51m0n

Nothing should be so out of reach that it must never even be attempted, thats daft. However the chances of a really good version of something like Bohemian Rhapsody being produced are pretty small. And to whoever reckoned that no cover is as good as the original Snuff's version of I Think We're Alone Now blows the original Tiffany version away.... Lastly I just dont get the whole Smiths thing, why are they considered SO good? The lyrics are reasonably entertaining, but thats about it, whilst the vocal delivery is at least an aquired taste, the guitar is fine, but not exceptional (it fits nicely with the song and all, but thats what guitar is supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less), and the bass and drums are reasonable but in no way exceptional, any more or less than the guitar. Can anyone explain to me why they are put on this unbelievable pedestal? I'm not just bashing, I honestly cant understand what makes people think they are so good, needless to say they really have never done it for me, and I am just the right age to be one of these odd blokes swooning over Morrisey as if he were the second coming....

HAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAAAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAAAAAAHAA......... What do you mean its not a joke? urrrrhhh... .. . . .. oh

When you get a long way from the cab you arent hearing the cab any more, you are hearing the cab + the venue. Its very very different from the cab, I couldnt agree more, but its different in every venue. Its also different in a single venue dependant on the number of punters, in fact its even different dependant on the ambient temperature in the room, and whether or not the curtains are closed over the windows. Lets not go into how your perception can change even as a result of how much water you've drunk through the day, or even your mood. But it all has a real effect. You cannot control those factors, you can intelligently bias your sound to help cope in each individual situation. As for speakers being broken in, a couple of gigs wont complete that process IME, 5 to 10 should though. As for 'fitting in with the band', well thats the rub isnt it, I've spent 20 years sound engineering live and in the studio. I understand frequency mxing, eq, compression, etc. All of this is very relevant to letting me figure out if a cab will 'work' with a given bass/amp player/style etc. In fact my entire set of tone goals (to use KJungs excellent phrase) is based upon being heard in a band setting clearly. IME too much bass live is a nightmare situation, those dub guys can keep it, its a hellish thing to do well, and most venues cant deal with it. So I dont go there. Given that experience with mixing I can make a very very educated guess whether or not a cab's inherent tone is likely to work for me. I cant tell if it will work for you necessarily, but I can get close. The problem for a lot of us though, I think, is that what really works live, is not what we are used to hearing on a recording, and so many people are disappointed. So I stick with what I said above, an experienced ear can tell if a cab will function in a gig situation if they can get to spend some quality time at serious volume with it. No problem. An experienced bassist/sound engineer can tell if an amp/cab combo is tweakable enough to cope with the vagueries of live sound to maximise the likelihood of always getting the best tone possible in a situation. No one at all can tell from one or two gigs if an amp/cab will always work everywhere. But I'll let you into a secret, NO amp/cab will sound great absolutely everywhere. Some venues are so acoustically shot that you are at best on a damage limitation course, at worst you may as well not be there, just smile and mime. Fortunately those are very rare occurancies IME (only twice I can think of in 20 years for me, both at the same venue).

When I went to find out what Berg rig would be 'the one' to bass direct, Mark positively encouraged me to try and cause structural damage to the place. It was staggeringly loud, and sounded completely unstrained, by which I mean the sound at high volume was not tonally very different from the sound at sensible volumes, I just couldnt hear myself talking/shouting so well. That, to me is very indicative of whether or ot a rig will 'work' in a gig. To be honest he's moved premises since, so I dont know if he'd let people go quite so crazy now, I mean this was an hour of really unrelenting bashing of the cab I eventually took home with me. Enough to be as confident as I could possibly be. All this talk of trying on the gig is all very well, but to be honest IME every gig venue presents its own set of issues and problems (for which there are well known strategies to help you deal), so trying on a single gig is no better than trying in a shop that will let you really have a bash at the gear at real world gig volume plus some more. I need to hear a cab and amp not farting out at those volumes for a gig length of time, with all the stupid and weird techniques and sounds I might want to make. I need it to produce the same tone (within reason, things change at volume) at volume as it does ticking over. Otherwise its only good for either gigs or practice not both, and recording with it can be a pain. I also need to really like that tone (well duh). Lastly I need to have confidence in the build quality/manufacture's after sales. I very nearly went with Schroeder cabs, but I wanted something that was more than just an easy to hear on the gig solution to volume wars, achieved by building into the cab a prominent mid peak that I can get close enough to with eq should I need to. I wanted something that sounded right at all volumes. For me it was Berg all the way, and unusually on here it was a 410 rather than the also brilliant 2x210 solution. Without going and trying it though, you cant make a decision. Worse still the human brain/ear combo is a funny old beast and nothing short of a real world A/B in a single place can really be a fair comparison, travelling the length of the country to try one then the other isnt a fair comaprison. I'd record them with my Zoom H4 and go away and have a good listen back to back if it was me (same amp settings, distance from cab etc, similar sized & shaped room, not to mention amp positioning all required to make it useful of course). Its tough buying quality cabs!

