LukeFRC

I had a Helborg pre and loved it too - the whole rig is v. Attractive but double what I would get if I sold my current rig.... but so tempted...

I really enjoyed having the preamp, I had it feeding into an ashdown poweramp and ACME B2 and it was super clean. Downside was I bought the amp off a guy on here and didn’t check the specs, 20kg was fine, 60cm depth wasn’t. It got replaced by my Mesa Walkabout, small valvey, fits in the back of my car easy to lug about and sounds great.very different sound. am I tempted to try and sell and spend the extra it to get a helborg rig... yes.... actually- anyone near Leeds with one that I can come try????

Not helpful!!!!

It’s lots of fun, and making stuff is kinda how my brain relaxes and works - however it is also not a cheap way to get a bass!

Candy!

Q: your prototype had braces running vertically mid way across the side panels. (As well as curvy braces) were they felt to be not needed?

Greenboy’s Fearful cabs use the LF varieties of a Kappalite crossed over to a mid driver. They came out at a similar time and from similar design goals as the first generation barefaced cabs - the Barefaced “big one” and a fearful 15/6 being comparible using the 3015 LF and chasing the massive big bottom. Both the gen 3 barefaced and the Fearless stuff isn’t tuned for as much bottom and gets more performance out of their drivers because of this. So it depends what you are chasing rig wise. Kappalite HO in a BFM Simplexx, Kappalite LF in a Fearful and the basschat cab are the first three designs that spring to mind - but they are all designed with different goals in mind - so it depends what your goal is

Looks great - I recently picked up in a trade a Sadowsky metro and it’s simply amazing - yours is a lot prettier

It’s not designed to have much bottom....

Brace H is a circle?

Yes it is isn’t it?

I guess I’m influenced by having spent the last 3 evenings trying to get somewhere near unity gain on my B3n and work out how the bloomin compressors are coming on... edit: I actually agree with you that 15 year old me would probably enjoy the zoom multi effects more and create all sorts of crazy fun sounds. I guess maybe now I’m old and boring and played more that I think there’s a some things that are good to do to get a good bass sound that fits in the mix well... and that the pure power of digital interfaces often make it hard to learn some of that. I’ve seen the same with newbies on digital desks vs analogue - where before all the eq choices for the mix were visible in one (long) glance now there’s often a different screen for each channel... the ability to do something a bit odd in one place and then spend ages changing everything else to try and fix it without seeing the original thing is a bit odd (eg “my bass sounds right odd in my IEM” “sounds alright to me”... I have a look at my eq settings “er I’m at +6db from 20-70hz and then -18hz from 100- 300hz “ (PA been equalised to room already) )

The glockenklang two band was the most unsuitable one I tried. Wouldn’t hesitate using it in a fender style bass but the eq points were far too low and high on a streamer to be that usable IME. YMMV

or even one without the volume bit. I actually think I've got one sat in a drawer somewhere

1987 I think would be a MEC preamp? (Right @warwickhunt) black little box with white epoxy filling on one side? Beyond that the Warwick pres make up a reasonable bit of the Warwick tone, for better or worse- so be careful with what you replace it with, I tried a load of preamps in my 1991 streamer and generally a good preamp designed for a fender bass wouldn’t be so good on the streamer. For example the obp1 that’s been recommended above is a really great preamp - but ime the bass point at 40hz will be too low for the streamer and through a PA just add rumble and it’s the 80-100hz that’s better to boost. The good news is that if you are able to grab a quick recording of the bass you can put it through a multiband eq and play around to get a rough idea of what different EQs will sound like. I just used GarageBand! I ended up with an ACG preamp which I a different kettle of fish Whatever you’re after though, the best solution is probably made by John East...

I need a big cab right?

Bizarrely for a newbie I think this sort of thing would be better. For someone who knows the basics then I agree with you, but first bass and a ME60b gives a whole range of ways to mess your tone and gain staging up without knowing why or how

Mmmm you can tell none of us have heard it! Question is is it an analogue effect or digital DSP powered one? This could be a studio quality high end sound platform that becomes an industry standard ... or not

I was looking at that last night - know if it sounds any good? Firstly... so you've got a gig set up.... and a full board.... and the full board includes a HX stomp.... but you're not using the stomp in the gig set up yet... but when you do presumably theres a lot of pedals...! (I'm more tempted by the HX stomp than the fender preamp here ) secondly just realised I quoted you twice in one post!

I wonder if we will see the way we process signal change over time? If we need a preamp of some kind to feed either FRFR speaker, PA, IEM mix or even a more traditional bass rig it seems you’re either going to go for something analogue like this, or something DSP based like a Helix, or even the processing on a digital mixer. I find it interesting that as he’s expanded it Bergantino,s B|Amp is essentially a DSP processor in front of an amp. For my needs 90% of every gig I’ve ever played could have been done with a helix or similar feeding FOH and my amp/IEM as needed ... so it makes sense, for a lot of them amp, and cab emulation would be good. But one of the blockers for me is having to engage with some complex UI with far too many options and things going on.

it looks like they have added a few of the BAmp features to the Forte and upped the wattage. Looks good.

I’ve found the same default position too. Active/passive with the passive roll off is good as it gets into that passive fender type sound - and has the Sadowsky sound too. The will lee switch on mine gives a third flavour. i think the way warwickhunt said it to me when I picked the bass up is true, it’s capable of lots of different sounds, and it’s really hard to make it sound bad

How would you describe their sound?

To reiterate what @mcnach was saying - the stingray sound requires a mm pickup in the exact place that Leo put it. Put it there and it sounds like a stingray. If you compare with a Lakland or Sandberg who use the J/MM setup quite a lot their bridge pickup sounds like a fatter jazz sound rather than a stingray sound.