Al Heeley

[quote name='odub' post='546239' date='Jul 21 2009, 11:51 AM']Hell, if I had enough skill I’d try and clone a Fender Jazz and make one myself,[/quote]Nah, go straight for the jugular, try a Rickenbacker

Coming from an industry where most of our uk and Germany manufacturing has already been closed down and now run out of India, the accounts guys say the labour charge is about 1/4 of the UK costs - its not just salaries, its cost of living, pensions, insurance, healthcare, etc. When the labour cost of a manufacturing organisation is about 70% of the entire operating costs, this is a no-brainer. However, few industries manage the relocation well without impacting the quality or reputation of their brand. Very sad to see another great British company heading down this road too, but I guess it's better than seeing them taken into receivership - not that I want to imply that Marshall Amplification is in any way suffereing from financial instability. If we hadn't moved manufacturing, we'd be probably bankrupt by now

well a couple of chairs would be a good potion and cheaper. the 115 adds a lot of depth to the sound which i like, but Marshall really have to brush up on their quality control - sending manufacturing off to asia is often the only way to remain in business nowadays but once the brand image has degenerated dur to lapses in quality/reliability there's nothing left for your company, and Marshall have such a great brand pedigree it is a shame to see another British company falling foul of these sorts of issues.

Appreciate that Nick, had to order some more stuff anyway so I got a couple. Be interested to drive this thread o/t a little and ask where you go to buy your components (pots, resistors, caps, transistors, etc.) I tend to get a lot from bobs bits box, he has an online and an ebay shop.Good prices and very fast turnround.

[quote name='bobbytodd' post='544661' date='Jul 19 2009, 01:19 PM']i was unlucky enough to but the mb115.i have now decided that the mb stands for made badly.ive not long had the cab and its packed in twice.as it was going to cost £50 postage to send it back to nevada music i opend it up it see if i could find the fault myself.i took the plate off the back and it looked like it had been soldered by i blind monkey there is a thread somewhere on this site from folk who have had the same problem.by the way the head is ok but just ok[/quote] That was me, i got the blind monkey solderer and his friend the clueless gluer - the inductor coil was loose and vibrations from playing/transporting severed the copper wire connecting it to the pcb. i have now removed the inductor and replaced by a short wire, which has solved the issue - i never use the horn anyway.

Heres the little stripboard layout for the mini blend - not tried it yet, need to find out about alternative/equivalent transistors to use

I've made a little mod to try out on the Elephant Fuzz, it's a tiny blend circuit on a postage-stamp sized piece of stripboard, consisting of 3 resistors, 2 capacitors, a transistor and a 50k pot. This sits between the input jack and the output of the effects board in parallel with the effect, and should allow a degree of control to mix in the wet and dry sound together in order to take off some of the harshness of the fuzz. I will try it out tonight and report back if it seems a useful addition to an already knob-filled pedal.

nice work - looks very neat

I suppose for me the motiviation is the hobby aspect, it's the hunting down the schematics and sourcing the components to try and get something together that works, then trying it out on the instruments. The motivation has never been the thought of ripping off anyone elses designs for profit. If a friend wants to cover the cost of the parts for me to put one together then that will buy the enclosure and the pots and the jackplugs for the next project. The mammoth itself is a duplicate of an older classic design, so I'm working on a duplicate of a duplicate. I don't think ZVex have anything to fear from my humble soldering efforts! Sorry some people find this a contentious issue. While I would see good reason to pay £200 for a complex digital delay or bass synth pedal I think a vintage fuzz with a very simple circuit should not be sold for such a high price tag, but at the end of the day its the market that sets the price. If no-one was willing to pay £230 for this beautifully painted boutique pedal with a dollop of skake oil thrown in, then I guess the makers would pitch the price lower so they could sell them. At the end of the day I'm exploring a hobby, an interest in music and electronics and doing a favour (at no profit!) for a fellow bassist at the same time.

It's a good powerful cab for the money (I paid £149) and adds a lot of bottom end push to the MB4210 I bought at the same time. It sounds fine for the money. I played thru a Mesa 4 x 10 last week and it was phenomenal! I'd rather have enough money to afford higher end gear but I can't justify it so the Marshall is a good compromise. I'd get too precious lugging high end gear about the pubs and clubs every 2 weeks for gigs. Reckon I must have just been a bit unlucky with the QC on my cab. With the inductor now binned theres hopefully very little else that can go wrong with it.

