LukeFRC

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1372373121' post='2125142'] Just got in, its nice. Can be trickier than a 3 eq to settle in the band mix but once you do its got the proper sound a Stingray should have, really nasty or super funky. As soon as you play anything like chic on a 2 eq Ray they come alive, maybe its the sonic room given to the overall mix because the guitars are not grinding away? This bass in particular has less poke than a pre eb ray and generally more trebly overall, the action was very low before though so I might raise the pickup a bit yet and see how that sounds, playability is great and the neck is very well finished with vintage frets and a laquered fingerboard like a proper 70's bass. I was thinking that although they are expensive new for what they are (£2200?) Because of the fact they never made a pre eb 5 string there has been loads of work and machine tooling to create this range, Body-obviously never been a 5 string slab as far as I know so new cnc tooling. Neck-same profile as a Ray 5 but only 21 frets like an SR4 not 22 as a regular Ray 5 so new tooling there. Frets-vintage frets and no getting away with a quick gunstock oiling. Bridge-totally new tooling to create a 5 string pre eb bridge even for the spring plate as they are all connected behind the bridge. Pickup-cover is neither like the new or the old SR5 as far as I can tell? Scratchplate-bespoke to the classic5. Top grade wood for the neck (birdseye or flame) with extra finishing for the classic range and the body is one big slab with a nice grain which is getting more difficult to do, overall that's quite a bit of effort for a fairly niche model compared to the quantity of regular SR4 and 5 basses they must sell. It certainly is a pretty bass in the flesh and right on the verge of flashy for a Ray imo, makes me think of something someone might have made as a custom order by shuker or someone as a sort of super stingray 5. [/quote] A friend of mine got one (they moved to Hong Kong and were saying how cheap they were there! And thought it was great. Prefer it to the SR5?

pickup loading is also important. Ignore the cap for now. Imagine the pickup is a reseviour, each pot is a pipe out of the dam into the river below. If the pipe is wider more water can flow through, smaller less water. The cap IMO isn't going to make as much effect as the resistance of the pots. Mind you, your cable and the input stage of your amp are also active components in the tone of a passive bass.....

[quote name='iconic' timestamp='1372493977' post='2126334'] that site could explain why when I changed the cap' on a P bass this week that runs 500k pots from .047uf to .1uf (big step change in percentage terms) it didn't really change the sound too much, next week the p will be getting the 250k pots as well. edit....reading that again it seems the cap' make more of an impact?...confused I am? [/quote] depends where you have the tone control, the cap will affect where and how the tone will roll off - but with it open it will have no effect. The resistance of the pots however have a massive effect on the loading of the pickups and therefore the tone. Pickup loading is more important that people seem to realise, even active basses- how the signal is treated before the pickup makes a difference - I like the cleverness of the stingray preamp where the pickup feeds at full volume into the preamp and the volume is after the preamp.

ACG EQ01. Though.... a serious consideration.... It costs a lot. Ask ACG to make a (lower end) bass for you with it in it... and it's not much more.... I bought one for my warwick. It's alternatively great or a pain in the arse depending on the day and how I'm getting on with it. (lots of knobs, quite complex to learn, I'm getting there).

Oh... and incase anyone is interested, the tweeter control on my cab seems to affects the crossover point between speaker and tweeter - changing that cleaned up the tone of my cab no end.

[quote name='hamfist' timestamp='1372485824' post='2126261'] Me too. [/quote] I get the urge to either... go get a great PA type amp thing and preamp. or an ampeg SVT or something full of valves, and go the other way!

[quote name='peteb' timestamp='1372407563' post='2125285'] I may actually get a sunburst P bass at some poin if I can find a reasonably light one at the right price! ! Of course, it will have a Bartolini, new bridge and an active circuit within a month! Not my ideal bass, but if it helps me get better gigs... [/quote] cool... but why the need to mod? (honest question, I've had my main bass and modded quite a few things on it, but why buy a bass knowing you're going to mod it? why not just buy a different bass?

well. This has been an interesting thread for me Kinda making me rethink how I amp my bass up!

if you know how to set up a graphics file correctly Print24.co.uk are hard to beat on price. Good german company I've used them loads

the thing I find odd about this thread.... (apart from I'm sure we did this one a week or two ago) Fender got it right first time... well yeah, I can understand that point of view - a good P or J will be a good bass and have a recognisable tone. But the OP is talking about his 5 string active Fender with a fancy pickup.... which isn't, well it's a variation and copy of a set of ideas made by Leo that just happen to have his brand on them..... but anyway - you get good basses of all makes and bad ones. I've found a lot of bad fenders and a few knockout fenders, I'm glad the OP has a good one. I was more interested in the comments the OP regarding how we quickly get into the realms of "this being better than this" and wood tops, fancy pickups and preamps - and what this does for our view of our instrument.

there are a few on the sale forum on here that I think could be better bargains....

