Count Bassy

[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.

[quote name='Philip_' timestamp='1398115236' post='2430693'] strap locks have always seemed like a woefully overpriced product to me. some of them are 30 quid which is ridiculous. [/quote] You was done! .... but even at that price they will last a lot longer than a set of strings for the same money.

Good for her!! It's a cracking song and the crowds love it. Spot on.

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1398113780' post='2430656'] Some times it works though, I went into the music shop in dorchester, as I had an indie guitar and its pickup switch was missing and they have a lot of indies (I didn't get it there). I asked if they had switch ends, they didn't but they guy went off to search for something that would work, and eventually found one that worked from the back of the store and charged practically nothing for it. Some stores really do go the extra mile. [/quote] I think I was in that shop a few years ago, on holiday. Great shop.

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1397408153' post='2423634'] Conductive metal tape does the job. Even though it has been mentioned already I can't emphasize enough how important it is to get stuff with CONDUCTIVE adhesive. If you don't your efforts will be useless. [/quote] "useless" is putting it a bit strong (provided that each section is earthed), but the conductive glue certainly helps. Even so I tend to put a few spots of solder on the joins! As someone has said, copper is technically better than aluminium (about twice as conductive), but also has the advantage that it is easily soldered. Personally I wouldn't bother doing it unless you were do the whole cavity as well, it will be far more effective than just doing the scratch plate. Take the cavity screening slightly over the top edge, and make the screen on the back of the scratch-plate overlap it so you get near continuous contact along the join. Did it on my son's Strat and it transformed it.

Metal Dunlop ones here. Never had a failure, very quick to engage and release, no separate rubber bits to drop on the floor. The fact that you have to push the button in the middle while pulling the whole thing to take it off means that it's never come off when I didn't want it to.

[quote name='Oopsdabassist' timestamp='1397973856' post='2429048'] Yup [url="http://www.pmtonline.co.uk/bass/"]http://www.pmtonline.co.uk/bass/[/url] The guys in Northampton aint too bad, but they suffer a bit from the 'oh you want a bass let me slap the f#ck out of it for 5 mins first' disease, which can be mildly annoying [/quote] Better than the PMT women who want to slap the f*** out of [i]you[/i] for 5 minutes!!

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1396865615' post='2418021'] Yes, on my replacement cover the handle holes are in exactly the right place. I don't think they could be in the centre of the cab as there is internal structure preventing it, [/quote] Plus you really want the handle to be directly above the centre of gravity, which is not necessarily the same as the physical centre.

[quote name='TheGreek' timestamp='1396289765' post='2411928'] Contact them to let them know what the problem is and I'm pretty sure they'll do their utmost to put it right. [/quote] Yes to this. Don't go in all guns blazing - you won't need to.

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1396645374' post='2416116'] The same bass is for sale under the same user name, [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/233459-three-basses-for-sale-2-fender-jazz-1-ibanez/"]right here[/url] on Basschat, so we are talking about a fellow member here. Just sayin'. [/quote] So are we expected to let it pass because of that? If the Basschat community thinks he's asking too much then I'd have thought he'd want to know. If he wasn't a bass chatter I'd be saying that the seller was hoping for someone to come along on E-bay who didn't know any better. [size=4](Sorry seller, but that is what I'd think).[/size]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1396726287' post='2416875'] they're only poxy bits of wood at the end of the day. [/quote] One for the Basschat quotes thread I think.

I have "OMER" (€20) from Myriad software (www.myriad-online.com), for which you also need to have one of their other products, Melody Assistant (€30), or Harmony Assistant (€70). How well it works depends very much on the quality and complexity of the original, and how good your scanner is. Free trial versions (with limited printing capabilities) are available from their web site. Myriads own brief description: OMeR converts a printed musical score in a music file you can hear, modify and print with Melody Assistant or Harmony Assistant. If you often copy printed scores under Melody Assistant or Harmony Assistant, and you own a scanner; OMeR will greatly ease your job. OMeR will drive your scanner, collect one or several pages and analyze them to generate a musical document useable directly under Melody or Harmony.

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1396626275' post='2415834'] I thought this one had died out after doing the rounds last year. It's not a good analogy and his grammar is a bit crap, but a lot of people liked it. [/quote] I thought it was quite a good analogy, though I agree about the grammar.

[quote name='Weststarx' timestamp='1396537012' post='2414827'] Ah I see, my apologies... [/quote] No need to apologise - thanks for taking the time to respond!

[quote name='vmaxblues' timestamp='1396532244' post='2414738'] Gramma pad helps [/quote] Strangely enough I have one of these (the great Gramma) on the way, but I bought that more with wooden floors/stages in mind. Will this help with room boom even if its sat on carpet on top of a concrete (ground) floor? If so then great!.