51m0n

Right thought I ought to update this. Daf has been immensely kind and posted a few pickups to me to try out, a Bassmax, a Fishman and another K&K jobbie (the name escapes me). And we have a winner, the Bassmax on this bass just sounds superb, pizz is pretty much the bass but louder, arco needs a slight adjustment to the eq to deal with a little scratiness, but its close enough given the nature of the material for which it needs amplification for it to be completely acceptable. I'm sold! So, a massive and very heartfelt thank you to Daf for saving me endless hours of trying to recall what sounded like what in a continual part-ex cycle of doom. You are, as they say, the man....

Ibanez soundgear sr300

Does it take into account the mic, and the pa and the room in any way? I dont really see how it could work otherwise.....

[quote name='Clarky' timestamp='1319126433' post='1410347'] You are the man 51m0n! [/quote] <FONZIE>Heeeeyyyyyyyyy</FONZIE>

A transient is the leading edge of a signal (ie a note). It is significantly (often very significantly) louder than the following note. It is of very short duration (several ms in length, maybe as much a 20, more often less) It contains very little true pitch information, often being largely a percussive noise It has a far higher ratio of high frequency than the tone making up the body of the note that follows it (the harmonic content lives in there) Every note you play however gentle, however hard whatever technique has a transient at the front of it, it can also be considered the attack phase of the signal in envelope terms. Hope that clears it up a bit!

[quote name='mcgraham' timestamp='1319124563' post='1410298'] 51mon, I could see in very high SPL environments with bad positioning of various sound sources that compression could exacerbate feedback issues, but I've never encountered such issues (also an example of where it's important to learn about your craft and take responsibility for your sound). That said, in any case T1 is a very subtle device, it just smooths off peaks and troughs rather than squashing the signal, and the eq is adaptive to respond to whatever is going into it. It is likely strokes for folks, but I'm a big fan of it as I've found it really can enhance a vocal performance whether solo or with a full loud band. [/quote] Anywhere you are close to the point of feedback if you apply compression you will get to that point sooner. I have done small venues with horrendous feedback with a small (loudish for the venue) band, and larger venues where the sheer number of mics on stage required to capture the large band involved meant the feedback threshold was very low. Typically if you have a monitoring setup for a loud rock band the chances of feedback get pretty high, pretty quick - even with a decent 31 band geq. It is perfectly possible to use compression in these cases, but you should be aware that it will raise the average level and therefore make feedback happen sooner. I have no idea what an 'adaptive eq' is or how it would work, fascinating, please explain!

The sm57 mod is definitely used, and in some decent studios too, phantom power is irrelevant, its a dynamic mic. Compression on live vocals is a recipe for feedback city unless you really know your beans, I would leave that up to the FOH if I were you. You cant polish a turd, if the mic doesnt work with his voice then eq and compression can only do so much, and they can do less live due to feedback considerations.

[quote name='lozbass' timestamp='1319120098' post='1410182'] Fascinating thread...if I'd done my physics homework at home rather than on the bus, I probably wouldn't have needed to become a bass-player. However, it's genuinely good to get a better understanding of why the Amp One sounds the way it does. I have to rely on my ears - and can't complement this with a knowledge of engineering - but my ears tell me that the Amp One is probably the best bass amp I've heard. My main stereo rig involves an Aguilar DB680 and 750 on one side (into a Berg AE 112) and an Alembic SF2 into an Epi UL502 (into an Epi UL112 S1) on the other. There's a lex MPXG2 in there too - used sparingly. As you might imagine, there's a fair bit of heft, alongside some serious definition. Transients I don't know about. I'm not sure what perceived loudness means either in technical terms, but I perceive this lot to be pretty loud. My small rig involves just an AER Amp One. Large parts of the main rig are likely to be in the classifieds soon. [/quote] wow....

At living room volumes you arent going to be really getting the limiter to do anything at all, and the compression will be doing very little so you wont feel/hear the tubey type compression and limiting of the transients until you raise the level further.

Where's phase 2 gone, bro?

[quote name='mercuryl' timestamp='1319055387' post='1409489'] I agree, but make sure you dont miss the point of this thread that I started. This was never intended to be a "rig" to replace a full-size gigging set up. It was purchased for smaller gigs, parties and open mic nights. From that viewpoint, it has hit the spot BIG TIME. The big bonus is that i was completely unprepared for the sheer quality of the sound. Totally unbelievable. Another surprise is that it is much louder than I ever imagined to be. Indeed, it will be easily capable of gigging in the normal bars that I play in. But it won't be, and wasn't intended to be my main rig. I'm just about to purchase an RH750 to go with my RS210 and RS112 for that. But you gotta play one if these Amp One's. but be careful when you do, you'll be looking for that £1,000. [/quote] Not missing the point, just concerned that the potential for the amp is being somewhat overstated, it will clearly do small gigs and quieter venues with aplomb and sound fantastic, it just isnt a replacement for a big rig. It isnt meant to be, but some of the comments are borderline evangelical and may be misconstrued. I'm sure it is a fab piece of gear, especially given its size, and certainly has a place in the pantheon of quality kit, but if someone reads these reviews at face value I think they may be disappointed.

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1319043891' post='1409299'] I agree with everything you've said. However I do think people who are only used to the sound of the cheap electronics in bass amps/pedals may come to mistaken conclusions about the potential of these things (obviously not you). After all, we often judge good bass tone from recordings which will have an awful lot of similar processing on them but the difference is it's done well. The luxury of a truly big rig is great - but I'd still take the AER over many a mid-price/mid-size set up where the compromises are evident without the benefits. I do wish my F1 had a subsonic filter on it, that's a very different issue to the transients for me. [/quote] If you are looking for a high pass filter to put in your signal chain then our very own SilentFly's sfx company produces the [url="http://sfxsound.co.uk/mainpage.asp?page=thumpinator"]Thumpinator[/url] which is exactly that. Top quality kit the SFX stuff too....

