Al Krow

Hah! Just realised you were referring to the lack of position markers on the Yammy BB734/5A EQ knobs. The Ibby is much more considerate:

While I'm collating quality posts on compression in one place, I note that even @51m0n's excellent two posts above states that "all overdrives and distortions and fuzzes are also compressors, just totally not transparent ones." It would be good to add the (heartfelt!) clarification from @Jus Lukin which he very recently posted on another thread: Overdrive & valve amp and 'compression' I know I'll regret saying it, but to all those comments about overdrive and valve amps 'compressing' (not just in this thread, but everywhere for years), this is another misunderstanding which has been repeated until it sounds true. Valve amps and drive/distortion clip the signal, conpression turns it down. Before audible breakup, they sound similar. Draw a graph or look at a wave form and they look similar. They are, however, different actions, and compression has much more control over how the volume gain is reduced and when. It IS pedantic to point it out, and I've sworn off these kind of topics for exactly the same reason I may never mention this again, but the fact is that clipping and compression, while sharing some similarities, are almost, paradoxically, also diametrically opposed in what they actually are. The same misinformation is trotted out so often that I think it is worth pointing out, not least so that proper use of compression gets a little more consideration by those who may be interested to dip into it. Another way to look at it could be that they both reduce dynamic range. In that regard they are the same. However, clipping, intentional or otherwise, in the simplest terms will be finding the limit of a particular component or circuit, and putting in more signal than it can deal with, hence anything at or past the limit is just not produced with any gain. Looking at the wave form it appears the sound changes shape, and therefore takes on a different timbre. This why fuzz is often used to replicate synth sounds- the wave has been turned quite 'square'. Compression however, only ever turns the volume of the whole signal up or down. To understand them in their most basic sense, they were designed to stop mix engineers having to ride the fader to keep a very dynamic track from bobbing in and out of the mix or to avoid unwanted clipping where a loud bit would hit physical limits and get a bit square. With compression, the wave stays the same shape, but is at different volumes at different times. We can see this in the need for a release control- at the threshold, the volume is reduced so that the signal is not so loud, but if it is not turned back up, the signal below threshold will stay quiet. The comp needs to turn that volume back up, unlike a fuzz, which simply gets less dirty as it becomes less saturated with signal. Valve amps blur the lines as they behave differently to a fuzz, but the fact that they can sound cleanish in that hinterland at the point of saturation belies the fact that they are still clipping- just really nice and smoothly. As I said, the graphs don't help as they can look very similar, too. But while you could draw the dynamic action of a fuzz and limiter in the exact same way, the difference is that the fuzz can't get any louder at the threshold, so changes the shape of the wave as more signal is shoved in. The limiter turns the volume down so that it doesn't cross the threshold, then turns it back up as it falls away.

Ah good to know, Chris. Some dude has just posted on how amazing it is on the low fundamentals thread!

How exciting - look forward to it! (I may be about to take my plunge on my first Bass VI tomorrow, hence my asking, but that's definitely an 'off topic' for this thread )

Not a sub woofer, but this former 128 lb monster could produce 33Hz at - 3dB. Impressive, right? LF Drivers: 4 x 10” Cast Speakers Voice Coil: 2.5” Magnet Weight: 56 oz HF Driver: Horn/Driver Voice Coil: 1” Magnet Weight: 8 oz RMS Power Handling: 600-Watts Frequency Response (-3dB): 33Hz - 18kHz Usable Low Frequency (-10dB): 29Hz Crossover Frequency: 4kHz Nominal Impedance: 4-Ohms Sensitivity: 96dB Maximum SPL: 124dB Dimensions (W x H x D inches): 26.25 x 30.75 x 18.75 Weight: 128 Pounds https://ampeg.com/products/pro/pr410hlf/

Can I send our guitarist your way please for summary execution? 😂 I kinda recall you (started?) a thread on Bass VI options and alternatives. Where did you end up landing on that front, squire? Love to hear any recordings / clips you've done on your Bass VI - do you play the bass part as well as the guitar parts?

Another vote for John East pre and sweepable mids! What's the particular model name you're going for?

I do 😜

Here you go

£11.50 from Amazon

Short answer 'no'. Seems to be the sort of information that Yammy (and pretty much all bass makers?) keep close to their chest! And the boys that really know their Yammys e.g.@hookys6stringbass, @hypercarrots and @pete.young I don't believe have ventured into the x34/5 series. At least with the Ibanez 3 band EQ you get to select the mids centre point - a welcome feature not available on the 734/5 as you know.

Well done Mr C! Looking good! You'll be making basses from scratch soon, at this rate!

