Al Krow

FWIW - pushed the button on an Aguilar OBP3 in pref. to a Glock 3 band this time around. The Aggie seems to edge it in terms of +/- dB and frequency centre points. It will also be good to have a choice of mid cut / boost at 400Hz and 800Hz too (there's a switch option to deal with your allergy issues, Tom), rather than the theoretically cool but, in practice, never used NE1 module for mids on the BB2005.

I think maybe better to say it's "do-able but bloody hard!". I'm aware of a couple of other BC'ers, other than @casapete, @spencer.b and @Bluewine from this thread, and a couple of bass players not on this forum (god forbid, haha!) who are managing to be "purely pro" bass players. A few of them are in successful function bands collectively making £60K to £80K PA and one was a session bass player who did 300+ gigs a year, but who's recently decided to get a 9 to 5. My lot should be getting a decent chunk of cash per head each this and next year from pub and function gigs with a fair wind, and our lead singer can double what she gets from the band with solo gigs, but she would be the only one managing to live off her music performance and then only just; the rest of us have other jobs/sources of income which are still our main income. To the OP: I think there's a romance to being a full time pro musician. But the reality I suspect is that it's often gruelling, bloody hard work, with anti-social hours. Albeit, if it's something we love, it can be some of the best gruelling bloody-hard work we ever spend our time doing.

Wonderful story, thank you! I've often wondered how strict a "no substance abuse" policy bands should have, given the prevalence of drugs and alcohol in society and particularly the rock 'n' roll scene? So it's illuminating hearing about the damage it can do, as it's not widely spoken about or shared, but I guess that's a whole different thread and a complete side-track on this one... In terms of your acoustic duo, what is the set up on that in terms of instrumentation and vocals? (Any YT footage?)

My VTDI preamp pedal interacts differently with my three gigging basses and I'm finding that it's not actually "adding" much tonally to two of them (in terms of what I'm looking for), and I have the VTDI by-passed with those two, as the basses are sounding fine already in terms of their pups & on-board pre's. So that's leaving me occasionally using the VTDI with my third gigging bass and thinking maybe I should sell the VTDI and get the on-board pre sorted on that bass instead?

Zoom B1-4. Got 3 of the little buggers. One on my PB, one that functions perfectly well as my PB for gigs and a spare that I use as a headphone amp and keep around well, you know just in case something happens to the other two! I've plenty of pedals that I use far less and which cost more, each, than these three put together.

Two opposite viewpoints that summarise the discussion really well! There's clearly truth in both statements. Agreed that in terms of biggest impact on bass tone - it's going to be the pups. But a "tired" / underperforming (= worn out) pre is not going to let you get the most from your pups and in the OPs case, there's an issue around the mids which IMO is definitely going to be pre-territory as the first place to look to sort. I found that changing a worn out pre on a former Carvin BB with a Glock 3 band was a game changer in terms of letting the tone from the pups and bass come through. Thinking about doing something similar with my Yamaha BB 2005 currently.

Has Andras never considered doing a rehouse and just including it in the price (albeit increasing it a bit to cover any extra cost) save folk forking out for a wasted original housing? Markbass did it with their "SuperSynth" - they literally just changed the housing.

I had a SmoothHound for a few years, before swapping to the more compact Boss WL-20, and was pretty happy with it. But all in the days before we started going wireless IEMs and crowding the 2.4 Ghz space - it was a simpler, more carefree time 😊

Nice tip about putting the Boss WL-20s back in after everyone has set up their IEMs etc. I'll give that a go to see if that prevents drop outs and also doesn't cause issues with our 2.4 GHhz IEMs. @oldslapper I've got the WL-20s and had no issues with active basses.

Soundcraft are surprisingly good and seem very decent bang for buck! I've just sussed out how I can get 4 IEM outputs, each with independent volume controls and the ability to precisely tailor what each band member hears on a couple of them, on my MTK12 unit. I think that's going to be just the ticket for our 4 piece band. And not bad going for a 12 channel analogue desk.