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1319036278' post='1409173'] Sometimes I record in my house, and quite often mix. It gets rediculously loud and she's never complained [/quote] You, loud? Surely not, mate

[quote name='mercuryl' timestamp='1319034317' post='1409144'] I've spotted something interesting. if you look back through this thread (and other threads on this site), you'll see that the people who have actually played / heard AER products are amazed and full of praise. Go look on the web and see if you can find any reviewer who says anything bad about this amp. You won't. If you can find one, go try it out. You'll be utterly amazed. At about £1K - it an absolute bargain. [/quote] Yup I'd love to hear one, they do sound as if they may be a step up from most itsy-bitsy solutions. [quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1319038624' post='1409205'] I just don't have the sonic issues with the AER kit as I do with the TC, whatever the reason behind it. How it's implemented in practice is just as important as what's being done in principle - e.g. I love the sound of bass guitar from saturated tape, but I don't like it through a cheap nasty comp/limiter. [/quote] Again, absolutely, implementation is everything, couldnt agree more, but in order to achieve what they are doing there must be significant processing on the signal, and some people are going to hate it, because they will notice what is lost. I find it interesting that this is another system doing a lot of clever signal management on peaks that is being touted as sounding tubey. Now tubes do a beautiful line in squashing the transients and compressing the signal in a way that turns a lot of people on, thus allowing for the old nonsense about tube watts vs solid state watss (lets not go there). In effect a good tube amp is processing the signal to achieve a similar result when driven farely hard as one of these amps. Just with some extra colouring, although they may well have added a bit of that too. Personally I like the sound of a really great solid state amp more than a tube amp, I like my transients right there in my face, I like recording direct and hearing myself back on fabulous monitors, transients there in all their glory. I am not the only one. If tubey sounding compression is your game then you may well like what this amp does. I'd bet that there is a hard as nails brickwall limiter on the signal, and in front of that a compressor (possibly multiband) with a very soft knee and a pretty low threshold and a fast attack and release, easing you into the limiter so you dont notice it so much, but think "ooooh tubey" instead (hint, you really can set up a decent compressor to behave very like a tube amp in terms of compression). Most people perceive bass perfectly well when they cant hear the bottom octave of it, and the high pass filter on this, along with the cabinet porting will all be done to make sure that none of those 200w are wasted on anything that you dont absolutely need to hear to perceive bass. It doesnt mean that there is much bass, it means there is enough for you to peceive it as bass. Done well and without something to a/b this against you will be happy for days. Compare this to a Barefaced BigTwin or any other at least decently deep cab (Epifani ul410 series1 for instance) and you will hear what is not there. As I said before, if its done well, and you like the result thats brilliant, and I am sure its a really exceptional effort, but physics is physics, and I have enough experience with filtering and compression to have a really good idea what this will sound like. Is it the right solution for you? Clearly, and I'm really please you found it! Is going to compete with a big rig - errr no, not really, it may appear to but if you a/b it with one then the missing stuff will become more apparent. Is it so incredibly portable as to make the difference not worth worrying about for some - well clearly it is for some. Good luick to them sounds like a great product to me!

And another one:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw&feature=related

This would be your next step up IMO.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIgTrhPADVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phUTCsVAKXA

As for the OP, these kinds of rigs are all about the filtering and limiting, and as Alex says, if you can live with whats missing then thats fine (a la the RH450) but some people are really going to struggle to feel happy with the transients being munched completely with around 15dB of loss, and the amp/cab doing virtually nothing below 60Hz.

[quote name='paulflan0151' timestamp='1319023969' post='1408952'] You guys know what your talking about. What do you think is the most transparent amp? I'm looking at getting a new rig in the not to distant future, what would you guys recomend? [/quote] The 'most transparent amp' is not going to be very suitable for you, it will be a super heavy weight mastering orientated monobloc, something like a hexateq studio 700:- The Warwick Hellborg stuff is going to be pretty transparent though, or you could try a Markbass F1 or F500, they are very clean and pretty darned flat too.

Yeah, not half, Mrs 51 is a trooper, she puts up with untold hours of sound engineering too, and has a house full of bassplayers - the youngest (7 yrs) is desperate to start the music service mini-bass (a teeny weeny db!). The entire house is crammed with bass kit of one sort or another, across all three floors! In fact she pretty much told me to stop pratting about and buy the Roscoe....

Tricky to find to try, they are very popular in broadcast circles, so try somewhere like radioworld?

Heil sound mics are incredible. They are dynamic mics, but use of neiodymium and very light diaphrams mean they go very very high and very low. I would suggest your singer tries a PR35 or even the new PR31BW, which although it claims to be great for kick drums (i is) it is not a kick drum mic just a smalelr handier version of the PR30 which sounds great on vocals. If these are a little too rich then the PR22 may be abetter option. A PR40 is a superb (really out of this world) mic for vocals, kick drum, DB, hell anything with a wide frequency range really. Not ideal for live vocals though!

Daf, thats incredibly generous, thank you very much! PM sent....

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1318819812' post='1406522'] Christ mate, this was nice to come home to! Thank you! [/quote] +1 couldnt put it better myself!

Guys, thanks so much for the insightful comments, I shall keep my eyes peeled for any and all of the abpve and we shall make our way through them until we get 'the one' or at least something that doesnt make his rather lovely bass sound like the slapping of a dying fish.....