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[quote name='dave74200' post='941924' date='Sep 1 2010, 12:20 PM']I disagree sir. Everyone notices. Many won't care as you obviously don't, but they'll notice. I saw a local band who all used little combo amps, the bass player had a one speaker amp, and they sounded really bad. The PA engineer described his job as, 'trying to polish a turd'![/quote] More trolling rubbish! You arent comapring like for like hear for a start. Secondly a decent PA is all about FOH sound, the engineer could care less for a big rigf then - the spill from big cabs is very detrimental. A small miced guitar cab (say a 6 to 15 watt single 12" coned combo) is plenty for a aguitarist to hear himslef, and will break up beautifully, mic it and let the sound guy put that to FOH and monitors. Similarly with bass, a 112 at the right height is enough of a monitor if you are doing the big PA thing. Mic'ed or DI'ed is fine, what a sound guy doesnt want is a stupid great 810 getting in the way and spewing out hideous amounts of rumble into the kick mic, snare mic, etc etc etc. You aint done any FOH have you? Good quality amps that deliver just enough volume to satisfy the players and do a slittle else beyond that as possible are the answer to every decent sound engineers dream. This applies up to 40K rigs (thats the biggest rig I have ever personally run). Furthermore, as previously stated even bassists struggle to determine the difference in tone from an Ampeg B1 and an MB LMII, punters dont even know there is a bassist on the stage!

[quote name='dave74200' post='941919' date='Sep 1 2010, 12:16 PM']Oh, I know. I'll give you my band's website so you can all insult me on that shall I?[/quote] Oh yes please, that would be terrific....

[quote name='dave74200' post='941910' date='Sep 1 2010, 12:10 PM']Oh come on. Some of you obviously don't agree with me and I perfectly accept that. I can also see exactly what many of you are saying. Very sensible and worthwhile. But this guy is just talking sh*te man! Nobody on here can tell me that an SVT is sh*t. Some may prefer other tones etc but come on![/quote] Well anyone is welcome to their opinion, and if a bass head cant give me my tone at the volume I need it to, then it is not fit for purpose, and that my friend, is a polite way of saying it is dogs a**e fruit....

[quote name='dave74200' post='941881' date='Sep 1 2010, 11:46 AM']OK. I have the USA SVT 2 pro, an Ampeg classic 8x10 cab, Musicman Stingray and USA Fender Precision. A load of sh*t to be sneered at obviously![/quote] Ooooh a urination competition! My rigs better than yours nerh-ne-ne-nerh-nerh. Can I play too then? Like I said I find the inherent Ampeg tone very limiting, especially at volume, the 810 cab is damnably inefficient, given its size and weight. If you like it though thats fine, if that is the tone you want (classic rock) then great, I'm really please for you. BUT dont tell me that it even comes close to my rig for what I want, you dont see Bergantino cabs behind people on TV cos Jim Bergantino will not give anyone an endorsement deal, he just doesnt do that (not even for Vic W) - his shizzle is truly boutique baby. They are pretty well regarded though, certainly at least as well regarded as an 810. In fact if you want to get a better sounding smaller cab along the same lines you need to get a Bergantino nv610, its considered a modern slayer of that old coffin you dig. The ae410 is very very very highly regarded, and a mosntrous cab, for tone, portability, construction and volume. The versatility and organic warmth of my sa450 is legendary, in a very short time. There have been plenty of tests online to prove that bassists (let alone the public) cant tell an LMII (cut down version of the sa450) from an Ampeg B1, if thats the sound you want to get out of it. But I can get alot more tones from mine, and it is light as a feather.... Oh and I see you P and 'Ray and raise you a Roscoe baby. Game set and match for me from my perspective (clearly not from yours, but that is the beauty of bass tones, there are so many if you choose to look into it). The elements of this rig have a beautiful synergy, they work to gether incredibly well to deliver a vast array of tones, all of which are sublimely clear and beautiful in context. I wouldnt trade my rig for yours if you paid me a couple of grand to, and promised to be my roady and haulage too...

[quote name='dave74200' post='941875' date='Sep 1 2010, 11:43 AM']Hardly any heavyweights of the bass world are there?[/quote] Oh come on now you do come across as a prat! Randy Jackson, Richard Bona, Rocco Prestia, Esperanza Spalding!!!! Go back to playing guitar...

