51m0n

Fill it with rw30 and call it a basstrap mate - simples!

Sucks to be you (not )

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]1. Hamster - Fender Hotrod P/J, Bareface Compact, Auralex Gramma Pad, SFX Thumpinator; either Markbass 800 Tube or Ampeg PF500 Portaflex[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]2. BigBeatNut - Rob Allen Deep 5, Status Electro, Lakland 55-02 Fretless, Markbass CMD121P, a selection of SFX micro pedals[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]3. Stingray5 - Musicman StingRay5 and Stingray fretless, Tune TWB-6, Trace Elliot BLX-80 combo, Boss GT-6B fx, Gramma Pad, (+ raffle bits & freebies).[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]4 OBBM - undecided on basses but Schroeder cab(s) and mini-rack Mk2 (+raffle bits)[/font][/color] [i]5. Charic (tentative) - ACG Finn 4 (Drop C tuning), Yamaha RBX6JM, Modded Fender MIM, TC RH450, 2 x TC RS210, Line6 DL4 (delay pedal), Behringer Chorus Pedal[/i] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]6. Happy Jack - Ampeg Baby Bass and (just for OBBM) at last I'll bring along a Hofner Verithin. If there's enough (any) interest, I could also bring along a Fishman Fusion pedal plus a rig to play through.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]7. Macdaddy - custom shuker or custom Iceni Zoot or Hamer Blitz + raffle bits [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]8. Billyapple - Gibson Thunderbird, Un-Finished Wishbass Lobe, Matamp GT200 Head, Matamp 212 Cab, DHA VT1 Eq[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]9. Walman - ([i]assuming it'll all fit in the smaller car I got last year as I was cutting down on gear [/i][/font][/color][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]) Wal Pro1/Custom hybrid, 2 x G&L L2500 US, Tanglewater ClassicJ, Roland PK5 bass pedals w DSI MoPho synth, GenzBenz Streamliner 6, BF Super12T - alternatively a poll on which to bring may be required[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]10. OliverBlackman- going to bring the Tokai as it seems in a recent thread not many have experienced the 80's Jazz sounds.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]11. Shockwave - Gibson RD and Gibson Grabber or Fender P-J Antigua. [/font][/color] [i][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]12. dc2009 (tentative) - Warwick Corvette $$ 5 Special Edition, Lakland Skyline 55-01. Sansamp, SYB-5, Q-tron+, BSY600. Anything more will need a lift![/font][/color][/i] [i]13. Eude (tentative) - ACG Finn SC Classic BO 5 string 33" Scale, ACG Finn SC Classic BO 6 String 33" Scale, Ibanez Promethean 5110C & EAD Foundation 112 3-way Prototype.[/i] [i]14.Bloodaxe (tentative) - Aria SB-1000 Frankenfretless, Ibanez Promethean 5110C [might add the SB-900 & Bloody ZZB Custom to this if anyone's driving from E or SE postcodes & I can blag a lift][/i] [i]15. 51m0n - the usual guff (Roscoe, Berg, MB blah blah, if in doubt check my sig) + a very tentative PluxTheDuck & related kit[/i]

Because the pages are not encoded in the same charset as the server says.... Something is going to have to give

You is just being dirrrrty now.....

Its a battle. But remaining calm even when tackling tricky pieces is a hiuge part of maintaining a good groove IMO. If you get tense in your jaw (I gurn like a moron when I get too far into it) you are likely to also be getting tense in your forea\rms and hands, and that definitely will affect how you play,m and therefore how you sound. The more tense you are the slower your maximum bpm at any given groove tends to be as well. Practise slowly, bring the tempo up a couple of bpm at a time from well below where you normally play a line, and really concentrate on remaining calm, and not plucking the strings too hard as well.

The Hartke LH500 is a very nice amp for the really rather small outlay, but Plux's is a tad on the harsh side (too brite) and they can be a tad noisey. It may be that swapping the tube out would calm that down a bit - anyone here tried swapping out an LH500 tube to mellow it out a little?

Nope, you need to head into the scary world of hardcore mastering amp solutions for the cleanest of amps:- [url="http://www.hexateq.com/studio700.html"]Hexateq Studio 700[/url] a 700w into 4Ohm monobloc amp. Look very spiffy driving a rather ace selection of monitors they do:- Nifty bit if engineering in that casework:-

Nice one! Distinct lack of logo in those doors though How much do they weigh then???

Hope you like it

Thats really nice, thanks!