@LukeFRC - totally agree about the hype/getting sucked in when it comes to new and shiny. That was definitely me here on BC (or perhaps sometimes more accurately "gear chat", haha!) until a couple of years ago, although tbf there is fun to be had exploring kit, particularly if you're buying used and not taking anything much of a hit when moving it on. I'm actually pretty settled on my gigging basses now - really enjoy all three and they each bring something different to the party which actually keeps all three of them fresh. The BB2005 was the actually the last bass I bought, almost 2 years ago now - not really felt the need to add to my herd since then. But semi-para mids? So you'd be recommending splashing out on a John East preamp then, rather than settling for a Glock or maybe an Aguilar OBP-3? Can't disagree with your view about construction and the BB2004 also looks stunning too - if there was a similar PJ version of the 2005 I would snap it up although the neck J pup is pretty good on the 2005. It sounds to me that a 3 band rather than a 2 band EQ is what you might be needing, though? Something that allows you to cut the bass a touch and roll-off the treble and give the mids a boost, and semi-para mids which Luke is suggesting maybe just the ticket to allow you to get that low-mid punch. Out of interest are you not able to get the EQ you want from your amp? I obviously should be asking myself the same question! In my case, I'm going straight into the PA these days and whilst I guess I could tweak the EQ on the desk, we rarely have time for such fine-tuning pre-gig when there are 8 mic and instruments inputs to sort, and it's not always our desk we are using. And with three different gigging basses it's actually easier for me to know what works on the bass itself and have the luxury of standing upfront and being able to tweak on the fly in real time rather than heading over to the desk, which will usually be set up behind rather than in front of the PA speakers. A good on-board pre lends itself to doing that nicely.

Well I totally love my BB2005 other than the preamp - I've never had another 5 string bass balance so perfectly with literally zero neck dive - so I'm pondering upgrading the pre, my hesitation is I'll likely end up adding 60%+ to what I originally spent on the bass itself which, tbf, I managed to pick up from a fellow BC'er for a very decent price. But I guess if it significantly ups how it sounds, it will be worth it. When I replaced the "tired" (= worn out) pre on a Carvin BB75 I had with a Glock 3 band EQ, it did seriously improve the sound, so maybe that's also the way to go with my BB2005 rather than forking out for something more high-end like a John East pre. I'm not sure exactly what's out there that would meet your requirements Tom for a passive tone control (and no push pull knobs) - but fingers crossed one of the great and good on BC will have some useful suggestions!

Cheers Mick, buuuut it's exactly the "cut down" NE1 preamp on my BB2005 that I'm a little frustrated with! 😅 When the NE1 is engaged it basically just allows a mid scoop but no ability to boost mids. The scooped mids are ok-ish in a solo setting but no more than that - to me anyway (YMMV), but end up losing the bass in a band mix. There's a switch to by-pass the NE1 mid-scoop, and I've got it permanently set on by-pass. Be much more useful to have a standard mid EQ with ability to boost and the NE1 by-pass switch could then very usefully become an active/passive switch which is always a nice insurance to have in case of battery failure mid set, rather than the pre-amp being purely active.

