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Evening all. I'm seeing on YouTube some cool videos which look like people have attached video cameras to the headstocks on their basses, filming down the fretboard etc. Is there a specific camera or attachment for this effect? Looks great on promo vids.

Ive just picked up an Ashdown After 8 second hand in good condition for £25. Im proper surprised at how loud it is. Cant get it anywhere near a quarter/half volume without it being too loud for the house. Nice compact combo. The deep switch makes a nce low end. Worth a try if you can pick one up cheap, then if its not loud enough - sell it for what you got it for.

Apologies, ive got mixed up myself there. The head reads: PASSIVE/ACTIVE. PUSH FLAT/SHAPE. So you would think if youre pushing in one switch for the first effect itd be the same for the second. ie button IN is PASSIVE and FLAT, but according to the manual it isnt? (albeit this is an evoiii manual). http://ashdownmusic.com/files/uploads/ABM_EVO_III.pdf

I love mine. Plenty of tone (great eq) and character and volume. Just a few things to be aware of...... There is an active and passive switch where you plug in. This is the opposite way round to what you think. (or what i thought!). Like wise, next to that there is a tone shape which says "push flat/shape" again, this is the wrong way around, where youd think "push flat" would mean push in for a flat response and out for a pre shape. It doesnt, its the opposite way round. Leave out for flat, push in for tone. Then the eq will need turning on or off, by the eq button under the eq section. What you need to remember is if you dont switch this on you wont be able to use any of the eq buttons, but if you do switch it on it will work in accordance with the flat or pre shape settings (ie it wont stay off even if you have selected a flat eq). Id also just set the valve dial to 9 oclock, (or turn it off) you just get a nice sound then, after 12 and especially to 3 and 6 oclock it can get really dirty. Id leave the sub off if youve never used it before. Ashdown gear is great for live work (see how many bands use it). Just most people dont know how to use them (how many people over the years have twiddled with the eq to find they havent turned it on etc). The best way I find to use Ashdown is to set flat eq then just tweak if needed using just the bass/mid/high dials (the sliders are very sensitive). Their signature sound doesnt sound great on its own, but works really really well in a band set up. I take it youre going through a pa too? If youre really worried, ask for something like a 2x10 abm ext cab as well. Works great with the 15.

Ok, ive finally got round to doing this today. Albeit at house levels, but good enough to get a decent opinion. Firstly, its important to remember these speakers are designed by Nexo - a quality name in PA systems, and i chose them as i needed quality volume and sound for when djing. Secondly, its a real easy set up. The cabs, despite being active are around 13kg each and an easy lift. I have used my BB424 into my Zoom b3, straight into the mixer unit on the back of the dxr using the jack input (of mixer line 2). Its also quite a small set up - hadnt realised how much narrower and shallower this cab was compared to my ABM 115 or 210. Its probably only twice as big as the tiny ashdown after 8 i have for the house. OK, first test - pedal on bypass and just the bass. This exceeded my expectations as bass guitars especially dont work great when plugged straight into the pa without some kind of di, eq or effect. The sound was hi fi clear but not harsh. Neither though was it bass heavy, just a nice well balanced modern bass sound across the range. It sounded better to me on the P bass pickup, rather than the bridge or both, that selection just seemed to roll out more of a bass sound than the other. Secondly, I decided to go through the zooms b3 amp simulators. Using the ABM i love the bassman, ampeg and gk sims. Using the dxr these sounded different, but they would as there wasnt any ashdown sound to colour as well. I did find most, if not all needed a bass boost from the eq pedal on the b3 to get a nice deeper sound, but the mids and top end were great as they were flat. The bassman and Ampeg seemed to do the heavier bassier sounds which were more in line with a heavy rig. I then skimmed through several other sounds for genres i have set up on the b3 (for rock, soul, 60s, etc) and they all worked well. Some were fairly uninspiring, but some were great. Most were very useable for gigging. Now, one effect i have never liked is the octaver - ive just never got on with it, but using an octaver in this set up works really well. This is where you get the low end sounding really low like from a 15. Useful if thats the sound youre after. Volume wise - having used these for years for djing i know they have a phenomenal throw - much much better than youd imagine. The kind of throw that doesnt seem excessively loud when youre close, but is just as loud at the other side of the room. There is very little disipation as you walk out away from it. However, these were very loud just in this set up. I couldnt get the volume up anywhere near 9 o clock (6 is off) without it being too loud for the house - but we all know as soon as you get a drummer involved etc its a different ball game. Also, these speakers are dual volume, where 6 oclock to 12 is for line level, and 12 to 6 is mic level. Im not totally sure what that means for bass (is it line or mic level?) but id be surprised if you needed it over 12 oclock. The only thing i will say is you wont get the magical "heft" or coloured tone from a manufacturers amp or birch cab which seems to emminate from a rig like the ABM or Ampeg, the best way to describe the sound (if you can make any sense of this) is a good hi fi sound but without the air moving feel you get from a big wooden cab and driver, despite the sounds being similar. It does give a very clear sound, which, i suspect is great for stage monitoring or stage amp. I suspect most will have to play with something like the B3 to get the sounds they are after. Also, not forgetting you have a DI thru in the mixer section at the back of the cab, which is a nice addition to have. As i said earlier, this is at fairly low volumes, but i also have another dxr12 if i wanted to link to get a 2x12 which would be interesting.

Will do! Cheers everyone.

