Al Krow

Saw someone mention in the FS that a new Zoom B3n was selling for nearly £200 and I've just checked and seen that some of the other Zoom multi pedals have sky-rocketed too. Is that just Zoom? Is there a supply / demand issue all of a sudden?

Ah yes. Just checked back and I bought that new in Sept 2017 (page 7 of this thread including a long and gushing review!). It's the only bass I've had serious sellers regret moving on, so much so that I got another 425 which is now a "keeper" bass for Mr Bass_5. The 425 has more punch in its pups than your average kicking mule!

I've had the 5 string versions. I found that the BBP35 was a little sweeter tonally than my 1025, the flip side being the 1025 particularly the J pup had more of an edge. So I probably just preferred the P35 overall and on PJ setting and the 1025 on solo J. The other feature on the newer series 3 models is the ability to blend in as much P+J as you want whereas it's all, 50-50, or nil with the series 2 models, but with a very easy to access selector switch. I actually preferred my P35 over my 735A; it just had a better overall feel to it and of the two I was finding I would reach for the P35 every time. The 735A's big selling point other than being a fair bit cheaper than the P35, is obviously its active circuit. Having had all three, I would summarise by saying in passive mode the similarities between the basses far outweigh the differences. The P35 just felt like the classiest of the three. However I've only held onto my 1025, partly 'cos I'm a sucker for a vintage white finish but mainly 'cos it was a little bit lighter than the P35 and therefore more comfortable over a 2 hour gig.

Haha - totally knew I was going to be very late to this particular party! Obviously it's really cool that you can set up your virtual boards - I'm gonna definitely nick that phrase from PJ-B(!) - with some pedals in parallel paths as and when you want. That is for one of the biggest plusses of Helix over my budget (but tbf amazingly good value) Zoom multi. My "Board 1" is actually based around an attempt at pulling together a 'Fishman Power Chord board' using a combination of Simple Pitch octave down and Dual Pitch set on +7 and +12 intervals, which I decided to try out in parallel; and with a couple of drives, tremolo and delay. Definitely not going to be "core" pedal board but was a fun starter for 10! My previous attempts at getting a Fishman Power Chord on both Helix and Zoom have been an unedifying mush, but this one was actually pretty good!

I've kinda been thinking that the way we use our pedal-boards is to kick in certain pedals for certain songs. It's great that with Helix we can set up to 128 separate songs (on the HX Effects and Stomp and I presume even more on the higher end models?) with the combination of effects we want for each song, but conceptually it's easier for me to get my head around the fact that there are actually only a few effects that I want to regularly use including the obvious ones e.g. drive, filter. Having the ability to set up a few "boards" of 6 pedals in stomp mode on the HX FX which can give me a set of core pedals seems to be just the ticket for this. Had a bit of fun setting up "Board 1" this evening and will no doubt get onto a few more over the coming weeks. That still leaves plenty of banks for particular set list songs alongside. I'm guessing a lot the Helix users on this thread have already gone for this approach way before of me - if so be interesting to hear what your different "boards" comprise. Having the scribble strips and ability to engage up to 6 pedals at a time does make the HX FX very well suited for this, so maybe going for the HX FX in place of the HX Stomp was the right decision for me after all!

Haha - we need @Stub Mandrel to add in "aka the Gary Willis book thread" into the title. Who would have guessed? 😁 Although that won't be keeping things quiet... My copy has arrived, I'd best at least open it given the peer pressure on this thread that's already been applied

I did, for a short while, but I kinda felt it needed a BF Dubster 2 and a whole bunch of wattage to be properly usable (or the LF1400). I very briefly toyed with the idea of heading down that route, but fortunately for the street where I live Alex ceased production of the said monster machines!

You know you've won this already, You've had yours 15 years 😂

Gents you've missed out... It's ten! 😁

NIce. Fancy sharing some of your recordings?

Fixed.

