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OK here we go, after much mucking about he is the LH500 into the BigOne. A couple of notes for this, we were struggling a bit with getting volume into the front of the amps because the bassist was such a gentle player and theSR300 it turns out is a very very low output bass. As the LH500 has np input gain in the end we just plugged into the passive input on the LH500, and all was well. Unfortunately we probably were so worried about getting enough volume that we may have got a little bit too much on this one. So the bass is a bit loud in the recording I think, however this is where my eyeballs were going fuzzy, and the BigOne was pushing huge amounts of air out of the ports - the guitarist commented on this and he was on the other side of the room (not a big room but hey!), he could feel a breeze at about 7 feet away. In conclusion the LH500 will drive the BigOne to very very high levels given a decent input level (no seperate input gain you see), easily enough to gig with, just dont be afraid to really dime the volume and give it the beans!

Roof top, midnight +1 minute New Years Eve '91(?), stopped all the taxi's going in or out of Brighton on the London Rd due to the number of revellers dancing in the road - till the police turned up.... oops

[quote name='dood' post='928990' date='Aug 18 2010, 07:54 PM']Hey Alex, nice to see ya on the board! Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at in my comments above. I've owned a couple of MB heads and obviously the Hartke LH is my current rig, so I know the differences here in my front room - but it's alot more difficult with two unknown cabinets in an unknown room! But yeah, I like these real world tests![/quote] To clear up why we did it like we did, basically I know how loud my rig is, and what it sounds like (even in that room), I also know how loud Plux's LH500 is. The point of pairing up the LH500 with the BigOne and the Super12, rather than the MB head was to see if it could deliver enough beans with those cabs, given that its by far the most likely choice of amp for them. If they were looking to get an MB head I'd have stuck with that head. The reason I compared the LH500 and each Barefaced cab with my whole rig is simple, its the best rig I've ever owned, and as good as any I've ever heard, if Alex's cabs sounded good alongside it when driven by the LH500, then they would sound great against most other rigs. The reason they all sound similar is also straight forward, they got a sound out of my rig that was as close to what they wanted to hear as possible, they then needed to see if the same sound - or something very similar, could be achieved with the other rigs. This isnt a case of trying to hear the differences in the cabs flat and clean, its trying to see which works best in situ. Flat and clean would have been a huge amount easier for everyone to nail the different cabs - they do each have a very distinctive flavour thats quite obvious - this is a far more real world test than that though, this is how well those rigs could achieve a desired sound. WHich is more important at the end of the day. I dont care how great a cab copes with flat eq, if the sound I want needs it to deal with a 6dB boost at 80Hz after all! In case anyone is in any doubt I think the Barefaced cabs aquitted themselves splendidly, the super12 is very very punchy, and sounds lovely. The BigOne, well thats the daddy, but it really does like to be fed a lot of juice, and my rig, well thats still my favourite, but its very close!

I'll dig out the Big One file tomorrow, I think I have that one playing a different track with clean bass as well. Alex had his ear defenders in the whole time, I took mine out for a minute - it was like getting punched in the face Fantastic! Apparently all the guy who works there could hear that night was us lot. Oh and Dave is not a lightweight hitter on the drums and although the kit is a bit pants tht is his Mapex Saturn snare, which is very very tasty indeed. So yes it was hugely loud, by any standards, although the guitar was not fighting the same sonic territory as the bass in the clip, so its really easy to hear everything. Even if it was I think the loser would have ben the drums not the bass.... Just a point to note, the bassist in question plays with the lightest touch of anyone I've ever seen, really really gentle.... And thanks again Alex, it was a blinding evening, very very informative. I'm pretty certain you've got another sale on your hands in the near future, the Super Twelve was brilliant.

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='928652' date='Aug 18 2010, 01:59 PM']I asked Alex specifically about achieving this affect and he suggested I might need a second Barefaced cab. Good to know one will do. [b]Boss ODB3 in not sounding like AIDS shocker.[/b][/quote] HAHAHAAAA!!!! Yeah, I avoid Boss pedals since forever, - largely cos the first ones I ever played with at a mates house were ultra noisy, could have been the fault of his Westone Thunder III, but I doubt it, that was a great bass! Those turd brown Boss Bass-Crud-i-Sound pedals, yuck! Definitely achieved wobbly eyeness, may have been the BigOne and Alex's Avalon/Quest set up, was very loud, but the Super12 was no slouch at all, totally capably of drowning out the rest of the band completely. I will state right now that every rig we tried (with the exception of the knackered in house Hartke, which was awful) sounded awesome, all just different flavours of "bass player's wet dream"....