foobar2000 can do conversions from to anything - it front ends Lame for mp3s really nicely.... Although being a coder I too prefer CLI lame (really nice to drive it with a simple bash script to do the same as the aforementioned)

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='716728' date='Jan 18 2010, 04:20 PM']+1. Until we start doing all our gigs in guitar shops, the stage is where the truth will be known...[/quote] Nah mate, didnt anyone tell you Bergs are SO good that you only have to look at them to just know, you know? /tongue_in_cheek

[quote name='Nfes64' post='716664' date='Jan 18 2010, 03:14 PM']All this has made me determined to sample both, even if it means traveling to Brighton where SHX are based. Anyone know of another place to sample the Schroeder (Warwickshire, Birmingham or London)? Like I said, the Bergs are just down the road from me, but I really do want to hear both![/quote] Well I travelled from Brighton to BassDirect to sample Bergs, and it was worth it, stop whingeing

[quote name='johnbass57' post='716538' date='Jan 18 2010, 01:14 PM']That happens. Still, its better than recommending stuff you have not seen or heard I often wonder if the sound of the famous Schroeder mid hump could be achieved by turning the mids up on the amp [/quote] Yes but you may as well just turn down some of the low end, gives the same end result....

[quote name='Musicman20' post='716456' date='Jan 18 2010, 11:51 AM']+1....if you can buy used, do. Usually the owners will be very careful with them cabs due to the cost of them![/quote] +1 I dont think I've ever looked after a bit of gear like I look after my Berg and Roscoe, its got to the point where I endure "gentle ribbing" from the band over how protective I am

ae115

One of the main reasons the Roscoe really did it for me was its weight, its no more than 8lbs - which is slightly lighter than my 4 string, and makes just about every other 5 string I've picked up feel like a granite slab. I've had to put the 4 away in a hard case since I got the 5, and hadnt played it at all for a very long time. Just for a laugh I got it out the other night, bizarre, kept going to the A string for low G Other than that I was flying around it. The shorter scale length made it feel ridiculously easy to play.

I love that bass!

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='712595' date='Jan 14 2010, 02:27 PM']Fairy nuff! The modularity works for me, 'cos I sometimes do gigs with a big FOH and a quiet stage volume, and sometimes I'm just too lazy to carry two. ha ha. I had to look twice and check the Berg site when I read that... I didn't know the AE210s were rear-ported! The HS210s are front-ported. I know what you mean about rear ports... rightly or wrongly I feel the same way.[/quote] See, we agree on everything, we must be right

And in the other corner I had the opportunity to go for two Berg ae210s or one ae410. I ended up going for a single 410 since space for transport and storage are major issues for me, and when you get down to it the ae410 is a one man lift (for the non-decrepit amongst us - hey I can lift it so that has to be true ). The hs410 isnt even close to a one man lift for me. I do think the vertical stack idea is superb, but I cant help but worry about stability (which with the weight of HS210s may be moot, it isnt with ae210s IMO), so I'm looking for a small mixer stand to lift the ae410 up a bit. As for a modular rig, well I can see it being useful for people who play some very small venues, but I'd rather have tha ability to go way too loud and not than turn up with too little and break stuff. So I would always end up taking both anyway, 'to be on the safe side'. Tonally there are very minor differences in the ae series, nothing to get too hung up about, but I couldnt say if that holds true for the SWR stuff. I spent a good couple of hours A/B'ing the BErg stuff to get to that conclusion, at extreme volumes (thanks to Mark at BassDirect). Excellent afternoon that was! I have no doubt that WoT's rig sounds absolutely superb, because mine does The only other reason I plumped for the 410 was that its front ported. Now I know its not supposed to make any difference, but I sometimes have to put my cab as close to the back wall as possible, and although that wont block off the port, it still just seems a tad counter intuitive. But I havent measured it so that could be cobblers So really my advice is try them both and work out what your needs are first in terms of transport/storage/price/tone etc etc and then make the right decision for you.