I'm going to show this thread to the wife if I ever get a 4th bass

[quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1372104310' post='2121737'] Well it is -3dB at 80Hz, -10dB at 60 Hz, that's the big compromise. Try selling that to bass players as high-end! What it illustrates very nicely is how little genuine low bass you need to get the perception of a full tone on stage. It also demonstrates what you can achieve with active filtering and limiting, as a conventional reflex cab like that would be farting out like crazy at high volume thanks to the unloading below tuning causing the woofer to flap around. The high degree of integration possible in this type of design means they can wring out the absolute maximum in terms of performance from the components. To an extent perhaps you could get it flatter but sadly I doubt you can match the clarity in the mid/treble region - having looked inside a Tecamp combo I owned briefly I can say fairly confidently the components just aren't as good as the HK stuff, you will have more inherent distortion. [/quote] thanks for the reply btw. I forgot to say, but it was so comprehensive that I had no reply! I think... it is eye opening. I played through it again on monday, and again it sounded great - What would be the closest bass specific thing to it? I'm guessing it's all about clever designed cabs and then using the electronics to get the most - the similarity is the way the TC electronic RH450 manages to put out a lot of sound while using not much wattage - the difference being that amp is very very coloured tonally

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1372352961' post='2124767'] I'm off to practice with it shortly, if its 75% as good as my pre eb but with a B string hopefully it won't be going anywhere [/quote] oooh the suspense.....

ebay, gumtree, preloved.... etc.... why not just use basschat?

I enjoyed listening.

[quote name='Stephen Houghton' timestamp='1372286045' post='2123972'] 'Don't let the hate and greed blind us, rebel practice random acts of kindness' Translation for you there Luke your from Leeds and cant get the Wigan accent, thought you would be used to it from when we come to your town and whack you at rugby on a regular basis [/quote] If you talked in broad scots I'ld understand you! I've only just moved to this part of the world! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBrzEVJwYFg

Luke's Reviews... (as I listen) faced a dialema... is anything slightly critical allowed? hmm lets just start listening! Space chick - awesome spoken word stuff going on. Love the singing too. Reminds me of the end of Shorely Wall by Ooberman (one of my fave songs) Steve - more ambient stuff here - some awesome playing going on, hard to believe it's all on a bass. Lovely parts but only seems to grab me after the 3 min mark. Mornats- movie clips added to a beat and synths, think primal scream around vanishing point or xtrmtr, death in vegas. bass lovely from about 1.06. great stuff. Sibob- oooh synthy stuff. no, pedals... that's impressive. great feel and tension. i thought this would be wibble but it's actually great. really great. Most of the others I got to reading the comments after a min or so, this has kept me listening till 4 min in before I noticed how long the song is. Mind you soundcloud seems to want to get me to listen to lana del rey, and while she is better looking i'll stick with this. british sea power's man of aran meets four tet but better. Stephen H- keys... and glock.... odd vocal pan sweep at about 1.05, I'm hearing "Do let the hater greet blindnees Big L practiced random acts of kindness" it it a song about Big L ? I like the audio clips. Bilbo- it's loading, expecting atonal jazz rubbish, lets see....oh sound cloud links Bilbo to Linkin Park for me. Oooh a snare and a melody. hmmm.... well it's not atonal jazz rubbish - but a rather nicely crafted set of melodies weaving in and out of each other. annoying snare though, it sounds too perfect timing wise for the rest of the music- I kind wanted to think of it being recorded up a chimney by a really wild fella but it was a bit clinical for me. Appart from that pretty awesome! Camden Rob- bass in the rain... oooh a live video. lovely tone - I am sat here wondering what gear you're using. Lovely melodies going on, and the bass sounds great. Very very nice playing. Awesome Lurksalot- iv'e been doing this a while and the wife said i could have a beer so the reviews may go downhill.... flip me a lot of low on that kick drum, ooh the blues, love the guitar at about 0.57 onwards. Great great singing - like a real singer rather than a bass player trying to sing! ( ) discreet..... is very loud at the start! ouch thanks for wrecking my ears - i've headphones on that can do bass quite well....that was painful- takes intill 2.06 to get going. Keep expecting some one to shout out King of snake-snake snake.... I liked it once the beat kicked in. lowdown.... actually tries to capture a south american mountain range feel in a song, plus points. eerie vocals... feels like there's a gap in the mix waiting for a bass.... nice strings coming in at end - very good and the best match of the pic so far imo. oddly it started playing mornats "running" after bob bass 4k... sounds like a whole band! very mogwai which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending, I love mogwai - we'll see how it goes. Very very nicely programmed drums here. The whole thing sounds very compressed though- it's kinda killing whats going on... overall I like what's trying to go on, but the whole thing sounds so compressed it' lost something. Skol/urb - so rap. with some awesome drums and.... well you know that really awful bass playing you see on youtube with that awful "jazz bass sound" of nice sounding bass that doesn't do anything.... this isn't it... this is that sound working to make a song... like exceptional - listen to it on your headphones if you're not or you'll miss how tight that bass is with the rest of the song. Rapping is great too. Really this was made for this month? bit of mastering and I wouldn't be able to tell this wasn't some released song I had missed! Love the funk feel in the last wee bit too. so there you have it..... some great entries... for me.... some of the highlights.... Spacechick's vocals, everything about Sibob, Bilbo's sheer musicianship in that. Camden rob for the confidence to do it all live.... for me a clear winner is Skol's thanks all for a lovely evening listening!

