Al Heeley

I guess they can if they can get the fretboard off without damaging it. I've seen shots of them being slowly steamed off but it scares the life outta me. unless they are talking about those plastic strips of LED side dot markers. Once the fretboard is off, it just needs a channel routed in close to the truss rod channel in which to bury all the fibre optics.

[quote name='bobbytodd' post='411925' date='Feb 17 2009, 12:52 PM']ive had exactly the same problem with my mbc115 it was even the same dry joint.[/quote]Tut tut. Did you sort it yourself, or ship back to Marshall? Hasd the problem been satisfactorily resolved now?

Wondered what the pros and cons were of using the amps send and return loop for effects instead of going straight into the pre-amp input? Which is best practice and why? I guess if you are processing the raw signal from a bass before the pre-amp, then you might lose some of the definition of the signal, or the characteristics of the instrument? I would view the signal from the pre-amp as being more robust but being coloured in some way from the pre-amp stage before entering the effect. Does it make a noticable difference? Does best practice vary depending on the pedal type?

I've seen a woodworking book called something like "Projects for Routers" in Boddy's timber shop, maybe available at yr library - well nerdy but well worth a couple of hours skim thru before setting off, it will give you loads of insight into what can and can't be done with a router, as well as some basic technique hints and ways of preventing slicing all your fingers off which can be useful if you want to play the instrument after you have made it.

I'm sure I will have, to be honest, but what a load of fuss to get a dry joint sorted - I'd have to box it up, ship it to Newcastle so they can send it to Milton Keynes and look at it, then decide what to do and repair/replace - meanwhile I have 2 gigs this weekend and next with no bass gear to use.

I have topped up my knowledge pool today through this persons misinformation - I have learnt new stuff about maple bodies and jazz basses which I love, and i stand corrected, and wiser.

Sorry, I have no experience of the Mag250 or ABM. Took the combo and extn cab along to practice togight to test again fo overheating and cut-out but found the 15 cab was not working at all. Swapped over the outputs, tried different leads...nothing. Soon as I got home I took the back panel off and found a dry solder joint here as shown on the pics. The copper coil was quite loose on the pcb. A blob of solder later, the cab was back up and running again. Real pity to see such shoddy QC from the Indian manufacturing plant where these came from, its not as if the board here had much work to do on it. Lets hope its a one-off. Now the question is, was trying to force the amp to run at 1/2 vol into a cab with no load due to the loose connection - causing it to overheat and cut out? Can i avoid having to send this all back to Soundslive to return to marshall to check out and send it back to me when there may have been nothing wrong with the amp at all? I guess i won't know till i can test it all in anger again at the next gig.

[quote]...soft maple wood finish...particular emphasis on the low mid-range spectrum.[/quote]Hmm, thats not maple is it? I thought they didn't use maple for bodies. If they did, it would hardly be called soft. And it would certainly not give emphasis on the low-mid range tones. And of course the jazz is famous for the narrow neck and close string spacing at the nut. D'oh.

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='410483' date='Feb 15 2009, 09:40 PM']I see that my Harlot wasn't camera shy. Am I allowed to say that it's my favourite bass, alongside many really great instruments. Peter[/quote] Thanks for letting us handle the Harlot, Peter! I would say it is probably the most sublime, comfortable and toneful bass I have ever laid hands on. Just made you want to play for ever. Quite beautiful.

I got mine from Soundslive.com at the end of Dec. I see its now gone up to £306.

+1, great afternoon, thanks guys for all the organising and Jim for the talk and a go on the 9-string. awesome. Good to meet a lot of faces.

[quote name='escholl' post='394453' date='Jan 29 2009, 12:12 PM']any ideas about the reliability on these? I suppose they haven't been out that long, but have a friend who is looking to buy so thought I would ask. [/quote]I've had my MB4210 combo and MBC115 cab since end of Jan'08. Three loud gigs later it certainly has lots of authority but I'm getting an issue with intermittent cut-out during songs about half way thru the second set, the amp is really hot and I dunno if its inadequate cooling or cooling not tripping in properly, but I lose all sound for maybe 10 - 20 seconds, then it comes back again. 5 minutes later it cuts out on me again. I'm presuming its a thermal cut-off tripping in to protect the amp. However, we're only playing at small to medium sized pubs and the volume has never gone up above half way. I think maybe the amp is trying too hard pushing the 115 cab as well as its own 2 x 10, but it should be able to cope with this. I'm making enquiries with marshall to see what the problem is - maybe my fan is faulty, maybe its a design issue with under-engineered cooling.

very nice, look forward to seeing this in person tomorrow (oh, today...)

Pickguardian delivered today, machine heads from Gav's ebay shop. Here's all the bits in place - final sanding, tru-oil finishing and nut-cutting left on the agenda.

Done any guitar building using zebra-wood? I thought it got its name from the stiped appearance, but when you cut it / sand it/ drill it, it smells like the zebra enclosure at London Zoo.

Can anyone tell me anything about the bassist for Osric Tentacles? I'm a bit of a latent hippie, I just love th3e stuff they come up with but know very little about the band, he nails some very catchy and intricate riffs. There's a sort of understated over-indulgence in a lot of their music, great for long journeys and ipods.

loverly curvey buttery honey wood, i want to bite it. One day I will add such a warwick to my collection. Nice ying-yang dot inlays. I love that smooth organic curvey way the body and neck merge into eachother. Nice bass. Very nice.

Ooooh, scary! Where did you get your big long drill bit from? Is that about 8mm?

Nice touch - the recessed and angled barrel jack socket. that's intelligent building. Looks like you shielded the cavities with gold leaf!

I emailed him - he said it was a one-piece body, maple or maybe cherry. You lot are so cynical

Final bit of routing - bridge pickup. Second use of the B&Q copper pipe, a little trick learnt on the forum for making the wiring holes from crtl cavity to bridge and pickup cavity easier to drill - always scares me doing that bit. The drill bit stuck into the end of the pipe with a blob of epoxy makes the job a lot easier and a lot less risky.

if you look at the schematics I posted recently, the 3pdt switch has X-wiring that grounds the unused input. This A/B wiring gives 'no-pop' switching and an unused B will also be hum-free