[quote name='dood' post='928574' date='Aug 18 2010, 01:01 PM']He he!! Yes, I like your style! Doesn't have to be fair! Good game, good game! - I love the overall tone of both of the rigs actually - they cut through with the added dirt. What are you using for your drive?[/quote] Drive was supplied by a wee little Boss OD pedal of some sort, yellow beastie, about 4 knobs on, including a bass/treble, drive, level and maybe some sort of selctor, dunno, boss arent my area of expertise . The trick to get them to cut through was not to turn the tweeters all the way off, just down a bit. Worked a treat! Its not me playing by the way, I cant take any credit for that at all, I just supplied a rig for people to a/b against (a 'known', if only by me).

[quote name='dood' post='928498' date='Aug 18 2010, 11:44 AM']Actually - I haven't read the text properly at all! - One amp with one cab and another amp with another. Hmmm... not really a fair comparison given the tonal differences in the amplifier's character. The MB has an active EQ circuit that boosts bass around 40hz - the LH500 is all passive and can not add that kind of bass girth to the tone. Hmm, given that - I reckon that the MarkBass head is tone two and the LH500 is tone One.[/quote] Who said anything about fair? It is a real comparison of two different rigs playing the same piece of music in the same environment recorded from the same position, albeit the rigs were next to each other. I like your logic, not that I'm saying you're right or wrong though, its just exactly the way my mind works too!

[quote name='dood' post='928488' date='Aug 18 2010, 11:39 AM']OH!! That's my fault for reading the text and not the title! So I assumed by reading the above that you had a Big One and a Super Twelve! lol's![/quote] Yeah, oops didnt make it clear enough, my fault , edited now! I particularly like the od since so many people want to hear what these cabs sound like with some grindy grindy going on, its pretty unusual to hear an ae410 like that, and I think the Super12 did a great job too!

[quote name='dood' post='928479' date='Aug 18 2010, 11:34 AM']p.s. The Hartke is a great amp head! Very pleased with my LH1000[/quote] Absolutely, they are an amazing piece of kit for the cash, love Plux's LH500!

Hold on, the Big One isnt in there, Dood! There is an Bergantino ae410, and there is a Barefaced Super12. The BigOne is fair bit easier to spot from the recording so I didnt put it up The point is how hard it is in a 'real world-ish' example to spot the diff between the SuperTwelve and a Berg ae410. Which is which....

OK a couple of weeks ago now Alex was kind enough to lend his Super Twelve, Big One and Avalon U5 and power amp to some friends of mine who are looking to get a first decent gigging bass rig together. I couldnt resist and took my rig and PLux's LH500 along so we could do some further comparisons to see what worked. The LH500 is very likely to be the amp the go for as its such good value for money, what we didnt know was how the Super Twelve would perform alongside the BigOne or how either would sound next to my rig (see sig). We assembled at Monster Rehearsal Studios for the comparison and set up alongside the very tired old Hartke rig there. The most notible thing about which is that it has to be dimed to keep up with the drums at all, in contrast my rig doesnt get past 10 O'clock before the walls are in danger of caving in. I recorded it all on my Zoom H4n so we could listen back at sane levels (I'm not kidding at one point I thought my eyesight had gone very very 'wrong', only to discover that the volume was causing it to blur!). Here are snippets of the same track played through my rig (Markbass sa450 -> Bergantino ae410) and the LH500 -> Super Twelve, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to have a guess at which is which. There was judicious use of amp eq in both cases, nothing much though, and the tweeters levels were played with. The tracks are Normalised to -3dB but no other processing has been done at all. This topic shouldn't self destruct at any point in the proceedings! As you will soon hear they like a bit of fuzzy bass (there was a Boss OD of some sort in there), the bass was an Ibby SR300. Not that that is of any consequence.... Enjoy!

Barefaced 212 without the tweeter (or rolled off) and a LMIII (maybe witha a sansamp VT pedal) or LM Rocker, or one of those little Orange chaps if you want more grind? Spent an evening with the Barefaced 212 a couple of weeks ago comparing it to my ae410, its a very very classy cab, recommended for those who want to punch hard, takes eq well and I couldnt get close to overpowering it with an LH500 or an sa450. Also unbelievably light (as are all of Alex's cabs) and very very easy to manage.

I have a really nice Roscoe too I also have a Squire VMJ fretless, and its a blinding bass I also have a 'Japcrap' Vester, which is also a blinding bass

[quote name='Roob' post='927791' date='Aug 17 2010, 05:42 PM']Thanks for clarifying that! I had my suspicions but wasn't too sure. All makes sense now. I had this idea in my head that by shoving twice as much power into the cab it would shift more air, this is of course not the case . I should probably just take the plunge and fork out for a Hydrive 115 and be done [/quote] Dont get the 115, get another 410, if more volume of the same basic tone is what you want (you'll get just as much bass, a 15 does NOT equal more bass than a 410, total myth).

