flyfisher

They must be queuing up to make programes about the old master. Paul Gambaccini presented a programme about him on Radio 4 yesterday. Anyone interested can listen to it for another week at: [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7cmk"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7cmk[/url]

The basic answer is 12 ohms. The main disadvantage is that you won't get anywhere near the max power output of your amp (assuming it's rated at 4 ohms). A better configuration might be two in series (16 ohms) and the other in parallel = 5.33 ohms. (http://www.1728.com/resistrs.htm) But you won't get an even distribution of power through the speakers. Half the power will be in the single parallel speaker (so 315W) and the other half will be in the two series speakers (so 157.5W each). You can add a dummy load if you want but that won't really help as you'll just turn some of the amp's power into heat in the dummy load. Power-wise, I wouldn't worry too much about just using two parallel speakers (giving 500W handling) with a 630W amp, unless you're in the habit of running your amp at 100% full volume - in which case things will probably sound crap before anything breaks.

Stands are also handy for holding a damp sponge for cleaning the tip. I find de-solder braid can be good for removing the solder from circuit boards but for other desoldering I prefer to use a suction tool, which can be used instead of braid and is generally more useful: I'd agree no larger than 25W for electronic work but for guitar work I'd think about a slightly bigger iron, say around 40W. My reasoning is that guitar work rarely has tiny, delicate components. It's mostly just wires and fairly large components, plus there's usually a pot body to solder to. An iron that's too small will need to be applied to a pot-body for longer than a larger iron, risking overheating the actual pot. Perversely, it's often safer (in terms of component damage) to quickly use a larger iron than to faff around with a too-small iron waiting for things to heat up and melt the solder. As in most things, practice makes perfect. I'd also choose an iron with easily replaceable tips and start out with a decent sized one for the thermal reasons outlined above.

[quote name='Low End Bee' post='1043328' date='Dec 1 2010, 08:58 AM']I used to have this problem a lot back in the days of black & white and horseless carriages. When I was trying to learn a song by playing along with the record and I found it was out of pitch or speeded up to a stupid key like Bb,[/quote] Probably due to the then state-of-the-art rotational accuracy of the gramophone player

Try pitch-changing the audio file. Audacity will do this for you (can't remember if it'll do 1/4 tones though). Or just re-tune the bass to the recording while learning it.

[quote name='Lysdexia' post='1042303' date='Nov 30 2010, 01:12 PM']Hitting back has bugger all to do with gender. Absolutely the done thing.[/quote] Blimey, I must be getting old. Right, from now on women can open doors for themselves and bl**dy well stand up on the train - see if I care.

[url="http://www.kemtron.co.uk/buytapes.html"]http://www.kemtron.co.uk/buytapes.html[/url] All sorts of shielding products including adhesive tapes. Or [url="http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=500006+1001676+216478&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=copper+tape&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&No=0&getResults=true&appliedparametrics=true&locale=en_UK&catalogId=&prevNValues=500006+1001676+378564+216478&filtersHidden=false&appliedHidden=false&originalQueryURL=%2Fjsp%2Fsearch%2Fbrowse.jsp%3FN%3D500006%2B1001676%26Ntk%3Dgensearch_001%26Ntt%3Dcopper%2Btape%26Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchallpartial%26No%3D0%26getResults%3Dtrue%26appliedparametrics%3Dtrue%26locale%3Den_UK%26catalogId%3D%26prevNValues%3D500006%2B1001676"]Farnell Electronic Components[/url]

[quote name='Delberthot' post='1021458' date='Nov 12 2010, 02:16 PM']its all done with mirrors[/quote] that's OK as long as there's no smoke to go with them . . .

[quote name='Lysdexia' post='1042099' date='Nov 30 2010, 10:57 AM']She could of course be a guitarist too, but our thinking was surely designed to try and ensure we don't have another violent lunatic on the presumption men are more likely to be so.[/quote] Men are possibly more prone to violence, but at least you can hit them back if necessary. A violent woman is a far more tricky proposition, as I once witnessed at a wedding, of all places, where it took a number of people to pull a mad woman off the poor (male) defendant before she punched his lights right out. One good punch back would probably have stopped her in her tracks, but it's not really the done thing is it?

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='1041768' date='Nov 29 2010, 10:44 PM']Just worth mentioning today is 9yrs since George Harrison lost his battle with cancer.[/quote] Nine years? Wow, doesn't seem like it. Very sad though, and far too young really. Who was it who said that The Beatles are dying in the wrong order? Anyone here manage to go to the Concert For George the year after he died? I didn't but I have the DVD and it's a fantastic reminder of George's catalogue. [quote name='burno70' post='1041781' date='Nov 29 2010, 10:52 PM']surprised this hasn't been suggested[/quote] Please Sir, I did Sir . . .

I've a feeling that such a thing isn't even legal. Something about durability of goods requiring manufacturers to be able to service their products for a fairly long period of time. 10+ years rings a bell. Unless they were not the original manufacturer perhaps? Even so, just saying 'we can't help' to a customer is not very inspiring.

