51m0n

[quote name='benthos' timestamp='1348219085' post='1810919'] ... I'm not sure of the efficacy of running a compressor in the loop as you'd get both compressed and uncompressed signals to the amp, which to my mind defeats the object of what a compressor is trying to achieve, but finer minds that me may be able to shed more light/correct my line of thinking ... [/quote] Well what you have described there in fact is parallel compression, whereby the signal is split, one side is compressed and then the signals are mixed together again. This is a technique used a huge amount in recording, for all sorts of things. On an entire stereo buss, on a subgroup (like the drums for instance), on individual drums, or the bass. Adding eq to the sidechain input to accentuate certain areas, or filter out stuff that you dont want to affect the parallel compression is done too: depending on what you compress like this, and the type of filtering done, you can get overall effects known as Motown Compression (on vocals) or New York compression (on the entire mix) - they are completely different results based upon the same idea. The reason to do it is you can compress the compressed side really hard, slamming the nuts off it if you so desire, and mix it back in a little with the uncompressed signal (or quite alot), the result retains alot of the natural feel of the original uncompressed signal, but adds a lot of the good stuff compression brings (fattening up, musical pumping, whatever depending on the settings you use). Its a very very valid technique, which does need a bit more control than a straight 50/50 split to get the best effect from, which can be done still with judicious use of the makeup gain on the compression side on the MB amps.

Bergantino would be very very very cool........

Agreed. I understand the reasons, the theory, heck I even spout on about acoustics being ruined by poor early reflection control, and comb filtering being a very bad thing etc etc. Yet I still love the sound of my ae410, off and on axis. On a gig its totally sublime.... I can only hang my head in shame

Spent a fair amount of time on the search for a rig/cab that would leave me forever GAS-less. Looked into Schroeder, Aquilar (older 112, CS??), Eden, Epifani etc Having tried a few of these and various bits and bobs I ended up with the Berg AE410. Caveat, I like a hugely punchy sound on stage, I dotn need massive low end (although the cab will certainly produce it) and I play a 5 string and want no limitation from the cab when handling that low B. Oh and it needed to fit in the boot of my car, which was a hugely limiting factor. The ae410 is (for me, and my tastes) the very best sounding cab I have ever heard or played. A pair of ae210s stacked is very very similar, and I nearly went for that option, but they dont fit in the boot so well. Nothing else I have heard since has sounded better to my ears. Lately I've been enjoying the tone from older strings, for the first time in twenty years of playing. And the ae410 driven by the MB sa450 ([i]still[/i] my favourite head that they've produced, with the possible exception of the heavier silver faced version from yonks ago) just makes the Roscoe with older strings sound glorious in a rehearsal space (not gigged it like this yet, but I will). I've spent a lot of time directly A/Bing the old BF BigOne and S12 against my rig, and the BigOne is a fantastic smooth super deep (if you want it) fingerstyle funk cab, it would be perfect for something like modern R&B or extended range basses, or pretty much anything, but you need a lot of horsepower to really drive it, and very careful choice of preamp too IMO. The S12 is the best compromise I've heard from BF (all these cabs, from BF and everyone else is a compromise), again for my tastes, its seriously close to the ae410, in terms of output and tone. I think it could probably go louder than the ae410, but I still prefer the ae410 tone. As for all that MB cone pistoning, I am willing to bet that the crossover has no sub filter on it, which is what is causing the issue, and the porting may be a bit out of step too. There is no way they really ought to behave like that, its not a good thing, adds nothing to the tone, just wear to the cone. In contrast the Berg cabs dont piston, I mean it! They just dont behave like that, its almost as if there is a really well designed bespoke croissiver in there with a filter to remove all the stupidly useless low frequencies (rather like the SFX Thumpinator)....

Yeah bring the TC along, that would be a really good demo pedal I think....

Love the Beach Boys stuff. Nothing else sounds like it, totally creative, brilliant orchestration, and compostion.... Thanks for putting these up!

Oh right-ho, get it now, makes alot of sense, so you are using those to support the ceiling right across the top of all the studio rooms (they all already have their own high mass ceilings anyway, but for the sake of looking remotely professional you need to hide the 'old' space above without reintroducing anything for sound to be transmitted through thus ruining your hard won isolation. Well that makes perfect sense

Dunno, you hiding all the AC gubbins up there? (see that, thats me grasping at straws that is)

[quote name='barneyg42' timestamp='1348396173' post='1813019'] Maybe this year he could compare and recommend one knob compressors! But seriously, this was the highlight of the lectures a few years ago and I personally would love to hear it all over again! [/quote] Over my cold dead body

How about a very quick "How t set up a/your compressor" type of thing. Should take 10 or 15 minutes tops - best if a few people with compressor pedals are there to be guinea pigs I've done quite a bit of prep for the "How to mic up an ensemble in a room" thing, a fair bit on mics and stereo micing techniques to cover in that you see.

They are hard to find! GAK usually have soem MB pedals in, but phone to check since they used to have trouble keeping the Compressore in stock. I've never seen the FloorQ, however it is the same compressor circuit (exactly) as in the TwinQ and SixQ which I've used an awful lot in the studio on bass. In fact [url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/sets/slow-motion-sickness-e-p-1/s-u42Wa"]this lot[/url] is a MusicMan Stingray through a Joe Meek TwinQ for eq and compression (not me playing, its Plux) and a touch of transformer saturation. Its a great opto compressor IMO which adds lovely fat squidgy compression to bass tracks. Hope that helps

Your welcome to plug my rack compressor in at some point if you like, just bring a coupl eo fextra leads with you ....