Ah ok thanks. Following your comment, I have A/B'd the three wireless units I currently have, the Boss WL-20 (2.4 GHz), Lekato WS-50 (5.8 GHz) and Nux C-5RC (5.8 GHz), with my three gigging basses (Elrick, Yamaha BB 2005 and Spector Euro 5LX). The basses are all active. I agree with you that, in isolation, and now I'm listening out for it there is a detectable distortion with the Lekato WS-50 (5.8 GHz) on two of my gigging basses (Elrick, Yamaha BB2005) which I didn't spot in the band mix at Sat night's gig, when I was playing the Yamaha. It's actually very noticeable distortion on the Elrick in active mode when digging in, but less so in passive mode, and even less with the Yamaha. The Boss WL-20 (2.4 GHz) and the Nux C-5RC (5.8 GHz) are, on the other hand, clean and have an appealingly slightly brighter tone than with a guitar lead. The Lekato however seemed fine with my Spector with EMG pups and gives less interaction interference with the onboard preamp on that bass than the Boss (slight) and Nux (noticeable) - but I'm hoping that sorting out the shielding on the Spector will address that. If it does then I'll likely be sending the Lekato back, otherwise it will be a case of using the Lekato with the Spector and the Nux with the Elrick and Yamaha. For overall tone/sound I'd rate the Boss WL-20 (£145) as being the best of the three, followed by the Nux (£135)** and in third place the Lekato WS-50 (£60). However the Lekato didn't suffer from the drop outs I experienced with the Boss at the same venue I've now used them both at (I've not yet tried the Nux out with a live band), and suggests that the 5.8 GHz is the better option than 2.4 GHz for avoiding drop outs. And almost certainly why Shure have added 5.8 GHz to the GLXD16+.

Are those the Boss units? Not particularly budget, though.

Had a chance to try out the Lekato WS-50 back at the most recent venue where I was getting out drop outs with the Boss WL-20, at a gig last night. Worked very well over 2 x 1 hr sets, which is promising start. I've not yet tried out the Nux C-5RC yet, but maybe good to have these as a back-up option. Either way, I'm relieved to so far have managed to dodge the bullet of having to fork out £539 on a Shure GLXD16+ !

Would be great to see clips of both setups, if you're happy to upload? Not least as our guitarist is using a Fender Combo plus pedal board so the comparison with the breakfast-eating Kemper would be super helpful.

Here's a comparison of the two: Al Krow (@al_krow) • Instagram photos and videos

We've got a pair of both the 912As and 732As as our PA speakers, and I put bass through them both. I'd say the 912As are perfectly good for bass (maybe a touch better?) The 732As are the way to go if you want to also use them for vocals.

A Kemper would be great, but quite a high-end unit, our fella is going to need to save up to get something in that league. Would Helix be able to cut it?

Just wondering what folk's experience of amp modelling of their guitar players is with their PA? Guys I've worked with have tried going through FoH, partly with a view to getting a balanced FoH sound and enable us to all use IEMs, but typically get quite a brittle / harsh sound if they are going into the PA via something like a Helix Stomp or a DI out from their pedalboard. The best compromise seems to be to mic up their cabs and use their rigs as a stage monitor. Be interested to hear where your bands / guitar players have landed on this one?

I have no idea where you have got that idea from? 😂 You're going to be horrified to hear I'm not debating your "strict" definition. However I don't think you're correct on the max ratio that the Keeley bassist pedal can deliver, and I guess it's for that reason that Bob Keeley describes the unit as a "limiting amplifier".

You maybe already doing this, but one thought here is to use your Keeley more as a limiter to deal with those occasional spikes i.e. set it with a high threshold to kick-in only above a certain volume level, rather than necessarily compressing the whole dynamic range, to potentially give you the best of both worlds? (Obviously plenty of folk on BC are fans of "full-range" compression as well).

Thanks Luke - I love the preamps on both my Elrick and Spectors, but they're quite different so it's not a specific sound I'm looking for. But actually you've got me thinking that the BB 2005 does actually benefit from, and pair really well, with my Tech21 VTDI which makes the bass feel more alive and able to cut through the mix better on a couple of different settings. Whereas the Elrick and Spector I play don't particularly benefit from the VTDI in anything like the same way. I know there's a line of thought that you can get "your sound" consistently by using a pre-amp pedal but my, albeit limited, experience suggests that's not always going to be case especially when you have an active bass. Tired = worn out (it's a nearly 20 y/o bass). But I'm really keen to hear if anyone else has done an upgrade and it worked well with their BBs?

Guys - just giving my earlier post a little bump - have any of you fellow BB owners ever replaced / upgraded the preamp on an active BB? Appreciate that a lot of the range is purely passive!