kingforaday

Interesting, plenty of love for Wilkinson then! kinda what I was hoping for really, although it’s one I know if I’ve never really paid much attention to them... I’ll check out some of their stuff

I was just contemplating the old ‘hipshot, Schaller or gotoh’ conundrum on a bass I’m fixing up... and then thought “I wonder if there’s a cheaper (or even a similarly priced but not so well known) alternative I’m overlooking? what are the best quality bridges/machineheads that either fall in the ‘great cheap stuff’ or ‘expensive but worth it’ type categories?

Got any pics of it? Just guess work without seeing it but if there’s not much in it, would adding a washer or 2 (or spacer of some kind) between body and socket give the clearance you need?

Unfortunately I’m not entirely sure, it just sounded like something was crackling and a bit of a hum and then I turned it off... could’ve been the speaker making the noise. There was the smell of burning electronics but no actual smoke as far as I could tell. I haven’t touched it since. Put a new speaker in the cab though so that’s ok now. it’s annoying as although I have mainly steered clear of power sections on amps through lack of knowledge... I did mod a guitar amp I have, there was way more to it but it went fine. Although to be fair it was supplied in kit form with really comprehensive instructions. i guess with this I just figured as it seemed so straightforward, It wouldn’t be an issue

I've owned a couple of these amps and they are surprisingly fantastic-sounding. I got into a discussion of it with Bobby Baldwin (Peavey amp engineer) and he made some great suggestions about the output coupling capacitor that were easy to implement: "Basically, capacitors pass higher frequencies with ease, but lower frequencies have a harder time passing through. This means that your power amp puts out a little less in the low frequency range than it does at 1K. The other thing that happens is that when you start to clip the power amp with low frequencies, instead of a pleasant growl, you get a nasty buzz sound. The way to fix that is to use a larger capacitor, but... The other thing is that capacitors can be inductive, especially electrotytic caps, because the plates are rolled into a coil. This means that your power amp also puts out a little less in the upper audio range because the inductance starts to factor in a little. Inductors pass lower frequencies freely, but tend to block higher frequencies. Just using a larger capacitor can increase the inductance because the plates can be longer, thus more inductance. Ultimately, the output response of your power amp is sort of a bell curve. This capacitor is also subject to high ripple current (rapid charging and discharging) because there is pure, high AC current passing through it all the time. This can dramatically shorten the life of a capacitor. The way to get around all of this is to use multiple capacitors in parallel, one of them being a film capacitor so there is no high frequency degradation. The inductance will go down because inductors in parallel divide. The ripple current will also divide so you won't be stressing a single cap." Implementing this idea cost me less than $5 in parts and made a HUGE improvement in the sound of the amp -- much bigger down low and more open on top. See the attached pic; the coupling cap is located in the lower right hand corner of the power amp board. For reference, in the attached pic, the speaker jacks are in the upper right and the mounting tab for the filter cap is in the lower right.

Ok, so here’s what was done, I’ll find the text from people explaining what is done and why in a sec removed existing cap and replaced with a stack of caps and a film cap

Well, in hind sight no... but if someone told you, you could take your gear and with just a few quids worth of parts, improve it massively would you not at least want to try!? i’ll get some pics and details

Thanks, this is what I was thinking of... the amp tech I used to have at work mentioned it can happen to me once and it always stuck in my brain but not enough to understand it! It is indeed solid state so is it as simple as, set the multi meter to dc, put the probes on the socket, if I get a reading then it’s going to damage speakers?

I know i'm opening myself up to "if you don't know what you're doing, leave it to the professionals" type comments but hopefully someone can offer some advice... I bought an old Peavey Century amp head out of curiosity and was surprised how good it sounded, I started googling information/opinion on them. I found a lot of threads on other forums in which people mentioned that although they're good, doing an inexpensive mod, that involved adding capacitors because "The additional capacitors make the bottom end bigger and the top end more open." would really improve the amp. I messaged a guy who had done the mod and he talked me through what I needed and how to do it, assuring me it was very easy etc etc I got the parts, followed the instructions and all seemed to go well until i put it back together and turned it on and it made a crackling noise and smelt of burnt out electrics! So i turned it off. I checked my speaker cab with another amp and it had blown the speaker. I messaged the guy and he's gone very quiet all of a sudden (!) to be fair to him, it's not really his problem. I've now replaced the speaker and its back up and running on a different amp but that leaves me unsure how to proceed with this one. I could go through it again and check for issues, I could try putting it back as it was, I could muck about with it to my hearts content but ultimately, I'll have to plug it into a cab again to audio test it. So at that point, or hopefully before, is there a way to test the output to the cab to know it won't do the same thing? I have a multi meter, I'm pretty good with a soldering iron/tools etc but sadly this is the first experience of the power/amp side of things, so my knowledge is zero. Thanks

