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[quote name='Daquifsta' post='832948' date='May 10 2010, 12:04 PM']You might want to also consider the Zoom r16, which has 8 proper mic inputs (against the Tascam's 6) and records 8 channels simultaneously to an sd memory card. It's about £80 cheaper, too. My band are going to get at least one of them very soon, maybe two, since they can be daisy chained together. Unless you really need to do 16 channels at once?[/quote] +1 the r16 is my favourite new bit of recording kit on the market, having said which, I dont have one (or two) yet, but I mean to get hold of them as soon as I can. Staggeringly powerful for the cash outlay.

[quote name='Conan' post='832937' date='May 10 2010, 11:47 AM']Interesting... are you implying that (at certain EQ settings at least) that the Behringer might actually sound better than The MB?! [/quote] Pretty much yes.... What I am implying is that the defficiencies in the Behringer will have been masked (at least to a certain extent) by amp eq settings. If you then apply those eq settings to a cab without the (same) defficincies (Markbass, Ampeg, Bergantino, whatever) it could easily sound like crud. Example, a friend of mine had a perfectly useable Rode large condensor in his studio.he upgraded to a Neuman U87, buyt the first time he tracked with it on mix down he applied an old eq setting, sounded fugly as! So if a cab has a dip at 200Hz say, and you boost your eq there to get more lo-mid punch, if you change the cab to one thats flatter at 200Hz, you could end up with a muddy sound. Its not the fault of the second cab though. One thing I would bet on is that at gigging volumes, eq set flat, the Markbass will sound better than the Behringer, in fact it will probably achieve those volumes with less gain on the amp. So whenever you change cabs you should IMO ditch your eq settings and start again, using your ears, not what the eq looks to be set like (way easier said than done).

Huge. First off though, start with flat eq, the Markbass cab will sound completely different from the Behringer anyway, using the same eq will therefore not work, and may even give you a detrimental view of your upgrade.

Brian Ritchie - Violent Femmes (Violent Femmes) Moose - New Model Army (Thunder and Consolation)

[quote name='Dubs' post='830399' date='May 7 2010, 09:53 AM']I think I'd struggle to honestly say that I'll ever be GAS free, and that is in regards to all bass gear - amps, cabs, basses, effects, etc... I even had GAS for a gig bag once!! [/quote] +1 a very big one there! I have a brilliant rig, which I love, but I daren't spend any more time on a Berg IP stack than I already have, oh no! I like them super fancy leather gig bags someone ha posted up too, and the Mono ones, oh no! I'd love a fretless Roscoe Century Std+ too, oh hell! Not to mention a couple of really good old Fenders (a J and a P) just for completion, eeeeeekk! And I really need some more effects too, a good overdrive (say a sansamp VT, but the programmable one) and a mega fierce synthy distortion (either a blowtorch or the big bad Soundblox Pro Multiwave Distortion), oh and a POG 2! Aaaaaaaarghhhhh!!! Will it ever end??

Your GAS free because you've got a great rig that does what you need. Thats hardly a difficult thing to understand is it? Try playing a gig with a nasty Behringer rig, then you'll remember

[quote name='jakhotta' post='830124' date='May 6 2010, 10:24 PM']Ok think I'm getting it but what wattage 8ohm cabs should I be looking for to use with this head if I want to use a pair of cabs? I understand that a single 4 ohm cab receives the full 500w output but I got the MAG 410 on the understanding I could always add another one later on. If the heads output doubles to 500 watts with two 8ohm cabs then surely a pair of ashdown MAG 410 (450w max.) will get damaged? Or does the cab's max wattage rating double when you halve the impedance too? Apologies for the confusion and cheers for the answers- Jak p.s. Too-right about delicate playing, I'm doing my best to emulate Dee Dee Ramones rapid downstrokes![/quote] Any combination of cabs that ends up in an impedance of 4Ohms gets 500w across them all. So two of your existing cab should be alright, since they add up to 800w, and being the same impedance they receive an even amount of the power (250w from the amp each). However there is more to it that watts (as I'm sure you are getting now. The wattage is really a measure of thermal dissipation of the voice coil, however you can break a speaker by forcing it to push to far, exceeding its X-Max. If the amp punches above its weight, or the cab has over generous specs then this is even more likely to happen: and the LH500 is definitely punching above its weight, whilst the ashdown cab is ambitiously spec'ed - not good!. The LH500 is very very loud , and you need really good cab(s) to cope with it when its in full swing, if you hear any distortion at all its time to back the amp off a good bit!

sa450 eq is uber powerful, but the ae410 has that bit of agression inherently built in. Last gig I actually scooped that out a smidge, and boosted down in the lo mids. Set the compressor with a smidge of sub 40Hz Bass Expansion (love the Compounder for that - its not like eq, quite, very cool). Sounded awesome, just massive, kept up with a 4Kw rig, drums (miked), electric kit (two drummers you see), guitar and vox.

