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Is Jim Glennie on Basschat? The list of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_%28band%29#James_support_acts"]James support bands[/url] acts includes bands like Nirvana, Radiohead, Stereophonics, Coldplay...

[quote name='Jamesemt' post='233181' date='Jul 5 2008, 03:20 PM']That looks ace - shame it's not out till Spetember! Any other recommendations around £100?[/quote] Apart from the Behringer BCR2000 already mentioned (£80), Thomann has [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/daw_controllers.html"]some[/url], including the smaller M-Audio X-Session types. As for whether a device supports Cubase: since they all use standard MIDI commands, you should be able to set up Cubase to work with anything, with a little effort. Some makers such as Mackie & Behringer provide compatibility files, so you don't have to go to that hassle.

Korg are about to bring out an extremely tiny one, the [url="http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=NanoSeries&category_id=8"]nanoKONTROL[/url]. Looks like Digital Village will be selling it for £59.

Don't forget that Steve uses flatwound strings (Rotosound 77), which must be easier on the skin. His signature set is 50-110, fairly heavy, so yeah, I imagine he has some serious finger muscles there.

[quote name='ped' post='232015' date='Jul 3 2008, 02:03 PM']I would like to see the Tune if you can make it! Free flights eh? I bet that is like Ryanair - flight = 5p and taxes and fees etc make it actually cost about £50 (still v cheap admittedly)[/quote] Got it in one: it would be €70 or so. I'd prefer not to fly with a bass, but the ferry+train is more expensive than that, and takes far longer.

I won't know whether I can make it until near the end of August - it depends on my university schedule, and what is scheduled for the Friday. I like to make the occasional trip to London, just to see the place, shop for stuff, and so on. Aer Lingus are offering "free" flights to the UK during September, and if I'm able to make it, I'll get a hard case for the Tune and bring that over.

Maybe this will help: the Impedance [b]Z[/b] is the vector sum of the Resistance [b]R[/b] (which you measured) and the frequency-dependant [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance"]Reactance[/url] [b]X[/b] (which you don't know). Z² = R² + X² , so you can safely say that the Impedance will never be [i]lower[/i] than the Resistance, only [i]higher[/i], so that's probably not a 4Ω speaker. If you'd like to see some more of the Maths on the subject, try [url="http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/EddyCurrents/Physics/impedance.htm"]this[/url]. The rated impedance figure on a speaker is only a guide, because the Reactance changes with the frequency. Exactly how much is down to all kinds of factors, even the cabinet design, so you're not going to get a simple figure like the one you see in the adverts, such as 8Ω. You often see speaker makers measuring the actual Impedance over a frequency range, and providing a chart like this:

[quote name='kennyrodg' post='231769' date='Jul 3 2008, 08:45 AM']hi folks. i have a couple of mystery speakers at home.i want to see what Ohmage they are,can you test it with a multi meter. thanks in advance. [/quote] You can get a reading of the DC resistance, but the actual impedance will be a bit higher. I remember trying this, and seeing a 6Ω DC resistance on a speaker rated at 8Ω impedance. (Strictly speaking, impedance is the resistance to sIgnals of a specific frequency e.g. 8Ω @ 40Hz.)

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='230256' date='Jul 1 2008, 06:49 AM']Some really nice comments and not one 'I hate Warwicks' post.[/quote] I've loved that shape since I first saw a photo of one on Jack Bruce... but when I tried one, I found that the body's not much bigger than a Steinberger L-series, and doesn't quite work on me! (5'11", "big-boned").

I've used [url="http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/products/attack"]Waldorf Attack[/url] before, which was great for electronic drums. It's quite cheap: you can get it with their excellent PPG Wave synth, plus a filter plugin, in the [url="http://www.waldorfmusic.de/en/products/waldorf-edition"]Waldorf Edition[/url]. £32.00 from Dolphin. Or, what about the Steinberg Groove Agent (a.k.a. Virtual Drummer)? The [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may05/articles/steinbergergroove.htm"]review[/url] looks good.

I'm surprised no-one has used the B-word yet: [b]Behringer[/b], and their [url="http://behringer.com/DD600/index.cfm?lang=ENG"]DD600[/url]. Has anyone tried that one? Another FX maker I'm aware of is [b]t.c. electronic[/b], who do a pedal called the [url="http://www.tcelectronic.com/NovaDelay.asp"]NovaDelay[/url]. Looks very nice indeed, but might also be a bit feature-rich. There's one on t'Bay for [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TC-Electronic-ND-1-Nova-Delay-Guitar-Effects-Pedal-FIX_W0QQitemZ110265404560QQcmdZViewItem"]62.97[/url] from, the USA (plus postage).

[quote name='Toasted' post='231134' date='Jul 2 2008, 09:56 AM']Do yourself a favour and get a Timefactor [/quote] Do you mean the [url="http://www.eventide.com/AudioDivision/Products/StompBoxes/TimeFactor.aspx"]Eventide[/url] box? That's £280-£300 right there, for a delay pedal. Ow!

