I've owned a Black Star HT5r combo for about five months now.

It's fantastic. The most trouser tingling amp I've ever owned; it's absolutely ideal for pub open mic nights where it's given me an almost indecent amount of fun ... until I need to alter gain/volume between songs.

In anything less than good light I simply can't see how the controls are set. [The other night the drummer came in halfway through a song and the host tried to do some adjustments on the fly ... that didn't go well.]

My quick-and-dirty solution is to fit some cut down cable-ties to the controls to act as pointers, but maybe "chicken's head" are the way to go.

There are no grub screws on the knobs and I'm not brave enough to start prising them off without some sort of guidance.

So, any tips?

R.

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Ruaridh (Pronounced "Rory").
Cubase 5 AMD Athlon X2 64 5200+. 2 Gig RAM. 2x7,200 IDE drives. Windows XP home sp2. Terratec EWS 88 MT. Guitars, Marshall Amps, Beer.

You bugger Ru! Here I was about to leap to the peoples' defence and all the time you meant CONTROL knobs!

Heh! You are not the first bod to complain about the lack of contrast for the index mark. Right too not to rush in to getting them off, they can be B tight and a bent shaft is a possibility.
You need some strong, thin chord, radio dial drive chord is ideal but like rocking horse ***! A few strands of dental tape next best. You need to get a balanced pull on the knob you see.

Next get a bright new 1.5mm ish HSS drill bit and clean up the index hole then blob and wipe with paint of the desired colour. Black? Electric green?

If you fork any knobs I have a few but not a whole set!

I don't think there is clearance enough for chicken heads and in any case splined CHs might be as rare as hen's teeth!

Dave. (nail varnish is ok.)

Edited by ef37a (17/03/12 02:07 PM)

Would it help to paint some dots or arrows on the knobs with luminous or fluorescent paint?

Or you could get hold of one of those battery-powered mini desk lights (LED-lighted, from IKEA? Or B&Q?) that could give you a background glow over the controls?

To improve mine I went to Halfords and got a little reel of pinstriping tape.
(It's just a thin black sticky tape with good adhesive.)
I just used a scalpel blade to trim to length, no need to remove anything.

Did one amp and two pedals a while ago and none has come off yet, I have enough to do another twenty similar setups, so plenty of spare as well.

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I've never liked a solo violin, you need at least five for a proper fire.

Quote ef37a:

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You bugger Ru! Here I was about to leap to the peoples' defence and all the time you meant CONTROL knobs!

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What else could I have possibly meant!!!

Quote RhinoTime:

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To improve mine I went to Halfords and got a little reel of pinstriping tape.

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Infuriatingly, I was 100 yards from Halfords just a few hours ago. I should really have checked in earlier

Quote Billum:

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Would it help to paint some dots or arrows on the knobs with luminous or fluorescent paint?

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Sound advice from all - as usual.

I'm thinking that a mixture of a line on the knob and painting up the scale is the way to go.

And hey: I really dont want to risk damaging my shaft! [All we need now is Babs Windsor in a bikini and we've got a film called "Carry on 'amping"!!]

R.

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Ruaridh (Pronounced "Rory").
Cubase 5 AMD Athlon X2 64 5200+. 2 Gig RAM. 2x7,200 IDE drives. Windows XP home sp2. Terratec EWS 88 MT. Guitars, Marshall Amps, Beer.