gafbass02

[IMG]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d115/gafbass02/0931e75c.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d115/gafbass02/a99a621a.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d115/gafbass02/577c52fc.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d115/gafbass02/c85ced33.jpg[/IMG]

With the arrival of the new baby and the accompanying chaos it's taken me a while to get round to mentioning this, but I recently sold my shuttle 9.0 to basschatter, my bass player and best mate Davemuadib. I went back to markbass, I found with the genz I loved the full range hi-fi thing, infact it mafe a great hi-fi with my bergs! But i missed having control over low and high miss seperately, something that many bass amps seem to ignore, Infact it took the otherwise very sexy tone hammer out my choices. I like to boost the low mid and have the facility to cut or boost the hi mids independently from room to room. I've been through a number of rigs lately, after the trace mega stack I ran a markbass stack of various cab combinations for years, I was an early adopter. I was very happy with it, especially with a big and small pair of 2x10's but a few large stages made me realise the throw wasnt great, and bottom dropped off very quickly! That and the huge cone excursion never stopped freaking me out, despite being perfectly normal! That and suddenly i went lightweight CRAZY! Everything had to weigh nothing! Then I ran a Barefaced compact/midget stack for a summer festival season with a markbass LM2. The weight was amazing for those long festival schleps, but I just couldn't find my tone with those cabs, and never seemed to find all that power that people rave about maybe, either indoors or out. Alex was very helpful and they were great tools for a job, but I couldn't live with the tone or looks, amazing company no doubt at all, but a compact and two midgets later perhaps not for me. I just think its 12's and 15's they always sound like 12's and 15's to me, despite the theory saying they don't. To me they do, and 12's to me sound honky and plunky rather than punchy and focused. Same with 15's. To me they sound woofy and 'retro'. Too many little 'foibles' for me, too slippy for the amp, or the handle was too high, so I used foam feet which reacted, with the finish, the handles wouldn't let me use my bass keepers, people took the p1ss about my homemade speakers etc. (But I do keep looking thoughtfully at the S12t and they do look tidyer now too) So... I tried a shuttle with the barefaced. MUCH MUCH better. 100 percent better, and part if my lightweight quest, power per pound thus rig was NUTS! ...But still not 'my' sound. A good sound, def not bashing Barefaced here, a good sound for many people, but like opinions everyones 'tone goals' are different, and this rig just wasn't playing for me. So much to my backs chagrin it went. Then fortuned intervened and I was able to pick up a pair of Bergantino AE210's. Night and day. These truly felt like the boutique quality I'd sought, with the BF I always looked at them and felt a little wrench, I know, I know, don't listen with the eyes, but when you earn as little as me you really need that money to feel well spent. With the Bergs, I STILL go and lovingly stare, not quite believing I own them. Like the old Trace stack. And so we end up back at the beginning, great cabs, great head, but, those niggling mid controls. So I looked to the past, id always enjoyed the little mark 2. Only sold it for the weight. But now I could drive and didnt carry gear around so much, and felt I learned a weight/sound lesson with my cabs, so I explored how markbass had changed since. The LM3 solved a few issues with the LN2, but I'd always been intrigued by the MoMark. Mainly cause there was a graphic module- my thing! I like graphics, used Trace for a long time and Laney too. It sold me on the Promethean too. Sadly every. Single. Piece. Of. Promethean. I bought. Went. Wrong!! :-( .... Even cabs!! Heck, even the bag!! So I looked on thomann, and bought the MoMark 800w amp frame with valve preamp, parametric EQ and variable line out output module for a VERY good price. Weighs a lot more than the shuttle, and more than the LM2, and its bigger too; but is still small and light enough to fit in and carry in my iGiG front pocket. (Then again I could fit Wales in there!) It looks great with a plastic 'faux carbon' finish. The modules are glossy 'piano' black and the strip lights are fab. Two of them flash when muted ..get in! It has a fair bit of hiss when on, not as bad as the Promethean I had though, but enough to make me think Id balk at miking in a studio in the old days, nowadays it's less of a problem with 'hissaway'! It's more of a threatening sense of the power on tap! It's more of a linear feeling volume pot than the old LM2 'on/off switch' volume. Oddly doesn't feel 'quite' as loud as the shuttle 9.0. Not ever gonna be an issue though. We're still talking LOUD here!! It feels well built and well engineered. Nice weighty knobs and positive sockets. Combo speakons are very welcome, as is the mute, line out level, switchable DI etc. The sound is classic Markbass, fast, punchy, very flexible with the filters, from modern to very retro indeed at the twist of a knob. The EQ points feel much better than the LM2, and the level controls for the mid freq's really help fine tune things. You hardly need the bass and treble knobs, the low mid really fattens things, while adding growl and saving power. Using the bass control adds a floor rumbling sense of 3d 'solidity'. It's not a crystal clear, pristine sound like the shuttle. But to my ears it fits a mix much better, and for me gives me the key sounds I use much more convincingly. Specifically that jazz bass, neck rolled off a touch 'burble' and the two pickups on full, slightly scooped funk rock type tone. I'm very, very pleased with it. Now with the two bergs, a gramma pad, my bass keepers, QED power cable and OBBM speakons my rig is spot on (for now!) I'd fully recommend the MoMark to anyone. It sounds very big, fat, solid and full, but with bite and punch and enough sense of drama' and size. An amazing rig, and typically now I'm stuck on guitar it's sitting largely unused!!!!!!!! :-/ I've not even bought the graphic module yet! Sods law! It's not as good a hi-fi either lol! Long old post that. Pics to follow. 'scuse any typos, I'm on my phone and with the new baby it's taken almost three hours to write this!!!

