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You cant buy a pro quality classical instrument for less than £3000 Well maybe a triangle. Often they are more than double that without going all Stradivarius. Why on earth would anyone thing that a bass guitar would be a simpler thing to design and build really well? It has anywhere from 4 to 12 strings, a wider frequency range than any other hand held stringed instrument, the myriad options of no defined body/neck shape or contouring, no definite manner in which to afix the neck, no definite manner in which to tune it, no definite manner in which to turn the vibration into electrical signal, no definte woods that must be used, not even something as simple as scale length is defined. It can be solid, chambered, acoustic, semi-acoustic.... That is different from a huge number of classical instrumetns in which there are just a few variables (really some of them are very precise indeed at almost every level). There are several classical instrumetns with less strict specifications (db happens to be one). If you wish for it luthiers will make it, and still make it playable, we've all seen plenty of outlandish looking ideas that are supposed to sound and play great. That takes a huge amount of skill, experience and perceverence to get right, even for a 'normal' looking bass. That takes a lot of time. That costs money. Are 'boutique' instruments worth it? Only the owner can tell you. I suspect very stronlgy that most of the owners of truly boutique basses on here will say they are worth every penny. If you disagree, then that is your opinion, if you would get more pleasure spending the money on brown M&M's thats your opinion, it does not mean they are not worth it, it means they are not worth it to you. Thats very different! IME (and the Roscoe doesnt really fall into the Boutique category as defined here, although it is handbuilt to exacting standards, and plays beautifully and sounds astounding) I do think it is a bit of a boutique bass, maybe 'stealth boutique' since it doesnt have a fancy top. In fact anything over about £1000 is getting there, as long as its a [i]handmade[/i] instrument of a certain standard. To me that is what boutique really means. Machine made just is not boutique, even if its hand assembled. Alex's bass is certainly a boutique instrument, the price is not relevant. For me my Roscoe is definitely worth every penny. Now if only I could play it as well as it deserves to be played, it certainly makes me practise more!

[quote name='budget bassist' post='534572' date='Jul 7 2009, 12:06 PM']Hmm, with a crossover you do have to run two amps, depending on how you set it up. Cool idea though[/quote] Well every bass cab I've seen with a tweeter has a passive crossover with a single amp driving it, so thats not strictly true. Use of an active crossover (popular in old Laney and PV gear) before the power amp, and the use of multiple power amps seems to have more or less disappeared as cabs have become better at full range, and amps have got gruntier. I've run a Laney G300 and Crown DC300 lab amp in a true crossovered/stereo configuration before into 2x410s and 2x115s. Broke all the current rules by having two seperated stacks one each side of the drummer(s) etc etc, but it sounded totally enormous for everyone on stage and off, honest Trouble was the rig was bigger than most of the venues we played at Still it never failed to make an impression!

[quote name='Musicman20' post='534256' date='Jul 6 2009, 10:59 PM']Just how 'small' is the AE410? It is indeed cheaper than 2 x AE112s! I dont want the bulk...thats what I want to stay away from.[/quote] It is really tiny for a 410. It fits in my BMW 3 series boot. To put that in context, not only does no other 410 do that, but the HT115 and th HT210 dont either. The ae210s and ae112s also fit in said boot (actually havent tried the ae112 but I've seen and lifted them and the important dimensions sure look like they'll go in). It is remarkably shallow. Height and width are very tight to the minimum possible for a 410 (the cone size and wall thickness dictates this). It is a comfortable lift as a result of its relative compactness. You wouldnt want to take it to a gig on public transport by any means, but the usual negotiation of ramps/stairs stages isnt too much bother for me on my own. You can only just squeeze through an open door with it. Worst case scenario you would need to stick it on a trolley with your head and all else on top. As a two man lift its easy. One thing to note about barefaced, they are not compact as single cabs, they just dont weigh anything. They are compact compared to a stack (with which they compete for tone and volume), but they are a very full sized single cab. The actual dimensions from the Berg site:-

[quote name='budget bassist' post='534321' date='Jul 7 2009, 12:01 AM']hmm, can you dial in some nice tubey growly overdrive? And it looks like i may be looking for an ashdown ABM if they're that expensive then[/quote] No, its not a preamp designed to overdrive, there is one vol control, no gain control. Its a design employed by both Alembic and Fender in the past (for huge amounts of money). It doesnt overdrive with the tube it has. Changing the tube may well induce some overdrive at spleen shredding volumes, but I havent tried and dont know that for sure.....

