing cold car that reeked of super strength skunk. Lots of great sounds in the EQ section of the Bass Baby as it distorts in a very pleasing way at higher settings of each slider, while the compressor on the top channel goes from subtle to super squished. So now I have two, quite different sounding HH amps that I'm rather enamoured with. The temptation is to get another HH cabinet, and run them in a dual amp setup via my home made Ric-O-Sound splitter box.

He states in his book "Substance" that he used 105, 085, 065, 065 during the New Order era. I had to switch to 060 for the G as the 065 was just too much tension, and that's the same gauges used in his signature set of Elites from the Bass Centre. I use Newtone strings though, as from what I recall they were Hooky's choice before switching to the signatures set because Newtone could also supply the equally odd mix of gauges he uses on his Shergold six stringers.

I use a Yamaha BB1200 for a Joy Division tribute act, and it's strung like Hooky has his with a fairly heavy D string for both D and G. That took some getting used to, but makes the melodic bits he does on the G with a droning open D really stand out.

When changing strings, the old set goes in the case with the added benefit that the string is already cut to length. Only needed to use a spare string on one occasion, when of all things the E string snapped at the headstock end. Rapidly changed the string, but as I was getting it up to pitch ... SPROING ... the damn spare snapped as well. Turns out the edge of the machine head split shaft bit where you bend the string in had somehow become razor sharp and normal tension was enough to press into the string core and snap it. No spare bass guitar, and neither of the other two bands on the bill offered to lend one, so my band finished the set with no bass. I started taking a backup bass to gigs after that, but then stopped when I switched to using a medium scale bass as my main instrument and all my other basses are long scale that now feels uncomfortable.

The Sisters of Mercy rank as one of the worst live music experiences I've ever had. Missed their early incarnations pre-Floodland as I was too young. Saw them twice in the Vision Thing era, but it was third rate metal as Eldritch thought that would make the band massive in the US. Then saw them about eight years ago, since my partner bought tickets to see them at the Roundhouse as a present. Therapy? supported, and were their usual superb selves. The Sisters were like a bad parody doing techno versions of the old songs without even a bass guitarist. I also walked out of Ultravox at the Roundhouse, as it was more like a Midge Ure solo show with his terrible guitar playing drowning the rest of the band out. Found out afterwards he'd insisted on his personal sound engineer being in control of the FoH mix. Peter Murphy at the smaller venue in the O2 dome thing. Billed as a mixed set of Bauhaus and solo material. He spent almost the entire set laying on his back and refused to sing most of the songs to the obvious embarrassment of his backing band. A few months after he was arrested for driving under the influence of, and in possession of, drugs. Not a surprise.

I'd recommend the Sound on Sound review of the Tascam Model 12 - it improves on the 16 in so many ways, so if you don't need the extra tracks it could be the better choice of the two.

I sold a Sequential Circuits TOM drum machine to buy an Alesis SR-16 when they came out. The Alesis was terrible, with sounds that were soaked in a reverb that couldn't be removed and I've always regretted that "upgrade". The TOM is now worth about ten times what I sold it for as well. At least the Alesis didn't have a habit of scrambling its memory just before a gig, which is what the TOM's predecessor - an Oberheim DMX - used to do. The only solution to that was recording the drums on a portastudio and putting up with the resulting hiss that was quite something at gig volumes over a PA system.

That's why I added the caveat about class compliance. Some devices need drivers if they offer higher bit depths, since this wasn't in the earlier USB standards for audio.

If you don't want access to all the plugins that you can use with a a computer based DAW package, then something like the Tascam Model 12 might be a good alternative. It's a standalone, hardware mixer and multi track digital recorder. Very simple to use, and you can also start integrating it into a DAW setup at a later stage since it can act as an audio interface and control surface for the most popular DAW packages. As for someone mentioning a Mac with the inference it will just work. No, it won't. Exactly the same issues as Windows, with latency problems and potentially conflicting drivers if you use anything that isn't a "class compliant" USB audio interface.

She's a great luthier. It's quite poignant at times when she has to stop filming because the power has failed due to Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure (she's based in Kyiv). Ted Woodford, who is the gold standard for YouTube luthier videos, has spoken approvingly of her skills.

For me the best pedal purchase was a Boss BF-2 - the often maligned flanger. It was after I watched a YouTube video where it was shown how versatile an effect it is once you understand how the controls interact with each other, resulting in chorus, uni-vibe, comb filter and other effects in addition to the expected flanging. It's replaced my much used but incredibly noisy EHX Clone Theory, and has the added benefit of fitting in a guitar case.

I played drop C on a 4 string for a number of years, so C-G-C-F. Heaviest four strings from an Ernie Ball Power Slinky set. For stuff I'd normally play in standard tuning I just adapted my playing to suit the drop tuning. Wouldn't work if you need open strings from the Eb tuning for double stops or drones though.

Perhaps we also need a thread on misleading band names, album titles or artwork. Something like Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats":

The Saints were awesome, up there with The Church as one of the Aussie bands that shoud have been far more successful than they were.