Al Krow

^^ this. My experience is that the following are, by some margin, the key factors here: 1. Do your vocalists have any personality and can they engage with the audience (and related to this can they comfortably hear themselves through the monitors)? 2. Are the volumes of the instruments and vocals balanced and appropriately loud for the venue and the event? 3. Is the band tight and plays with groove? 4. Do you have decent lighting? 5. Are your sets full of material that audiences love? Get that right and IMO you'll be 95% of the way there. For me the rest is tinkering at the edges and which as you rightly say: "A tiny part of which is learning how to use compression in a live mix properly..."

Depends on the Y cable. They are typically either current doublers (leaving the voltage the same) OR voltage doublers (leaving the current the same). But not doubling both at the same time. The cables should specify which they are when you buy them, or be colour coded with a guide if they come with your power brick.

Does make good sense. And kinda confirms what I've been thinking for a long while - compression is best left to sound and mixing engineers to be done well / properly. That's a resource that pro / semi-pro touring bands will / may well have; much less likely to be available for most of the rest of us BCers other than at certain venues with in house PAs and sound engineers. We have one such set up we regularly play at, the rest is down to our own paltry resources with a 10 minute pre gig sound check! As Simon so eloquently put a few posts back: most of us are not going to be able to dial in a compressor to save our lives.

What we know so far... DG 212N Barefaced ST Power Handling RMS 1000 Watts 1200W Impedance 4 Ohm 4 Ohm Tweeter Action Frequency 2 kHz N/A Weight 19.7 kg | 43.4 lb 17 kg | 37 lbs (cloth grill) Dimensions 29" high x 18.3" wide x 17.1" deep 74cm x 43.5cm x 61cm 29" high x 19" wide x 13.4" deep 74cm x 48cm x 34cm Price TBA £1,099 with cover Usable frequency range TBA 37Hz - 4kHz Max continuous broadband & LF SPL "This cabinet can produce very loud sounds" 133dB How good does it sound? TBA A LOT of BC fans!

Ian spent his entire ill gotten gains from the sale of his (fantastic) Boss SY-1 pedal on a bit crusher. The boy has no sense. Although, tbf, he makes better use of bit crushers than just about anyone else I know! However, he is a complete pleasure to deal with and having now both bought and sold pedals from/to him, I have no hesitation in continuing to recommend Ian to my fellow BCers.

@51m0n do you have a pic somewhere showing an uncompressed and a 'decently' (i.e. something you would approve of!) compressed bass signal side by side, showing the impact of compression and where it is hitting the transients etc.? I suspect that might be a very useful summary of what this topic is all about!

One more to add to Bilbo's list: Gerald Veasley

Chris - 100% agree that an hpf would a nice addition to any amp. There are a few on the market that already provide and it seems to add a lot e.g. Mesa D800+ vs Mesa D800 (no hpf). But my question here was much more that if compression makes such an important difference to bass tone in a band mix - and I've no issue with that assumption being challenged - why don't bass manufacturers do something at least rudimentary in the form of a one knob compressor on the on-board bass pre-amp on the bass itself. (I'm not talking about the actual amps here). It would set their basses apart and potentially give them a marketing edge. You've seen a LOT of bass players over the years, I'm sure, and if 99% are not using compression pedals that is an interesting fact which I will mentally note. The active BC'ers who comment on compression all tend to be compression pedal users but they aren't necessarily representative of bass players more generally.

Yup, I was. And apparently it's been a question that's been on far greater bass minds than my own - haha!

Yeah, fair. I do generally try to avoid Swindon... 😄 We were in Beaconsfield, and their idea of the "wrong sort" is somewhat different to what I'm used to. Lol! Funniest for me was sitting next to one punter, who asked me what I thought of the band and totally couldn't get her head around the fact that I might be in it! Lol Mk2!

Blimey gov - I need to find out the name of your establishment! I got home at 3am having dropped our singer off at her place first!

I have to be: I had such high hopes for Finn Dave on this thread... 😂

So did you finish and pack up at 11.59pm then? And when did you get paid for the gig? 😁

At last this thread is saving me money rather than potentially costing an arm and several legs 😂 That's enabled me to take a DB751 off my wish list amps as we speak. I do believe you've just saved me £1,500 (used)!

Now there's a thought! 😂

Two pedals sold. An unsolicited offer for my poshest bass (I'm not going to accept!). 4 paid gigs for Jan (if I'm allowed to include NYE in that number), all helping build up the kitty for 2021 nicely No GAS in sight. Next BIG danger on the horizon...NAMM 2020

Very nice analogy btw - IMO fits Chris B's hpf suggestion even better! And with an hpf, when the boominess is gone from your stage set, they would both notice and care!

Haha Quilly - that topic was the first 300 posts on this thread!!

Haha Chris - you're very welcome to disagree with the assumption! And if the assumption is indeed incorrect or not one that bass manufacturers buy into, then that would obviously be a good reason for them not bothering to include a one knob compressor in the pre-amp.

See you then! 😊 Oh except if I last this year, I'm not going to be signing up next year for sure. One year in / one year out and all that 😁

I've just checked the string spacing on all my basses and 18mm seems to be the widest. The one that took me a little by surprise (as I'd not bothered to previously check) was my Spector Euro 5LX which has a 17mm string spacing - narrower than I was expecting, particularly as it's a 35" scale. So if you're a fan of narrower string spacing, Woody, then maybe worth checking out a Spector at some point, if you've not done already: they're a great bass! - particularly the Euro range. Are fan fret a pain in the derriere to play on the low B string? Another good reason, other than a whole different set of muscle memory, for me to avoid then!

Dredging up an old thread simply 'cos I've got a Q that's bugging me! Assuming that compression is a valuable additional tool to improving sound, then: Why don't bass manufacturers incorporate a compressor into their on-board preamps? If it noticeably improves sound then you would have thought that some bright spark somewhere would have had the gumption to include - and at the very least to give them a bit of a marketing edge? I get that budget bass manufacturers won't want to bother, but there are plenty of basses in the £750k+ price range and a comp circuit shouldn't cost more than £25 to add I would have thought?

I'll probably wait until they do a boring non-burst finish for the 1505 (or its successor) range! Besides I'm on the wagon for 2020 - hehe! (And it'll be the normal fret version not fan fret - leave that sort of fan-cy stuff for the dingbats and Dingwalls of this world!)