Toasted mate, slap a new set of strings on your bass, dial in some righteous whump and stop confusing yourself, the 410 s brilliant, but the IP stack is 'it'!

+1 to Conan I would add that if you push a cab with an amp at maximum you greatly increase the risk of something going pop. With an LH500 you really shouldnt need to drive it to full. At my 40th birthday Plux (my son) had his LH500 running at 3 O'clock with an extremely gentle person playing. It was running into his Berg HT210 & HT115 and easily kept up with a 4K PA. Sounded massive, and brilliantly filled the room with pure beautiful tone. No damage done. The only reason it was up so loud was the unbelievably delicate nature of the players right hand technique, I very much doubt you are anywhere near as delicate since you are emulating a distorted Ramones tone.

[quote name='Conan' post='829425' date='May 6 2010, 11:13 AM']Fair enough! I was just trying to give the OP [i]some[/i] info until someone with much greater technical knowledge than myself came along... I am just a bear of very little brain, but I do try to help [/quote] No probs! A lot of people get really mixed up by the limiter/compressor thing. I do get mixed up by chord substitutions and, well, too much harmony generally. Horses for course innit!

[quote name='Conan' post='829392' date='May 6 2010, 10:34 AM']A compressor will basically "smooth out" your volume levels by making the quiet sounds louder and the loud sounds quieter. You will then have less peaks, and so feed a more consistent signal to your speakers - causing less damage! Some amps have them fitted as standard, [b]others have a limiter - which is like half a compressor, it brings down the volume of loud notes but does nothing to the quiet ones[/b]. They both reduce the dynamic range.[/quote] Errr thats a very very peculiar description of a limiter..... A limiter is a compressor with a very high threshold (it only gets activated by the loudest bits of signal), and a very (almost infinite) ratio, (it as near as possible prevents the signal getting any louder than the threshold). If you push signal into a limiter it will effectively make the quieter sounds louder, although they are actually unaffected by the limiter, the downside is the loud notes are dynamically squashed by the limiter and this sounds very obvious, which may be the desired effect or not. A compressor is just a much more subtle effect, the ratio is far less extreme, however it can have the threshold set lower so it effects more of the signal. The end results can sound very similar dependant on all sorts of stuff. The important point I'm trying to make is that a limiter really is a compressor with a particular and extreme setup, designed to do a certain job. IME the limiter on the LH500, although effective is very obvious and not particularly great sounding.

+1 for dropbox

[quote name='jakhotta' post='829141' date='May 5 2010, 11:21 PM']Hi everyone, I'm fairly new to bass playing and I'm having real problems achieving a high treble output from bass rigs without blowing speakers. So far I've blown a Carlsbro Bassline 120 combo (the amp was basically cooked and speaker coil wrecked) and now it seems I've knocked out a couple of speaker coils in my Ashdown MAG deep 410 cab after running from a [b]Hartke LH500 on full volume[/b]. I was [b]using no effects[/b] on the latter, just straight output from my Westone Quantum bass. I can't understand why this has happened as the amp is rated at 450 watts (8 ohms) and the head is underpowered at 350 watts (8 ohms). I've been aiming for [b]high treble/mids similar to the distorted Ramones first album sound[/b] but my gear can't seem to take it, do people recommend I invest in a new cab(s), upgrade the head or both? Its just me, a drummer and a vocalist in our band so I need something reliable and very loud. Any advice other than buy a guitar is appreciated! Cheers, Jak[/quote] All the clues are in your post. Firstly the LH500 is a clean sounding amp, yes it has a tube in it, but the preamp design is such that it doesnt do overdriven grind. It isnt supposed to, its ultraclean. Second you are running a massively grunty head at full chat - this is almost never a good idea, if it aint loud enough at 3 O'clock you need more cabs and maybe more amps to drive them (depending on impedance ratings etc etc). So we can assume from this that you were getting a dirty overdriven sound out of your cab by pushing it way outside its perfromance limits, and that is the distortion you were hearing, the sound of your cab dieing horribly, not the overdrive of a big tube lead sled overdriving at all. For refernce that sound you heard is the sound of a cab calling out in distress begging you to put less power into it! So what to do.... Repair the cab before you run it again. Invest in a good overdrive (Sansamp VT would probably be just the ticket for you), which will enable you to get that sound without turning the amp up so loud that the cab is a goner. Get new strings on the bass! Use a pick. Get the cab pointing at your head!! Learn to distinguish the death throes of a cab from a nicely overdriving amp or fx unit!!!!!!