Well here's a catch all topic for any chit chat about any of the blog posts I put up.... So far we have:- [url="http://blog.basschat.co.uk/an-introduction-to-the-introduction-to-recording/"]An Introduction To The Introduction To Recording[/url] [url="http://blog.basschat.co.uk/the-worlds-briefest-acoustics-primer/"]The Worlds Briefest Acoustics Primer[/url] [url="http://blog.basschat.co.uk/setting-up-a-compressor/"]Setting Up A Compressor[/url] [url="http://blog.basschat.co.uk/equalisation/"]Equalisation[/url]

Hope it works out for you, if the big amp thing is the only way to get your kicks then its the only way to go. I'm dead lucky, I've never liked an amp more than I like the sound of the sa450, but I wish the Berg ae410 was half the weight as it is, the closest cab tonally (for me) is a Barefaced S12t, but its not quite exactly what I want, and the Berg is, so I'll keep lugging it around (at least it isnt an HS410!) because its the only tone that always makes me grin. I dont really use pedals for grit, since its not a big part of my thing, but I'd love to know what your favourite warm overdrive through to just breaking up pedal was....

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1345459562' post='1777634'] Personally, I think a good player is a good player and a bad one is a bad one. Whether you are slapping or playing through a distortion, you can only fool some of the people some of the time. The whole punk movement was based on some pretty bad players but it didn't matter as the audience were not looking for instrumental virtuosity. But, in the cold light of day, raggy timing is raggy timing and most people will feel it even if they can't hear it. I think most mature adults on here will be able to acknowledge great players whose music they don't like but most of us can also recognise those youtube cowboys who think they can rip s*** out of something but can't. I don't hink slapping or distortion will hide anything. [/quote] +[size=4]1[/size]

[quote name='FlatEric' timestamp='1345362505' post='1776550'] Thanks for clearing that up. "If the gain is set, just before clipping and then you add the middle, or anything else, it will tip it over the edge but just adding middle, will not create distortion". is what I said. Seem like that is what has been said here. I shall put my point across again. Cheers. [/quote] My pleasure

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1345236350' post='1775510'] If you re-read my post, you will see that I clearly state the Marcus boosts the bass and treble to create the apparent illusion of a mid-scooped sound. He doesn't actually remove his mids, and you are also quite right that compression is an integral part of his sound ( although it has to be said that the biggest part of his sound is him). As you peceptively point out, many people fail to grasp this in trying to imitate him. As I stated in my first post , part of the problem is that people have different ideas of what distortion is. I am talking more about that fuzzy clipping sound your cabs make when it sounds like they are being seriously damaged and may explode if not given some kind of respite. I only have a grade 3 C.S.E in physics ( lack of revision) , but i think it It may be called square wave distortion. [/quote] Adding treble and bass is the same as removing mids. The ratio of bass frequencies and treble frequencies to middle frequencies is changed in effectively the same way. However, if you are on the limit of clean headroom and you add bass and treble, they will cause you to overload the preamp. If, instead, you cut the middle, you will create the same eq curve (or there abouts, depending on whether the eq section has equal Q for boosts as cuts, and the precise frequency center of all the controls blah blah blah), getting the timbre you want without distortion. For what its worth an old sound engineering adage has it that you should cut tight and hard, boost wide and gentle, if you are aiming to keep the general timbre of the source sound. Largely because the human ear is rubbish at hearing tight Q cuts even of over 10dB, but very good at hearing (and recognising this as an unnatural timbre) tight Q boosts as unnatural. But also because cutting reduces the chance of overloading the circuit, whilst also reducing noise in the frequency band you are cutting, whereas boosting can both add distortion (or oveloading) and add noise (because you are boosting a particular frequncy area). No, distortion is distortion is distortion, it is (whether intentional or not) in the purest sense (oh the irony) any change caused to the signal by any part of the signal chain. However in the context mentioned here it is very definitely the sound caused by overloading the preamp (and possibly the power amp, and in a tube poweramp even the output transformers) circuits to cause clipping of the output. Whereby the output waveform is severely impacted (changed), the peaks are cut short (because the circuit runs out of headroom), and the circuit generates extra harmonics as a by product (as well as effectively acting as a compressor). This state is [b][i]not [/i][/b]frequency dependant, it is [b][i]level [/i][/b]dependant. Which is why middle doesn't create distortion, whilst bass and treble remove it. That is nonsense.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1345230282' post='1775401'] Some guys/girls gig with seriously low wattage amps. There is no reason why you can't. [/quote] Yeah there is, you wont be able to hear yourself against a drummer, and your tone will be a pile of doodoo due to having no headroom for the bass end

