Al Krow

Good question! Check out the SA Aftershock at 1.00 on this video. "Heavy" setting to get that DG scooped dirt. Does that get you close enough? Can do a lot else besides. It does retain the low end well IMO and you can dial in clean blend if you want even more low end. They come up reasonably often in the FS for around £75 to £95 used.

...Handbox looks great, but sadly only 200W at 8ohms, otherwise I would have been very tempted myself! Mesa M6: definitely a bit of fan noise with this one (not noticeable at all as soon as you start playing). But does it just deliver the best tone of any amp I've come across to date? Yup

** DG M900 sidetrack warning!! ** 😂 I thought the dirt tone was better than on our DG M900s - interesting post in the comments section on the YouTube clip "The distortion it's very cool, it's similar to Alpha Omega pedal." Hmmm...if that's true then that's got me wanting to check out the AO pedal But I guess it's also relevant to your other thread where you're looking to compare the DG M900 v1 with the v2 and which gives you the option of going for the AO instead of the B3K/VMT. However I'm not sure that the clean tone on the GK is any better than on the DG M900? ...I personally would have liked to have seen the amp settings that he was using, whilst he was demoing it.

So all you Bugera M owners on this thread, you've had your amps for six months or longer now If you still have one, how are you getting on with them? Planning to keep? How has it performed in a live mix? Any particular quirks or idiosyncrasies?** Did you get to the bottom of the 'dirty noise' point that @goingdownslow mentioned? Subject to that one point, as a back up amp or just something to try for a change without breaking the bank, this does look like a good option. ** PS on that score, please let's not revisit the whole it's NOT a 2000W RMS amp - we know(!) - that was definitely done to death! 😂

Believe you me, having access to a meaty and full low end from this cab is not going to be any sort of burden whatsoever! Can't wait! 😊

Numpties 😂

I'm a bit confused by what it's stating as power output on the rear of the amp that Andertons are showing as the £989 1200W model? Full power 1040W 800W at 4ohms / 2 ohms 400W at 8ohms I guess I was expecting 1200W at 4ohms and 600W at 8ohms...

Been asked by a couple of BC mates if the the arrival of the F112 means that BF SC is about to be shown the door? Really good, balanced, earlier post by funkle. Just picking up on two positive points for the BF, which apply equally to a BF SC vs Fearless 112 comparison: Find myself agreeing with the second point - I suspect there may be an element of me getting used to the F112's fuller mids, but the slightly mid-scooped BF SC gives it a touch greater musicality and articulation to my ear with everything set flat in relation to the mid / higher end notes and when playing at home. Slightly paradoxical as I've found myself setting the mid EQ above unity with the BF, to compensate, to make sure I'm cutting through the mix when playing with my band. And as to the first point: 21lbs for the BF SC - that is a killer feature and my back isn't going to let that cab go any time soon! Excellent review of the F112 by Ed Friedland which is worth sharing: https://www.bassplayer.com/gear/greenboy-audio-fearless-f112-cabinet-reviewed

There's been a lot of positive comment on this thread about the Fearless F112 which was very helpful in persuading me to give this cab a try. It's been a few months since putting in my order, but I was very pleased to take delivery of my F112 this weekend. I've had a bit of time to A/B the cab with my BF SC which has done me (and my back!) proud over the past 9 months. There's a link to a post from a TB'er in the OP where he compares a BF BB2 with a F112, in which he states that: "Under the exact same power amp output, the F112 consistently sounded a bit louder and hit with better LF extension, depth and authority." I would agree with that as being a very fair summary also when comparing with my BF SC. The F112 does the low end really well - by comparison my BF SC felt somewhat thinner. Low E down to a low B and the F112 has very considerable weight and authority. The 5" speaker on the F112 gives it an additional mid punch that had me thinking about cutting my mids a touch rather than boosting which has been my default approach with my BF SC; in a band mix this ability to cut through is likely to come into its own. There is a two-position mid-dip switch that modestly changes the mid-range speaker’s response voicing which I suspect I will be leaving "on" whilst I get used to having a fuller mid-punch than my BF cab has provided to date. The Fearless has a 1" tweeter to additionally cater for the high end. It is a more subtle tweeter than on my Berg CN212 (the BF SC does not have a tweeter) and although there is an ability to cut the tweeter volume to virtually nil on the F112, I didn't feel any particular need to do this, whereas on the Berg the tweeter is set at a relatively low 3/10. Overall first impressions are very positive and seem to completely bear out the compliments given by other BC'ers on this thread. If you're a 5 string bass player and want to get an extremely capable low end from a compact unit or someone who is looking for a cab with a mid punch that will cut through the mix then, budget permitting, the Fearless F112 is definitely worth having on your shortlist.

