lemmywinks

39 minutes ago, Jack said:

That makes a lot of sense. My hard rock bacd has been using Alto TS for over a decade now. 15 tops and 18 subs, one stack each side (yes, yes, center cluster...) and we feel the same. They are certainly over that 'good enough' threshold.

The first gig we did with them I was doing the drum levels and was actually a bit surprised at how clear the kick was, half expected it to be pure mud or fart out. Big room and a single sub as well.

I can still remember the first PA we bought decades ago - Peavey HP400 with two huge subs, a floor standing rack unit with 3 stupidly heavy power amps, a separate crossover and an old Studiomaster (IIRC) desk in it and two heavy (and useless) wooden wedge monitors. Cost a fortune, didn't sound all that great, took an age to set up and was a PITA to load in/out. Our power amps kept breaking so we eventually had to add an additional one as a backup.

3 hours ago, Jack said:

What PA did you end up with?

3 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Can't let that go, please explain your setup.

Think I've listed it on the last "I love IEMs / I hate IEMs" thread! It's a  Behringer XR18 and 2 x Alto TS210 with a single Alto sub, TS15 or something like that. The rack bag is the G4M 3u shallow.

The two lads that joined already had the speakers from their last band so I assumed we'd be using them on a temporary basis until we had enough for some RCF cabs in the band kitty, was genuinely surprised at how good they sounded in a decent sized room though. Years later and we haven't upgraded yet!

Our old setup was 2 x RCF725 with 2 RCF subs, did some huge outdoor events (playing on a league one football pitch to one of the stands) with that rig and was brilliant, the subs weighed a lot though and were pretty massive. Wouldn't expect anything like that from the Altos but for indoor use they're very capable.

We're a 5 piece with keys (and the keys player won't get a smaller keyboard) so can struggle for stage space, I'm pretty tall so always struggled with hearing myself if I was right on top of my cabs. Don't miss my amps at all but do miss those RCF subs!

Not carrying backline along with having a very compact PA is probably why I can still enjoy gigging properly. My entire bass rig including preamp, cables, IEM setup and tablet fits in a gigbag, our desk (with router, power strip and bluetooth aux adapter) is in a 3u shallow rack bag and all our cables are in one of the Thomann cable bags.

Never been easier or faster to load in, setup and packdown. We had a band member and PA re-shuffle a few years ago and decided to go for the most compact PA as lugging a ton of stuff around was becoming a chore which we just didn't enjoy any more. Had a think about how we transported things and ended up with a tiny setup that sounds great and gives us excellent monitoring on any stage. Wasn't even expensive.

1 hour ago, dave_bass5 said:

That the only problem ive found with low hanging bags. You end up walking along the road looking like you have a full nappy 😀

Perhaps the Reunion Blues Incontinental Voyager would be a good choice in that case?

38 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

 

That looks really uncomfortable and impractical for wearing any distance other than the short trip between the car and the venue. On the last wearing option you can see the case slapping against the backs of his legs with every step. Nasty!

Yeah I wouldn't walk far with it, if your priority is getting through doors and up stairs easily then it might be good though.

Gruv Gear Gigblade (original version) might be an option?

On 19/04/2024 at 18:19, Woodinblack said:

I am the drummer wear IEMs. The others can do whatever they want, and now we have a new keyboard player join, he has a monitor, so the guitarist is really happy about that, he has been complaining for a while he couldn't hear well, and I kept pointing out we had many monitor out sockets left if he wanted to do anything about it.

Haha this is the best solution, amazing how quickly the problem (and subesquent whining) goes away when the solution is that person buying, carrying and setting up their own piece of equipment.

On 18/04/2024 at 16:53, ProjeKtWEREWOLF said:

As a punter, I hate it. I saw several tribute acts recently at a medium sized venue, who all played direct into the PA. I was stage front, and it was strange and lacking in Energy. 

 

As a musician, I like to feel my clothes flapping in the air coming off the cabs. It's ROCK AND ROLL! 

I'm a recent returnee to playing though and haven't arrived at the point where I need to decide on this approach. I might feel different. 

You can't feel your clothes flapping due to air coming off backline cabs, especially at a decent sized venue. Was probably the air con.

On 11/03/2024 at 19:37, Dan Dare said:

 

We're catching you up pretty quickly, Bill. SUVs are breeding like rabbits here, too. Thankfully, many are not as massive as those favoured over there, probably because many of our roads are so narrow. Many actually have less internal space than an equivalent-sized sedan. Thankfully, bro-dozers are still quite rare, but give it time...

It's a weird thing, everybody going for massive SUVs (which mostly still feel like smaller cars on the inside with little headroom) then moving into cramped new build estates where the roads are just about wide enough for one reasonably sized car.