From a sound engineer POV reverb on bass (ie low frequencies) = mud and generally is to be avoided. That isnt to say dont use a reverb on your bass, since many many reverbs have a lowpass filter built in to allow that kind of thing. just be aware. Live you are already suffering the inherent reverb of the space you are in, so adding more reverb (especially to the low frequencies) would almost certainly be a bad plan. Basically forget about any kind of punchy articulation if you do (unless it were a gated or similarly 'treated' reverb, which may have other peculiar side effects). This may of course be your intention, in which case get as muddy and indistinct as you like, who am I to say its pants I've only ever used a reverb live for one very specific sound I used on one track in an old funk band. It was a sort of film soundtracky type thing where I used the old 'palm muted thumb - wanna be an upright' type thing and a little tiny club reverb just helped to make it a tad more like an upright in a smokey club. Otherwise reverb for me has been solely for solo bass stuff, and even then carefully tailored to bass (with LP filters etc). If you are going to experiment with reverbs then as a general rule if you can hear it as a reverb, you've probably got a bit too much, (same with chorus as often as not) if you can hear it as missing when you turn it off then you about right. unless you are going for the big ole mud fest of course. Having said all of that, if you love how it sounds then do whatever floats your boat.

[quote name='Toasted' post='712332' date='Jan 14 2010, 10:40 AM']Does anyone else look at something like this and come over all a bit giddy and think "oooh, imagine all the stuff I could fit in that bad boy" [/quote] Got one of those bad boys in the cupboard under my stairs. Loads of luverly tools in it too. Shame I'm cack at DIY and hate it with a passion then really

[quote name='fretmeister' post='712323' date='Jan 14 2010, 10:33 AM']Aren't they about £400? Damn - that would be more than my head.[/quote] Well yeah, you can pay that for one, I got mine for about £150 S/H off evilbay. Nothing else at that price range comes close IMO.

Focusrite Compounder - best I've found and you can get them for reasonable money occasionally if you are prepared to wait

[quote name='RhysP' post='711320' date='Jan 13 2010, 02:18 PM']If Joe Zon would build me one (which is highly unlikely) I'd have a bass/12 string guitar twin neck Zon Legacy. Failing that: An 8 string Zon Legacy & a twin neck Shergold (bass/12 string guitar) like Mike Rutherford played with Genesis in the 70s.[/quote] Clearly he's up for attempting anything (given the right amount of palm crossing with silver), after all he met up with some weirdo called Manring or something and built him a 'hyperbass' whatever the hell that is...

There would be a fretless Roscoe 5 in there. Probably a Century Signature, but I would have to be careful with the spec to keep the weight right down... And another fretted one, but with a bit more bling than my Standard maybe.... An early 70's J bass too, cos I like that funky burp.

Nice! At £35 all guitarists should have one too! I really want one of the small mixer stands for my ae410, but at about £80 I cant quite justify it...

Still fascinated mate, keep them coming!

[quote name='Sarah5string' post='710274' date='Jan 12 2010, 05:12 PM']oooh that sounds like my girls room. Soooo painful!![/quote] Thats where 'ickle Johnny et al learn their first swear words I think You try not swearing as the unprotected arch of your foot comes down on the ultra sharp corner of a 4x2 lego block at 10 past midnight!

Severe lego and playmobil addictions in this household endanger the unclad sole at all times....

Terrible isnt it, everything I survey, it is bass (mwahahahahahaaaaa!) Plus toys for littl'un!