nekomatic

Copland, good shout. Appalachian Spring was definitely one of my formative classical influences. And if Holst and Walton are the godfathers of science fiction soundtracks then Copland's fingerprints are all over most Westerns. If we're on Americans then we should also have Bernstein, and not just for West Side Story or the purely rambunctious stuff like the Candide overture - there’s also the Chichester Psalms for example. If there's one composer I can nominate as underrated, it’s Szymanowski. Seeing Król Roger done live has to be on my bucket list.

I don't think that changes the voltage, so if you're trying to power the USB gadget off 9V then no. @fretmeister's link has some fun looking products but I don't see one to go from 9V to USB there, only the other way round. Something like this should work though, just mount it in some sort of enclosure: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304022853994

CPC is part of Farnell but their catalogues aren’t the same.

So much this. People are told that the reference point for classical music is Eine kleine Nachtmusik or some other iddly-twiddly Mozart, but in fifty years of exposure to classical music I’ve never got Mozart (with the possible exception of the Requiem). Shostakovich on the other hand… If you want to give your ear for harmony a workout, I’m going to suggest string quartets - the Debussy is gorgeous, Shostakovich no. 8 is heart-rending. The best way to experience any of them is to be in the same room as the string quartet, but I guess the next best way is through good headphones.

R3 makes sure Q1 is biased correctly, otherwise there would be nothing keeping the gate at the right voltage. R1 makes sure the input has a reasonable input impedance at DC which should reduce noise pickup and as you say reduce thumps on connecting the input.

I used to take my homebuilt 1x12 (long before its recent conversion into effectively a BC112 mk2) on the train and tube with the help of a pair of strap-on luggage wheels. I don’t recommend this. One time I lugged it from Clapham Junction to Archway to find the escalators not working, which was fun.

The other issue with lead is what will happen to the device at end-of-life. If it stops working and you are still around then hopefully you will be responsible enough to ensure it’s disposed of properly, though that may become harder to do as commercial electronics become exclusively lead-free. If you’re gone, how do you know it’ll be looked after correctly rather than ending up polluting the environment for future generations? I know the quantity of material involved is tiny but it still seems to me like the right thing not to use it. I don’t find working with lead free solder that hard as long as you have a temperature controlled iron and the right size bit for each job. Obviously that does involve some extra expense though.

The impression I’d picked up, mostly from discussions on here, was that larger drivers have worse dispersion than smaller ones and so a vertical 2x10 or 2x12 would be preferable to a 1x15. Until success, fame, fortune and more storage space favour me I’m not likely to be in the market for a larger-than-compact cab though, so don’t let me speak for those who are…

If your amp sounds OK through its speaker then I can’t think of a good reason it shouldn’t work through headphones, unless the headphones are rubbish. Do they sound good for listening to music from another source? It seems unlikely that your adapter is at fault, because there’s not much to it except some contacts, but it’s always possible.

I don’t always like the sound of the low notes on the B string and I sometimes think some players overuse them. That’s my controversial take for the evening. But if you need them, or you like how they sound on any particular song, then go for it. 97% of your audience won’t even count how many strings you have anyway.

Sound travels at roughly 340 m/s, so a 40 millisecond lag is like having your amp fifteen metres away. If you have some long cables and a big room or a dry day, you could try this out.

There are some free-to-download plans on the Blue Aran website - they have a 2 way design with 6in woofer that looks like the sort of thing, and the cabinet construction looks interesting. I did a quick web search for 'loudspeaker kits uk' and found lots of places doing just-add-woodwork kits, although many of them are very expensive. Impact Audio had some cheaper ones, but still £300 plus per pair. Have a look around though, you may hit on something better suited.

I just put this album on at random and remembered that it has this cover on it: Which obviously I’m not claiming is better than the original but actually yes, yes I am.

For best performance on the Mac you should format the disk as APFS which Windows PCs can’t read, but if you do want to use the same disk on both types then you can use ExFAT format.

For the screen issue you could give SwitchResX a try.

I'm with you on upright bass solos - I so often end up feeling that both player and listener are fighting a losing battle with the physical limitations of the instrument. And you could argue that it just doesn't make any sense trying to decide whether a bassist is 'better' than a sax player or a pianist based on a fifteen minute performance. That said, I thought Hastie's playing was lovely and would be very happy to hear him in a band. But to be honest I liked all of them, and would struggle to pick which one I thought should have won. Although maybe the guitarist… It was a stellar lineup on the judging panel incidentally - if there's any of them you don't know, check them out.

Also I think this one has turned up on the forum many times before but not on this particular thread, and it is unquestionably superior to the dreary original

Also punk heads probably disapprove of Nouvelle Vague but I do like this one

Thanks for the heads up! iPlayer link to save anyone else the search, Euan Hastie is at about 1h06 but it all looks worth watching/listening to. I concur that the Markbass rig is Michael Mondesir's and Hastie isn't using it. I don't think I've seen anyone play upright left-handed before, have I missed anyone notable who does this or is it rather unusual?

Is the GPA-100 not loud enough to meet this spec? Apart from the Speakon that is. Amp heads should definitely have a 9v power output though.

I’ve got one of the cheap ones from a UK eBay seller and it’s ok, but I had to mount the bare board on a bit of wood to make it practical. It does feel as if there’s a gap in the market between the eBay bargains and the Peak kit. Although I follow Peak on twitter and they’re clearly thoroughly good eggs so I’d feel guilty.

If you went into detail on all the topics above it’d be a textbook! I can think of a few specific questions I’d be interested in: - intercompatibility of the different types of Speakon and where they’re used - what gauge of wire to use for what speaker power - what to look out for when choosing cable e.g. which are suitable or unsuitable for instrument and mic leads, etc - solder or screw terminals, given the choice? - use of gold plated connectors, if available?

Well I hope it’s not the next thing I’ll see live, but we’ve just booked for Aldous Harding at the Albert Hall Manchester in April…

I’m still working very slowly through Scott’s technique course and I’m doing a selection of the exercises from the lessons I’ve watched so far, then playing with a couple of jazz tunes on iReal. Biggest problem (hence the ‘very slowly’ above) is making sure the practice actually happens rather than continually putting it off because there’s something else to do, until the something else to do is that it’s time to go to bed 😕 Oh, kit: Zoom B1 Four, into a little Spirit mixer and headphones. Using the mixer is quieter than running line out from the computer into the Zoom’s aux in and gives me pan controls so I can separate my bass from Scott’s when playing along to a lesson, for example.