There's gonna be a lynching boyyyyyy.....

Well I would say I interpreted waht he said as to fill your head to bursting with the thing you are about to play, so its all you have in there, rather than just starting to play it without having 'visualised' it with no internal distractions at all first. I find this kind of approach really helpful, and I've done pretty much this sort of exercise when getting to know tricky bits in the past a lot. It has helped me to sing (however badly ) a line, or imagine playing it, or just to listen to the sound I want to hear myself make but in my head. I've never heard of anyone doing any real research into how this sort of thing can change musical playing, and I certainly have never claimed it was something really clever I was doing, it just made sense to me to take my hands out of the equation sometimes, and make sure I know what it is I'm attempting before I do.

[quote name='urb' timestamp='1348235150' post='1811222'] Not really... [/quote] Well if you cant we're all a bit stuffed then!

Any number of drum riser type/size devices to minimise sound transfer are available - cheapest option, two pieces of ply, some 1/2" baton and a load of tennis balls

Not so sure about thT Jack, take another look at the frequency plot up above, an awful lot of energy between 125Hz and 1Khz, which that foam wont really touch. Yes it wont be so bright, yes the 16KHz will be dealt with but there will still be all the mid and lo frequency hum and air noise, the fan whirr will be lessened slightly. The gobos I described are 4" thick plus the mdf and existing structure (maybe 6" thick in total), and even then they will only deal with the direct path from the source, but they will at least deal with that....

Yup they make kit thats good for sure, no doubt about it - its a shame about the wattage thing, rock and hard place, some people can definitely feel what its doing, some people can't (or it doesnt bother them). Some of their pedals and studio kit is superb.

If its a one knob compressor on an amp (or pretty much anywhere else) avoid it, because so many choices about how you play must have been hardwired (literally) into the design of the thing. Attack time, Release time, threshold or ratio, and make up gain must all be automated (the knob either controls the ratio with a fixed threshold, or the threshold with a fixed ratio, or in some predetermined way manipulates both at the same time - predetermined meaning unsuitable in all cases IME). The chances are very slight that any such compressor will really work well for you. And you are right to think you may be over compressing, how could you tell though, since there is no metering on the useless thing. They are the devils spawn of hell in terms of compressors - especially nastily done ones stuck into amps to make you fiddle about with an inadequate and space/money/time wasting extra knob on your amp. Leave it off if it is in any way less than 100% convincing to you. My advice, don't bother with it, its almost certainly cr4p....

That celotex insulation wont offer any meaningful isolation below about 1KHz Its lightweight, so it doesnt prevent lower frequencies from passing through it.

[quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1348169567' post='1810428'] The LM II is shipped with a parallel effects loop, so if you run the compressor in the loop you get a blend of compressed and uncompressed signal, which I'd expect to be less 'effective' . Unless of course you've re-jumpered your amp so that the loop is in series. [/quote] Good point - the reason according to MB is that if you have an fx unit fail then at least something is getting through (not a good reason IMO, but what can you do). My sa450 took about 10 minutes to switch the jumpers on, so its not a tricky operation at all.

I'm completely puerile....

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1348145281' post='1809957'] Am I the only person who zones out then? [/quote] No, I do it all the time whenever I'm jamming - I record everything, always, because otherwise I have no idea what I played a lot of the time, and more often than not I find that on listening back a large part of what I'm producing is really nice stuff that, were I to sit down and try and just come up with something, I wouldn't think of in a million years. There comes a point when I'm improvising, usually about 5 minutes in, where I can hear myself (on the recording) just letting go of the imposed 'come up with something to play right now!', where i am effectively trying too hard, and instead I stop thinking and instead I start to play off everything else (drums, guitar, air-con, whatever). About 5 or minutes after that good stuff starts to happen. Unfortunately thats the point where I can no longer remember what I just did - and I never stop gurning like a baboon when I'm playing either (whats that about???)

[quote name='thumperbob 2002' timestamp='1348141257' post='1809848'] I have an LM2 and also a Hartke lh1000. I think both amps can be pretty clean (uncoloured ) but using the EQ etc can also be particularly coloured too. Its ok talking about these points in a studio environment ( Hartke too noisy for that )- but for Live use, once you add a cab and god forbid people in a strange sized room ( Venue ) - forget about uncoloured tone - sometimes its jsut a battle to get a good sound and to be heard above the band. [/quote] The stranger (ie more complex) the room shape, and the more people filling it, the better chance you ahve of a half decent sound. Acoustics are very counter intuitive, all that meat in the space acts as a really good bass trap and a hell of a good broadband absorber, all the odd angles help to diffuse reflected sound, preventing nasty standing wave and large peaks and nulls. Of course some venues still manage to make it all sound horrid, and never bother to look into fixing it, but the one truth is the more bodies the better the sound will be!

I can play pretty much whatever I am likely to imagine as a bassline, but that may be because my imagination is so defined by what I have played and worked out before for the last 20 odd years....