la bam

The improvement of FOH PA for smaller bands?

Nah, the trace rigs always sounded great. That was the go to set up a decade or two ago.

Wow! That's a proper stack!

I'm going way back, but I remember these being referred to as 'bright boxes'.

I get what you are trying to do (OP), but theres more to it than that. Regardless of whether its head only, head and eq cab sim, or micd up from cab, you will still eq from there to suit the room etc. The amp head may be pre or post, so if its pre you'll not be getting the same as stage sound anyway. You would be better with some generic bass guitar typical eq settings and take from there. In my experience the sealed 8x10 does sound amazing with a band - somehow makes everything for together well - but also makes the bass duller if that helps. If your still determined for an 8x10 sim via eq - people in the helix groups will have done that, but it may be using more than one eq effect and even more than one type of effect, not just eq.

If an amp had a built in tuner, and maybe a one knob compressor, itd be a winner in my book.

I use ups and absolutely no probs. If it helps - and this helped me - it appears theres a bit of a glitch in ups website. When searching ups on google it can (but not always) open up the ups for small business page, where prices are a lot more expensive. It's the natural ups homepage you need. An insured bass is usually around £25.

Just my opinion, but I think it helps to be smart about how you set up and take down and what equipment you bring. Most pubs are terrible for load ins of big heavy equipment. So only take what you need for that venue - dont lug everything you have into and out of there. You wont need it and you'll have to carry it all in, find somewhere to put it, and carry it all out and back into storage again. Take a suitable PA, and a few spares. Spend time working out the most economical way of setting up and make sure everyone has a job to do. Also, think of your set up. What do you have - how can it be made easier to set up - how much faster can you do it? If you have pedals etc why not put them on a pedal board, all you need to do is connect 2 cables and you're done. Guitarists are usually the worst for this - individually unpacking every pedal individually, then separately powering up and connecting each one. I've seen guitarist take nearly 45 mins just setting up their own equipment! The amount of bands you see lugging huge PA in, then a million difficult to carry boxes including a million cables, then a whole host of amps, pedals, 4 ways, kettle leads, separate lights etc etc is frightening. It may seem like nothing, but honestly doing this makes doing pub gigs so much easier. You wont get as stressed getting in, you wont get as stressed setting up or taking down, and your escape out of their will be easier. The whole thing becomes quicker, tidier and more fun. I found it was never the gig itself, just badly planned set ups that ruined it. Oh, and get a couple of heavy duty hand trucks - worth their weight in gold.

I'd forget the compressor and go straight bass to amp. I'd then find out what setting flat or off is for the VLE and VLF - I had a lm3 years ago and I remember it's not where you think. Then try and eq a great sound without them. I had the same issue on my lm3 - sounded dull. It was just that I wasnt using those correctly. Once you have a great sound without them, only use them to make slight adjustments.

Sounds like the vt was set wrong to me. Prob far too much drive. They are valve emulators so go from clean to real full on break up pretty quickly.

I gave up on markbass a few years back. All I wanted to do was to BUY some rack ears from them. Went through them, their official email, official facebook, etc etc. Didnt even get a reply. Result - goodbye markbass. Ashdown on the other hand - superb.

Hi, link is above, thanks

Just spoke to Dave Green. Very helpful. Got everything I needed answering. @walshy I know you are due a ctm300 too, so this may be of use. 1. Biasing is fine as long as everything is under 0 and out of the red. The valves will take a while to settle in (100 hours) so as long as everything is under 0 you'll be fine. 2. To bias - make sure theres no signal in the chain. And as always make sure you have a speaker connected. 3. Turning on - pre heat ON, leave for a minute or two, the Main ON. 4. Turning off - this was interesting: Turn MAIN OFF then keep playing a note until you dont hear anything - this takes the charge away, so theres no charge stored for weeks etc - then pre heat OFF. Oh, and only use the valves designed for the amp. Hope this helps.

Our PA is up for sale - suitable for any event. HK audio rig (4 cabs containing x2 horns, x4 12s, x4 15s in total). And matrix amps and crossover.