Count Bassy

[quote name='Bolo' timestamp='1399869746' post='2448424'] Like asus, most likely because I'm foreign I admit. [media]http://youtu.be/iq9B3evfu8s[/media] [/quote] I've always said it "Ace-us" !!!

Reminds me of an old friend who was doing some brazing, and accidentally picked up a round file instead of a brazing rod.

First gig with a new band "Cacofonix" (whole band is new) at our local pub. A few nerves but it went really well. Some bits didn't go quite as rehearsed, but we kept going and everyone seemed to have a good time, and the band came away on a high. Got two more gigs out of it, so must have done something right! To explain the picture - the gig was outside on the covered patio area. [attachment=162502:cacofonix.jpg] And your's truly, apparently in dreamland. [attachment=162505:Count Bassy.jpg] Has a moments panic when setting up and plugged in my bass and all I got was a farty sound (never done it before). Fiddled with various things and then it suddenly came back it while the volume was set at full volume, and made all the band,including myself, jump a mile. Still don't know what the problem was so will have to investigate! Hopefully this band will last better than the last two I've been in: was sacked from the first because their original bass player moved back into the area, and the second one imploded, both after one gig!!

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1399460003' post='2444377'] Harsh, but true! [/quote] True indeed, but not everyone can afford £7-800 for a "Decent Cab".

I am a great fan of Status Hotwire Half rounds, so thought i might try out their round wounds: Does anyone have any opinions on them (good or bad), and how do the Premium (round core) and Standard (Hex core) ones compare? Thanks

When I sing (very occasionally) I find reverb really off putting. Give me 'dry' any-time.

I am using them on my Ibanez 605 and mostly love them. With rounds I found I was constantly playing with the treble completely backed off to get the sound I wanted. With the Status Half rounds I got the tone I wanted with everything pretty well flat, leaving me lots of room for tone tweaks. However the B can sound a bit dull compared to the other strings, and does seem to have a bit of a dead spot around the 7th fret (not completely dead though). So yes, well worth a try at £25 or whatever.

[quote name='RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE' timestamp='1398869741' post='2438476'] Can he fix it ? [/quote] Yes he can!

Always seems odd to me that you might buy something and then expect, as a god given right, to be able to move it on without any loss!. When you buy something (via auction/E-bay at least) it you pay what you think it is worth, when you sell it you sell it for what someone else thinks it's worth. Take E-bay as an example, say you win an item at £100 that implies that you thought it was worth £100, but no-one else did. If the second highest bidder dropped out at £95 then if you put it back on E-bay the next day then you will likely only get £95!. (unless some new desperate buyer has entered the market). If you get a bargain via a private transaction then the above does not apply of course.

How Morrissey has achieved the standing he appears to have completely baffles me. There are far better song writers and singers from that era, and some of them aren't even aren't jumped up twats.

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1398470562' post='2434570'] Huh?? A Faraday cage is not something you can have 'a bit of'. You will not reduce EMI by reducing its path into your signal chain into a narrow 36 degree swath. [/quote] Well, actually, as I understand it, you can have holes in a Faraday cage proving that the size is small relative to the wave length of the radiation. As and example, A microwave over is effectively a Faraday cage, but the door generally included a metal mesh with holes in it, and a microwave wavelength is typically around 12 cm. The wave length of a 50Hz EM wave is around 6000Km....... This is why it is relatively easy to screen for 50Hz, much harder to screen for modern noise sources such as computers. [quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1398470562' post='2434570'] Again, huh? I think you are giving modders far too much credit. [/quote] I wasn't thinking so much of 'modders' as the OEMS, such as Fender (on this mexican strat anyway).

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1398480848' post='2434591'] I bought a scratchplate recently which wasn't shielded and my P bass buzzed (which went away when I touched bridge or metal jack plug case). Put my old shielded scratchplate back on.........no buzz. So I bought a sheet of copper shielding foil from a dude on ebay, stuck it to my new scratchplate, fitted it, and the buzz was gone. I thought about shielding the cavitys, like I've done on my Jazz, but it was no longer necessary as the buzzing was just a memory. This is the guy [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121304706142?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649"]http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1439.l2649[/url] [/quote] Excellent result for you. My lads Strat had an aluminium sheet on the back of the scratchplate, and in my case completely screening the box and extending the scratchplate screening made a significant improvement.

