bob_atherton

Thanks Guys. Just ordered a small pot of Birchwood Casey Tru Oil. Bob

Just bought a 'new' Fender Custom Shop 63 P bass. Very nice but never really liked that stripped back of neck thing. My guitarist swears by Tung oil on these necks, but my tech says to use high quality Danish oil as it has a small content of polyurethane, which he says is better than Tung oil. He also said use Tung oil if you want but in his opinion Danish is the way to go. Any thoughts and advice? Thanks. I want to put something on the neck so is there another option. Cheers. Bob

Well, we will be playing that track and many others at a 1 off gig at The Sheppey, Glastonbury on Oct 23rd

I will let him know you think that. Thanks..! FWIW we now play "why did you do it" as a slow blues, it was the original version that never made it on the album.

Low Pas Filter and High Pass Filter as well. I cut anything below about 30 hz and anything above about 4K. Tightens up the sound.

It's not quite how it works in my rig. The signal is split at the end of all EQ, compression, LPF, etc. The top amp is set to a more mid punch tone, not much low end. The bottom amp feeds the lower cab which give a fat low end sound without much mid punch. I wouldn't feel comfortable being at a gig with only one amp and only one cab, so I might as well use two of each in a very versatile rig.

One and the same. I also played on a Curved Air album with him just before lock-down. Stewart Copeland was also playing on the album.... that made my day/month/year/life...!!!

My rig

Hi Guys. After much testing, gigs, and playing in three different bands I have a happy result. On the advice of Kirby, our guitarist, I bought a Tonebone ABY unit. I have this connected to the amps. The Mesa going to the bottom cab and the LMIII going to the top cab. The LMIII needed polarity change on the pedal. Both cabs set to 4ohm. The result is an incredibly versatile rig that gives me exactly the tone and power that I'm after regardless of the venue. I could not be more pleased. I don't have the rig playing that loud but the versatility of tone and the fact that if any amp or cab craps out at a gig I can keep on playing is priceless. I have now ordered a single 1x10 cab from Barefaced to use as the top cab at smaller gigs. I am seriously pleased with the set-up. Thanks again for all your kind advice. Cheers, Bob

If I run my Mesa at 2 ohm into the cabs set to 4 ohm then it sounds a lot more wooly and thick compared to the cabs set to 12 ohm and the amp to 4 ohm, at the same perceived volume. The later sounds more articulate and open. At this point I had the cabs daisy-chained with speakon to top cab from amp and then connected to bottom cab from top cab with speakon. I then connected both cabs direct from the amp, no daisy-chain. This improved things again. I have absolutely no idea why but it sounded clearer and tighter. The two cabs set like this give me loads of volume and headroom. I have band practices tomorrow and Friday and first gig, outdoors, with the new cabs on Sunday. I'm hoping that this configuration will work out well, we will see. The two things that have baffled me are why does the amp sound so different and worse set to 2 ohms? and why, after decades of daisy-chaining my speaker cabs does it sound better with both cabs connected directly to the amp? Thanks again guys for all the great help. I now think that just the Mesa WD800 will be my only amp with the MB LMIII as my back up/spare. Happy days...!

Hi Marco Thanks for your reply. What I'm trying to achieve is a one size rig fits all gigs situation. I always take a spare amp and two cabs to any gig, along with spare bass and cable. It occurred to me that rather than have the MB LMIII sitting backstage, just in case, I should use it in the rig. I have found that the Bareface 2x10's require very little EQ to get me in the zone sound wise. The cabs let you know what the amp's tonal signature is much better than my old Markbass cabs did. With this in mind I have now ordered a 1x10 from Bareface and will use that on top of the 2x10 for small gigs and two 2x10's for larger gigs. I can set the 2x10's to 4 ohm and get the full power from each amp. It should, in theory, give me huge amounts of power and flexibility. I too use a pedal-board with a MB compressor, a HP/LP filter and a Tone Hammer pre. I do fantasize over getting another Hiwatt DR103 but my back is the voice of reason. It would also look a bit odd balancing on top of a vertical 2x10 cab! Cheers, Bob

Thanks for all the advice guys. I do have a HPF and a LPF. The point of running two identical cabs is to get the best integration between them. Back in the day I used to use my Rickenbacker 4001 with 'Ricosound' and put the bridge pickup through an H&H 100 watt into two 2x12 cabs and my neck pickup into a Hiwatt 100 and a Hiwatt 2x15 cab. It sounded great and gave me quite a Chris Squire sort of sound. We also had a couple of roadies..! What I want now is the capability to tweak the sound from both cabs to suit the venue. Both amps sound quite good but neither is perfect. I suspect that by using my suggested setup it will give me the best of both in a very portable setup. By using the cabs at 4ohm each it will give me a 1300 watt rig. Way too much power but with great headroom. I'll sort it out one way or another and let you know how it works out. Thanks again. Bob

Hi. I want to run two Barefaced 2x10 cabs with a Markbass LMIII for the top cab, and a Mesa WD800 for the bottom cab. The Markbass on its own gives me lovely articulation and sounds just right, but, looses the heft of using the Mesa on its own. I want to also run both cabs at 4ohm to give me loads of headroom from the two amps. I thought this would be pretty straightforward but it would appear to be a bit of a minefield with reference to phase, ground loops etc. I never want to run just one cab at once so I guess I dont really need an ABY box, or do I..? Any help is very seriously appreciated. Thanks, Bob

Thanks Guys. I have a soft spot for flats. I had them on my very first bass, a Shaftesbury Tele copy back in 1970. Short scale so easy on my fingers and good to learn on. I don't often have the opportunity to go for flats, but a blues band seems like an opportunity I can't pass up. I may yet feel I need to go back to rounds and , to be honest, I didn't know DR did lo-riders in 50-110. Do them come in nickle at that gauge? I hate stainless rounds. Anyway will report back once landed and worn in. I think that takes about a year or so...(-:

Just ordered a set. Pretty sure they will nail what I'm after. Thanks again. Bob