flyfisher

[quote name='BassBod' post='929665' date='Aug 19 2010, 12:31 PM']Did a cave recently...never done that before.[/quote] Sounds like an acoustic nightmare - did it work out OK?

In addition to the technical advantages (as mentioned above), the thing I like about them is that they are different to jacks. This means it's impossible to confuse a guitar lead with a speaker lead. Yes, speaker leads are generally heavier but that doesn't seem to make any difference when well-meaning bandmates are 'helping' to set everything up. Speakons avoid any confusion, which can only be a good thing in my book.

Just out of interest, how can anyone be sure that someone has two accounts? I know IP addresses are often used but they are not particularly reliable as few people get fixed IP adresses from their ISP and a dynamic IP address can be easily changed - and, indeed, re-issued to someone else. Also, IP tracking is not much use if people have access to more than one PC (on a different router, obviously), e.g. work and home. Just curious.

[quote name='risingson' post='928561' date='Aug 18 2010, 12:50 PM']Who cares if Keith Moon can't play drums or if Lennon was a bad piano player? They're superb musicians.[/quote] Absolutely. And it's the superb musicians that rise to the top of the public consciousness and actually make a difference to people's lives, hence The Beatles, Abba, Queen, The Stones etc etc, unlike the technical genius posting YouTube videos from their bedroom. The world needs musicians, not technicians. Emotion not science.

Full marks to the guy for practicing. Half marks for videoing it so he could check where he was going wrong. But actually posting it for all the world to see . . . . . ?

New battery for the gig, old battery(s) for practice and rehearsals.

[quote name='Truckstop' post='921095' date='Aug 10 2010, 10:54 PM']What travels faster? Sound or a digital/analogue signal from a transmitter to a receiver? I was only wondering because some wireless users complain that after they stand 50ft away, there are latency issues. Surely, this is just because at that distance it takes time for the sound from your cab/PA to reach you. Like, a noticeable gap between you doing something, and then hearing it. Not necessarily a latency issue is it? More a sort of... physics issue i guess! Truckstop[/quote] Sound is effectively a pressure wave. A radio signal is an electromagnetic wave and (more-or-less) propogates at the speed of light, i.e. a lot, lot faster than sound.

Might be a physicist: [url="http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/forschung/mm/cv/"]http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/forschung/mm/cv/[/url]

Why were you buying the stuff abroad? Probably because it was cheaper? Now you know why it was cheaper. [i]If you drive a car, I'll tax the street, If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold I'll tax the heat, If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.[/i] More correctly, Customs & Excise in this case, but it's the same result.

Come on, honestly now, how many people on here have not realised when it was time to change a battery? How did the world ever manage without such devices?

[quote name='Clarky' post='926546' date='Aug 16 2010, 03:16 PM']Genuinely curious here, not trying to rattle cages[/quote] Yes, me too. I've tried listening to jazz, but I just don't get it - which is a real shame because everyone involved seems to really enjoy it and I feel I'm missing out on something clearly quite special. But I just can't connect with it. Some years back, I went to the London Jazz Festival, mainly to see Buddy Guy. Fantastic stuff (IMHO!) and thoroughly enjoyable etc etc. He was followed by Andy Summers with one of his jazz outfits. Well, I tried but it was no good. I knew I wasn't getting it when the audience whooped and cheered at certain points in his playing. I'm sure he'd played some ridiculously clever stuff but I couldn't make head nor tail of it and there was no emotional connection at all. I'm almost ashamed to say I walked out before the end of the performance. I guess I just wasn't dealt the 'jazz gene', or at least only a very tame one that allows me to enjoy some old Andre Previn or Oscar Peterson, but I suspect those examples would get me laughed out of any self-respecting jazz club. C'est la vie.

Don't forget that most mains plugs around the world don't include fuses anyway, so if you used your rig in, say, the USA the cable to the wall-socket wouldn't be fused at all - hence why appliances with 'universal' power inputs have their own fuse arrangements. Just don't expect a UK plug fuse to fit the fuse holders of the equipment in question - a good reason to have a set of spare fuses for regularly gigged gear.

[quote name='BigRedX' post='926449' date='Aug 16 2010, 01:54 PM']They're both rack mounting units, so ideally they should be in a rack case with a rack mounted distribution board and everything properly fused.[/quote] Fair point . . . . ideally. But what does 'properly fused' really mean for a 5W device? Edit: Just checked the Sansamp RBI manual and it has a fuse in the kettle-lead socket: 1A for 120Vac operation and 0.5A for 220-240Vac. So there's the answer; it doesn't matter what fuse is in the 13A plug so a dual kettle lead will be perfectly OK. Just make sure you have a supply of spare 0.5A fuses to fit the Sansamp RBI (probably 20mm I suspect).

