Al Krow

Fwonkbeta vs MXR BEF - both on my current fav settings (you'll need to excuse the playing but it's getting late!) Fwonkbeta.mp3 MXR BEF.mp3

Ssssshhh! His missus might be checking in, after all he's not home yet...

Interesting. Sounds like a Thumpinator or other HPF would similarly work to take out the low end crud in place of the RMI. HPF --> comp is how I have things set up on my board, so good to hear that combination working well elsewhere.

Oh my, that's nice!! 😍 So glad it's missing a string though! 😂 Where did you manage to find that beaut?

Aha got what this was about 2.00 mins in...a Korg Volca Keys! Good stuff!

@hookys6stringbass? You tried contacting Yamaha directly?

@bassjim you've reminded me that 'perfect' can be the enemy of the 'good'. And it's sooooo much better if Scott is 90% right and helps a bunch of bass players than doing nothing; it's a lot easier and of much less value to anyone for me be making criticisms from the comfort of my arm chair. I think the lesson for me here is simply to get my head around who Scott is aiming his videos at (and actually perhaps to remove him from the pedestal I may previously have had him on!).

Haha, so that entire previous thread, which the mods had to close, was an "unreaction"? 😄 And in no way did Scott feel the need to post a 30 min video to justify himself.

Another vote for Alto from someone who has tried them. Excellent, thank you. Hah! The prospect of having something that is half the volume and 25% lighter week-in week-out far outweighs, for me, the prospect of an extra £30 or so resale value in 4 years time, if / when we come upgrade! Besides the RCFs wouldn't quite be a matching set: the 310s I have are the older Mk2. And with happy Alto users crawling out of the woodwork, as they already seem to be doing, they are soon likely to be in demand!

That's helpful - I hadn't read the previous SBL thread or seen his 30 min justification for spouting stuff that with a bit more care and thought wouldn't ruffle the feathers of other experienced bass players. Can't deny he's both successful and entertaining (and I have a massive amount of respect for him on both counts). I will going forward, however, take his 'clickbait' videos with the health warning he himself attaches to them.

I suspect my taste is more in line with yours if your favourites are the B3K and Aggie Agro, but if I happen across an AO pedal on my travels (eg at Wunjos) I'll certainly give it a try.

@thodrikgreat review, thanks! It sounds like the VMT / B3K on the M900 v1 should suffice from a dirt perspective for my needs then. From what you are saying, the AO circuit seems to be a different flavour of DG dirt, but still very much recognisable as a DG dirt in the same family as VMT / B3K.

Am I right in thinking that the drive goes from subtle to fuzz, but the Omega is more of a 'fizzy' drive compared to Alpha at any given drive setting?

Clearly 😛 [0.05] "So in this video we are going to walk through EVERY SINGLE ONE of the big steps that makes up our tone as a bass player" Doesn't get any more comprehensive than that, does it?!

Haha - see earlier in this thread for brief discussion on IEMs. John beat you to the punch on that one!

Alto have recently released their 3 series, with a lot more headroom than the previous 2 series, which our dep guitarist went for in preference over Yamaha and QSC on value for money grounds. If Alto's quality of components is on a par as some of its peers, as Luke is implying (and I have no reason to doubt him!) then maybe RCF, Yamaha and QSC need to start looking over their shoulders

One thought: have you tried putting a compressor before your filters? My signal chain is Thumpinator (i.e. HPF) to clean up low end crud --> TC Spectracomp --> Filters I find that the my filters (particularly the MXR BEF) are significantly more responsive with the compressor before them in the chain. I just wonder whether you would find your Fwonkbeta able to handle slap if you had your compressor at the start to feed it a tighter signal? Be interesting to see if this makes a difference or not.

That's reassuring! i.e. 'odd' in the sense of 'unexpectedly good quality' for what they seem to be charging?

Genuine Q - have you A/B'd the Alto and the RCF or are you going on reputation (and I agree RCF has a great reputation and our PA speakers have never let us down). Reason for asking is that one of the guitarists I work with decided to go FRFR with his full fat Helix. We went to PMT Romford and he A/B'd Alto, Yamaha and QSC. He left with an...Alto (!) - neither of us could hear anything materially better with the two better known / more highly rated brands to justify the additional price. But maybe the price difference is not reflected in sound but in the quality of components and reliability / longevity?

Agreed But for some reason he starts by saying it is a comprehensive guide! Why do that? He does it indirectly by saying that his students complain that their basses are not cutting through the mix and goes on to say that an active bass won't help them to do that. Well, with due respect to Scott, that's bollox: just flick the active switch, give the mids a boost and see if that doesn't make a difference compared to playing the bass passively. It will, believe me. Tbf - he may not be aware of this as he "only ever plays his basses passively". Lol! Ok I'm just kidding, he knows this stuff very well... Anyway, I'm sure you and I have other things to be doing this evening than discussing this one point! Have a good rest of the day Mr Tobe

@Tobe we're at cross purposes here mate. My point is that tone of a preamp in a bass, a pedal and an amp is much more than about EQ settings. Scott is suggesting that tweaking the EQ on an amp can have a massive impact on tone but doing that on a bass makes no difference. He can't have it both ways. EQ is basically EQ, albeit centre points play a part. Let's agree to disagree on this one.

@Merlino - our Fwonkbeta settings are pretty close!

Cheers Cam. On price grounds then a single TS308 is going to win hands down over multiple Helicons. I take your point about individual monitors and would certainly be ideal. But it's a trade off between simplicity and quick set up (particularly for pub gigs) and the ideal.