I think yo'll find this beats any Ampeg ever made (ooh flame on buddy!):-

[quote name='dave74200' post='941478' date='Aug 31 2010, 10:02 PM']I was the owner of an all valve Ampeg SVT 2 pro head. I loved the tone but felt it was too big and heavy, and needed revalving every 2 years etc.......... 'Buy a lighter, more compact amp I thought,' 'I'll get a good enough tone with half the weight and size.' I sold it and bought an Ashdown ABM 500, which was a good enough amp but not a patch on the SVT 2. I sold that and went through a series of hybrid and solid state amps (Ashdown, Trace Elliot, Warwick)regretting every day selling the SVT. It was like selling a Ferrari and buying a Vauxhall Corsa. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've just gone full circle and bought another SVT 2 Pro and am again totally blown away by the tone of it. Balls to the weight or size etc... It is the best tone you'll ever, ever get. Many people on these forums seem to be kidding themselves, and others, by pretending you can get 'that' tone out of these little bass heads or portable combos. YOU CAN'T I'M AFRAID! If you care about tone and power, buy an all valve Ampeg head, it's the dogs bra![/quote] HAHHAHHAHAHAAAAA!!! You sooo funny G.I.! Personal opinion here, but I absolutely hate the SVT 'tone'. I feel better for saying that already. When you crank them they dont do a very good job of clean, the cab (that big ole 810 crapola coffin) is only good for lofi bass sounds, and it weighs as much as a car. You dont happen to say what cabs you are using though, and that is as much to do with your tone (in some case a lot more) than the amp. Please enlighten me grasshopper, your nonsense is highly entertaining, no really carry on, please....

[quote name='Beedster' post='941284' date='Aug 31 2010, 07:41 PM']Thanks once again mate, that's this evening's reading sorted then [/quote] Pleasure! However much of a financial black hole you thought bass kit was, you aint seen nothing yet - why do you think that forum is called Gearsluts Having said that did you check out those two build diaries!! My god you'd need to win the Euromillions rollover to get that kind of build done!!!!

Left of field thought - could one of your cabs be shorting out under high excursion? MB stuff definitely is Italian - in that it looks after its own first and foremost. If there is an issue with impedance in the load its driving it will shutdown, if the fan stops or is impeded and it gets too hot, it will shut down, if the AC is crap it wll shut down. If it has an internal fault it will shut down, but MB are good at finding this and rectiying it (it does them no favours at all to have a customer moaning about their amp cutting out, and they really seem to get that, judging by the vast majority of happy posts I've read). So if you sent it to them and they said its fine then I would look elsewhere in the signal chain or power supply to try and work out what is causing the issue. Is it only in a particular venue? Have you tried different cabs and or leads? Touching something from a tree here, and whatever else one must do to ward off the curse of Murray Walker, but I've not experienced a problem myself yet with my SA450, I've just read a vast amount of peoples experiences with their MB products. Oh and the confusion many live engineers experience wrt MB heads is the DI is at line level, balanced, from an XLR out, which they assume is therefoe at mic level, and then complain that its very high gain and or unbelievably noisy (when they try running at mic level).

Hey, check out this review on TB. The guy is using a Heil pR-40 for live db (using an improvised mount as I described above) [url="http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329316"]PR-40 review[/url] Looking at it, I think that he has a newer stubbier version of it than I've used though...

IMO as an absolute minimum 300w and a 2x12 enclosure Better get 500w and use it for 'proper' gigs too.

Trouble with that DPA4099 (for me) is that it is highly specialised toward DB. Too highly specialised for a mic over £400 IMO. For that money I want a far more generalised tool, something that isnt just OK on a lot of stuff or imparting a specific character to the thing it is aimed at. Put it this way, if I want a kick mic I could go for a D112 or maybe a PR-68, or a D6, or a PR-40. But the D112 has a really overt signature, the 68 has a signature too, but to my ears its less obvious, the PR-40 doesnt have the same thing at all, it has massive low end and high end extension but it isnt eq'ed like a kick mic, its fairly flat comp[aratively, and it sounds like that too, so I am free to add the right eq to the instument in question, rather than being forced to stick with the 'sounds great on most kicks' eq built in to a D112. Particularly in the case of instruments as variable as DBs are I think a specialised mic rather than a simply excellent mic with a wide frequency range is potentially a big big mistake. Thats just my opinion though!

That looks like a top bit of kit Endorka!

Yes mic buying is expoensive, I try to offset the cost by buying mics that are proven in multiple applications, and considered very good value for money. Hence the Cascades and Heil mics (the Heil PR28 is THE best snare/tom mic I've ever heard, and does a pretty good job on brass and any other percussion too). I love the HEil mics generally to be honest, everything I've heard has been exceptional for a dynamic....

Only ask about your soldering as products like this:- [url="http://www.seventhcircleaudio.com/"]Seventh Circle Audio[/url] exist which can give you extremely good value for money preamps, if you can do some decent DIY soldering.