Well it's been almost exactly 3 years since I started this thread (just been reminded of it by Alex C popping up on another thread!) and just to finish the story... I did get two VK210s: the MNT and the LNT models. Both very good cabs, but didn't end up keeping them. ...I've actually since via various other, and sometimes excellent, cabs ended up with three 112s. One of which is a BF BB2 and another a BF SC! All's well that ends well

PS btw I'm not sure I agree with your math. The amount of air pushed is surely a proxy measure for volume? Precisely because a 12" moves more air than a 10", it will need less speaker excursion to generate the same volume. Why does speed of speaker excursion equate to clarity anyway?

Yes. Don't get me wrong, my VK210s were very good indeed. And I was skeptical that the Berg CN212 would be an improvement. I spent a full hour A/Bing my VK with the Berg before buying the CN212. Very patient seller, but he clinched his sale! Just seen there is a CN212 in the FS, on for a good price.

Just spotted it has a headphone out too! If it had an aux in, it would make for a very neat headphone amp!

Remind me - did you not have a neat little amp or cab sim pedal recently, which you moved on. Thoughts?

I'm interested that you think a 10" cab is going to be more articulate than a 12" cab? I've been fortunate to have had several really good cabs over the recent few years and my Berg CN 212 and Mesa PH 212 (neither of which I have any longer as I've downsized to 112s) were two of the very best I've had in terms of clarity; they both outshone the two VK 210s I've had.

I've come across MB amp and cabs as being described as 'warm' on plenty of occasions, but don't remember anyone describing them as 'sterile' before! I noted that one of the criteria for the OP was "powerful". One general point to be aware of is that a lot of combos only let you deliver their full output via an extension cab. One notable exception is the MB AC 121 Lite (there's actually one currently in the FS). This little beast will deliver a full 500W through its 12" speaker. I don't recall having to ever push mine hard, even with a full 5 piece rock band and no PA support.

Yeah fair - it's just that Muppet would have been hearing the difference in the band mix via his IEMs. As you said, the headphone on the Mk2 DG900s is akin to post DI out i.e. post drive, EQ and cab sims. As folk noted earlier, cab sims are just another tone shaping tool and I think whether they are going to be the right thing is very much "it depends". Via headphones I found that they indeed take the edge off - arising from less pronounced mids and more rounded top end and I particularly liked the first of the 3 cab sims which had an Ampeg flavour. In my little test the cab sims sounded particularly good on clean and with a pick. It was less good both with finger style or with the drive - the latter interestingly is different to what Ian McFly was saying - but not surprising I guess: different drives are going to give different results, right? Here the less pronounced mids resulted in less clarity / punch. So I certainly wouldn't want a cab sim as default for all my material and playing styles; as with any tone shaping it's a "nice to have" for when you want it and the convenience of having it set up and accessible on a pedal board or multifx to kick in when required would be ideal. But the better test must surely be via the PA and in a band mix - by their nature headphones (and IEMs) are not going to be the same as what our audiences are hearing? Still not convinced that this DG pedal is going to justify its price tag as a £250 headphone amp, particularly as unlike dannybuoy I don't have any issues hearing my bass through a Zoom B1-4 via my headphones. The Zoom really is an incredibly good value piece of kit.

Agreed. 1. fingers 2. venue acoustics & PA 3. your signal chain, from strings to your cab 4. spoons

Now, you're just stirring! 😁

Nah completely disagree. A musical instrument is not a spoon.

Amazing that you've got yourself a gig - very jealous! What difference were you hearing with the cab sim engaged?

Lot of well put points. Aside: found myself disagreeing with the analogy of the bass and a spoon in cooking! A quality musical instrument can make a difference to our sound eg Stradivarius vs £50 violin; they're not the same thing. A great violinist will sound very good regardless. But he or she will sound better on the Strad played with a top notch bow (which can, by itself, cost more than a high-end electric bass). And you can blind test that any day of the week. But that's, of course, not a comment on 4 vs 5 vs 6 string basses.