I utterly love the way they look. Kinda like the 70's walnut jazz's. But my attempts at recreating one are doomed. Some of you may recall two years ago before Christmas when I'd got the parts for one for Christmas and a HUGE personal problem meant I never even got to open them and had to sell them off immediately :-/ still proper gutted about that. Then last year I bought one off a guy on talkbass only for the costs to continue to inflate as he 'researched the shipping' then took ages to refund me, which when you earn what I do (less than £650 a month!) was a huge stress with a lot of worry, caused me to mess about a basschatter too when the money didn't appear when first promised Still want one though,, but pretty scared what horrors I'd unleash if I was ever able to pull the trigger! Cursed I tells ya!

Cheers for the awesome replies guys. The LD really is the only one I would be able to buy sadly. Even that's gonna some selling and saving. I'll have no ideas what mixer or system I'll be plugging into from venue to venue, but it'll always be some peavey style powered mixer head type thing, with the the only things plugged into it my vocal and the backing vocal. Really appreciate the replies. Cheers guys

I need a simple in ear system just to hear me sing better in dodgy pubs and was looking at this http://www.thomann.de/gb/ld_systems_mei_one_1.htm Purely cause its the cheapest I can find and all I need it to do is put just my voice in my ear. Does anyone know if it will still work after the wireless switch over thing? And where do they plug into a powered mixer? Cheers all

Brilliant. All so sadly true ! Fbooked

Pick guard is well off, but likely a replacement. But something about the body contours is off too. If its in Andover it's unlikely to be the one I thought it was.

May I ask where the bass is, I think I recognise it.

Drool!!

Well. Gig done and it seemed fine

You know what, it's one of those 'just because you could, doesn't mean you should!' moments.

:-0 bet you dont gig that down the dog 'n gun ! Lush!!

That's cool, my reverb is from my zoom anyway. cheers loads guys I'm getting it slowly, I have no intention to switch sides long term at my age tho lol.

Thanks bud. Until recently all things guitar were a mystery to me, but somehow I've ended up playing guitar with mates. It's all a bit beyond me though lol!

I have a solid state peavey bandit and for stacking it would be much better on its side, is this a bad idea? I suppose I'm worried about things like the weight of components like the transformer putting stress on the boards inside. Any thoughts guys?

That is so sweeet. I want to cuddle it.

Can't tell you how frustrating it's been over the years. To have skirted around things, if everything had come off that was 'definitely' going to, I'd be a Fekkin global megastar by now. :-/ Let's talk about my old support band, - now kasabian, or the other group of Kids that used to play with us that went on to become the new happy Mondays. The guitarist mate that left the band, took our songs to London and signed a huge deal two weeks later. The missed Bon Jovi support, the oh so So so so close to having Brian May guest on the Double Cross album. (We had Bob Catley from Magnum instead!) The enormous Japanese distribution deal, (fell foul of an idiot record co guy and strict Japanese protocols) countless tv shows that never happened etc etc, all sorts of heartache lol These days I'm a strict pessimist ! On the plus side I have also done some very cool stuff, that many people will only ever dream of, so not all bad.

So many. :-/ The Levi's commercial. Billy J Kramer Sky clad (all turned down?!!??!) The £250,000 deal - turned down by the singer - given to catatonia instead :-/ (I only found out years after, they wisely hid it from me for his safety!!) Lessons with Fred T Baker, The 2nd DoubleCross album The chance to play Glastonbury These were all as an arrogant and foolish youth ! I'm sure there's lots more but having the new baby means its taken an hour just to type this much!