3 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

Thanks - I don't trust the "delivery within 8 days" though. Going to wait until they have it in stock.

I paid £104 for a new MS-60B when they first came out in 2013, which would be around £160 in today's money, so this doesn't feel all that bad given that it's saving me getting a Helix Stomp 😄

 

 

I picked up my MS60b for £50not so long ago purely to use as a tuner and preamp for when I take my SInsonido out of the house. I wish it could drive headphones properly. There's a simple mod you can do to make the 2nd output stereo so a basic rechargeable headphone amp would work, can't see a headphone out on the new one unfortunately.

5 hours ago, SamIAm said:

My setup is close ...

 

 

But no red sofas! lol

 

In fact it is my gigging setup for small gigs and I hook up a PJB C4 for more oomph when required.

 

Sam x

I've wanted a C2 since they first announced them, already have a matching red TC head! Don't even remotely need it as I have a little EA 110 with a neo speaker in for home use but just want one, need to stop looking at them.

The Nanobass X4 looks like an incredible bedroom rig as well, just 16cm x 20cm x 20cm with aux in and bluetooth.

Bax have the MS60B+ listed at £143, link to the listing is down but still visible if you look under Zoom bass effects:

https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/bass-multi-effects-pedals/zoom

Bought a cheap AliExpress replacement bridge to replace the bendy baseplate on an old bass, I quite like the patina on the old parts so reused them so have these spare. There's the three posts with inserts, four saddles and saddle screws.

I'd get this setup then buy red leather sofas to match.

3 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

They go for little to nothing. A pal has a couple that he's advertised at silly prices with no interest. He even tried "free if you take it away" with no luck. They're great, but you can get 95% of the sound from something that fits in your pocket.

Yeah I had a mate who did house clearances, could get them for free. Helped him carry one up some stairs once when he did manage to get twenty quid for one of them, not offering to do that again.

1 hour ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

It's not a fully parametric EQ unless you can also dial in frequency and Q/Bandwidth for each band, for tonal versatility you would be better off with a filter preamp, like the one I suggested.

 

For a while I've wanted a 3 band preamp with dual concentric pots on each band - a HPF on the bass, a mid sweep (going quite low, like 100hz) and a treble rolloff so I can add highs I like and just nip off the nasty, ice pick in your ears stuff. Volume pot should be an optional plug in module as I never use 'em.

Dunno if one like that exists but it should!

Great build and write up!

3 hours ago, BigJHW said:

I hadn't considered getting a powered sub as a solution because we use a power amp and passive PA cabs.

As someone who has "zero" clue when it comes to PA's

how would i go about connecting a powered sub to passive PA cabs.. Can i just use the "line Output" from the back of the passive cab? Or will that also take power from the PowerAmp and try to power the already powered sub?

Sorry TOTAL PA noob here

Starting to think just getting a 4x10 and 1x15 to make my bass sound awesome might be the plan haha

Ah right, I also don't know much about PA but you'd have to take the XLR feed from the desk, plug that into the sub then take another two XLR from the sub's output and feed that to the power amp for your tops. The sub will have a built in crossover so does all the work for you.

Powered cabs are the way to go really, much easier to set up and transport.

Just get a single powered sub to start with, that's all we use now and we do some pretty big rooms. I also have the full mixer app on a tablet instead of using the simplified monitoring one, partly as a backup in case our big tablet fails and also partly so I can quickly check any weird eq stuff going on with the bass!

Warwick have released a 600w version of the Gnome

https://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_gnome_i_pro_600w.htm

Well someone got a bargain!

I gigged one of these once (borrowed bass for a late gig) and didn't rate it much but a tenner is a tenner!

As it says, worth checking out if you're local

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1255625872490379/

Valerie and I Predict a Riot are two I absolutely hated hearing and playing. Thankfully the latter had a relatively short lifespan in the set but Valerie - eurgh.

Also Does Your Mother Know, one of the weaker and less well known Abba songs but guitarists always seem to pick it. Hated playing it years ago and our new guitarist is trying to get it into the set, why would you pick that over all the great Abba songs that fill a dancefloor?

31 minutes ago, Mediocre Polymath said:

Yeah, I made a headless bass a few years ago, and being able to stick in a guitar gig bag is liberating. A glimpse of how the other half live. Unfortunately it's my fretless, and I don't often get called on to play that outside my attic.

Need pics of the fretless you made btw, forum rules!

I use the Gator Pro Go and Transit models, they can sit pretty far down but I still have to bend my knees to get through doors. I'm 6'6" so it's unavoidable, the problem was solved when I knackered my left collarbone and bought a lightweight headless bass that fits in a guitar gigbag!