51m0n

ear plugs (on key ring) rack (amp, compressor, tuner) cab stand mains extension lead car satnav map [b]bass bag[/b] bass cleaning cloths spare strings string winder spare ear plugs cheat sheets set lists [b]gig bag[/b] spare strings leads + spares gerber multitool head lamp 4 gang + 6 gang power splitter (so more sockets than I could ever need for me alone) assorted audio plug converters more spare ear plugs (really!) cleaning cloths (for bass) immodium (yes, I have had to use this on a studio session - thank god it works!), neurofen, plasters batteries (9v & AA) [b]tool box[/b] soldering iron & handy hand kit mic & instrument cable speaker cable assorted plugs (1/4", XLR, Speakon) switch cleaner multimeter emery board screwdrivers allen keys (complete set imperial and metric, nearly every gauge known to man!)

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1105966' date='Jan 28 2011, 10:28 AM']Point four - random mysterious earth loop-style buzzes that only appear on the amp DI and not your proper, transformer-balanced DI. Oh, how many times have I had those...[/quote] Yeah, very good point, you dont want to be asking people to lift the earth on their amp on a stage really....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' post='1105833' date='Jan 28 2011, 07:23 AM']So like I said again, Point 1- I have had 2 di boxes fail on me and only one amp (if i knew i had an amp issue i would of course have a clean di and pre warn the engineer until the head was replaced or 100% repaired). Points 2&3- I always have my DI set to pre EQ and never touch the gain/input volume knobs once playing any other knobs only affects my cab not foh.[/quote] You are in the minority there I think. I've never seen a decent passive DI that hadnt been brutally abused go pop. In fact I've never seen an active one go pop I think. I've seen plenty of amps fail though. My suggestion, get a really good robust DI of your own if you do a lot of work with PA support and lots of different PAs/soundguys etc. At the end of the day if you are happy with what you have and how you are using it, then great, not going to suggest that there is only one way to sking this cat, just that other ways may be better. If your experience doesnt tally with that, then go with whaty makes sense to you! However if someone told me they had a known potential issue with their rig, I'd politely ask them not to use it if there was any other option. Electronics going wrong can do very nasty things, and nobody wants to see that happen.

Point to note for all those guys thinking about taking an amp DI withe some overdrive. Overdrive has an awful lot of nasty high frequency crud in it. Masses in fact! That is why DIing an overdriven guitar sounds fizzy, nasty and utterly unconvincing. How come a mic on a cab sounds so good then? Because paper cones dont reproduce that high end fizz and crud at all. Its beyond their capability to, and guitar cabs have only got paper cones. So whats the issue with sending an overdriven DI to a soundguy? The PA has massively powerful tweeters that happily go way higher than the nasty gank at the top of the overdriven signal, and will reproduce it in all its disgusting fizzy 'glory', sounding not unlike a baziilion angry bees rather than a fantastic tone. What has this to do with bass? Exactly the same gank occurs at the top of a DI'ed overdriven bass signal, and it sounds just as rank. If you want to use overdrive, and have it sound good, mic the cab. In fact if you tell any sound engineer worth his salt that amp/pedal overdrive plays a part in the bass tone you are after, he should go reaching for a mic to capture it, and a DI to get a really tight solid bass tone too. A cab simluator may help rectify this, but if you arent playing in a venue with a lot of outboard you can't expect that, and frankly they dont sound as good as an SM57 on a driver anyway (and cost a lot more). For the purpose of capturing drive on a cab an SM57, although not the best mic in the world, is perfectly acceptable. Eq alone will nto fix it either, it still sounds rubbish if you try and eq the top off, no eq deals with the top end like a paper cone does. Unfortunately. If you are really really serious about having your cab mic'ed, get a serious mic for the job, like a Heil PR40. If you want to use overdrive and have the FOH reproduce it, mic the cab. Amp DI's will not cut it.

Ever seen a hefty fuse wire go pop? "Not funny Indy, not funny!!"

Short of building in a phase rotation/delay into each channel just before the summing point I dont think you can do much to avoid the dreaded phase issues doing all sorts of nasty comb filtering on that set up If you did manage to get it modded like that, then you can easily rid yourself of phase issues (or minimise them), you just put pink noise through it and add two channels and watch the level whilst turning the phase, when its at its loudest point you are in phase. Repeat for all channel combinations. Of course switching fx in a and out will change the phase slightly, but it shouldnt be too bad...