You have applause time between songs? Luxury! 😂

These, for me, are still the best two posts on compressors on any thread I've read in several years on this forum and IMO worth digging up and sharing once every while! (1) COMPRESSORS AND PUB BANDS What are transparent compressors good for in a pub band? Not about to try and teach anyone to suck eggs, if you know this stuff, sorry for the post, if you are not really interested please skip it, if you want to know why a compressor might help you in a live situation when it apparently 'does nothing' or 'kills my dynamics' then feel free to have a read. It's like a very cut down compressor 101 chat I gave once, which some of you are still scarred by..... Originally compression was supposed to be a transparent tool to prevent an engineer from having to ride a fader throughout a take or a mix. All it was supposed to do was keep that level more even - as often as not by just slightly modifying the envelope of the input sound, hence the attack and release control. And with VCA compressors they pretty much achieved it. But before VCA compressors there were Vari-mu compressors (real tube compressors), Optical compressors and FET compressors. All these types have pluses and minuses, they all have different attack and release curves all of which do more than just transparently alter volume and help out an engineer. On top of these types of compressor there is tape compression and and amp/driver compression - no driver is completely compression free when you push it hard, no amp is compression free when you push it hard, all overdrives and distortions and fuzzes are also compressors, just totally not transparent ones. The best ever compressor you will ever experience is the pair you have strapped on to the side of your head all day. Yes your ears/brain are simply the most powerful compressor you can buy. The quietest sound you can hear is equivalent to your ear drum moving the width or a single molecule apparently, whilst the loudest sound you can hear before deafening yourself pretty much instantly is hundreds of thousands of times louder (you need to look into the way sound pressure level measured in micro pascals and decibels work as units of measurement). That amazing set of compressors on the side of your head has an unfortunate side effect, without a direct reference you are almost totally volume blind, small changes in volume are beyond you to describe, you can not reliably perceive them. Unless they are compared to a level that has not changed and is not changing. Obviously bigger differences are easy to perceive but the differences that can make or break a mix, if you aren't listening to the the mix happening at the time, nope, not a hope. So a deliberately transparent compressor you can't hear working on your signal in isolation, until you are doing way to much with it, and that's about when you feel your dynamics disappearing, because you are doing huge amount of compression in order to hear anything much at all. In a mix way less compression would be 'enough' to change the envelope of your signal to make your instrument be easier to hear, but you aren't in a mix so in order to hear anything at all you put way too much compression on. Thing is, a studio engineer has the time and choice to select the right type of compressor for the particular part of a track he/she wants it for and then set it up just so. What it does to an instrument in a mix then is help prevent 'masking', this is where the envelope of the signal drops in such a way, either because of the player's technique or their instrument or their preferred tonal choices that some other instrument makes it hard to hear when it plays at the same time. Near the end of a mix when two instruments are masking each other I have found that a change of as little as 0.1dB can sometimes make a real difference to the way a pair of instruments sound in a mix. Back to live then. If you are trying to use a compressor to help you be heard in a mix you need very very little for it to make a difference. If you are using compression for a definite effect then you may need bucket loads. If you like your tone as it is but feel you sometimes 'disappear' in the mix and are constantly turning up, then a transparent compressor, set just right, could be the answer to the fight. But you need good critical listening skills, you need to do this 'in the mix' unless you have great metering on the pedal to help you out otherwise you probably will put too much compression on the sound in order to hear it happening. Compression is difficult to master when you are in the safe space of a mix down with no distractions and lots of time to experiment. In order to make it 'easier' to use many pedals have no 'confusing' metering and not all the required parameters to really control the compression. This is a double edged sword, no metering and 'doing it by ear' are nigh on impossible with a transparent compressor unless you are setting it up in situ in the mix. On the other hand a full featured compressor is waaay to complex for an average bassist to get the best out of, and also remember that little detail about setting it right for a particular song? Well you can't with an always on compressor, so you have to set it to help you a little bit all the time, and that's another skill. Ultra low ratio (1.5 to 1 even), very low threshold, slow-ish attack (50 to 80 ms) and fast release (less than 30ms) giving not more than 3dB total compression on the loudest parts is probably a good target for a general touch of compression type of setting on bass live IME. No you can't really hear or feel it if you are just playing solo (don't be concerned if when playing normally the 3dB light doesn't light up at all, you are still getting some compression if your threshold is set right). In the mix you will be easier to hear, whether you are a loud or quiet band. Not because of tonnes of compression but because your individual note envelopes are changed just a smidge so that the post transient part of the note envelope is a touch louder than before. (2) COMPRESSION SETTINGS: AN INTRODUCTION Right, compressor talk 102 in short then (if you know this stuff, skip it etc etc etc):- OK so there are 5 not 4 parameters, and they are as follows:- THRESHOLD LEVEL (level above which the compressor starts compressing) ATTACK TIME (time taken to reach n% of your total compression ratio, this is complicated by the fact that different circuits do this with different curves and get closer to 100% of the ratio by this time) RELEASE TIME (time to turn the ratio back down to 1:1 after the signal drops below the threshold) RATIO (slope) (amount that the compressor prevents the sound getting as loud as it would otherwise, i.e. 4:1 means the output is 1/4 of what it would have been) MAKE UP GAIN (level) (amount of gain to apply to the signal after compression, its always on though, not only when the threshold is exceeded) If you are looking to add a little 'something' extra to your bass tone, but don't have hella ears/metering/experience then I suggest this process:- Initial set up (this is actually all about setting the threshold level very accurately):- Set the attack to about 20ms, the release to 200ms the ratio to max (at least 10:1), make up gain leave at unity (0)dB Then playing at a quietish level on the A string lower the threshold slowly until either you first meter light (3dB) lights up or you hear it start to squeeze the volume. OK, this is entirely unusable right now, except from now on pretty much every note you play normally will start to compress (oh my God, think of the poor dynamics!!!) Second stage to set up:- So, we now set the ratio way back down to as low as it goes (1.5 to 1, or 2:1 are good) Set the attack back to about 50ms Set the release to about 45ms Play normal stuff. Turn the compressor off, and on, try and equalise the volume with the make up gain so that the volume is consistent whether the compressor is off or on. Now if you need a bit more 'bite' to your tone open up the attack a little, if the initial transient peak is too loud, or you want to hear the compression happen when you dig in then speed up the attack (faster than 25ms will getting very frustrating dynamics freaks!) If you feel your playing is choked by this lower the ratio, if you feel its not doing enough in the mix try raising the ratio very slightly (2.5:1 would be an absolute maximum) If you play streams of notes one after another legato and the attack of the first note is loud compared to the following notes' transients shorten the release even more (10ms is fine), I play a lot of 16th note lines, my release time is very very short Don't worry if you only see the 3dB light when you slam the strings as hard as you can, you know you are always compressing, just slightly, and just the meat of the note, after the initial transient peak. There you go you've effectively emulated a tube channel that is creeping in to saturation, on the meat of the note but left your transients untouched, and you aren't distorting. Hope this helps someone. [Source: @51m0n Dec 2017]

