Stub Mandrel

The problem is that the MU doesn't distinguish between 'amateur musicians' who don't expect to do more than cover their costs and people who make music for a living. £221 is fine for full union support for your main job, but a big extra cost fif you are lucky to make a few hundred quid surplus a year. I can understand their problem - lots of such musicians paying, say £50 a year might not cover their costs, how do you decide who is a 'professional' and who isn't, and also some professional musicians may actually consider amateurs to be unwanted competition - as in how can they get decent paid gigs when the local four piece will rack up for £150 a night? <Edit> Just revisited their website. It really doesn't have anything that explains WHO they are for. Obviously if you are in an orchestra or a session musician, but what if you play half a dozen gigs a year in a pub band? Or you are in a small unsigned band? Looking at the list of benefits its really doesn't seem to be targeted at anyone not actually 'employed' as a musician as against just making (some) money as a musician.

Rats. This has got me singing along to Paul Robeson, I was doing OK until I found a song where he goes down to C2. I can get to F#2 fine, push to F2 and just to E2 then I start dribbling...

It was also beneficial to discover that one of the speakers was wired out of phase. This morning I moved the amp into my workshop which is better lit. After swapping the transistors not only did I notice the speaker I've been watching now moved in instead of out - so did two of the others but the third one moved out!

Sort of relevant to the thread title... I use all sorts of earplugs in my workshop, as well as ear protectors, they just plug my ears and reduce the noise. I bought some mid-price musician type ones off eBay. They are clear silicone with a black insert that has a filter inside it. They don't cut the volume as much compared to normal ones but do give a more natural sound. They are sold as 20 dB but looking around 12dB seems to be typical and roughly halving thr loudness seems about right. Similar to the ones on the right here. Are these likely to be of any benefit or am I better off sticking with my 'workshop grade' ones.

I'd love to have a go at singing, but I can't play and sing at the same time and I don't want to give up bass.

Now that's what I call festival music 🙂

It's cruel to say it, but... think most singers would benefit from a dozen singing lessons which would extended and even out their range. It's amazing what singing lessons can do...

Yep, seems to be these transistors, if I swap them (1) the direction of the offset reverses and (2) the amp gets noisier. Swap them back and the noise goes and the offset reverses.

I've found some help on another forum. Looked like a mismatch in the differential pair. I pulled the transistors this morning and their gains are 80 and 64. Enough to give hifi buffs the heebeejeebies, not sure if its enough to give the symptoms I'm seeing but I'm going to see if I can find a better matched pair rated 100v.

Talking to myself... but... Working on the principle that the collector and base voltages of the differential pairs should all be pretty much equal, the collector of TR204 is at -5.1V, 206 is at about -21V. [edit] This is supposed to be a 'current mirror'. I'm sure the collectors of TR203 and TR204 shouldn't be this far out of balance one is at -21.5V the other is at +5.0V. In an ideal world the collector of TR204 should be a couple of volts negative and I would expect TR203 to be somewhere near this with the amp quiescent. BUT the voltages across R208 and R211 are almost identical suggesting the current mirror is working.. Next looks the bases of TR201 and TR202 in the differential amplifier bit both at 0.4V. Reasonable enough, this suggests a base current of about 7 uA. Suspicion currently on match of R204 and R205 and TR203. But can anyone offer some advice?

Old fashioned 1980's combo 150W. Symptoms - intermittent noise, occasional cutting out. Noticed Transformer running VERY hot. The noticed speakers are all slightly forward of their normal rest position when amp switched on. Otherwise, sounds normal with apparently good headroom but hard to test in living room... Conclusion: problem with the power amp bias. Possible dodgy transistor in bias circuit? I do have a schematic + test gear. First check, 8V DC offset across speakers. Played with pot VR410, may have been part of the problem dirty as it instantly improved, now between 4V and 4.3V but still making speakers jump forward and noisy (NB this shoudl be adjusted to minimise crossover distortion). Discovered C409 was partially desoldered and 10uF (47uF specified). Tried both a 10uF and a 47uF and noise greatly reduced but still bias issue. Thing is, VR410 looks to me to be for adjusting the quiescent current to eliminate crossover distortion rather than the bias... Very simple amp, but I'm struggling to see what might be the problem. Have been over resoldering to make sure no dry joints. This is issue 4 of the MPB2 board, my amp is issue 2 and only two mosfets fitted + fan (but places for the other 2)

What makes Power Windows unique among Rush albums?

If those are genuine Di Marzios worth buying for the hardware and throwing the exquisite luthierie away... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Personalized-Electric-Guitar-Small-Mini-Version-Of-Patented-Products/283146791957

I suppose if you have an inexperienced drummer it lets you balance out the levels 😉

Number of strings isn't a big thing, I'd like one of these too: Bit hard to hide it behind the sofa...

I do like that, Myles Kennedy is a vocalists at the peak of his abilities. Classic bit of Ultimate Guitar tab: Tuning: 5-string down 1/2 step (Bb Eb Ab Db Gb) This can be played on a B-tuned 5-string bass with a few adjustments. I tabbed it as tuned down to match the guitar parts. Then the whole tab doesn't go lower than B...

Feel free to add more! This was done in jest, but some clever bugger could analyse loads of tabs and see if there are certain note that are more popular in some styles. My acoustic guitar I've been playing continuously since the mid-80s has a very distinct pattern, but I'm not sure what it means.

Can you identify the musical styles the owner of an instrument is into from their fretboard wear patterns? Of course you can, here's the simple and infallible Basschat Guide:

I get fed up when people think charity employees should be paid a pittance because their wages come out of donations - many charity employees feel this way too! Personally I think they should be paid extra for doing jobs that benefit society.

I used Troy's cover video, I find slowing him down 50% works better than most tabs.

Are you winding us up 🙂 Ah 49:30...

He was booked to 'close the festival' which was going to be the end of Sunday night, but things over-ran and over-ran. They gave him the choice of sticking to his slot, but he said he would stick with the closing spot.

Let me correct that for you... I have lost count of the tabs that play a repeated note then move up or down five frets and across a string to continue on the same note. I suspect some of these are 'frankenstien' tabs assembled from several others or produced by beginners who have worked out each 'section' separately and don't actually realise they are playing the same note, but I'm sure some are just bad.

I can pretty much play the single version spot on, except for the odd lapse of concentration - the irony is that because it IS such a simple repeating structure if you lose your place you it can take longer than ideal to pick it up again. But yes, the place to get is where I can improvise the whole song around the basic structure. It will all get simpler when the drummer has it nailed so I can take a cue from his fills.