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1102263' date='Jan 25 2011, 03:45 PM']You've no idea. We've built a perspex box to put our vibraphone player in but that's not without its problems. I use 5 channels of audio for the bass but sum them before sending them to the desk. I've started another thread in 'Effects' [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=120097&st=0&gopid=1102261&#entry1102261"]HERE[/url] regarding DIing and effects in parallel. Dan[/quote] Best place for a vibes player

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1102281' date='Jan 25 2011, 03:58 PM']The amps are switched [i]between[/i] (one being guitar, the other bass) so phasing isn't an issue there. It is, however a big issue with my multichannel parallel system and Umph's currently trying to rectify that. The guitar I always get mic'd, but the bass is usually just DI'd, hence the question about parallel amp simulation/DIing. Also, our synth player brings his own DIs and hands them coloured cables. I think it's super professional. Dan[/quote] Sounds complex, before I would comment further can you draw a schematic of the signal flow so we all understand exactly what is going on. If you have two sources that originate from the same thing, but go through a different path,m then you have the chance of a phase issue. If you are mixing a DI'ed bass, and one of two amps, then there is a potential phase issue for sure, and the phase issue may be different for each combination too!

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1102261' date='Jan 25 2011, 03:44 PM']That'd be ideal, yeah, but not always an option. I'd figured something similar to you regarding the soundman EQing but wondered if anyone reduced variables by DIing at their end in parallel. I guess not? Dan[/quote] Well thats a step on from what is being suggested, since you would need to mix it down and provide a mixed feed. Personally I think that would tie that sound guys hands. Allthough if they are just riding a level and dont know your material that may be a good thing....

DI from bass (before all effects) -> low pass Mic each of your two amps Only issue (nightmare!!!) is getting it all in phase. There is a mic stand product that bolts on to your cabs in a preset position. Something like [url="http://www.audixusa.com/docs/products/CabGrabber-XL.shtml"]this[/url] or [url="http://www.ampclamps.com/wtpro.html"]this[/url] . You could get a decent DI and a couple of mics of your own, and a couple of those, then you could have a good long play to get the signals all in phase and sounding fantastic. Then when Mr Sound turns up hand him three labelled cables explaining what they are and that they are all in phase. If you get decent mics and DI I guarantee he will thank you for your effort, and enjoy mixing you a lot! You would do well to warn him about any extreme low end, he may high pass (at say 45Hz) and limit those channels just to look after his kit.

[quote name='DanOwens' post='1102179' date='Jan 25 2011, 02:36 PM']I play in a very busy band ([b]Our synth player likes 5/6 channels and our vibraphone player has constant feedback issues[/b]) as such, I've grown to be not too fussy about things. I've taken my own engineer out with various projects and even then there are issues with time and the house PA. We've all got our own way of being happy. Mine is to just chillaximum and accept that if the sound guy's good he'll get a good sound using his own methods and if the sound guy is crap then it doesn't matter where he takes a DI feed from, it'll sound crap anyway. Dan[/quote] Sounds like "soundguy hell" right there!

Like I said, have a nice amicable chat (should take about 2 minutes) to said sound guy. Let him know you are more Motown/Jamerson thuddy than bright and clanky, and you want to stay that way, "all about the low mid punch and warm bass" may be a nice way to put it. You should not do anything different on your bass, or your amp. He can eq the top and upper mid out of your raw bass signal on the DI without any problem at all. If he has a mic on the amp to capture the driver and the amp break up he'll sympathetically mix that with the DI. I can do this in a couple of minutes. One other point, he may not have enough channels to give up two for bass.....

If you arent out front then you dont know what it sounds like out front. You cant even be 100% sure from the reverb tail you may hear. The engineer (if he is any good) should be willing - if he has time, and there is a decent reason to - to put a mic in front of a cab as well as a DI. If he doesnt have time, then tough luck. Time to blame the guitarist, drummer, vocalist, other band, traffic whatever, doesnt matter, you havent got time! As far as I'm concerned a DI off the bass (with said mic'ed cab) makes more sense than a DI'ed amp, since the amp may go 'pop'. That DI is going to be mainly used to extend the bottom end down (close micing a driver will be relatively mid heavy compared to the soulnd of your cab as a whole), and maybe the top end up a bit too (for those that like some tw***). The amp DI alone, if its got some drive, will sound crappy as, it wont sound decent unless its gone through a driver. If its clean as a whistle then why not cut out the amp? You will eq your amp to sound how you want it through your bass cabs. Guess what, the PA isnt using your bass cabs, so it will have a different frequency response, so your eq will be useless, probably damaging to, your perceived sound. If your amp allows you to go pre-eq then thats a help, but its still another thing to fail. A mic in front of a driver is the only way to capture some of the sound of your rig. An engineer may come over and have a listen to your bass rig, or not, dependant on the acoustics in the room he may not really need to to hear it any better than from the desk. Unless you use a lot of tubey overdrive or fx of some other kind you dont need to have the amp in the chain to the desk, if you do they need to be included in the signal chain, and the best bet is a DI before any overdrives if possible, and a mic on the cab. Do not p*** off the engineer, your mix will suffer. If someone got aggressive with me about how they thought things had to be set up, they wouldn't be playing that night, or any other night. Engineers get a lot of stick. Have you ever done any engineering? It is no where near as easy as you think. It isnt made any easier by people who dont really know what they are talking about trying to make unrealistic ill informed demands, and then making it impossible to achieve those demands by their own actions. For instance turning the bass up real loud just means everyone else is quieter in the PA, chaps, bass spill really is omnidirectional! I can promise you that if you try to make me engineer by 'taking your sound and making it louder' the end result will sound crap. Really. Unless your entire band understand frequency mixing, and have carved all their sounds to take this into account (you will need an electric kit to do this) then you will just put out a massive mush of noise with no clarity at all. The last thing you actually want is your sound but louder!

