Owen

I recognise greatness when I see it. The king is dead. Long live the king.

The problem is back. Much less than it was and Plugable are going to send me a new unit. I shall report back.

People pay really good money for that! Sorry, I am aware that that is not what you want

I know you are all desperate to know the outcome. It seems to be behaving at the moment. I have been using it all afternoon.

Ooh! Ooh! USB C out of the interface into USB C on the Display Link port doobrie seems to be behaving. I will give it a couple of hours to misbehave.

The USB system makes sense. It does NOT like the USB webcam - it makes the signal to noise ratio appreciably worse. Interestingly (!) the audio interface plugged directly into the mac actually make it worse. The interference is still there taking audio directly out of the Plugable box. Taking audio out of the Macbook headphone output and unplugging the Audio interface solves the problem. That means I can get audio out cleanly but doing online meetings is not great Thanks for the link to the isolation transformer. I will probably try it, even though it is yet another purchase on top of a significant outlay No energy saving going on. And it happens as soon as I open the system now. My life is so hard!

The dedicated mains plug in the wall made no difference. Ho hum

Double GAS household. This is going to be glorious.

I have isolated it to the box itself. The set up is fine when I am using a passive hub to attach to another screen and peripherals. Using just the Plugable unit with no peripherals and Plugable audio generates the same rustling. I have cleaned the earth prong on the mains plug and plugged it into a different main socket away from the extensino lead I use for the rest of the desktop. Initially that was fine but after five hours the gently rustling was back. I guess the next step is to plug it directly into the wall with no mains extension. That is a bit of a mission given how my desk is set up and proximity of plugs but I will have to try. I guess I could run the jack outs from my interface into a couple of DI boxes and hit the earth lift on them but then I would need XLR to phono leads to plug into my hi-fi amp which I use for my audio. And the DI boxes would need a constant power source from somewhere. Any other suggestions? TIA

I guess you would. But that would not worry any proper bassist

It is not the mirror which worries me, it is the laptop camera on zoom meeting. When did THAT happen? The biggest truth teller of all is the Double Bass bow. There is nowhere to hide with intonation.

When I design basses I often wonder about a 5 string neck so that the heel looks like an od T when viewd head on. Then it would slot into a 4 string body with overhangs both sides for the excess areas of neck. I do not have the tools to do this. Or the skillset. But it works in my head.

....... but it is worth a try. My progress on my "build from scratch" seems to have stopped. It is good to know your limits. I have reached mine on that one. However, the itch to mess with stuff will not go away. I have bought a £200 5 string solid body bass uke from China. It has a truss rod and I know it will take metal strings because someone sold the same one on Ebay recently having strung it up with bass guitar strings. The woodwork on it is OK, but the frets ends could be used as an offensive weapon. I have come to the conclusion that solid body uke basses do not provide the air-shifting thud which is what I love about the original Kala acoustics. I have put cut down bass guitar strings on it and discovered that the original machine heads are made of cheese. I have clearly led a sheltered life in regards to machine heads as I have never had experience of rubbish ones before. They got so stiff while turning with no strings on them that I felt I had the option of stopping or breaking them. I have swapped them for some cheap and cheerful Wilkinson ones (£28ish). I had to re-use one of the spacing washers from the originals because the headstock is just too thin for the Wilkinsions to fit properly. The piezo bridge seems to have been crushed by the tension of the new strings but that is OK as well because I have a bass guitar bridge (£25ish) to go on anyway. The straight accross piezo bridge will never do the intonation needed.If that all works, then I will plumb a pickup in. I do fancy one of those oval Delano ones. I played a mini bass in a Bass Bash which had one and I liked the noise it made. I also like the shape and the little thumb indentation. I am so shallow. It would make more sense to put in a standard soapbar size so that I could change it if need be, but I am feeling adventurous. When I use the word "I" in relation to structural work, you can read it as "I will pay someone". I actually did the machine heads (after guidance from the BC Massive on how to) but managed to strip the head of one of the screws. Mr Drill sorted that out but it was a reminder to me that some things are best left to people who can. I screwed some chair legs together yesterday to repair dried glue issues. The drill bit I used was too big so the screws I had went in easily but did not actually bite into any wood. How I laughed as I got into the car to go to B&Q to buy bigger wood screws. I will have to do the screw which anchors the machine head in place later but will kick myself if I missalign them. I can see it but cannot neccesarily do it. But I have to try. 20210129_210359.mp4 20210129_205909.mp4

So, does this box have to be running a Sky system to work? There seems to be a 2nd market in them which makes it an interesting proposition.

I am 55 and I LOVE the sparkly blue.

That will bring the waft.

I went to Finland on an youth orchestra/choir exchange trip in the last millenium. It was ace.

No no no no no. Lower notes are more better. I heart LF.

I must admit that I am VERY familiar with the original and did not notice the change in the Glasto version. Something cracking happened at 2:51 though so that might account for moving swiftly on?

That will do nicely.

I was going to ask Jeff Beck for some lessons but I watched some videos and he is all fingers and thumbs. I would like to thank the You Tube comments section for that joke.