Should I cut my losses or see it through...

[iplay5strings]

Well, of course you need to be in tune. That said, tuners haven't always existed. There actually was a time when we used our ears. It's an amazing concept. Yes, they're handy. Needing to tune between songs?....something's wrong with the bass.

I only ever tune once at the beginning of a set unless a careless guitard, vocalist or stagehand walks into my headstock subsequently knocking all the tuners out. When that happens, it's just more convenient to use the rack mount tuner quickly instead of unplugging and hunting for my pocket tuner in my gig bag.

 

[will33]

No interaction between you and your audience? Never had tuners bumped by a dancer or two? Never had a wide difference in temp between when you setup with a bass fresh from temp controlled car/truck and the venue with poor heating/AC? These are real world everyday working slobs troubles of course, not a House or touring professionals troubles. I have very good ears, but most people are LOUSY at tuning by ear BTW

I only ever tune once at the beginning of a set unless a careless guitard, vocalist or stagehand walks into my headstock subsequently knocking all the tuners out. When that happens, it's just more convenient to use the rack mount tuner quickly instead of plugging and hunting for my pocket tuner in my gig bag.

Of course, things like that happen. I'm not saying don't have a tuner. I am saying if your bass is losing tune that fast, and not because somebody bumped it, check it out, it shouldn't do that. And although we all use tuners of some sort, myself included, regardless of what instrument you play, you should be able to tune it to a piano or keyboard note, or pitch pipe, using your ears and only your ears. It's one of the very first things you learn. If you can't, lose the tuner and tune your ears.......then go get a tuner again.

 

[iplay5strings]

Ya, fantastic sounding amps when you get the SWR pre-shape taken out of it. Very worth fixing and hanging on to if you can.

I absolutely agree! Now that it's been confirmed that it's not a power amp/power section the repair costs should be reasonable which will allow me to keep the amp.

 

[iplay5strings]

Of course, things like that happen. I'm not saying don't have a tuner. I am saying if your bass is losing tune that fast, and not because somebody bumped it, check it out, it shouldn't do that. And although we all use tuners of some sort, myself included, regardless of what instrument you play, you should be able to tune it to a piano or keyboard note, or pitch pipe, using your ears and only your ears. It's one of the very first things you learn. If you can't, lose the tuner and tune your ears.......then go get a tuner again.

The problem w/tuning by ear is that to do it properly you need to have only you and the pitch provider (piano, pitch pipe, etc) playing. If something happens mid song are u gonna stop the whole band so u can tune by ear or are u gonna mute-to-tune, correct the issue and hop back in like nothing happened? Yes, tuning by ear is something u should learn/know how to do, but it's rarely practical in a work setting.

 

[iplay5strings]

I finally got the amp fixed...I had to pry it back from the "certified technician" who has had it for a few months and refused to give it up, even though he had no clue what to do, and took it to my guy. I wanted to do that in the first place, but wanted to give my guy a break since he'd already helped me out so much with some other stuff. He found the problem within 24 hours and had ordered the parts and fixed it in less than a week. A wire running to one of the power amps had a bad solder and was losing connection causing a transistor malfunction and throwing the bias off causing insane distortion especially in bridged mono mode...not TOO complex IMO. Even though the amp worked perfectly fine after he found/fixed the issue he then decided to rebuild both power amps for good measure cause he's cool like that, so now my amp has brand new guts and is issue free!