[quote name='Rich' post='1097353' date='Jan 21 2011, 12:15 PM']Mmmm, Focusrite... *drool* [/quote] You can pick these up on flea bay at ridicuolous prices if you are willing to wait around... And they are killer compressors....

[quote name='DazBoot88' post='1097495' date='Jan 21 2011, 01:42 PM']Sexy Mexican Maid is an amazing song. It's got a real dirty, gritty feel to it which i love. The whole Mothers Milk album is a work of art![/quote] Its 'real' funk - that is music made to f*** to....

Cant see me making it either, which is a shame, I'd love to see that band, although apparently the bassist is a cheeky bu**er I've heard Have a great gig Jake!

I dont own a BF product since I already owned my Berg ae410 when I first heard about them. There is no compelling reason to me for trading across to a BF from that cab. If I won the lottery I'd be getting a BF212, Berg212 and a BF BigOne, since they are all on my would have if I could have list (as well as the rest of the Berg range). Not a lot else is on that list, by the way. So having spent a fair amount of time listening to and comparing BF cabs I think I can comment on them fairly accurately. Happy to be corrected by ALex if I get something wrong though. I would urge anyone looking into 212 cabs to try and give a Super12 a go, they are really good. Whether they will be definitely the cab you want is unanswerable by any but the asker. So get out and try some!

Soul To Squeeze is my all time favourite song, and my partner's too. Its so good I'm going to embed it, so there :- I'd say that Flea and the Chilis have always shown this level of playing, but people didnt focus on it, due to the socks on c*cks thing I think. Here is my evidence:- Sublime playing all round, and equal parts funky, beautiful and melodic.

Oh give it a rest chaps. It is the lightest 'big' cab (and it is big I assure you) I have ever tried to lift. Its downright silly in fact. It is definitely in the light weight class generally, and specifically for a cab this size its a featherwight. It delivers massive massive output if you give it enough watts, which in todays environment doesnt require a particularly heavy amp. The tone is sublime. Alex is on the money on all of them. You're starting to sound like a bunch of schoolboys.....

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='1097298' date='Jan 21 2011, 11:44 AM']Ah. OK, so what you save in super-lightweight cabs, you make up with super heavy poweramps. Anyway, we are going off topic, back to 2x12s![/quote] Well I dunno about that - massively powerful modern PA amps are more often than not Digital, sound the beans and are no heavier than an LH500..... Basically a 1K amp into the BigOne will knock walls over. With a beautiful tone

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='1097265' date='Jan 21 2011, 11:24 AM']More than 500 watts? What? ...for a single cab? containing a 15 and a 6... that are crossovered? Again... what?[/quote] I'd agree with that, the BigOne requires big big power to get it to really be hugely loud. 500watts is not going to make it break a sweat.... Thing is, it can handle that massive power. Unlike anything else I've heard. So its really not very efficient, but goes VERY deep (far deeper than anything else I've ever heard), and given a huge dose of power will happily get very very loud. It sounds gorgeous though. The Super12 is far more efficient, though not as deep. Very punchy (will take eq'ed in beef happily at gig volumes) - sounds lovely, but different to the BigOne.

Still this:-

[quote name='jonunders' post='1096964' date='Jan 20 2011, 11:23 PM']Look at barefaced cabs as well, you could get a Super twelve, £600 - 675 and you'd still have some money left over for other little essentials.[/quote] +1 its a hell of a cab that....

I got my Focusrite Compounder of Evilbay for a little over £150. Its the canine undercarriage....

Berg ae212 Barefaced Super 12 Both are staggeringly good. Haven't really heard any others though....