[quote name='budget bassist' post='534166' date='Jul 6 2009, 09:25 PM']I have to ask, how does that head sound? Any good for metal? (i'm talking HEAVY metal here), thinking of an upgrade from my ashdown electric blue head[/quote] Very very very clean Very loud Quite bright - EQ takes some getting used to, very very musical and powerful as a basic tone shaping control Its not noise free by any means (audible hiss, but nothing to worry you in a gig situation) At the price paid it was amazing bang for the buck, the price has risen very sharply unfortunately....

If your requirements rule out Berg then Barefaced is definitely the way to go, Compact or Big One (for total room crushing volume you can carry a good distance on your own)

[quote name='spongebob' post='533938' date='Jul 6 2009, 05:10 PM']Following from my question about more power and the settings for my 121P 300w combo..... If I want to attatch a seperate speaker, which one do I need? I've never done this before, so once again please be stupidly honest! The Markbass site seems to be blocked for me, so any suggestions here would be great. Does it have to be a Markbass speaker? I need something lightweight if poss. On the other side, I've been offered a barely used Jeff Berlin Markbass combo half price on new. On paper, it looks like the same output as my current 121P. However, they do retail at quite a bit more. Is there some power difference? Would it be a better bet? Or is it just the same with a slightly different tone? Any suggestions on this please! [/quote] It need no tbe Markbass it definitely MUST be 8 ohms in impedance though (less will cause the amp to let out the magic smoke). You need a proper speaker cable - NOT an instrument cable, use of which [i]may[/i] rapidly result in the letting out of the magic smoke Lightweight solutions to this abound, but its a tricky thing to mix and match without trying, since two differing speakers can not play nicely together at all in certain circumstances. Popular advice is to play safe and get the closest matching speaker to your combo. Only run one tweeter though, two would be mahoosive overkill (so turn down one of them as much as poss). The JB MB box will have a different tone (IIRC doesnt have a tweeter for instance), and JB's sig somewhere I would imagine....

[quote name='neptunehealer' post='533655' date='Jul 6 2009, 12:05 PM']Yes i am, it doesn't work though unless i do this.[/quote] Something is broken then Could be a lead, a connector or who knows, but that is not normal!

[list=1] [*] Your ears are the only reference [*]Start flat at gig volume - get your gain stage set right too! Your amp/cab will sound different with the same eq at different volumes, you are only concerned with gigging volumes here. You may be very surprised at how good you rig sounds flat with the whole band playing at a gigging volume [*]Mids are your friend - playing flat at gig volumes with the whole band will allow you to hear what you've been missing up until now [*]Cut what you dont want/need before you boost what you do want - various reasons, boosting adds noise, and can overload inputs of the next stage (usually poweramp) - sometimes only a boost will give the desired effect though [*]Cut where you want other instruments to sit (ie the 140Hz area if cut can allow sccoped guitars to have a lot of bottom) - this is called frequency mixing, if everyone in the band understood it live sound would be a doddle!! [*]EVERY room is different EVERY time you play it, different number of bodies, different ambient temp, but the room structure is usually the same, try and get close as poss to the back wall, or at least 10 ft away (IIRC) or you will get phase cancellation in important frequencies [*]Every bass is different, often almost every time you play it (unless the strings are a squazillion years old round wounds) so you may find the treble end changes quite often too [*]Understand that loud deep bass requires massive power and or big cabs, so unless you have the rig to do it, dont go there, something will be working too hard, and give up the ghost sooner [/list]

My LH thumb polished my Roscoe's neck from a silky smooth super fast satin finish to a grippy shine in hours. The only advice I've heard is to either put talc on your thumb (and then the bass ) or remove the neck and have at it (gently) with some wire wool. I can attest to the wre wool (used to do this to the Vester, it definitely works, I just havent had the courage to do that to my Roscoe yet

[quote name='Rimskidog' post='532102' date='Jul 3 2009, 10:29 PM']Heheh... but no. "idiot who forgot his camera' would be a better description![/quote] Mouth, say goodbye to coffee; coffee, meet my keyboard, keyboard, say hello to coffee...