Fair point. But I'm sure I'd get at least £50 for it. The combos framework look like 2 boxes on top of each other so one would just be empty (or store cables in there). Plus the saving already over an abm head, makes it a decent option.

This maybe have been covered times before, but... I notice now, in conjunction with all very heavy gear going cheap, that the average used price for an Ashdown ABM combo is around £200. (which is crazy cheap). I also notice that the average price of an ABM head is around £250-300. Now, I may be missing something here, but wouldn't it be an idea to buy the combo, remove the head, house in a 2u sleeve, sell the cab and save around half on buying just the amp? Is it an easy job to remove the head or is it not advisable or dangerous? I'm after a spare back up head, so looking at options.

Personally i think it's a really simple good idea. Somewhere in there I'm going to find a frequency that works very quickly, then just tweak from the best sounding one.

Cheers all. I have set up the following: 1. Flat. 2. +6 boost. 3. -6 cut. 4. Smiley face. 5. Inverted smiley face. 6. +3 boost. 7. -3 cut. 8. Low boost only. 9. Mid boost only. 10.high boost only. Just playing in the house through my abm the results are surprising! Favourite at the moment is the -3 cut across the range. (Although I know it's just in the house with no drummer).

Cheers, I've seen that. Similar kind of discussion. I'll give the Dxrs a try out when i get chance. I'm was a professional dj by trade, and these Drs do go low, I was surprised at the rating they have been given (55ish)? I was just curious as we all (or a lot of us) put our bass through a pa why we do t spend time getting a good pa sound?

Im just thinking of a few basic settings that i can store in the pedal and take with me. Then a quick flick through them in each room, find the most suited, and just tweak from there. Its not essential, just might be a good idea.

Hi all, Im currently rehashing my zoom b3 and getting some great sounds in the house already. However, as we all know once loud and with a drummer, good sounds can get lost. So, in preperation im thinking of programming between 3-6 patches using just an eq pedal as a base to start from (would be useful for tricky venues sound wise too). Im going to use the 7 band eq on the zoom b3, so the question is: If you had to program several presets eq wise - what would they be? (the idea being that at least one of those would suit any band or room - given a certain amount of flexibility).

evening all. probably an odd question, but aside from my Ashdown evoii rig, i have x2 good quality yamaha dxr12 active pa speakers. i use a zoom b3 from my bass for the ashdown and im interested in using the b3 running into the yamahas as a separate rig, with there being so many amp modellers etc i thought it might do a great job. question is, with these being a 12" speaker with tweeter/horn, and not a designated bass cab, is there any specific eq / frequency is should be enhancing or minimizing to get a good sound out of these speakers? I can do it all on the b3 so itd be nice and simple. effectively it could end up being a nice compact rig (as a 1x12) with the ability to enhance into a powerful 2x12 rig.

Ridiculously you can get the abm500 evoii combos for under £200 on eBay. I've seen 2x10s 4x10s and 1x15s go for that price. Absolute steals!

My Girl - Otis reading. Dock of the bay - Otis Redding.

[quote name='Les' timestamp='1490228709' post='3263507'] Then that pays £200 of their running costs, it's not really sad it's just a fact of running a large organisation, people want paying for working for them and the rent needs to be paid. [/quote] So in essence hardly any money from the 9k goes to the people in need. You've just worked your socks off gigging, giving up your free time and effort to pay somebody else's wages. I've no problem with covering costs, but giving such a low percentage of the 9k doesn't help in the spirit it was meant to and how all those who helped raise it hoped out would be.

Events and organisers like that need exposing. It's pretty much using a charity to fund there own pockets. Sad thing is, out of that £200 a big percentage of that will be used to pay running costs at the charity, so they might end up with only a small percentage of that.

Hi all, This might be an odd way of doing this, but... My current rig is an Ashdown abm evoii 15 combo, with a 2x10 ext cab. Just thinking about back up at the moment. A couple of options would be to take a backup amp head, of various sizes, but I wondered if I could do this... Keep the 15 combo, then buy the exact same combo, but the 2x10 version. Then keep the 2x10 amp section unplugged, and unplug the cable connecting the amp head to the 2x10 on the back panel. Then go out of the 15 into the socket I've just made free. That way I'd have the exact same set up, but if anything was to happen to the 15 amp, I could reverse the process and power everything from the 2x10 combo. Just an idea, but would give me backup piece of mind in 2 self contained boxes.

As suggested, you'd be just as well off buying one or two Harley Bentons for a similar price.

Watching the youtube NAMM videos I kind of like it. Just a couple of things though: 1) in order not to flop this rig MUST be able to hold its own at a full on gig. Otherwise its useless. No one needs to be spending huge money on a practice set up. I really hope it can. 2) it's obviously been marketed very cleverly. I think they've took in essence a 4x8 combo and broke it down into a power amp, tone control panel and 2 2x8 cabs. You probably need all 4 items to get the full effect which obviously bumps up the price. 3) with big trace rigs going at ridiculously cheap prices second hand, I'm not sure I could justify this set up for 3-4 times more.

Haha! Yes, this phone spelling auto correct doesn't half come up with some interesting corrections!

I'd genuinely ask them what let each song is in, then just play riot notes to get you through. Then make notes of each song. Then each time you play add a bit more to fit with the drums and then build on that. That way you won't sound as if you're doing nothing, it will add to what the band had previously and you've got room to build, without confusing yourself.

Gig days I always have a large dinner, then a small tea. This works well for me, and if you need something after, then theres no harm done, it's not like having 3 big meals.

Magic!! Cheers all, I'll get a set on order!