Oh! I came across an interesting veroboard layout for a bass fuzz circuit called fuzzy elephant so I made it. Sounds pretty good too if you like in-yer-face bass square wave. Be a cool add-on to slot a dpdt switch in there too to switch between 2 different pairs of transistor types. Also what is really needed imho is a blend knob to blend the amount of fuzz filth back into the dry circuit. Maybe I'll sketch out a few ideas for that and work on a mark II version named after an entirely different pachyderm. I've got a few spare types of trannies sitting round looking for a home. Geez that reads back badly. You know what I mean hopefully.

my guess is your new cavity shielding is touching the back of one of the pots or a bit of lead or solder

Don't worry - wouldn't dream of setting up a business and making money out of it, just helping out a forum member. Unlike the guys who have copied this classic 2-transistor 12-component design and sell them for >£200, which to me is shocking.

Done - sounds fine (can't check at gig volume due to neighbours), 30 seconds soldering job, never used the horn anyway.

i used stock 2n3904's - had some less-than-optimum travel on the 'Wool' pot as I did'nt manage to get my hands on a 2k pot the schematic calls for, but its a really powerful unit.

Here's a bass fuzz I put together at the request of a forum member. Really simple 2-transistor circuit but made a bit more fiddly with the 4 pots. I've never heard of one of these before I was pm'med but I must say they are outrageous fuzz beasts for bass! Sounds really nasty for guitar - big fat in your face fuzzville. Bloody marvellous - I shall be making one for myself now Apparently the real ones go for crazy money on ebay.

I'll give marshall spares a call on Monday. There's no moarkings on the inductor. I don't use the horm anyway; the 2 x 10 combo has a horn, so if I just reconnect the pcb holes with wire instead of having the inductor in place, it will run ok?

Set up for the gig last night to find my 1x15 marshall extn cab had decided to play up. I took the back panel off to find the copper coil had broken where it enters the pcb: Now in my attempts to fix it I fear I have wrecked the inductor. Any idea where I can get a new one? Anyone know where I can find the spec for a new one? This is the 300W/600W 1 x 15 MBC115 cab from Marshall, bought new in Jan this year and twice let me down now. First time it was a dry solder joint on the pcb (again the copper inductor coil). It seems the coil had never really been epoxied firmly to the pcb so it was loose to bounce about and this has evidently fatigued the copper wire and broken it. Is this device the filter choke? To act like a big capacitor and pass the bass freqs to the main speaker cone and divert the high ones to the tweeter unit?

I don't understand. Why would 500k pots give 3db more gain than 250's? At max gain the pots are zero resistance, ie: full volume. Now zero resistance on a 250k pot ought to be same as zero resistance on a 500k pot, or am I missinig something? On the rick replicas I've put together I've gone for the normal pickup rule of thumb: single coil will get a 250k pot and numbucker will get a 500k to help balance the pickup tone better. If you wanted to go for a 330k sweep you could always use a 500k pot and solder a couple of resistors (approx 485k each) onto the tabs as per this useful ready reckoner: [url="http://www.diystompboxes.com/analogalchemy/emh/emh.html"]http://www.diystompboxes.com/analogalchemy/emh/emh.html[/url]

works just like the boss syb, you have to keep the pedal pressed down. If this defeats the object, then saving for a Boss unit will not serve your purpose, only it will track a hell of a lot better

If you're offended by what he's written, why not save the mods a hassle and PM him so you can edit/delete the post yourself?

Good grief - £115?! File under 'more-money-than-sense' category

will keep cleaner longer too. Brass and greasy sweat from a heavy gig are not a winning combination unless you are into that grunge relic look

It takes a lot to beat the Jazz bass versatility of tone, for me that would be the benchmark for 2 x single coil pickup placements. I've tried with JB pups a little nearer the neck on one of my builds but if you're not careful the tone gets too thick and woolly.

There's a specialist UK website that custom manufacutres various metal pickguards to order, but I can't remember the name - i got a chrome one for my black MIM tele once. It was about £50 I think. I'm interested in your resonance and brass theory. I've fitted brass nuts to guitars but not yet a bass, and fitted brass saddles to a tele as people generally see a lot of positive benefits in terms of tone, but I've never heard of anyone recommending a brass scratchplate for improved resonance. There are also people who think the brass nut and saddle thing is just a bit of pseudo-science as brass is actually quite soft and they feel softness will enhance the vibration-dampening effects of a nut or saddle. I'm undecided but I reckon in our punk covers band you're not likely to hear the tonal nuances above the racket of the guitarist's obtuse thrashings.