[quote name='Sibob' post='531481' date='Jul 3 2009, 10:53 AM']Mine are all absolutely sober! . The second one you can't see my bass, but it is at a show, but I'm fine if it doesn't count and you just want to marvel at it! lol. The last one was us warming up backstage at a show, the arrangement of my hair around my face was purely down to head-banging and the camera shutter going off at the right time.......classic . Wish I could actually grow a beard like that! I hope that I win because I never win anything except when I won £9 on a Cloud 9 scratchcard that I got for my birthday this year but that isn't as good as a bass cab from Alex......fanx Si[/quote] I'm guessing thats not jazz you're playing there Si

[quote name='The Funk' post='531738' date='Jul 3 2009, 02:45 PM']Absolutely. I had a listen to their myspace - and they were fine - but very, very standard. You could put something together much better than that. Their drummer sounded great on record as did the brass. The rest of it was a bit average/dull. If the drummer can't keep time, then you don't need it at all. Put your own band together. It's time![/quote] To give them their due they are all about that whole vintage vibe thing. The drummer had real issues bringing the funk live, the bassist was a session player on those tracks (and I think he was struggling to 'fit' in the pocket in places with the drummer). He could keep time, but not get the right time first time (which is as bad). Only way I know to get a drummer through this is to have them learn the chorus vox, and sing it back before every run through. My Tip For The Day Well I'm going to talk to these here funky rocky dudes, and if they dont play out I may well start looking for the right drummer,guitaist & vox as a core to a new band (brass though nice is a PIA to get together IME). Been ridiculously busy last week, and havent got round to it yet....

Thats going to look SO good on stage Hurry up and spill the beans about how it sounded against the 6 stinged wall of buzzin

Tease!

Cant comment on flats, but roundwounds record best for me if they are just played in, no more than 30 mins of warm up. You can always take the treble out, it still leaves all the juicy extra harmonic content in lower down - sounds the dogs. I hate bass sounds that go (muffled) ' donk ' though.....

If no one minds I may well collate this all in a single word doc, and maybe when a topic is complete I'll post it up as a downloadable 'chapter'??? Or it could go in the wiki???

Holy cow, thats a masterful lesson. Thanks for the effort! This will be really nice to work through over the next couple of weeks. Cheers!!

[quote name='Linus27' post='530643' date='Jul 2 2009, 02:01 PM']OK, talking from a non-expert background. I have always found that a 1x15 was always a lot bassier and boomier, especially when comparing like for like. For example, a Trace 1x15 combo always sounded bassier than the 4x10 combo. Even my two Ashdown MAG cabs I had sounded different with my MAG head. The 1x15 was much fuller and bassier than the 2x10 was cleaner, smoother with less bottom end. This was where I actually found the Ashdown 1x15 sounding wooly. So basing on my experience on different cabs, a 1x15 had always sounded too bass heavy for me and why I always chose the 4x10 option. Now, your cabs may be different but I just wanted to explain why I commented on a 4x10 sound.[/quote] Thats a really common misconception, but if I told you the newly aquired Berg HT115 didnt go as deep as the Berg HT210 it works with, or have as much growl would that surprise you? The 115 has a lovely warm tone, masses of low mid punch, very smooth. Gorgeous sound, not at all slow. Its been widely stated as the ultimate 115 by such bass gear luminaries as Tom Bowlus (a man with probably the largest bass gear fetish on the planet). Well as the 210 is a bigger volume box which accounts for the added lows, it also has tens which tend to provide more upper mid range. They both have the same tweeter in. So the really important difference is the box volume, for depth at least. The smaller volume of the HT115 means less depth. The upshot of all this is the 210 sounds more hifi than the 115, both together is magical though! Most 410 boxes are pretty big, so they go pretty deep, (assuming all else equal).

You lot are so going to enjoy this

Uncoloured is a pretty tricky and subjective thing (Ashdown are really coloured IMO for instance) I'd +1 Alex' Compact mate, really think it'ss give you what you need, but if it doesnt the Big One will Or my usual response Berg AE410, I have a bad back, but I dont really struggle with this at all, its tiny as 410s go. Or the Berg ae12 stack Or if you are rolling in wonger the IP112 (lifted one last weekend, they are very light!) plus 112er

Just to prove I now live at Chez Berg, and cos I havent for a while (certainly not since the new bits went in the rack) here is some more:- And:- Keeps me very happy!

[quote name='birdy' post='529391' date='Jul 1 2009, 10:05 AM']Thats neat that the cabs match in terms of look and size!! I can imagine how good it sounds! Steve[/quote] Yeah, looks the business doesn't it!! He's totally made up. Got to get in touch with OBBM about some serious jack to speakon speaker cables next....