Mottlefeeder

[quote name='TPJ' post='39440' date='Jul 31 2007, 11:39 AM']I was thinking about that because the recommended neo driver is about £100 at Bluearan. I wonder if you could employ a similar handrail that is on the Ampeg SVT 410 HLF so you could tilt it back and roll the bugger.[/quote] Putting inset wheels (or a diagonal plate and wheels) in the back corners will substantially alter the size/shape of the horn throat of any OMNI 12 or 15. On the tallboys, you could do it with wheels on the front and back of the left-hand enclosure side, so you stand beside it and tilt it towards you. Hope that makes sense wthout a picture.

There is a growing band of Basschatters who have built Bill Fitzmaurice speaker designs, and are pleased with the results. There is also a band of Basschatters who would not buy something they had not played or played through. This thread is an attempt to bring both groups together. If you have built (or bought someone else's) BFM design, and are happy to talk about it, and allow others to try it out, please use this thread to tell people what you have, and the county or town in which you live. It would also be useful if you gave details about whether you would prefer to meet at a gig, a rehearsal room, or at home, and a rough indication of your availability, e.g. evenings and weekends only, etc. Mentioning whether you use speakons, jacks, 4mm plugs, or any other connector might also be a good idea. If anyone wishes to audition your gear, they should PM you, and between you, you sort out the date and venue. Please do not use this thread to ask technical questions about BFM designs. There is a forum on Bill's website for that - http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/ To start the ball rolling, I have an Omni 12, and I live in the Warrington area, and I am around evenings and weekends. The cab is based in a church, which is available some evenings, or I can bring the cab home relatively easily. My amp and speaker are both jack based. There is a review here - http://billfitzmauri...opic.php?t=3324 The Omni 12 goes deeper than an Omni 10, but has three speakers and a crossover, which puts the price up a bit, however with a dedicated midrange unit, the clarity of the mids is stunning. It can also be built as a two way design, and mine is switchable to be 2 or 3 way. 2008 update: The Omni 12 has been sold and is now down in the Hertford area. I am now using a pair of Jack 10s 2020 update: The Jack 10s have been sold and I'm currently BFM-less

[quote name='alexclaber' post='56164' date='Sep 5 2007, 06:52 PM']I would also consider making a digital recording of a bassline and then playing that sample through the rigs as well as playing an actual bass. This will remove playing inconsistencies from the test. Alex[/quote] Rather than make a dedicated Bass recording, which would limit its use to others, why not use publically available recordings of basses, so that others can reproduce the test on their gear. Examples: Ed friedland's Walking Basslines CD Samples from Cakewalk's Broomstick bass - used to be on the web, but could'nt find them today.. Any others basschatters can come up with

[quote name='BassBod' post='55777' date='Sep 5 2007, 10:45 AM']If its a four string I wouldn't expect it to make much difference, but on a five or six it may be noticable? I'd suggest taking off a tuner and weighing it, then compare that to the ultralight. You could multiply the difference (x4 or 5) then hang that weight on the headstock - I know that's adding the weight and not taking it off, but it should give you a feel for the difference? My guess is its not worth the cost, unless you've got a dodgy tuner to replace anyway... BB[/quote] I went that route for a Corvette 5 - take the hipshot weight for 5 or their units, and take off and weigh one of my units. It turned out that the weight saving was pretty close to one Warwick tuner, which is easy to model, but did not cure the neck dive. For £125, I passed on that option. An alternative is to put 12 oz to 16 oz of washers, or lead, into a padded phone case, and hang that on the body end of the strap. It's cheap and it works. My final solution was to extend the horn. Several bass players have played my Corvette, and few have noticed the modification.