[quote name='RichF' timestamp='1372270592' post='2123708'] I have a tecamp 500 into a BF compact and midget t. It's a fantastic focused sound but a bit warmer than the newer Tecamps I have tried. Still it's a more "modern" sound, like Markbass. I actually found it closest to Genz Benz but the permutations given cabs etc mean it's difficult to pin down. [/quote] which possibly tells you that it, like a lot of the other makes, are going for a clean modern sound... and that what cab you buy is as important as the amp

The colouration will be partially determined by the cab you choose. There are basically two "types" of Puma you'll find - the older ones (500 and 1000) have a "powersoft" transformer and the newer ones something different. The newer ones can go down to a lower speaker impedance, from what I've read Musicman20's description is dead on, similar to Markbass F500. The older powersoft era Pumas, what I have, are somewhat different having a big smooth bottom end and being somewhat fatter sounding. Talkbass and the post of a fella called kjung are what you need to read though! While I also don't like the "Markbass tone" I like my puma, but your gear list is interesting... lots of 15", but the one you liked was a 4x10.... maybe look at 2x10 cabs? and.... why Tecamp? they are great but if the best thing you've played is a SVT... why go towards Tecamp? (thats not a rhetorical question btw, genuinely interested)

sounds to me like a daft idea - it's not going to take much to go wrong or BOE base rates to go up (as they're going to), or your circumstances to change, job lays you off, you get pregnant, you get ill, etc etc and you'll regret it. You're talking 3.5 years to pay this bass back? If you want something save and earn it. Save up - it may take you 2 years or more, sell something you've got first (the market might not pick up for a long time!) it may not be as fun to begin with but when you get the bass at least you can say it actually yours and an actual reward for your hard work. mind you having said all that I am wondering what 2.5k bass you're after!

[quote name='AKAK' timestamp='1372176103' post='2122504'] Have you seen that new Virtue Camp they have with the 12" and 10" which you can select between using the side switches? WOW that seems like the best cab design ever(design not sound being the word as I have not heard it in person and youtube videos with super bassist demoing equipment is not a clear indication of what 'tone' another bassist would get out of it.) Molan: i sense a business opportunity for someone who has a music store as obviously there is interest in their gear. [/quote] the switching between 10's and 12's seems a bit gimmicky to me personally but I like the idea of different tweeters

[quote name='krispn' timestamp='1372177721' post='2122538'] Luke I was gonna buy that cab but you beat me to it [/quote] You should have seen me, walking from guitar guitar to st enoch's low level with my lightweight cab and the pleasure pump they gave me! One of them was lightweight, the other was big and bulky

[quote name='krispn' timestamp='1372124716' post='2121982'] A few yrs back Guitar Guitar had a huge blowout on Tecamp most of which I think ended up in the hands of forum users. It's nice gear and I wouldn't have minded a go on the bad bull heads. Ironically at the time of the blow out I had a power amp in for repair which I bought from guitar guitar and they eventually gave me a refund days after the heads and combo's had pretty much sold out [/quote] ... and guitar guitar forgot to put one cab on... and it sat lonely, with a pleasure pump, in their glasgow store till I found it and as I was buying the cab they gave me the pleasure pump for free!

Woooahhh - they have an new cab range.... ceramic not neo speakers!