nekomatic

I voted for Dolly partly to wind up the sort of people who don’t think Dolly should be in it but mostly because any ‘hall of fame’ without Dolly in it really doesn’t deserve the name. Cool that people are finding out about Fela though.

I hadn’t actually noticed that mine had a longer horn than others…

It’s a late-’80s/early-’90s American Standard. What makes it “boner”, or shouldn’t I ask? 😳

Lined… …and loaded, grilled and cornered: It's done! A labour of love and no mistake: it would have been way less effort to build a new one from scratch, and probably no more expensive (I'd have needed to buy a few clamps, but on the other hand I've killed a battery on the cordless sander in the process of doing this one), but it's really satisfying to know that I've given the original cabinet a new lease on life. And I'm really pleased with how it sounds and looks! If I can make it along to a Bass Bash at some point I'll be sure to bring it along. Thanks once again to everyone involved in the Basschat designs and the valuable discussion around them, and everyone who's helped me out on here with advice, information and components: I somehow feel I have an extra incentive to do the thing justice now by playing as well as I can and as much as I can through it On that note, here it is with the amp and bass, which I hope will be seeing lots of each other:

I only vaguely remember the F1 theme but I just hummed my guess at the first note to (very musical) mininekomatic1 and asked what he thought it was. He said A. I checked on the piano and it was a slightly sharp B flat. There may be something in this!

Just for pedantry, by no means all components are made in China, although I'm sure almost all commodity parts are made in low-cost countries. Nexperia make MOSFETs in Stockport, although I don't think they're the sort you'll find in your bass amp. On-topic, everyone seemed to have Trace gear back when I started playing out in the '90s and I never thought I sounded good through it, although the quick-witted will note there could be more than one explanation for this.

Painted and Tuff Cabbed: I went for the Brown Black (or is it Black Brown) colour in an attempt to make it look slightly more furniture-y around the house and slightly less of a big ugly black box, but it's very nearly black anyway. I like it though. I didn't get the finish quite perfect - the roller from Blue Aran had an annoying tendency to start sliding rather than rolling, and I should have made sure to have better lighting on each side I was painting to spot the imperfections, but I'm sure nobody but me will ever notice. Crossover completed and installed: I'll glue those inductor leads down before final assembly. But now, let's put the speakers in and try it out: I spent entirely too long just playing music through it off the iPod, very loud (sorry neighbours)! First impressions: it shows up that my amp makes quite a lot of hiss, independent of volume settings, so this pairing may not suit for quiet practice after all, but I can't imagine it'll be a problem for rehearsals or gigs. I would say the high end is a bit harsh for actual hi-fi, but would serve perfectly well as a PA speaker. I might just probe the wiring of the crossover HF side though, in case I've made some mistake that's thrown the frequency response out. And last of all, the bass! Well it sounds great - I'm not sure if I was expecting it to go a tiny bit louder, but it's almost certainly all I need for the foreseeable future - except that it faithfully reproduces every detail of my terrible technique, which really needs to be the next project to work on before I contemplate any more amp or speaker related tinkering. All that's left is to stick some wadding in - although I can't say I can hear the need for it - glue the port in, and put the grille and corners on, and this thing may be finished.

I'm sure it was a previous thread on here where I learned about the RIDC car database which has boot length and width for lots of current and past models. Since every useful fact must be balanced by an amusing anecdote, a drummer friend used to get her entire kit into a Sunbeam Alpine.

On the stuff I’ve used in the past it gets wider when you push it, so after the first half a metre or so has gone in you can work a ‘bulge’ along from the sleeving end. I wouldn’t want to do it for a several meter cable though! Does it have to be cotton mix, or that specific sort of retro pattern? If I search eBay for ‘braided sleeving’ and filter on location UK only there’s quite a lot of choice otherwise.

Sounds like you’re looking for a Bass Pod XT Pro then…

The Fontanelles - Criminality

Being particularly averse to noisy fans, I picked up a rackmount fanless class-AB power amp with the intention of pairing it up with a rackmount preamp, as I also don't like the idea of fiddly little boxes on the floor. Eventually I realised that I wasn't going to find the time to build the preamp myself and there weren't any affordable commercial ones around with all the functions I wanted, and then a fanless Laney Class-D head came up in the for sale forum, so I ditched the rack idea (and need at some point to get round to ditching the class-AB power amp, which someone else might as well get the benefit of… possibly for anchoring their boat).

Way back when I used to read the Bottom Line email list (anyone else?) the generic name for these people was ‘proctologists’.

I am declaring the woodwork done. Cross brace: Corner ears because the recess isn't deep enough for the grille, and blocks to fix the grille to: And maybe unnecessary, but because the handle screw heads aren't recessed I got worried about them scratching some hypothetical uneven floor, so a sort of bezel around the handles: And a load of filling (with 50/50 wood filler and wood glue, as recommended by Blue Aran) and sanding. I think I've done enough sanding for a while. Crossover under construction: point to point wiring for the LF side, components soldered to matrix board and point to point wiring for the HF side, and Wago lever terminals to connect to the input and drivers because they're supposed to be more secure than screw terminals? I can almost believe the end is in sight!

Most of this (excellent) thread has had me either wincing in pain or smiling wryly, but at this paragraph I roared with laughter. Chapeau! I was tickled to learn that Artic Monkeys played the Truck Festival though...

Nothing I have is a patch on any of these but since we're here… my student jazz-funk band was asked to play someone's house party. We did some originals and some covers ranging from current (Corduroy) through well-known (Chameleon) to fairly obscure ones. We get there and this guy says oh, I play keyboards, is it OK if I join in with you? We look at each other uneasily. Sorry mate, our guitarist says, but, er, we've got arrangements and stuff (subtext: and we've rehearsed them). Turns out he's the DJ and gets us back after our set by playing the original of every tune we cover, to show how much better the original was than our version (which to be fair, was true).

The transformer @funkyjazz linked to looks professional, but I’m pretty sure it’s an autotransformer not an isolating transformer. That means it’s possible that up to 240 V AC relative to earth could appear on one side of the 120 V output under certain fault conditions e.g. live and neutral swapped in the socket, or neutral gets disconnected. That won’t blow up the vintage amp by itself but it might be a hazard if you touch something that’s not adequately insulated for the higher voltage. I was also wondering whether a ‘site transformer’ as @RhythmJunky suggested would be a good alternative, as they isolate the output from mains and (as I understand it) tie it to earth via a centre tap instead so that the maximum line or neutral voltage on the output is only 55 V relative to earth. But when I looked one up I found a comment that they aren’t suitable for powering US kit because it might short out one of the 55 V windings. So in summary I don’t know and would wait for someone with actual experience of vintage US amps to comment 😁 I’m sure this subject has been covered on coughTalkbasscough though, it might be worth searching or asking there. Also re the safety of the vintage amp itself, apparently there is something known as a ‘death capacitor’ that you need to make sure is removed - again I’m sure a forum or web search will tell you more.

Aha, thanks!

That sounds great btw - and as a bonus you've put Irresistible Bliss on my afternoon playlist Is the preamp just the one in the Promethean, or something else before that?

Stockport is so proud of Blossoms they’ve put ‘home of Blossoms’ on the road signs as you drive in. Where we live is close to the border with Burnage in Manchester though and apparently the Gallagher brothers used to be seen in our local from time to time. I grew up in Southampton which boasts Craig David and, er, Benny Hill. (that’s still a better line up than Pompey though!)

Now recycled to a fellow Basschatter!

Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that. So bending notes doesn’t really work either then?

Same here, although I don’t know where I’d expect to find them in stock…