[quote name='bass_ferret' post='53642' date='Aug 31 2007, 11:24 PM']I thought everything these days was a bureaucratic box ticking - and we are the mugs paying for the tickers.[/quote] At least if the gear is safe, your ticker will still be going. There are two issues here 1) Is your gear safe, and 2) Have you jumped through the hoops that your client requires. Assuming that you have not dropped your gear, most electrical faults will occur at the plug or equipment end of the mains cable, and 90% of them will be visible, i.e. brown and blue wires showing, smashed plug-tops etc. If the gear has been damaged in transit, it will probably rattle if you turn it a quarter turn in any direction. The chances of gear becoming dangerous, with no visible or audible signs, is fairly remote. If you have electricity flowing through you it will probably hurt. If the peak of the mains frequency passes through your heart muscles at the wrong time, your heart could stop. The Health and Safety Executive statistics from a few years ago showed that of all the electical incidents they investigated, once you had all the threads of a potential accident in place, the odds of it being fatal were about 1:30. If you use damaged gear, you are effectively playing russian roulette with one live bullet in 30, night after night after night... Local authorities now insist that venues have earth-leakage circuit breakers (RCDs) on sockets. This senses the current gong down the brown wire, and compares it with the current coming back on the blue wire. If the current is not coming back, e.g. because it is flowing through you, the circuit trips. However, to be safe, these devices need to trip at a low current, and quickly, but the test button does not test how fast it trips, so relying on an RCD is not a good idea. As mentioned elsewhere, the system is not perfect, but in summary, if you check you gear after every gig, and get it tested once or twice a year, you can satisfy your clients, and live long enough to become a rock legend.

SC in Salford have a good supply of Warwicks, but the best Warwick price I was offered was face to face in SC/Virgin in London. Knowing they would go that low helped me get the same deal by phone in SC Manchester, and they werre hapy to ship it to SC Salford for me to pick up (they have a car park at the Salford branch). I wonder if their business model is based on an unrealistic number of people paying an undiscounted price?

[quote name='Clive Thorne' post='31349' date='Jul 13 2007, 03:51 PM']... But, getting to the point at last, it does suffer from neck dive, especially with a webbing type (i.e. slippery) strap; largely due to the relatively small body on it. A leather strap does help, but it still tends to dive if I've got both hands off and jigging around a bit. I've seen postings here where someone put a bit of an extension on the top horn, but I was wondering about adding some weight to the back end. There's some space in control cavity, and I was thinking of forming a chunk of lead to put in there to adjust the balance. I even thought of hollowing out a bit of the body from inside the control cavity and filling it with something heavy. I'm a big bloke so an extra pound or so on the weight won't bother me ...[/quote] I had a similar problem with a 5-string Corvette, so I hung a bag of nuts and washers on the body strap button to work out how much weight I would need, then I folded that weight of sheet lead into a bar and put it in a padded mobile phone case, which I threaded the strap through. It worked, but it made the bass noticeably heavier, and when I put it back on its stand, the weight kept getting in the way. I also looked at fitting hipshot ultralites, but the weight saving at the end of the neck did not fully balance the bass, even when added back on at the body strap button - and it was going to cost £100 -£125 Eventually I went for the discreet extended horn option, and if any musician has noticed it, they have not commented.

[quote name='bassbloke' post='27807' date='Jul 6 2007, 10:49 AM']...I'd prefer some foam so I'd get a better coupling effect with the stage and not lose bottom end...[/quote] Interesting that you feel a flexible coupling will give you a tighter bass response (my interpretation). Coming from a HiFi background, I would have thought that if there was any play between the cab and the floor, then when the speaker cone went forward, the cab would rock backward fractionally and vice versa, and that would give you a woolly sounding bottom end. It may be that this only applies at very low frequencies, but it might be worth considering.

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='25207' date='Jun 30 2007, 08:43 AM']... and some silly s*d needs to realise that manufacturers probably research the best place to put a strap (base and horn). Added to which this seller also forgets to mention the fact that the A string doesn't seem to want to sit in the saddle! I can't believe he did that on purpose prior to photographing it, check out what it does to the string spacing. Warwicks are about as adjustable as you can get so I can't for the life of me figure that one out. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Warwick-Streamer-Neck-thru-Bass-1988-OHSC_W0QQitemZ120137367441QQihZ002QQcategoryZ4713QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Warwick-Stre...1QQcmdZViewItem[/url][/quote] There is a school of thought that you can get rid of neck dive by moving strap buttons around. It looks as if he/she had four attempts to do so.

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='18063' date='Jun 15 2007, 10:06 AM']I've got 5 of the huge 4" wide padded leather/suede ones from Sound Control and they're the only strap I will use now. Super comfortable and non slip.[/quote] +1 on these. They are the same range as the ones David Nimrod spoke of in message 14 - [quote]Leathergraft from Liverpool, they're in most music shops usually hanging near the Levys straps. The plain padded 3" ones are about £20 and are great...[/quote]

I use the plastic version of the Grolsh washer - I think it is made by Dunlop. It is a plastic washer made of two parts, which vary the size of the centre hole as you move them against each other. I have been playing bass for over 7 years and not had a strap come off with these add-ons. I had a Warwick for three weeks and had two near misses because the straplock had not seated properly. - Human error, but with straplocks you only get one chance. I also dislike an engineering solution which rattles, when it is designed to be fitted to a mechanism that depends on transmitted vibration. If it made a difference, people wouldn't use them, but it just seems wrong to me.

