nekomatic

That’s fair enough if the artist got a nice healthy advance from their recording contract at the time of the original release; less so if they put time and effort into it unpaid in the hope that they’d see a return from people buying it. My understanding is that the former situation is rare these days for all but the biggest artists.

Anything they like, you won’t hear them!

Drilled the holes for the screws that will fix the baffle to the front battens - taking care to miss both the screws that fix the battens to the top and sides, and the holes I incorrectly drilled front to back in the same battens - and very temporarily fixed the baffle to the cab and the speaker to the baffle, so that I could measure where the centre of mass sits, and put the handle there so the cab will hang nicely vertically from it. BUT THERE IS A PROBLEM. I wanted to use - and have bought - the round handle from Blue Aran, in sort of homage to the Basschat 112 design since I didn’t use that one in my own 112. However it’s too big to fit in the right position according to the balance point, because the cutout for it would need to come through the front batten and into the baffle. So it’s either fit this handle about 3 cm further back, which is basically in the centre of the top panel, or get a replacement which will have to be less pleasingly circular. 😭 Needless to say I put an order in to CPC earlier today for the last bits I thought I needed 😭😭 No updates for a few days now, we have guests over the weekend and I’ve had to tidy everything up as the kids will have to sleep in the spare room where I was working. Gives me some time to ponder the options…

By total coincidence I had a look at the Wilkinsons Hi-fi website today, after coming across a link to it in an old post somewhere on here, and they currently have a Varislope III on sale as a ‘restoration project’ for £49: https://www.wilkinsons.tv/product/leak-varislope-iii3/

Glued. I thought I'd be clever and save myself further countersinking by digging some slightly longer screws out of the Box Of Random Screws and substituting those for the ones that failed to bite well. Not a bad idea in principle except that (a) some were too long and came out of the outside of the panel - not a problem after removing them again, any holes are tiny and will be easily sanded/filled - and (b) some were too thick, so they felt like they were doing up good and solid but left a gaping crack between the panels, because they weren't turning freely in the batten in order to pull in the panel. All rectified I think. Remaining minor imperfections and gaps due to short battens were filled with wood filler / wood glue mix, which I also ran a bead of along any inside joints that didn't obviously have surplus glue squeezing out. Now dried it feels sturdy and is square. A few places still need a touch of filler but I'm going to leave that until later as I still have a couple more holes to cut and sharp corners to round off, and anything might happen. Marked out the screw positions for the speaker. To me this looks a bit marginal for putting either T-nuts straight into the back of the baffle (one positioned for reference), or self-tapping screws into the baffle alone - what do the experts think? I can easily add a piece of batten behind each hole to give more wood for the fixing to get its teeth into.

Cool, and it's good to hear Andertons came good in the end.

Hello!

I have never heard of, or knowingly heard, the band in question, but I saw this on Bluesky (that's the one that's like Twitter but less Nazi) and thought it would amuse you lot too:

This is the way of thinking about modes that makes most sense to me, and I believe it’s the one George Russell describes in his legendary The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. (I say ‘believe’ because I don’t have a copy, although I’d like to, because I’ve never seen it on sale for under a hundred quid). Having said that I don’t think about modes specifically in my current practice, which is mainly focused on getting better at walking jazz bass. When I get round to spending some time on soloing I might find a way of working them in.

Well the short answer is that the bass response of a speaker is completely dependent on the cabinet (volume and tuning of the reflex port if it has one), so the low end frequency response quoted in the speaker specs doesn’t really tell you anything helpful by itself. There is software that will work all this out for you as long as the necessary data for the speaker is available, and friendly people on this forum will often run some calculations for you if you ask. Do you know the volume of the empty cab, and what diameter driver did it take?

The error I forgot to mention above is that the 25 mm screws I bought are a bit too short to bite in the panels without countersinking them into the battens, so I had to do that, which was a bit of time wasted, especially if you also do it for the holes you didn't actually need to drill in the first place (see picture). Anyway here it is fully dry assembled, apart from the baffle… …and with the baffle in place, which is a nice friction fit. Athough that probably means it'll be too tight after painting the recess. We'll cross that bridge when etc. It's beginning to look like a cab! The dry assembly was worth doing as it allowed me to check that everything fitted together (it did but only after sanding the too-long baffles short) and that all the screws bit and pulled in the panels properly (some of them didn't, so need a bit more countersinking). I found I preferred to use a hand screwdriver to do them up rather than the drill/driver - an elegant weapon for a more civilised age, or something. It's certainly not perfect but I'm fairly confident it is going to be airtight and robust and not wobbly. A little bit of sanding and filler and the wonders of Tuffcab will deal with the gaps and rough edges. It seems a shame when I've just put it together, but the next step is to take it all apart again and reassemble it with the glue.