So sad and, judging from those photos, far too young. RIP

Well, there are no guarantees . . . Even with 'correctly' fused plugs, it's possible for a fault to cause overheating without blowing the fuse, but actually catching fire is unlikely. Components are made of fire-retardant materials as are printed circuit boards (or should be!!). Plus, our bass rigs are not exactly unattended so any overheating problems would soon be noticed. Tripping over loads of trailing wires from one-lead-per-device is probably more of a hazard than tidying everything up with dual lettle-leads. And driving to a gig in the first place is probably the most dangerous thing of all!

[quote name='BigRedX' post='926381' date='Aug 16 2010, 12:56 PM']This means that the lower power device could develop a fault that will not blow the fuse as it's rating is too high.[/quote] It depends, of course, on the type of fault the unit develops. But the sort of fault that will cause the plug fuse to blow will likely be some sort of short and will blow a 13A fuse just as well as a 3A fuse (OK, it will take fractions of a second longer to blow). Anyway, a 5W device will only draw about 0.02 amps, so even a 3A fuse will be 150 times the rated power. Are you suggesting that if it develops a fault it won't blow a 3A fuse because the rating is too high? I appreciate the principle of one device per plug, but in practice it can take up a lot of room and 13A plugs are complete overkill for the vast majority of appliances. Also, there must be millions of appliances around the country running off 13A fuses in their plugs when only a small percentage actually need anything more than 3A. In fact, even 3A is often way more than what's needed, yet 1A fuses are not commonly available. If this was a serious safety risk then it would surely have been sorted out long ago.

As long as the dual kettle-lead plug fuse hasn't been replaced with a bolt or wrapped in silver foil (yes, I've seen it done!!) then the worst thing that can happen is that the 13A plug fuse will blow if the lead is overloaded. Obviously inconvenient in the middle of a gig, but not actually harmful or dangerous. That's what fuses are for, after all. I recently bought a plug-in power-draw meter from Maplin (about £7) and it's proving to be very useful for checking this sort of thing when we turn up somewhere and plug everything into muliple plug-blocks all leading to a single 13A socket.

Bits of it certainly are. The thing that struck me was my complete inability to read any signage. I'm typically British in my foreign language proficiency (i.e. hopeless) but at least when travelling around Europe you can read signs and stuff and even have a go at pronouncing the words, even if you don't know what they mean. But Japanese is just squiggles to the uninitiated. Quite disconcerting at first.

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='923806' date='Aug 13 2010, 01:14 PM']I can't help but feel this thread may end in tears I admire most people that get up & play live. Or even with other people.[/quote] Me too. Perhaps we should define what would constitute a 'truly awful bassist' first? Even just playing a driving rhythm of root notes can work sometimes, so if that doesn't qualify as 'truly awful' then we'd have to be thinking about someone not being able to get the rhythm right, or the changes or, heaven forbid, even the right notes. Or maybe all three! Surely there's no one like that . . . . or no-one deserving of the 'bassist' label.

No worries. Good luck with it.

Oops - looks like I was editing my last post as you posted yours. Your description of wiring a guitar was the one I was thinking of when I suggested a resistor, but it seems that's not the way a P-bass is wired. All of which is the reason for suggesting a resistor in the first place. It seems a pity to have to go out just to buy one resistor though. PM me if you can't find one and I'll send you a few.

If you're happy to short-circuit the input of your DI box then you don't need a resistor. I'm not sure how every guitar pot is wired, but if the wiper goes to the pickup and the 'ends' are connected across the jack socket (i.e. across the amp inputs), then turning the volume to zero is not the same as shorting the amp input. Edit: Just checked the wiring for a P-bass and the signal output is connected to the volume pot wiper so, yes, in this case, when the volume is zero the output is effectively connected to ground and a resistor is not necessary (although it wouldn't do any harm).

If you're happy to short-circuit the input of your DI box then you don't need a resistor. I'm not sure how every guitar pot is wired, but if the wiper goes to the pickup and the 'ends' are connected across the jack socket (i.e. across the amp inputs), then turning the volume to zero is not the same as shorting the amp input.

An open circuit will make noise pick-up more likely. A short circuit will minimise/eliminate this. Although it matters less with a balanced cable. One consideration is what the amp will make of a shorted cable? I'm sure amp inputs should be protected against being shorted but if you connect to a wide range of devices then it might be safer to include a resistor is the circuit such that, when muted, the guitar is disconnected and a resistor is connected across the amp input. Keep the resistor value low-ish to minimise noise pick-up within the cable. 1K should do it.