Perhaps the 'battery clip' person was having a bad day - not an excuse though. Coincidentally, I had a run-in with dabs.com today after having bought an external hard drive caddy. Anyway, the first one arrived fautly. No problem, they arranged a courier to collect it and sent me another. Unfortunately, the second one was also faulty, so I phoned them to arrange a collection and a refund. The woman I spoke to said I couldn't have a returns number until I'd got a 'fault code' from the manufacturer. I said that's not my problem, dabs is the supplier and I shouldn't have to go chasing the manufacturer. Poor girl was obviously readin g from a script and tried to give me the manufacturers number to call, but I said that wasn't acceptable. I asked if I could speak to her manager and she said no! I asked why not and she would only give me an email address. After another five minutes of arguing and getting nowhere I took the manufacturers number and rang off. When I called the manufacturers number I just got an unobtainable tone. Was I livid! So I called dabs again and a different woman answered the phone. I explained that I wanted to return a faulty item and she said 'certainly sir'. She asked about the fault, which I described and she wrote down, and then issued a returns number. She then asked if I'd like a courier to collect the item tomorrow whereupon they would issue a refund. Simple, easy, perfect. Companies really are at the mercy of their front-line staff. I've used dabs a lot over the years and always had good service, yet that first woman would have left me ranting and telling people how hopeless they are and to never use them again. Ten minutes later, the second woman was a model of helpfulness, apologised profusely for the inconvenience and did everything possible to make things easy for me to get a refund, so I guess I'll use them again. Things go wrong with stuff, it's unfortunate but it's a fact of life. It's the way that companies react when things do go wrong that is the real indicator of how serious they are about customer service.

[quote name='RhysP' post='1040543' date='Nov 28 2010, 10:19 PM']There's some really great bass playing all over "Rubber Soul".[/quote] +1 to that!

Good choices. May I add an old favourite?

Yep, I'd echo everything Stewart has said. TTL is definitely a 'logic' output and will be swing from about zero (ground) to 4.5 volts. You almost certainly don't want this output (unless you're designing and developing digitlal logic circuits ) because not only will the voltage swing probably be too high for your audio equipment but the square wave nature of the signal will sound pretty bad (although maybe you want that!). An ordinary voltmeter won't be much help because it almost certainly won't be able to respond to the oscillating nature of the output or TTL waveform. Any reading you get will be an 'averaged' voltage rather than the peak. It will give you some information but you need to understand what's really happening to make any sense of it and even then it won't tell you all you'd like to know. The ideal test instrument would be an oscilloscope. This would show you the precise shape of the output waveform, its voltage and its frequency, but I appreciate such things are not exactly standard-issue home items. I only mentioned it in case you have access to one through school, uni or work perhaps. Otherwise, I agree with Stewart about trying to track down a manual.

[quote name='silddx' post='1038096' date='Nov 26 2010, 06:31 PM']Trace GP7 mate. Really funny here. The first band just had a hissy fit at the SO and stormed off home during their SC. [/quote] Thanks for that, I'll look it up. Hope you had a good one.

I'm not entirely sure of the problem here, but it seems like it's being over-complicated. A cable does not have an "earth connection" as such. Your oscillator has an earth connection (which you seem to recognise) and so does your recording set up. You could use two bits of single-core wire to connect the equipment and it would work (electrically). But Stewart is correct that you should use the outer wrap of a screened cable for the earth connection because this will provide shielding against external interference getting into the cable. Unless I've misunderstood the question here. Perhaps it would if you could identify the types of connectors involved. Or better still, post a photo.

[quote name='simon1964' post='1035669' date='Nov 24 2010, 09:51 PM']LOL - no, I was just using Morgan as an example of a company that produces a fantastic, cool, desirable product which is rooted in what many would say was an old fashioned design. Just like Rickenbacker IMO![/quote] Does anyone remember that old television programme "Trouble Shooter" with John Harvey-Jones, the big-shot business guru (a sort of Alan Sugar figure), who would go into 'failing' companies, study them and then make all sorts of recommendations for change? He did a programme on Morgan and was basically appalled at how they did everything, from design to manufacture and marketing. He made all sorts of (fairly obvious) recommendations to update the company with the latest management thinking which would have turned them into just another apecialist car maker. The board (family-owned I believe) were polite but basically rejected all his advice, the gist of their response being that their approach to things, old-fashioned as they were, was actually one of Morgan's biggest assets. Of course, we can't be sure that Morgan wouldn't have become the next BMW if they had followed the guru's advice ( ), but we do know that they have survived against all the dire predictions from the 'experts'. A lot of "bad design" is like that. Once it becomes iconic, the design flaws simply melt away and become accepted as 'character'. Funny old world.

If USB2 provided enough performance previously then anything should be OK. USB2, FW400 or FW800. USB2 (480Mbps) might be nominally faster than FW400 but the software interface means it is actually slower for sustained data transfers. This is why tape-based digital camcorders were always FW400 instead of USB2. Even though the video data rate was only 25Mbps, USB2 couldn't be guaranteed to keep up. A faster interface won't make any difference to the recording or playback process, although it will of course speed up any file transfers. If you're really bothered about speed then eSATA is the way to go. Spend £20 or so on an eSATA card for your PC if you haven't already got one. You then get the convenience of an external drive with the speed of an internal one.

I'm not very good at selling stuff (any stuff) but fortunately my other half is very understanding about all the clutter around the house. I've bought a fair bit of stuff on here and it was all fairly priced as far as I was concerned. I don't know or really care if any of the sellers made a profit.

Yep, no magic smoke with those impedances (5.3 ohms for both cabs in parallel), but realise the amp's power won't be evenly split across the two cabs.

[quote name='Stewart' post='1035888' date='Nov 25 2010, 08:53 AM']As to the question: Why don't speaker cabs have intrinsic circuits to protect speakers from blowing out? Given the variable nature of virtually everything concerned (power handling at specific frequencies, impedance at specific frequencies, compliance, maximum excursion blah blah...) you'd need something like a preprogrammed 'smart' circuit breaker to suit the model of driver in the cab concerned. Even if such a device existed it would likely cost more than every other component.[/quote] Yep, that would be my take on the matter as well. Speakers are simple, cheap and robust. Size them correctly for the system being used and they'll be fine. Under-spec them and yes they'll be at risk of dying on stage (certainly a bad thing). Under-spec them but protect them and they'll still 'die' on stage because blowing a fuse or electronically tripping out is the same thing as far as the audience is concerned.