I’m keeping this simple, so it’ll be the same dark brown Tuffcab I used on my previous cab refurb. I’m still happy with how that one looks and it’ll be nice to have them match somewhat. Tonight I cut and drilled all the battens and started dry assembling them to the panels. A couple of errors: the verticals have come out a couple of mm too long (despite measuring against the panels 🤷‍♂️) so will need some sanding, and I failed to think through that only the rear verticals need holes in both directions, because the baffle will be screwed on from the front. Not fatal errors, I reckon. Some pics next post.

So the monthly jazz jam I go to has moved venue and whether it's because the 'stage' was on a hard floor and is now on carpet, or something else, I don't know, but I just can't hear myself through the house bassist's down-firing Acoustic Image combo any more. 'I know what' I said to myself, 'I'll bring my own rig next time, the compact transportable one, then I'll be in charge of my own sound. Job's a good 'un!' 'There's one problem,' I replied, 'you don't have a compact transportable rig.' 'Ah,' I said, 'fair point. Guess I'll have to get round to building that Basschat 1x8 then.' So then (and no more internal dialogue, I promise): driver and hardware obtained, timber supplies assessed, and a trip round the side of the house made to cut a bit off the length of spare drainpipe that's been lying around there ever since we moved in; deadline for completion, next jam on 13th Feb; let's go! I already had some bits of B&Q 12mm ply, and one of them was a strip I got cut 280 mm wide for some forgotten reason, so to save me a couple of cuts I've slightly adjusted the size to use a 280 mm wide baffle and back panel. Do not mix these two up Remaining cuts made with the handheld electric saw, using a batten or piece of board clamped to the workpiece as a guide, after careful adjustment (and checking the guide piece is actually straight). This could easily go wrong, but I seem to have got away with it. I cut the driver and port holes with the Dremel and circle attachment. This was very easy but in my excitement I forgot to properly allow for the cut thickness, so both holes have come out a couple of mm bigger than planned. Bit of a pain for the port, which will need packing out with something, but still plenty of wood left for the speaker to seal on as long as it stays properly centred in the aperture. To ensure that I cut some little pieces of a moulding I happened to have spare, and glued them to the insides of the cutout, and that seems to be just right to keep the speaker located. Now off to watch Phil's assembly video one more time…

Dyslexia and dyscalculia are recognised conditions and I believe we're getting past the assumption that people who have them 'just aren't trying hard enough' or 'just haven't been taught properly', so it would be no surprise that a similar thing exists for musical notation. It's intriguing that you seem to get this for notation but not for tab. But then the brain is an intriguing and incompletely understood thing.

I remain to be convinced that tab is any easier to sight read at tempo than notation. I reckon sight reading is a bit like ten-finger typing: you just need to force yourself to practice it, no matter how slow and painful that is, and you will get better. (It should be noted that I’m a much better typist than I am a sight reader.)

Yep. Also the faulty Mooer (now why does that sound familiar…) is Bax’s responsibility to sort out, irrespective of any warranty you might have got from the manufacturer. Since the fault has arisen within six months of purchase the onus is on them to show it wasn’t faulty when you bought it, not the other way around.

That Danson cab is gorgeous!

I personally feel moderately sorry for them, but ultimately it's their decision what products to stock and if stores stopped stocking (for example) Mooer's 'smart' guitars because they couldn't trust Mooer to support them properly, maybe Mooer would think a bit harder about supporting them properly.

Most lead-free solder melts at 227 °C but if you look around you can find stuff with a 217 °C melting point - from memory it has about 3 % silver in it though, so it may be a little more expensive. I guess that should make it a little easier to use although to be honest I've never directly compared the two. edit to add: https://cpc.farnell.com/stannol/631902/solder-lead-free-1-0mm-100g/dp/SD01178 for example. You need (in my experience) a temperature controlled soldering iron, and to use the right size bit for each job, and then you'll wonder why anyone moans about lead free.

Which? have a fairly comprehensive summary: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-do-i-do-if-i-have-a-faulty-product-aTTEK2g0YuEy I also found a mention on this page of the situation when something stops working because of a software update, although it's referring to the phone itself rather than another product that depends on the phone: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/my-mobile-phone-is-faulty-what-can-i-do-ajAzA5S2Uv1t I'm not a lawyer and it may be this isn't clear-cut but from a layman's point of view it is obvious that mobile phones get software updates, which have to be installed for security and to maintain compatibility with other apps, so if you buy a product that can only work with a mobile phone then you should be able to expect it to keep working for a reasonable time in that situation. Citizens Advice also have good advice pages and you can contact them for individual advice if the standard information doesn't solve your problem - that might be where I'd go next if @edstraker123 doesn't get a satisfactory response to his letter…

This is not the legal position, as other people have noted. When you buy something from a retailer your contract is with the retailer.

I've just received a delivery from Blue Aran, so watch this space for a build! edit: under way!

I recently came across this which describes new UK regulations that apply to sites like this one, and thought I’d flag it up just in case the team weren’t already aware. Hopefully it shouldn’t require doing anything more onerous than carrying out a risk assessment and documenting the result. There’s also this page which is offering a mailing list for people running similar sites to help with compliance and possibly making collective representations to Ofcom about it. HTH