'Cutting through' depends entirely upon how resilient what you are trying to cut through is. In other words if the bass/player/strings/amp/cab/room set up is strong in a area of frequencies that the rest of the players are weak in , you will be heard clearly in those frequencies. They may or may not sound good, but thats a different issue. You will not ever win the 'sounding good band trophy' by trying to overpower everyone else in frequencies that sound good with a bass on its own, all that happens is a noise war; you must instead ask them to make some space for you there. When mixing down a recorded track the sound engineer has massive control over instruments due to the lack of spill between them (many reasons and techniques exist to ensure this) and so can literal carve holes in one instrument with eq to slot another instrument into (often with more eq). This is frequency mixing, and its a total art to do really well. In a live context you dont have the seperation to do this, so the players have to do it collectively or you will sound like a mess and volume wars will ensue. Cutting through implies upper mids and top end, and as the human ear/brain are designed to be ultra sensitive in the upper mids that is where most people notice things 'popping out'. However with judicious live sound freuency mixing you can make deeper low mid and bass sounds have enough space to be really clearly and distinctly heard. The thing is that they will never 'pop out' like an instrument dominating the upper mids will, just because that is how the ear/brain work. IMO Any bass can be made to 'cut through' if that is your intent, how hard you have to manipulate the sound depends upon the above...

[quote name='silddx' post='927272' date='Aug 17 2010, 10:13 AM']I'm going to the ZPZ gig and the audience with Scott the next day, I can't wait either! Mrs silddx is going to both too, and even wants me to play her a selection from Zappa's catalogue and wants to read the Scott Thunes interview in In Cold Sweat, in preparation for her attendance at the events. This is a rather remarkable turnaround She's always hated Zappa's music.[/quote] Saw ZPZ at the Brighton Centre with Plux, you are in for a hell of a treat mate! Best guitar sound I've ever heard live, really incredible, and a fantastic band, keep you eyes on the sax player, she's ace!

[quote name='peted' post='925248' date='Aug 14 2010, 10:50 PM']Have a look at [url="http://www.reaper.fm/"]http://www.reaper.fm/[/url][/quote] +1

[quote name='Doddy' post='923950' date='Aug 13 2010, 02:49 PM']I thought it was Warren Cuccarullo? Vinnie was mentioned after.[/quote] Yup, Vinnie wasnt nearly so kinda young kinda wow I guess

ooooohhhh the whole thing (70th birthday celebration) looks awesome! Cheers!!

Reaper here too. Its outstanding value for money, shows the big boys a thing or two about performance, is 32bit floating point internally, and has a dev lifecycle faster than anything else ot here that I know of... And it sounds killer too

[quote name='Stacker' post='917697' date='Aug 7 2010, 08:54 AM']It's not the prototype, man! How can it be?? You'er telling me a stack knob bass with a FUZZ CIRCUIT is the first ever Jazz bass?? Your lift at b from Chambers above states '..from which laters forms are copied', ergo, Hebies bass ain't a 'prototype' of any kind! Some people will believe anything![/quote] OK, what you seem to have missed is that it may be a prototype for a variation on the Jazz bass that never made it. So no, its not the prototype to the Jazz bass as you know it, but that does not make it any less of a prototype. Face it, Fender, Herbie and everyone else who has read this pretty much disagrees with you. If the Jazz bass that we know had tuned out to be a copy of Herbs you would then denounce any other variation that Fender call a prototype as not one. Clearly that is not how prototyping works!

Right back at you:- [url="http://www.chambersharrap.co.uk/chambers/features/chref/chref.py/main?query=prototype&title=21st"]prototype[/url] prototype noun 1 an original model [b]from which later forms are copied, developed or derived[/b]. 2 a first working version, eg of a vehicle or aircraft. 3 someone or something that exemplifies a type. [b]4 a primitive or ancestral form of something[/b]. prototypal adj. prototypic adj. prototypical adj. prototypically adverb. ETYMOLOGY: 17c: from Greek prototypos primitive or original. It is not absolutely necesarily the first working version that is a prototype, since later copies can be derived or developed, and further copies may be derived and developed from those, all before a manufacturer reaches a final version for production. [url="http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/dyson.htm"]Just ask Mr Dyson how many prototype vacuum cleaners he went through![/url]

[quote name='The Bass Doc' post='917266' date='Aug 6 2010, 06:19 PM']Just interested to know how it's quoted as a '59 when the Jazz was apparently introduced in 1960? Maybe the next BCer to have a go could whip the neck off and look for a date? [/quote] All is explained [url="http://www.curtisnovak.com/vintage/JazzBass59/"]here[/url] EDIT to say sorry to be so much later than the previous pointer in this direction, I was at a gig.... Plux got to play it at the gig on about 5 songs too. Fantastic gig all round. 46 songs in about 3 hours, different band for every song, including string sections, wind instruments, keys, and a brilliant song about a rabbit meeting an untimely end under a bus. Fantastic evening, and made all the more amazing watching my son grooving away like mad on the bass that is on a million hits. To say Herbie is a nice bloke is an understatement of mind boggling proportions! At one point he told Plux that he didnt have to ask him to have a go on it, just pick up and use it. Wow!

COOL! Thanks a lot