ANother question - how's your soldering?

Oh mate, positioning a mic for DB is tricky, and the PR-40 is (like an Electrovoice RE20) a big front address mic. However its just about the best mic I've heard for kick drum, and gets huge respect also for db on talkbass too. The big question is, are you on your own in a good iso booth situation (in which case the world is your oyster) or are you plaing with the ensemble in the same room (in which case it all gets trickier!)?? If you are on your own, then get someone to play the instrument for you and literally walk aound the room listening from one ear, close or far from the abss, find the spot where it really sings to you th best. That could be 6 inches from the neck, or 6 feet. It depends on the bass/player/strings/technique/room. Once you are happy, then put the mic there. Most basses sound best a good few feet away - the sound is from the entire instrument - not any one part! Get the mic too close and you dont hear the whole thing, and the sound is ten unbalanced as a result (too much string, not enough depth, not quite the woodiness you know the instrument has in the room etc etc). If you are in situation two then you have a differnt set of issues (can we say spillage?), again though you need to get somone to play your bass and then you listen to it from all different points, but up close, try and stay within 1ft to 6 inches from it. Popular places (for various reasons) are up under the bridge, by an f whole, but pointing to the bridge or soundpost, over the neck (gets a lot of finger/string sound usually), right at the bottom of the bass pointing up at the bridge. But pay attention to the rest of the ensemble, and learn about polar patterns and how you can use them to help combat the spill from the rest of the band. Another popular trick (which does work with the PR-40 apparently) is to fabricate a suspension system to hold the mic off under the bridge pointing up at the nck - bungee cord is good! That way moving the bass doesnt make as big a difference to the sound Really no two of the damn things are the same! The PR-40 is a pretty expensive dynamic mic mate (around £400) but, its simply the best kick mic I've ever heard (better than a lot of LDC condensers I've heard in th same place costing up to 4 times as much IME) and is also a superb vocal mic (really unlike a normal condenso, this mic extends way up the frquency spectrum - it was designed as a top quality broadcast mic first and foremost - it again compares in quality to some of the best condenser vocal mics IME). It gives unbelievable value in this way. If I were you I'd get a stereo pair of [url="http://www.cascademicrophones.com/cascade_FAT_HEAD_II_Stereo_PK.html"]Cascade FatHead 2's[/url] with the Lundahl transformer. They make superb room mics (the M/S stereo capture is magic!) great evocative smooth vocal mics, and are just AWESOME on guitar. Another brilliant mic I've had fantastic results from!!!! That s the exact config I've used, and it is realy something special.

Heil PR-40 mic, & a decent very clean pre amp (FMR RNP is very good value). Oh and a really well sorted room to record in is a must!

With my sa450 I start flat, turn it up to the required volume and then tweak a tiny bit, I have not got the VPF past 9 O'clock, its just way too much for me, then VLE really does help to tame the treble boost from the VPF, leaving a scoop to the mids and a bit of a bass boost. Thing is though, that with the sa450 the extra sweep on the eq means I tend to use the eq more than the filters. As little as possible though....

[quote name='Faithless' post='935836' date='Aug 25 2010, 12:14 PM']That HB thing doesn't look very reliable for me..[/quote] On what basis do you come up with that?????? Most (if not all) the D class amps apparently use stock parts anyway (ie the entire poweramp sections are actually the same modules bought from the same manufacturer). That would be a lot of the reason why all the manufacturers suddenly produce amps that do 1200w at the same time etc etc... Given that this is probably using similar tech, if not the same part for the amp section I would think it is probably likely to be as reliable as any of the rest. The preamp on the other hand could sound rubbish. Of course I might be wrong, but I cant tell from a picture and a look at the spec any more than you can!

[quote name='xgsjx' post='935470' date='Aug 24 2010, 10:32 PM']Never played one, but this looks like a serious contender to me... Ritter Roya[/quote] That is properly pornographic and no mistake, mind you I'd feel a bit of a t*t getting it out for a jam at the dog'n'duck

FloorQ is made by [url="http://www.joemeek.com/"]Joe Meek[/url]

[quote name='voxpop' post='934992' date='Aug 24 2010, 04:48 PM']Im looking for a pedal, must be dirty and squashy........not clean.[/quote] Seriously try and get a go on a floorQ, its the same comp as in a twinQ, and I've done a lot of recording with one of them, it can squish really hard, pumps nicely if you push it....

Pedal? A Joe Meek FloorQ Rack? A Joe Meek SixQ Its the same compressor, but different case (SixQ is a full preamp actually) Really squashy, absolutely ace mate!