• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

Status
Not open for further replies.
#4,641
As was mentioned, a powder inside the envelope is a classic sign of a loss of vacuum. Although a leak at a tube pin is most common, In recent years I've seen a leak in the glass seam that runs from the top to the bottom of the tube. Normally these tubes are eliminated in the quality control process but some slip through. This can happen when a defective tube is pushed hard.

Maybe I've been lucky but this has only happened to me once in decades of tube amp use. Rest assured that this isn't normal, tubes can have a very long service life. Here are some guidelines for when to change tubes: Tubes | TalkBass.com.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fnordlyone and mrb327
#4,643
Agedhorses leatherman loss reminded me of something. Before 9/11 the airlines just took this stuff, just security cops I dont remember though I travelled in a quite fuzzy state hurrying to the tail of the plane as they served drinks there first. Anyway we had a friend who worked for United, mechanic, and one day he comes over to our dealers house with FOUR five gallon buckets of confiscated knives, tools, Leathermans, Swiss Army knives, sissors, just tons of stuff and says take anything you want. So we had a field day and I left with a bag of goodies. I still to this day have some of those tools sissors and Leathermans. It was like Halloween or Christmas for junior assassins.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong, fnordlyone and agedhorse
#4,646
I don't know about you guys...but I get frustrated. My gear is as top notch sounding and seemingly reliable now as anything ever devised, and priced far below what comparable quality would have come near back "in the day"

Or does it? My Rumble 500 head/Eden EX112- 82 Squire with EMGs sounds killer, but how do I know? My hearing at 60 ain't up to snuff, and the tonal memories vs tonal realities may be much further apart than I realize. Yeah, load in/outs are a breeze. I got to wondering about all this during the early evening gig - are we just kidding ourselves with this low cost stuff or does it really sound as good as the old B15/SVT/Walter Wood rigs of yesteryear? Will it last? I don't trust my ears anymore.

A Neve console/U67 still can't be beat...and I can, even with blown ears, hear the difference.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong and agedhorse
#4,647
The sad cycle of life. Once you learn how to behave and constrain your self, your body constrains you anyway, and your mind forgets how to misbehave :(

High freq is usually what goes first and most. Tweeters in bass cabs are meant to be defeated by switch, unplugging or just blowing them out and not replacing them. Trust your ears. I'm sure your rig sounds very good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong and mrb327
#4,648
A Filipino bolo is a long, heavy, usually forward weighted knife. They come in many shapes and sizes, most commonly IME on Luzon, they look somewhat like a US Army issue Machette, but a hell of a lot thicker especialy on the tip end. The common shapes vary by regeion. It's such a versitile tool that Gerber makes one. You can chop down a tree, chop up a pig, harvest crops and bamboo and is often the pride and joy of and the only metal tool of many aboriginals and farmers. When you see a poor Filipino man with one sheithed on his side, rest assured, his hobby at night is sharppening it to surgical perfection. Mostly in the past we hope, it was also a weapon of war. Capable of easily cutting through hard and soft tissue even in the hands of a small Filipina wife, it has assured family fidelity for centuries! They also have a very low rate of teen pregnancy out of wedlock.

Invalid Link Removed

So last night I had a dream of my wife chopping my heart out with one. Then I wake up to see this on the table:

20161203_120204.jpg

Damn. The afterlife is the same thing as the past life. No improvement.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong
#4,649
I also have Filipina wife. Several years ago we were visiting her parents on the small island of Dinagat. I was asked if I was thirsty, which I was. My 75 year old (with six pack abs) father in law immediately scampered up a 40 foot coconut tree and lopped off a few coconuts. When he came down my sweet little wife borrowed his Bolo and with three swift strokes converted the still husk on coconut into its own eating and drinking vessel complete with "spoon" for scraping the meat out.
Needless to say, I found a new respect for my wife's skills.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong and BadExample
#4,650
Grump exclusive! So, I emailed Joe Bouchard of BOC. He's still playing and has a website:
JoeBouchard.com
asking about the bass on Godzilla... dude was very gracious to send me a response... and I share it with you

"Hello Charles. The studio version of Godzilla was played on my Alembic long scale bass. There were no pedals or preamps. the bass was recorded on two channels, one for a direct box and the other a mic on a bass amp. I think the amp was the Record Plant Studio's Ampeg portaflex, but I can’t be too sure about that.

Most of the sound of Godzilla was sculpted by the engineer Shelly Yakus. I don’t know his exact signal chain, but it probably had a good compressor somewhere. Often times I would come into a mixing session and notice that the engineer and producers were only using the direct box sound and no amp sound for the mix. I was not there for the Godzilla mix so I can’t say what was used.

Thanks for the interest in my sound. I was never a gear head about bass. I pretty much liked just putting a good bass into an amp and not fussing with the sound too much. No pedals or rack mount effects. I only used 3-4 basses in 16 years with Blue Öyster Cult. I would change strings about once a month and that was it.

Good luck. Joe

ps: There’s an interview coming out shortly in Vintage Guitar Magazine where they ask me about my bass sound. Check it out."

my guess is the godzilla studio tone has something to do with the Alembic,
fnord!
p.s. also maybe THIS guy [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong, 99Z3, BadExample and 1 other person
#4,653
At the risk of dragging our GOF thread OT, can anyone tell me what the depth of a standard audio rack is? I think there are smaller racks used in MI but I think I want to know the norm for larger depths. To be clear, I mean front to back. If no standard, what would be a reasonable maximum depth for PA, bass and whatever else comes along.
 
#4,656
Well as absolute king of the procrastinators I finally got my studio back together. I took it apart back in the summer to hide the equipment from prying eyes and curious little hands when I went back to the USA for a new knee (85% better). So I'm back online but still haven't executed the upgrades yet. I'm waiting on a CARE package from my buddy in the States that has a rack with some outboard gear in it.
I'm under pressure to finish my next tune for my other buddy's record company. But it's sure nice to be wanted, especially at this stage of the game.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong, Ken Morgan, Passinwind and 2 others
#4,658
The nice thing about putting things in storage is that you can revisit them when you have the time.

My problem is that I know that I have things stashed away but I can't always remember where. Especially certain things I put in a safe place and then can't for the life of me recall where I put them. This happened two days ago with some high end machined PTFE tube sockets. I went through just about every storage area before I found them. At least in the short term, I'll remember where everything else it.

That's how life is. I figure that your brain only has room to cache what is relatively current. The rest of the information goes into different levels of storage, but it takes longer to fetch it based on how deep it is placed. Some deep memories are compressed and require queues or keys to reconstruct. But they don't always come back they way they went in. The house that you grew up in always seems smaller when you revisit it after a long time. Much like lossy digital formats.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: TheRealKong, agedhorse and spankdaplank
#4,660
Heard dat (pun intended)...

Few years back lost the lease on mycommercial facility which being honest was more a lob or of love in the bedroom studio era. Big ticket stuff went to storage, much destroyed when the roof collapsed, but that's a different storyline...lots sold...small stuff, one PT rig, couple of mics now residing here but zero room treatment, etc.

The fire has been put out. Hard to subsist on gubmint cheese when one was surviving on tones for decades. But all is good. Go visit your gear!
 
  • Like
Reactions: beans-on-toast
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back