Reminds me of a song:- Oh, welcome to this world of fools Of pink champagne and swimming pools Well, all you have to lose is your virginity Perhaps we'll have some fun tonight So stick around and take a bite of life We don't need feebleness in this proximity.....

All you need to know about compression at point is available [url="http://www.ovnilab.com/faq.shtml"]here[/url]. Follow the link and read, Ovnilabs is Talkbass' Bongomania's site, and he's reveiewd an awful lot of compressors, and included very informative info on how and why you would/should/could use them. Personally I just need more flashing lights.....

I bet thats not exactly shy is it! Havent heard the nv412, but I bet its just a pounding mound of growly sound... And all that!

Focusrite Compounder. Its tip top!

I'd expect that to be seriously seriously loud. He then goes on to suggest putting one on top of a Compact, if your amp goes down to 2Ohm. I imagine that would get painful (though not as painful as Suicide were, supporting Iggy and the Stooges at the Apollo the other night, loudest gig I've seen since Motorhead!). Nice one. Someone pop out and buy one and review it for us please ;o)

In my head the Kick is the punctuation, the hats are the phrasing, the snare is like a "gross swing regulator". There I've admitted it, I'm bleedin' bonkers aren't I ....

Hmmmm. If you have a clip light and you dont want to over drive the input stage (a lot of SS amps dont like or sound good with a clipped input stage) then the 'correct' way is to set the gain such that your hardest playing doesnt trigger the clip light. Caveate: OK check your manual, as some manufacturers prefer a light that very briefly flashes with the highest peaks, it all depends on the level required to get that light on). Then you raise your Master to the required volume. That would be following standard gain stage setting procedure as used by sound engineers worth their salt the world over. If your amp has a further gain/grit control then this procedure should still be followed. However it all gets muddier when you are talking about amps that are supposed to be driven at the input gain, but the input gain control to derive some grit. Clearly in this case the clip light is of little actual use, and you need to have some Master volume to hear the amount of gain you are getting. In all things though your ears are (alledgedly) the best judge...

I dont know what was the best bit, getting to play really mental music with some great friends, or getting to play some really ace jammage with some great friends ... Or getting to hear Plux's Berg rig at full chat in a band situation (we lent it to one of the other bands' bassist on her first gig - they were superb, and so was she) - best bass sound I've ever heard at a gig - hope mine sounded as good! Or the cake my partner made, which was 3'6" across!!

Holy moly dude! Thats fan-***king-tastic playing. Love it!

[quote name='Mog' post='820854' date='Apr 27 2010, 05:01 PM'] [b](probably a sound engineer[/b]) Nobody tells me how my bass is going to/should sound. I have a tone which I like and the only time I change it is if the guitar sound is total pants. That goes for live and studio work.[/quote] Not a chance. Every decent sound engineer I know (and me) would rather have new strings on a bass to record unless they know in advance that you are specifically trying to go for a really old school Motown sound, and the supporting instrumentation matches that vintage era too. For modern pop, funk, fusion and even most modern jazz, country, ska, whatever it is, newer strings sound better in a mix, and can be taken to more places in a mix (ie you have more options with the result).

Had a joint 40th party over the weekend with an old mate of mine (drummer) who was in a band with me from about '92 to '96. We decided (months ago) to try and get that band to headline the party, but couldn't get hold of the singer, so Plux volunteered (what a star!) Two drummers, and a fairly obvious Japanese noise band (think Ground Zero) influence (amongst many many others) ensured that your average pub crowd tended to do a runner back in the day. Plenty of people turned up, I got to play a really long jam set (epic singer failure forcing the jam choice upon us) with another band earlier in the evening, which went down a storm, mainly cause we were using some fairly classic riffs and tracks as the basis for the jamming, rather than just "doing one" all the way through.. Plux did us all proud, totally owned the place, the band was as tight as I can remember it ever being, and the crowd (largely made up of old farts) were either very forgiving, very open minded or very very drunk, but they all really enjoyed it and got the humour in the whole thing (something that was lacking back in the day). One of the best gigs I've ever done, wish I had a recording of it, but got so overrun with questions that I never had a chance to set up the Zoom Big thanks to anyone involved who reads this too!