That would seem a bit of a generalisation from the fact that your basses are all passive? I have two purely passive basses (Yamaha BBs), but the rest are all active, most with a combined active / passive ability and I love them all - which is why I still have them and have not moved them on. I suspect if you ran a poll you'd find folk split between whether they prefer active or passive circuits on their bass EQs.

Hah, that's not a wish limited to upright players believe me! 😁 If you do find that this takes the place of 2 BF one10s then that does suggest to me it should also stack up well against single BF SC. I'm very much looking forward to your review!

Ah amazing - looks like you're going to be the first BC'er to get one! I just took delivery of a Fearless 112 yesterday which has been a few months in the coming and I'm currently also using a BF SC, which I'm loving for its combination of light weight and general overall quality, so looks like I'm going to be fully sorted in terms of cabs for a while. But really looking forward to getting your thoughts on this - which supplier are you getting yours from? In case you've not come across - here's a link to the TB thread I've also been following: https://www.talkbass.com/threads/acoustic-image-unveils-the-doubleshot-lightweight-2x10-cabinet.1407014/ One negative post on that thread which I thought was actually quite interesting: "The spec (at least the performance spec) is...really unspecified. The one thing you can be certain of is it doesn't have a lot of low frequency sensitivity - that tiny cabinet size simply won't allow that. It might work fine for reinforcing an upright, but if you're playing electric with a drummer, I'd say look elsewhere." Don't know how true that is going to be - I'd love to get some of our resident cab experts views on that particular point. This is the one decent comparison video I've come across - which will be on point for you as it's been done on double bass. The A.I. seems to hold its own very well!

@51m0n thanks very much for taking the time to put my mind straight on the subject of transients. I've shared your comments below for the wider forum as it was such a helpful pm and I am sure will be of interest / benefit to many others! Transients and compression Transients are one of the keys to understanding compression and how compressors tick, true. The threshold is always crossed by the transient, that is the trigger, it is always the loudest part of the signal (with bass), only instruments that swell volume can achieve crossing a threshold with the body of a note rather than a transient: certain ways of bowing a note with violin family instruments, e-bows, volume pedals, keyboard pads and a whole raft of other sources do behave differently, but general bass playing, it’s the transient that engages the compressor. There is no 'note' or pitch info in the transient, it is percussive noise, but it has more or less higher frequency content, the nature of human perception of sound means that a high frequency heavy transient will give the impression of a sound having a generally brighter timbre throughout the note duration, even though that transient is just a few milli-seconds (ms) ?in duration. Anything that allows you to hear the transient 'better' will result in the timbre of your instrument sounding brighter generally - tweeters do this, they tend to reproduce transients better than full size drivers, as well as dealing with the high frequency energy of the transient particularly well, brightening things up a great deal. Ergo anything that dampens the energy in that transient will also darken the perceived signal timbre. Anything that increases the transient energy will effectively brighten the perceived timbre of the entire note. It’s subtle but very real. Some sound engineers swear they use compression to help EQ signal as much as an EQ. I agree with them. This is important because compressors and limiters can hugely change the relationship of the volume of the transient compared to the volume of the main body of the note materially impacting the difference in level between the two. Hence, they can definitely impart or remove brightness, which they do as a direct function of the attack time setting. They modify this relationship depending upon the type of compressor / limiter and the settings you have and the input signal. This is what a compressor really does, the make-up gain does the rest; people label this with many simpler things e.g. “compressors make your quiet signal loud, your loud signal quiet, your dynamics more squashed etc” all of them an over simplification, which is where the problems really arise. A transient is typically less than 100ms long, it can be much shorter, in order to not trash the brightness in your tone you need to get your compressor out of the way of your transient. In order to not make your tone too harsh when using higher compression ratios you need to still keep control of that transient, and that is why attack time is so vital, and a limiter can seriously help from a timbral perspective as well. The final super-important nuance is that no two types/models/brands of compressor achieve full compression up to the set ratio after the threshold is crossed in the same way, the compression is almost never turned on linearly, or 'immediately' it takes time to ramp up, and it is rarely linear. The same with the release. The very sound of optical compressors is the relative slowness of the way they turn the compression on and off, coupled with the very curved nature of the optical circuitry, the light starts going out very quickly but as it dims it slows down in its dimming. This has a massive impact on the sound of the compressor.