[quote name='onehappybunny' post='22210' date='Jun 22 2007, 11:35 PM']During my latest bout of GAS I was thinking about either getting 5 stringer or maybe even just stringing a 4 string bass B-E-A-D ( as I don't tend to use the G string too much anyway...oooer missus!!) Is the latter a really bad idea (i.e. likely to knacker the neck?) or would it just need some careful set up and truss rod adjustment. Please let me know your thoughts Thanks Stu[/quote] I strung a fretless Warwick Corvette BEAD with LaBella Deep Talkin' strings and played it for a couple of years - I really enjoyed it. Warwick told me which Mk1 adjust-a-nut screw to replace, and sent me the replacement free. Meanwhile, I also worked on my technique on a 5-string fretted bass, and eventually upgraded to a 5-string fretless (also Warwick) The bottom end definition on Corvettes means that they will work as EADG or BEAD no problem. Hope this helps.

[quote name='wizbat' post='24053' date='Jun 27 2007, 04:51 PM']Here,s an idea!!! the guys in the band said "that,s crazy" so I guess this is where this idea belongs. I,ve been on a quest to get a antonio tsai inlaid 7 string bass into a playable condition and after many hours of fret stoning it now plays a treat but I still had the problem of the fact it is neck heavy due to the fact that the top horn is not long enough so... I had this made :-)[/quote] Interesting - I've just done the same thing on a Warwick Corvette 5 string. The alternative was to hang a pound of lead, in a padded phone case, on the strap at the bridge-end of the bass - it worked, but it was a pain to have such a heavy bass. I installed a threaded bush (wood screw on the outside, 6mm metric thread on the inside) in the end of the horn, with a 6mm diameter hole behind it, so there is 1.5 inches of 6mm steel inside the horn. My mock-up with pine showed that I did not have the strength to break the pine, which is weaker, so I am confident that it is strong enough. I filed the end of a piece of 6mm studding down to about 3mm, so that I could put a standard strap button onto it and splay it out (rivet?) it to hold the button on. I covered the exposed screw thread with black heat-shrink sleeving. I have a wide black strap, and a dark stained bass, and while it is obvious if you look for it, most people don't even see it. And it works. Screwfix do a threaded bush, but it has a flange on it which makes for a tidy installation, but is bigger than the end of a strap button, so it will be visible if you go back to a 'standard' arrangement. Also, it is about 1/2 inches long, and about 40% of that is taken up with the hex socket recess for the key with which you screw it in. Woodfit do a better one that has no flange, and is threaded right through. It has a screw-driver slot at one end to help you screw it in. With that bush, I can fix the original strap button to a 6mm screw, and there will be no holes/flanges showing when I put that back on. If anyone needs more detail, please PM me.

[quote name='Pbassred' post='24556' date='Jun 28 2007, 05:30 PM']Individual Rotosound swing bass strings in london? I just want to top up a set because I busted a .045". ( 2nd ever!).[/quote] The Bass Cellar in Denmark Street (off Totenham Court Road) gets very mixed reviews, but last year they were selling single strings at £5.00 each.

[quote name='The Funk' post='23132' date='Jun 25 2007, 06:01 PM']Would you recommend something like 2 10" speakers in a cab the size of your average 4 x 10? Speaking as generally as possible, leaving aside all the other factors to consider.[/quote] If you check out the forum on Bill's web site, he has a section on graph plots for typical cabs. The message comes across very strongly that most manufacturers fill the front-face full of speakers on a box that has insufficient volume; fewer speakers in a larger (purposed designed) box will sound better.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='18908' date='Jun 16 2007, 07:39 PM']The opposite is actually the case, round structures are highly non-resonant and have a far higher strength to weight ratio than flat panel structures. But aside from that all the other shortcomings of the design as pointed out by Alex et all are spot on.[/quote] Bill, there was something doing the rounds a couple of years ago where two speakers in a tube had the cavity stuffed with wire wool. The theory was that you got more phase shift using that as wadding, so you got more phase addition, to a lower frequency, from a smaller box. Does that ring any bells with you?