Sounds like you've pretty much ended up where I did, with your tone-quest. My solution was to trade in my Berg with its Delanos (it was actually a rather lovely TM4) and get an Ibby SR Premium with big Nord single pups and on-board 3 band EQ to deliver that typical Warwick punch / edge - and as a former Warwick German $$ 5er owner I know exactly what you're referring to! I suspect it's the pups rather than the EQ that you need to swap out if you want that Warwick growl. I'll need to defer to other Berg owners if they can recommend pups that can be swapped in, ideally without needing to gouge out your bass, and which can deliver the tone you're after.

What price fun? 😀

Just to clarify which model are you referring to? The mini pro or the Stella?

Depends on what your favourite cider is I guess. May take a few gulps to fully feel that summer has arrived. 😂

'Jon, in your considered view, do we need to give much thought to the woods you would use from a tone perspective, or is this much more about the look, feel and weight of the bass?' There, easy question to ask him. Have you still got your Shuker? If so, pic please!

But if you're already at one knob (with the TC Spectracomp aka 'spawn of the devil' according to @51m0n), then this would seem as good as any as a next step on. Why bother spending more money on something less good?

It actually seems better configured than the Cali 76 CB, would you agree? Which is regarded by many (correctly or not I don't know) as the gold standard for pedal compressors. And this also costs less than the Cali, although still a punchy nearly £200 for the Stella. Looking forward to getting @Opticaleye's feedback on this and if it's half as good as we are all hoping, I could see this as being a really good way of getting to grips with compression. I actually rate Mark from Talking Bass as one of the best YouTube bass tutors out there and if he's endorsing this pedal, then that's also a pretty big recommendation in my books.

Although I might not regard you as a leading light on D class amp choice 😂 when it comes to comps, that's another matter entirely. Very unhelpful (on my wallet) to see you getting so excited about this piece of kit!

Find myself in total agreement with everything you've just said! That East U-Retro definitely looks like a really good piece of kit, in particular the sweepable mids. Thanks for the tip-off on that one.

I've had some really interesting conversations with Jon Shuker, who knows a thing or two about making basses. We've talked about a lot of stuff, including on board EQs and pups. The subject of woods has so far come up precisely... nil. Maybe I should raise with him? He certainly hasn't felt it important enough to bring up as an issue on his part.

So it seems we are all agreed this would be very important as it combines both wood and fingers in one action. 😂