Yes indeedy! Must have been having had a brain fart morning when I made that earlier comment 😂. Not least given that I have owned one of these for four years!!

'Lean' on it = put it in clean by-pass mode for the duration of any sections where you deliberately want to play loud and then re-engage to deal with spikes for the rest?

Sounds fantastic. Would love to come and see you guys play live!

Yeah - you were spot on! It's always amazing to get such positive feedback about an instrument from someone who has since moved it on. But would there be any possibility of KS customising one with wider string spacing to get you what you're particularly after?

+1 ^^ Love the band! Always very jealous of anyone with a decent horn section! Please do tell us a bit more about Latimo and what you guys get up to? Anything else you forgot? 😂

Another completely smooth transaction with Harry - he is always a pleasure to deal with! Just promise me you will try to hold on to your FI this time, eh? (At least until something better comes along). 😃

Haha, no. The OP kindly made this a more general KS thread so I am more than happy to share my NBD pics and journey to getting one on here Many thanks to you, @lee650 and @NotAsGoodAsJaco, who all have or have previously had KS, for sharing your thoughts and experiences on these wonderful basses which played a big part in encouraging me to try one out. A final couple of pics from me which I hope you'll enjoy:

Thanks very much Oliver, it is indeed the smaller bodied 'Studio' (according to Mark at BD) version. The smaller body means it's likely to be a little bit lighter than other KS's but, despite being 'super model thin' as with other KS's, it still weighs in at 9.7 lbs which reflects the quality of the woods used. To accommodate a 3 band EQ with the smaller body shape it has a stacked treble and bass EQ with separate mid EQ. It also has a front rather than the more common (for KS) side jack socket similar to Alembic basses. One feature that the Tiger models have that the Hadrien doesn't appear to have, is the series and parallel switches for each pup. I generally prefer the 'standard' parallel (down) setting for both pups - this is very much the signature 'Smith' sound. The series (up) setting delivers a fatter, deeper tone with a reduction in the high end frequency; on the neck pup and with the treble dialled off, this provides a really nice vintage tone and I can see this particular combination coming into its own for 60s Motown. My KS was originally bought by a French bass 'collector' back in Aug 2018 who then decided to part ex it for something else he had his eye on and I was able to get this almost new bass for a very decent discount. I almost ducked out of going up to BD to try it out as I really couldn't justify getting such a lovely bass for myself, but as soon as I picked it up and played it there was no doubt in my mind what a fantastic bass this was! I'm fortunate to already have some really great basses but nothing quite in the league of this KS. When Mrs Krow heard the bass with my rig at home her immediate reaction was that, as well as being a beautiful bass, for her it tonally knocked all my other basses out of the park! I wasn't expecting such an immediate positive reaction from someone who isn't a bass player but nonetheless has a very good musical ear. But I can understand where she's coming from - it really is that good!

Well yes, I get that, but my point is can a limiter distinguish between deliberately and accidentally playing loud? I'm struggling to see how it manages to do that.

If I recall correctly, ped, you use a Boss LM3? How do you have that set up in terms of threshold and compression so that it's used sparingly? I get that you will have a completely uncompressed signal below the 'threshold' dB level. If, like me, you and your band (and audiences!) no doubt appreciate the ability to add light and shade to set numbers via changes in the volume to take things right down / build etc. Ideally it would be great to have the freedom to deliver this volume contrast easily, whilst not having to 'fight' compression of the bass signal, but at the same time protecting against unwanted accidental volume spikes. Is that something you can easily achieve on your limiter?