Al Heeley

You'll go through into the primer/sealer first but no need to do that. Just rub the gloss off the finish as per the above posts, I would not rub it back to bare wood unless the colour really offends you. Once you get the gloss off the neck will feel wonderful - I do that to all my guitar necks, and I use a green scotchbrite fine abrasive pad, like the pan scorer thingy. Works a treat to cure sticky neck syndrome

Being a bass amp, you'd expect a company with Marshall's heritage to be able to anticipate this sort of failure mode and take steps to prevent it. Disappointing such a small easy-fix issue can screw up a gig.

Exactly the same thing happened again at the giog last night, with the MB115 extension cab - low power and dreadful intermittant distorted sound. Took the crossover card out when I got home and found same white fuse block legs had loosened from the solder point onto the pcb. This is really disappointing sloppy QC from the Marshall factory - thats a spate of failures all on the crossover cards within 10 months of purchase.

Same here, we're committed to some god awful family party thing in a cold and boomy local village hall, rather be playing on a stage in a pub

[quote name='Kennerz' post='667120' date='Nov 27 2009, 10:09 AM']Thanks alot Al Heeley! I shall have a look inside it today! Shouldnt be too much of a job id think [/quote] While you have the crossover card out, just check the inductor coil connections too - I secured mine more with some more epoxy and a second secure cable-tie to hold it really firm onto the card. In my view thiis is a bit of poor design - a really simple little issue that is easy to prevent yet renders a whole amp/cab potentially useless. - Oh I guess I have to mention, this may void your warranty, but I think Marshall guys are pretty understanding.

Go for it - shake 'em up! It's what they're looking for. All adds to the rich tapestry of life.

[quote name='Beedster' post='666903' date='Nov 26 2009, 11:37 PM']Bung me a grand and you can have it as long as you want Al [/quote] Can I choose the currency? Actually surprised too in 3 months there's much change, have you had to tweak the action/set up? New strings ? Different gauge? Hell I don't have to tell you this stuff!

Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench (drop D tuning) great tune- we massacre it.

Make it so.

Oooooh, are you not happy with it then? They are a quirky little company. You can shorten the 'bedding in' period by lending it out to forum members to play different types of music on over a 6 month period, this is said to help spread the load. Are you anywhere near Huddersfield? I can help you.

My MB4210 did [b][u]exactly[/u][/b] this about 2 months ago. I took the crossover card out from the speaker cab, the bit that divides the signal between the horn and the 10" speakers (you have to take the plastic carry handles off to access insode the cab) and found the big white fuse block had come loose where the legs are soldered to the PCB. It was a bad joint. 5 minutes reinforcing with some solder and a soldering iron and it was fine again. As I have reported on here before my crossover card on the MB115 extn cab had a very similar problem too - this time it was the inductor coil block that had come loose - bad soldering, tut tut. I got marshall to send me a replacement, it's been fine (so far) ever since.

If I wanted to take 1.5mm off a body I'd use a router in key locations to rout out a few small holes to 1.3mm depth, then I'd attack the body with a rotary sander and some coarse paper to level the rest of the wood face till its flush with the routed holes. Then it would need a good levelling all over to take it down to 1.5mm total, before it would be ready to add on the veneer cap. Quite a lot of work for the long winter evenings but a nice project!

You may get marginal difference in some treble roll off at lower vol settings with the 500k pots but most people would never notice

Matamp are just down the road from me - have you phoned them and asked? I'm guessing it wouldn't be a problem.

My overheating issue was linked to the failure of the crossover inductor coil, coming loose from the little crossover pcb in the extn cab - the amp was trying to push a cab with intermittent connection. Once that was fixed, a different component on the combo's crossover pcb also failed on me by same method - soldering c=of the fuse legs came loose due to vibrations. This component within the combos and the extn speaker cabs is not well-enough designed to stand up to the rigours of regular pub & club gigging. Such a simple little problem but potentially rendering the whole rig unusable. Very disappointing. Since resoldering myself, I've not yet had any further problems in 3 gigs and 3 practice sessions. Fingers crossed.

On the subject of MB4210 cabs again, I'd be interested to hear how you set yours up for different sounds, bearing in mind different styles of music. I find the classic channel a bit too wooly and scooped for my ear, using either MM stingray, JB or PB thru it. I tend to use modern with a mid cut most of the time and treble + bass at 12 o clock. But this can sometimes sound a bit 2-dimensional. Playing stingray for pop and funk and light rock covers, and the JB for more punk rock/new wave covers stuff.

MB4210 crossover failed on me a few weeks back, the heavy white fuse block juts out on metal pins perpendicular to the pcb which is fixed vertically to the inside wall of the speaker cab. Vibrations and/or knocks had made the legs loose and vibrating more when playing meant signal cutting in and out, sounded like really nasty spluttery distortion. I was furious as I'd only just had the crossover coil on the extn cab fixed. However, a quick resolder job and it's been fine again since then and sounding pretty good (for the money). Just wish they'd got more rigorous QC on these, as cheap as they are, I think they remain great value for money but you need to have 100% confidence in your gear for regular gigging and I will not have that with my marshalls any more.

I'd tell him he has to write it off against his own household insurance then use the money to buy you a replacement to the same condition as it was when you lent it to him.

Jeez, must have bought one of the last few available for my last rick project then, sweet pickups for neck, but I'll bet the GFS toaster pickups are not a million miles away from similar tone, at a sensible price. If I recall correctly the original ric bass neck pups were 6-pole pickups from their lead guitar range, no mods, used as-is; that may horrify many of you!

A lot of pedals can be daisy chained fine if they are all same polarity same voltage. The EHX ones are a pain as the jack plug is usually a different size. Some distortion boxes dont like sharing a daisy chained power suppy and the list of offenders is not exhaustive so you have to experiment a little. I also hear, as you said, about the Line 6 issues.

...and an opinion I would entirely agree with, you get very low resale value taking it back to a shop - they have all the overheads, etc. to help fund and of course a markup before they sell it on, much better to advertise here and sell on direct to another end user.

Does it have thermal cut-out protection? Maybe that fired in after being played at full stretch for a whole set? Was it loud, was the amp very hot? If you ran it for 2 hrs without a load on it then the thermal cut-out would not necessarily activate.

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Nothing really to do with tone, but whatever feels more comfortable really. At the end of the day that's down to your hand size, your playing style, what you learnt on and your own personal preference

[quote]Try them all[/quote]Best advice going! Have no pre-conceptions, keep an open mind, try everything you can and see which one sings to you. If you want a few different basses to cover all the ground then you NEED a bolt-on neck and a thru-neck instrument, JB singlecoils as well as humbuckers, rosewood, maple and ebony fretboards. 5-string and 4-string. Buy them all!