Al Krow

I see a trade coming on. @fretmeister was looking to replace the gold knobs on his 'Iron Man' MB amp. He assures me that it is nothing to do with group peer pressure. Honest guv.

Thread summary The new Little Mark Vintage is an improvement on the old LM3 in terms of EQ centre points, but is not as good as the new Marcus Limited range (which really does nail the EQ including providing semi-para mids). Mark King's only real influence on the Vintage amp is likely to be getting a cheque. But hey, why not? Which of us would turn that down. Or to have been one of the most influential bassists of our generation? Some folk see red (and gold) when they look at Markbass gear. HPF can be a very good thing.

Cheers gents. The "benefit" in my mind is that if a balanced TRS cable works in all situations then we could potentially just swap over to using TRS lead(s) and not bother with TS leads going forward, when it comes to replacing TS leads due to wear and tear. Luke, however, has highlighted the potential shortcoming of TRS leads with active basses, which would certainly be an issue for me if he is correct on that. Simplest solutions seem to be: DI box out e.g. Behringer DI400P would easily fit under most boards and costs the same as a TRS lead. or TRS lead to XLR (and relatively easy to remember why that's in the kit bag! )

In my experience FOH sound engineers will start cutting the bass** at 120 Hz given half a chance! My preference would be for them not to be cutting the bass above 60Hz (1st fundamental of low B) or above 80 Hz for 4 string basses (= 1st fundamental of low E). Thumpinator cuts at 28Hz and below, so is literally just removing sub sonic crud that no one hears. If you put at the start of your chain (as recommended by the maker) it also means that your compressor, if you're using one, is not needing to expend effort dealing with compressing high energy bottom end. Nice little piece of "always on" kit on my pedal board. Btw your DG M900 has a built in hpf - but no details from what frequency it is cutting or the steepness of the cut. ** as opposed to the kick drum

You got me all excited that my bass had already been Devinely immortalised! The Ken Smith BSR 5TN at 4.40 on Scott's YouTube is indeed close to mine, but not the same. Mine is the slightly smaller bodied BSR 5TNV 'Studio' version (which I suspect may have been a relatively limited release?) Smaller body => has a stacked bass & treble EQ and instead of a side jack socket it has a front jack socket. PS I like the growl of your Pedulla in Scott's review! And I've always been a fan of the Warwick growl (made worse by the fact that there is 5 string neck through Thumb currently in the FS). I suspect that you could well be very bad news for my bank balance and that I should cease all communication with you forthwith 😂

Ok cool re the Dunlops. Funnily enough, looking back to the very start of this 'mega' thread 2 years ago my first, but short lived due to scratched paintwork on arrival from Yamaha, BB 1025 was a Tobacco Sunburst. But I wouldn't now buy my P35 if it was a 'burst! I've somehow trans'd into a vintage white man. Fickle eh? 😂 ...although tbf my love for a BB 1025 hasn't changed a jot in that time, if anything it's grown. And finding a mint vintage white condition BB 1025 seems to have become very rare. The reason I'm asking about flats is that I'm already considering keeping the P35, which is the nicest 'mainstream' BB I've ever had both tonally and in terms of balance and feel, with its nickel rounds and putting some flats on the 1025. Not sure why it's taken me quite so long to work out that would give me two great PJ basses with brilliant necks but with a sufficiently different sound to warrant keeping both!

a) Make of TRS cable you're using - any particular recommendations? b) Can a TRS cable that has 1/4" jacks be used in place of a normal guitar lead e.g. if you weren't using a Stomp on a particular gig i.e. can we use a TRS as a general purpose lead for all uses?

Interesting comment about the Dunlops being naturally dark. The 735A has a very broad tonal palette with its active / passive combination. Just wondering whether something brighter may work better with a purely passive BB?

Did you gents land on a particular brand of TRS cable? If we get a normal guitar jack to guitar jack TRS cable would that also work just fine from bass to amp? That would make it a more general purpose cable. Or would you only want to use for a balanced output?

John - what have you landed on as your preferred flats? FWIW - I'm finding the original 'stock' nickel D'Addario EXL170-5 work a treat as rounds and don't break the bank; dB recently mentioned getting a double pack for £40 iirc.

Not if you're trying to play a low B, C, D or Eb in the middle of a song 😂 But, more seriously, congrats - there are a lot of very happy 734a / 735a users on this thread. You do realise you are now required to post some pictures of your 734/5 twins don't you?

I added pics of mine to this earlier thread

Been using my DG M900 for my two pub / function bands with a BF SC for the past 18 months. Standard covers from early 60s to 2010s.

A quick word of thanks to @Dad3353 for just now 'refreshing' the first 8 pages of this thread, which were posted before the site upgrade.

And btw - whilst we have already remarked that this is not 'fully' pre-settable it does have 121 fairly easy to access presets! That should be enough to keep me out of mischief 😁

I've bitten the bullet and pre-ordered the SY-1 from PMT. Normally we get hit in the UK with $1 = £1 on US manufactured goods and it's currently even worse with the Source Audio C4 $239 in the US but £249 in the UK. I kinda wanted to get my payment in before Boss spot that they are not selling at $ parity ($199 in the US); the SY-1 is on at a relatively 'reasonable' £175 over here at the moment, but if the £ continues to slide that may not last! Taking a bit of a chance given that I've not heard any decent bass reviews of this yet, but PMT have a 14 day return for online purchases, in case it does turn out to be a dud on bass which I'm really hoping / expecting it not to be! (Sorry Woody - you're unlikely to buying this one off me used )

Hah! You boys are starting to make me feel a bit hasty in being very content with my BB 1025, with its selector switch, and my recent thinking that I should move my BB P35 on...

No ear plugs for sound check. But then I'm a bit of an old wuss on this and tend to follow the S.P. way, although I'll occasionally take one ear plug out to have a listen mid set following your previous suggestions on this. Just a couple of follow up thoughts: Personally - if I can't hear the bass (even with ear plugs in), frankly I don't enjoy the gig. Turning up the mids is fine up to a point, but too much and I think we would all agree it sounds crap. Adding a bit of grit cuts through the mix equally well IMO and the overall bass tone can be a better one than overbearing mids.

i.e. the way I like it = personal to me (no complaints from the band or the audience). A bit of grit is sweet.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Digital-Battery-Tester-Checker-BT-168D/dp/B07F1RKV1K/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=bt-168d&qid=1564482524&s=electronics&sr=1-7

+1 ^^ Defo starting to feel that the pure 'P' setting is too easily lost in the mix for me. PJ (which dear old dannyboy has been espousing for the last decade or longer, probably ever since BBs were invented in fact) seems to be increasingly where I'm landing, but maybe a P plus a touch (or more) of dirt could be the way to go, too.

Here you go Tyler...our discussion prompted me to see what I could get for 'peace of mind' and without needlessly discarding perfectly usable 9V batteries (or spending ££s on a passive / active 'upgrade'). Well this 'bit of tat' which cost less than £3 from Amazon including P&P seems to be just the ticket! (They suggest swapping out when power is < 6V).

Oh we did! ... the light hearted banter sadly got lost in a bunch of folk seeing red (and gold) and discussions about the unimportance of low end crud. W@eude you have believed it?

Here you go. I use my Low EQ in combination with GlamComp (= Spectracomp) and Zoom Noise Reduction together to form a default 'Clean' patch. Low EQ Glam Comp ZNR