[quote name='Mokl' post='22747' date='Jun 24 2007, 09:04 PM']... I was considering the PX4D, which I believe does guitar and bass. Has anybody any experience of this unit? I have been using a PX3 (guitar version), which works to a point, but I can't help wondering if something bass-specific might be better. All opinions welcome![/quote] The bass version has bass cancellation when you pug in an ipod etc, and you can programme the drum machine for verse/chorus/fill etc. but I think it is now obsolete. The bass and guitar version lets you play drums with or without a trainer bass line - it seems to be designed for guitarists, with bassists as a last minute add-on. I am not sure whether it has bass cancel or guitar cancel. I have used a Zoom 708 fx pedal as a headphone amp, and that works well. Second hand, you should be able to find one for about £30, and that includes a compressor, reverb, a tuner and a simple drum machine (and 89 other effects that you will never use). I also use a Spirit notepad mixer as a headphone amp, which allows me to play Band in a Box arrangements from my PC while I add in the bass lines. I also have a pocket rock-it, which works, but is slightly hissy as others have said. However, the stereo chorus effect is good. It also is slightly top heavy, so if you plug it into an edge mounted jack socket, it tends to swivel upside down. It seems to work best on a front-mounted angled-jack. I am not using mine now I have the Pandora, so if anyone is thinking of buying one, PM me. I use Sennheiser 485s. They were the best sounding in the bass dept, while still being drivable by a standard CD player. The next pair up needed a dedicated headphone drive amp, and then sounded great.

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='20858' date='Jun 20 2007, 04:51 PM']Cheers. I have just had an email from DV apologising for the 2 pin plug and that they are sending me an adaptor out tomorrow. I have told them this is not acceptable and im sure its against EU rules as well. The unit will be returned if this is the case. Either way i didnt get the same treatment you did.[/quote] There are several types of adaptor, and some of them are fine for this application. The european standards for electrical equipment now require that a plug is fitted in order that the appliance can be legally sold in the EU. As a result, there are a couple of designs of adaptor where the continental or US two pin plug clips into a modified 13 Amp plug, and the plug lid then holds the whole lot together, like this [url="http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBrowseAction.do?D=230v%20mains%20plug&Nr=AND%28avl%3auk%2csearchDiscon_uk%3aN%29&Ntk=I18NAll&Nty=1&Ntt=230v%20mains%20plug&Dx=mode%20matchpartial&Ntx=mode%20matchpartial&N=0&name=SiteStandard&forwardingPage=line&R=1843820&callingPage=/jsp/search/search.jsp&BV_SessionID=@@@@0128066808.1182674032@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddlfijillicefeceeldgondhgi.0&cacheID=ukie"]http://rswww.com/cgi-bin/bv/rswww/searchBr...mp;cacheID=ukie[/url]. These are fine if you have a 'soap-on-a-rope' type PSU, but if you have a wall-wart and they offer you a shaver adaptor, I suggest you refuse, and if necessary, threaten to call in the trading standards officers. Standard US two pin plugs do not have sufficient clearance between the pins and your fingers, and as a result, ceased to be legal for 240 v mains applications some years ago. You may remember they used to have US power sockets on the back of HiFi systems. They, (and XLR mains connectors) disappeared because of that change in the law. Whether a wallwart complies with the clearance dimensions would depend on its size and shape, which is where trading standards officers come in.

Final bump - this does not look viable as a group event, but if anyone in the Luton area would like to hear/ play through an Omni 12, I'm in Luton for the week, and not doing much most evenings. PM me if interested.

Bump

Thanks for the interest so far. With people still coming in, I plan to leave it for another few days before I start considering the offers on the table. So far, we only have an Omni 12 ...

[quote name='beerdragon' post='2953' date='May 20 2007, 02:44 PM']Nearly happen to me, Straplocks, that cured it [/quote] I have had 7 years of playing without dropping a bass, but with my new bass, with straplocks, I have had two near misses in two weeks, both due to my error in not pushing the pin fully in. I'm going back to my old way - strap onto strap button, plastic 'straplock' to hold it on. YMMV!

As I have mentioned on another thread (in the previous forum), I really like my Omni 12 and I am happy to let potential builders try it out. I will be in Luton from the 8th to the 14th July, and I wondered if we could get a bunch of BFM designs together so that people could hear them, and decide whether they wanted to build them or not. Would anyone be prepared to bring their Omni 10, Omni 15, DR250, Tuba 24, Titan 39, Wedgehorn 10 etc to the Luton area during that week, and would anyone in that area like to recommend a venue where we could meet?