Marcus Millers sound is not simply scooped. An awful lot of people try and get his sound by eqing like mad and cant be heard at all in a mix. He's also very very adept at setting up the compression he uses to sculpt the bass sound, particularly the transient and the relative level of the rest of the note that follows that transient. His sound is clean because the peak level is beneath the maximum headroom of the amp. It is absolutely nothing to do with the eq on it at all. Its about appropriate gainstaging of his equipment for how he plays. If he made it louder it would distort when he exceeded the headroom of the amp. There is absolutely nothing else to it. You should read up a bit on [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves"]Fletcher-Munson curves[/url] which describe the way the human ear is 'tuned' to certain frequency ranges at certain volumes through the evolutionary paths that have occured. We excel at hearing midrange information (a big part of why sucking the mids out of your bass tone is a killer for hearing the instrument in the mix), and suck at hearing deep bass and extreme high end. However that doesnt chnage the fact that the circuit is overloaded, and if you know what and how to listen for it you can pick it out. Midrange doesnt create distortion though. That is not the case. We hear better in the mid range (1Khz to 5KHz being the optimum area), but that is all.

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1345221542' post='1775234'] i understand where you are coming from , but the simple fact is that, regardless of the physics involved, in practise if you take an old Marshall, Ampeg B15 ect. and turn up the mids the sound will soon start to distort , particulaly at higher volumes, Much more apparently than if you turn up the bass or treble. You are right that players consciously exploited a midrangey sound for various , and distortion was an unavoidable and not neccesarrily unwanted consequence. As I pointed out in my post and as you quite rightly refer to, Jack Bruce still alludes to that tone but as I clearly state , modern amps and cabs deal with it in a different way If you are playing loud , all my personal experience is that pronounced midrange will work your speakers the hardest , and particulaly with a bass guitar, it is that distortion in the midrange which is most apparent and can have a tendancy to start sounding ugly. Similaly with guitar, turn up the mids on a Marshall or Mesa Boogie and very soon it's crunch- city. Turn up the bass and treble and it doesn't start audibly distorting in the same way,[b] in fact the sound seems to get cleaner if you turn both up at once[/b]. [/quote] Nope, going to have to flat out disagree with that IME. Drive too much bass into a system and it'll distort as quick as you like. Treble requires (sometimes) more effort. Yes it sounds different, its a different area of the frequency spectrum thats distorting, but its still distorting!

A cheap 115 will struggle to cope with 300w, in fact it will be 8Ohm so you will only get at best 150w out of said speaker with a 300w amp. Go for a 4 ohm 212 (or a good 4ohm 410, but cheap ones weigh a tonne) if possible!

The watts required to have headroom aplenty (ie to make nice sounding bass tones) depends on the cabs efficiency. WHich is partly why there are a lot of different numbers quoted in this thread! I would agree with Lozz and Fretmeister that to feel confident of a rig for playing out I woudl look to start with 300w at least. That would be solid state. Tubes behave very differently to solid state though (preamp and poweramp) giving noticeable compression effects as the input level increases. They then overdrive in a harmonically more pleasing way than solid state tends to. The upshot is that a valve head can have less watts output, and sound nice (though not clean) being driven harder to make the same apparent output volume. But for £150 you arent likely to get a great valve head with a lot of trouble free hours of use left in it imo. I'd think about saving for as long as you can, research well and buy second hand to get the most bang for the buck and best resale value.

No, that is all very well, but it doesnt change the facts, take any amp, or preamp, and push too much level in at a certain frequency range and it will overload the signal in that area of the frequency range. Jack Bruce has a notable mid hump in his eq (look at the vid of the Royal Albert Hall Cream concert and his hartke amps all have a marked frown shape eq on the graphic). If he had a noticeable bass bump instead he'd get just as much distortion, it just wouldnt be in the midrange. It doesnt matter if its old or new, the same thing applies. Midrange boost is no more likely to cause overdriving than a bass boost. The fact that a load of old vintage geezers used midrangey sounds pushed into overdrive is by the by. They used midrangey sounds for a load of reasons, getting enough volume without the power or speakers capable of generating very deep bass, or with tweeters for top end being a huge part of that. Even so mid range doesnt have a natural propensity to create distortion compared to bass.

Just get Reaper, its free to try out, andf cheap as hell for what it does. You can slow down whilst playing etc Audacity is free, but a toy in comparison.

Nonsense. Adding level anywhere in the frequency range, such that you overload the maximum clean input level of whatever preamp you are talking about will cause distortion. So what he means is adding more volume may cause breakup. Cutting any area will not ever add more distortion. Since you are removing level. However it may not specifically lessen distortion, if the distortion is produced from a large amount of level in another area of the frequency spectrum. So if you have a signal that is 60dB higher at 200Hz and 12Khz than it is at 1Khz, but it is still under the headroom of the input gain of the pre, then you will have a clean but ridiculously scooped sound. If you then bring the gain up on that sound you will clip at the top and bottom of the frequency range, but quite probably not really in the middle. If you cut the bass and treble you will eventually clean that signal up. Note you didnt cut the mids!