Cheers guys, still searching, but some good options there

Yeah for sure, I’d rather have things that will last, so perhaps 2nd hand is the best bet... just might take a while. I was hoping someone might know of a budget bargain brand or something that I’d missed

We’re looking at hiring out guitars/basses at the rehearsal/recording studios I manage... gradually getting them together on minimal budget (CIC - Not For Profit organisation) we’re going to need guitar & bass cases, which I could gradually pickup secondhand (as I am with the guitars themselves - all squier/epiphone kinda level at the moment to test the waters) but I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions of cheap but robust hard cases? I was toying with the idea of the gear4music foam ones but I’m a bit concerned about the zips falling apart

I use the Harley Benton power plant junior and really rate it... However, I modified my board similar to @Twigman and I can’t remember if that was before or after this power supply... either way as mentioned, it’s a very simple mod that opens up a lot more possibilities for what can go underneath

I recently purchased one again (I’ve owned 3 over the years) mainly to A/B it against the Mooer bass sweeper (which has the trimpots on top) this post has made me a little more keen to find time to do this!

I have a Tobias Toby Pro 4 (one of the early musicyo ones) and although I rarely play it (ok, never play it) it holds a great deal of sentimental value to me, for years I’ve been thinking about giving it some upgrades and just generally a bit of attention... now I may actually do it! now, I know there are people on this forum who have upgraded parts, but I’m struggling to find exactly what you replaced and what it was replaced with. I’m thinking replace; Pickups (emg 40 size seems right) preamp (no idea) bridge (was thinking hipshot but the mounting holes aren’t the same?) machineheads (I bought Schaller tuners but again, mounting holes didn’t line up - I didn’t check before buying them so my bad) so have you done it, if so what did you use? I’d prefer to not hack the bass up too much so direct drop in replacements massively preferred cheers!

Bought a tuning pedal from Richard, nice chap to deal with, quick postage and the pedal is absolutely mint! Great stuff

It all depends what you’re trying to do really but for me I had to do it in order to fit something on my board... @bobbass4k evidently you have never come across the GK Diesel Dawg!! It’s huge and unnecessarily so... I rehoused it, the pic and the board it’s on shows why I did it. The hardest part (other than trying to carve out a square hole for the DC input - bit of a bodge job) was finding smaller housing that could accommodate it.

Yay! I finally got a reply! Ha yeah korg said “hmmm I guess some pedals don’t like being daisy chained” which although at the time seemed pretty unhelpful... it did point me to the solution. I was using a diago power station daisy chain... never had an issue until that one pedal. I bought a Harley Benton Power Plant Jr https://m.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_powerplant_junior.htm and with it’s isolated power outputs the problem went away... I’ve subsequently purchased another couple of these power supplies (every time I see them 2nd hand and silly cheap) to use with other pedals/board setups and have had absolutely no issues. Highly recommended

Have you considered just making your own? That's what I did when I had a very specific setup I wanted to use but didn't want a long pedal board with everything in a row (my always on/infrequent use pedals can go at the back) I bought a job lot of flight cases and ended up making the board to fit inside it. Then I made another to see how many mooer pedals I could fit in. I have a few more cases and tons of scrap wood, so I'll probably just keep making them!

Spectracomp all the way... I’ve had a few different compressors and always end up giving up on them and taking them off the board... the spectracomps simplicity (once you’ve settled on a TonePrint) makes it perfect for me

I use the ebs flat patch cables, never had an issue with them and they save a lot of space on my board

Bought a pedal from Paddy, quick postage and a top chap to deal with. Thanks!

whoop whoop! Awesome, thanks very much!

Awesome, thanks very much, glad you enjoyed it