[quote name='rmorris' timestamp='1398451393' post='2434373'] Good points from all. Esp on phantom power. Need to consider that while XLR to jack leads are readily available (mic to jack) they aren't generally optimised for high impedance ( like normal passive pickup ) sources. [/quote] Are the "Starquad" cables any better in this respect?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1398371159' post='2433544'] Also known as, 'Dumm.... dum dum dum dum-dum dum-dum-dum bongggg....' [/quote] I always thought of it as "Dum Dub-a-Dum Dub-a-Dum Dub-a-Dum bongggg"

[quote name='paul_5' timestamp='1398354577' post='2433332'] I can't believe that the Roadhouse in Manchester still operates like this. It's as ludicrous as getting the bands to advertise the gig and sell the tickets, then calling yourself a 'promoter'. [/quote] Yep, if the band has to do posters and sell the tickets then they might as well just do the whole lot and take the whole proceeds. I'm sure there are pubs out there with a suitable room, that you could say we want to use your room to put on a gig with X people in the audience - all you have to do is sell them drinks. Obviously doesn't work if your in an open bar area.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1398415665' post='2433802'] I agree with the "generally get away with" thing, but why put up with something mediocre when a far better solution is readily available at insignificant extra cost? It's poor engineering really ..... [/quote] Agree totally with this bit! [quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1398415665' post='2433802'] ..... and the result is many discussion topics about noise problems and cavity shielding as a consequence. [/quote] but not so convinced by this bit! Whatever the quality of the cabling, if you pick up noise in the pickups then that will get sent down the cable. From my own experience (yours may vary) the pickup itself is the main source of noise, followed by the contents of the control cavity. I have rarely had any problems with noise pickup in the cable, unless the cable is actually faulty.

[quote name='Thunderbird' timestamp='1396679372' post='2416277'] Or a dremel tool with the small cutter disk on and gently cut off the old screw head [/quote] What you need is a Sonic Screwdriver

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1397672062' post='2426367'] Spit..? [/quote] Beat me to it!

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1398368900' post='2433518'] Funny how we wouldn't dream of using an unbalanced jack for a microphone yet are quite happy to use them for guitars/bass . . . . and then go to all the trouble of taking them apart and lining the cavilty with copper tape in order to minimise noise problems! [/quote] In principle an balanced, low impedance, signal will always be better. But a typical guitar output is in the 0.1 to 1V range, a balanced mic output is generally somewhere between 0.02 and 0.05 volts, so you can generally get away with unbalanced on a guitar or line level signal. The Neutrik type locking sockets offer many of the advantages of the XLR, while still taking the (Current) standard jack plug.

If there is space you could go for the type of socket with plastic body and springy contacts onto the end pip and the shaft. They don't quite retain the plug as well as the other type, but almost impossible for the contacts to get bent out of position, and you have a proper sprung contact for the eart as well. Or go for a Neutrik locking socket, which is the best of both worlds, but would require some wood working.

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1398195548' post='2431576'] and can we name that bass? [/quote] I think we should call it Colin.

If it's the jack socket on your bass then it is an OUTPUT SOCKET !!!!!!!! And yes replacing it is probably the best thing, although twisting a Scotchbrite down it might help temporarily (removing the Scotchbrite before inserting the Jack plug!!!)

I would have thought that, if anything, increasing the non-speaking but stretchable length of the string would tend to increase the compliance (perceived as reduced tension), but I can't think that an extra few mm will make a significant difference either way.

[quote name='Meddle' timestamp='1398289330' post='2432645'] It is a waste of time anyway *flamesuit on*. Most modders don't bother to differentiate between electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electrostatic interference (ESI). Pickups work great for picking up EMI, because the main constituent part is about 1 km of copper wire. Humbuckers and dummy coils work to cancel out the EMI picked up by a single coil pickup. Shielding a guitar won't do anything to cancel out EMI. If you shield the pickup cavities, you effectively create a metal box without a lid. If it was a fully enclosed box it would become a Faraday cage and then it would block out EMI (but then your pickup wouldn't work). EMI can be reduced a great deal if you have very clean power in your house/studio/venue. EMI will be bad if your house has old wiring, you use a CRT monitor, you use dimmer switches, you have fluorescent lights or an electric motor toiling away in the vicinity. I only dislike shielding because it has been drummed into the heads of novice builders and modders as a must-do hack. The problem is that bad shielding acts as an ESI enhancer, not an ESI reducer. Furthermore, shielding can kill a lot of high end from your signal if done badly. My best advice is to use shielded cable within your guitar. There are some places (the run from the tab on your volume pot back up to the body of the pot where the shield is soldered on) that will be exposed. You may also have problems converting two-cable pickups into shield + hot cable pickups. Having said that, twisted pair wiring will also cut down on ESI a good deal. [/quote] Um, well it acts as a Faraday cage, except that you don't screen in front of the pickups, so you keep out the hum from say 324 degrees round the back up of the pickup, while letting in a small amount of hum, but a lot of signal, from the 36 degrees at the front. This should (and, in my experience, does), greatly improve the signal to noise ratio. Also the presence of an earthed surface even when not fully enclosed will have some effect because the electromagnetic wave's phase is reversed on reflection so that, particularly at low frequencies (e.g. 50Hz), the incoming and reflected waves tend to cancel out. I guess this might be why some of the cheap skates reckon they can get away with a sheet of aluminium on the back of the scratch plate, although they might also be counting on the player's body to provide some screening from the rear. You wouldn't normally want to be screening around the sides of the pickup itself as this might introduce enough capacitance to affect the tone (although you might like the affect). In my experience a very useful enhancement. Certainly not a hack.

3.43 Ohms. EDIT: Just realised that there are two of these threads going & I was beaten to it in the other one.