Finally, we got off our bums and set about this task last Tuesday....
This was an adventure of mishaps from the start...
Day 1:
First up, we tried Bentley music store, but the buggers were closed early (or rather, we were late!!), so we dropped by my good friend Jin's store (JS Music, for all your drumming needs) to get the treble skin, after a few minutes flipping thru the wide selection, we settled on an Evans J1 Syntethic Calf Skin. Having full confidance in Christy's measuring skills (she was supposed to measure the circumferance of the dhol, but instead measured the circumferance of the old skin), we got the 12 inch rimmed one. RM39 spent here.
Brand new skin!!We then proceeded to Chambers Music in Sungei Wang(every other store was closed) to get the mic-clip that was going to hold the mic inside the dhol, there weren't many options available, so we settled for a rather funky looking one, what with it having the best grip and being shck proof. She also wanted a new belt, so I have to buy her one la... she conviniently chose the most expensive belt in the store... but it's all good tho', it'll last her a lifetime!!
After getting dinner, we took a tour of KL's newest offering, The Pavillion. My, it was a massive and of beautiful infrastructure, but it's definately not for me, everything was too expensive and out of my range. If you walk in to BATA and can't afford anything there, you know the place is outta your league...
Anyways, the day ended on a flat note as we found out that we didnt have the other items needed to do up the dhol... no nuts and bolts, no wires for the pick-up and no XLR ports for the inserts...(my fault, this, i didn't check my stock!!), to add to the dissapointment, we then found out that the skin we bought was one size too small!! What a way to end the day...
Day 2:
Ahhhh, nothing like a fresh new day to jolt the spirits...only that, once again, we went to Pasar Road late in the evening!! After braving thru the jam, and countless manoeuvres around potholes (plenty of potholes in Pudu !!), we finally got there, only to find that all the shops were closed or closing... lucky for us, good ol' Darson Electronics was still brightly lit, and we got our supplies from there, cheap too. 2 meters of XLR cable, 1 male and 1 female XLR port for only RM15.60!! Good deal for quality stuff!!
We grabbed some dinner from Sri Rampai and rushed (we're always rushing!!) to the nearest, random, hardware store to buy some nuts and bolts. Thank God this fella had a good stock of bolts, so i was out of the place in 5 mins. Only RM1 spent here!!
Soon as we got to my place, Christy set about cutting out the old GBC skin from its rim and bending the edges inwards with a long nosd plyer. The edges are rather sharp and she bent 'em inwards to avoid it damaging the new skin when tension is applied.
India mari... out with the old!!While she was doing this, I was conviniently having my dinner!! (Santa lil Elf?... more like Bhai's Not So Lil Elf!!)
Soon as the rim was bent and my plate empty, we got down to real work. We thought that dividing the job would sav time... lil did we know that it was going to take us more time than ever...
I sat about with my mighty drill and Christy with her smitty solder...
Slowly but surely, I drilled out the first hole at the bottom of the dhol, where the male XLR port was going to be inserted. After getting the right hole size, i changed bits and started making a small depression on the left of the hole for the live wire. Happy with the results, I then drilled out the hole for the holding nut and started screwing it in... a bit of a hassle, but nevertheless, i got it done in record time!! Ha ha...
Hole for the XLR Male port. Notice the woodwork on the left, it might look like it's chipped, but it's for the live wire.
Holding bolt drilled in place.
This is how it looks from the inside...
While this was going on, Christy was trying to solder the XLR wires to the ports, and theirin she came up with one problem after the other. First up, the existing solder iron that i had refused to heat up properly... the sleeve was piping hot, but the tip was ice cold. After shouting and moaning for 20 mins, i finallly stopped laughing at her bad luck and got off my arse to buy a new solder iron.
The Friggin faulty pice of crap!!!The regular hardware stores across my house were all closed, (which Chinaman in the right frame of mind would still be open at 11pm?) I made a fast mental note to always check my equipment... Anyways, as I was returning home to tell Christy the bad news, I saw a big ass hardware store right in my area!! Who would have guessed? I've been living in the area for 13 years and this is the first time I spotted a hardware store...a well stocked one at that!! I bought a good and expensive soldering iron, with the hope that it would work properly this time... I couldn't take another round of her complaining and yelling!!
Soon as I got back, she got working on the wires as I prepared the mic clip for bolting, After long, long hours and many, many attemps to solder the wires, she finally got both ends done!! Hooray!!
I brought the pick up into the house for testing and attached it to the sound console, it worked, but there was a slight hum and a lot of distortion... After confirmng that the soldering was ok, we discovered that in her many attempts to solder one particular stubborn wire, she heated the contact point so hot, that the rubber casing on the inside had melted and in the process, damaged the point a bit (ok, it was damaged beyond repair actually!!).
Point of note: Never solder one place too long!!So, I brought an end to our second, mishap filled day... For every step we took foward, at the end we always had to retrace our steps and find that we used the worng route, but got to the destination nevertheless....
Day 3:
Left everything as it was... No motivation to do anything after the double whammies..
Day 4:
Went to town to meet Jin and get the skins changed, he was busy with the contruction guys (soon JS Music will be a massive establishment!!), so he got one of his staff to tend to me, she was blur and couldn't seem to find the transaction history for the exchange (we didnt have a receipt), I kept repeating to her that we bought the skin after hours and that no receipt was issued, and she kep insisting that every transaction had to go thru her and since there was no history of us buying the skin, we wotn be able to change it (I swear this was like a scene from MTv boiling points)!! Thankfully, Jin came in the nick of time (I was about to open a can of whoop ass on the girl) and sorted everything out. New skin - 13 inches!!
Beautiful Baby!!Went back and Christy was already at my place waiting (we had to go for a gig first), she got ready, we went out, the gig got cancelled and we came back!! (just in tune with the whole week's theme...).
We lazed around the house for a bit, she fell asleep, and I proceeded to make some tea for the clan!!
As she slept like a baby (or in BM - macam mayat!) on my living room chair, I quietly removed the faulty Male XLR port and soldered the wire onto a new port. Once done, I did a test run (waking Christy in the process) and everything worked fine!
This is what you call professional workmanship!!Beaming with pride, I proceeded to install the wire into the drum...
Ready for installation.keeping in tune with the turn of events of the past few days, disaster struck!! The live wire on the female XLR port broke loose from the socket and I was deflated (if I was a blow up doll, i'd be flat...).
After removing the safety cap, this is what we found... Black circle: Faulty point, Red Circle: Loose live wire, Blue Circle: Damaged casing that caused the problem in the point!!Needless to say, everything has been lying in the room untouched, but I intend to finish this project by tomorrow, no matter what obstacles may come.
Let me tell you, if anyone of you had been present during this process, you'd be laughing your ass off every moment....
*to be continued....*
1 comment:
Which mic did you end up using inside of the dhol? And did you use a wireless transceiver outside? Thanks in advance and kudos to all the good work!
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