Well... if I think of the kind of bass sound I like, I think of double bass, or piano, both of which use a higher string tension than the standard 34" bass. According to D'Addario, their low E strings are under about 35-40lbs of normal tension, lower than the other strings. Their Hybrid Helicore double bass strings are under 64-71lbs. A piano string is typically under 200+ lbs of tension! In short, if I'm looking for a stronger bass fundamental, I want the string tension to go up, not down. So, if you reduce the scale, you've got to increase the string thickness, but there are limits to that. After a quick look around, I can't see any string makers who do short scale sets that are significantly thicker: they all seem to sell shorter versions of the same gauges.

Wikipedia has some useful descriptions of what's happening at the sonic level e.g. their article on [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanger"]Flanging[/url] explains where the name came from. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaser_(effect)"]Phasing[/url] is a bit odd, since it involves an all-pass filter that affects the phase of different frequencies differently. [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorus_effect"]Chorus[/url] is basically a short variable-speed multi-tap delay, while Wah-Wah (Wah for short) is a band-pass filter (EQ) you sweep with your foot!

If you're going to use any kind of magnetic pickup, the strings must contain iron, or you'll get no sound out of it. Got any barbed wire handy?

There's a previous thread on the DBX 266 [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=19512&hl=DBX+266"]here[/url]. I don't doubt it would "work", but it's all manual controls, and would be better in a studio. I don't think I'd like it for gigging:it's a whole rack space for a function you can have in a multi-FX unit or a (pre)amp, and it has no programmability, not even support for a on/off footswitch.

Well, if you're going to learn some Green Day, you have to include [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=G605NirgBjw"]Basket Case[/url]! Another one of theirs I've tried is [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1gL5e986lxY"]Warning[/url], where the bass is really up-front. Apart from that - who knows? Got any favourite pop songs, or your Mum's ABBA records? (You could do worse!)

Why be so hard on yourself? It's just one of those things you learn about at some time or other, if you get your hands on one. It smooths out the volume levels of a signal, so that there isn't as much variation in level. Above a certain threshold, it reduces the signal by an amount proportional to its level over that threshold. One effect is to increase the apparent sustain on a note. As I'm sure you can imagine, this could sound horrible if done carelessly, so a compression unit will have controls to fine-tune the effect: - threshold: you obviously don't want to boost background noise, so signals below the threshold setting are not boosted - attack: how quickly the compression kicks in, so that the attack (slap, pluck) is squashed or not - ratio: the amount by which the signal is squashed. Higher ratio means more squash. Wikipedia has lots more geeky detail, with graphs and links [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression"]here[/url].

You got lucky - that sounds like a mineral oil fog fluid, which is harmless to electronic gear, and some types of oil are even used for cleaning PCBs. Some PC overclockers submerge their motherboards in the stuff to keep the chips cool. If it had been a water-based fluid... ouch.

[quote name='thinman' post='228658' date='Jun 28 2008, 06:14 PM']I'm really just guessing here - someone who understands the physics of springs etc may be able to give an authoritative view - but is there some law that means the further a string is initially pulled the faster the initial energy will be lost?[/quote] Something like that, though other factors will come in to play, such as the coupling with the body etc. Here's how I understand it, after studying springs a bit last year - the amount of energy stored in a spring is proportional to the square of the displacement (the distance it's stretched by) - so there is a law of diminishing returns in that sense. Pulling it twice as far takes four times the energy. - the string is vibrating at a given frequency, so if you pull it further off centre, it has to move faster to cover the distance at that frequency. Air resistance is proportional to the square of its speed, and I think the same is true of magnetic field resistance (over the pickups, especially if they are too close). This is all very theoretical, though! I imagine huge differences between e.g. an old Fender P-bass (wood, dead spots, strong magnets) vs. a neck-through Modulus Graphite with EMGs (extremely rigid construction, weak magnetic fields).

After a few years studying industrial instrumentation (including electronics) I got the message that weak signals need to be buffered as close to the source as possible, if you're going to preserve them. So, when I heard about pickups with buffer circuitry built in to the pickup, that's what I chose to mod my first good bass with. I have no complaints with the EMGs I had put iin in 1991.

I'd be looking at a [url="http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?a_prod_no=AX3000B&category_id=6"]Korg AX-3000B[/url]. I have one of their little Ampworks boxes that has a similar modeling engine. You can do things like select a Patch, then switch to Individual mode to toggle each effect on or off.

The Lakland web page says that bass uses Bartolini MK1 electronics, which I can't find on the Bartolini page... do you know if you have the option of going to 18V (2 batteries) for more headroom? I don't know Bartolini stuff that well, but I know that EMG say you can go 18V for more headroom, and I did it for a while on my bass with EMG 35- P & -J soapbars. I didn't notice any difference, so I eventually stopped, but it's something to consider if the circuit is designed for it.

My bass has solid spindles, not splined or split. The knobs I got were [url="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280217175477"]these[/url], which are 6mm set screw types. The same [url="http://stores.ebay.com/MMTG-Enterprises"]seller[/url] has other types, including splined.

[quote name='Stingray5' post='227739' date='Jun 27 2008, 01:44 AM']I got my Tune TWB-6 back in '96 from the Bass Centre, London, and love it - both the look and sound.[/quote] My, that's tasty! When I strike it rich... Japan, here I come. That might tempt me in to my first 6-er. I don't think I'd mind those knobs, much nicer than the cheap & nasty ones that mine came with.