jensenmann

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' post='278641' date='Sep 6 2008, 02:19 PM']Those venues will have a full complement of monitors, both wedges and sidefills, as well as in-ears in many cases, so Uber cabs aren't required. This side of the pond tens remain the #1 driver size seen on tour w/major acts. The problem venues are those large enough to require PA support but not sensible enough to provide it. But even then four tens vertically aligned are enough to do the job, which is providing adequate output for the stage and the first 50 feet or so of room. If there's no PA to cover beyond that it's the promotors problem, not yours.[/quote] You´re right but what I like is to hear my rig, no matter how big the stage is. I don´t want to hear the DIed signal through monitors. I hate to hear my bass with a compressor inserted - but that´s what those PA guys are always doing (though it´s important for FoH sound). Anyway it´s a matter of taste.

At times when I used to gig much I was forced to carry my cabs without helping bandmates with me because I played in so many different bands. That was the reason why I used 2x 2x10" cabs. Everything bigger than that is a nightmare to transport. On bigger stages where you´d expect that you need a 1x15" for extended lowend there are so many PA subs that you will have enough lowend on stage through the PA. Only exception from that are very modern line array PAs with cardioid subs. They will throw the bass only into the crowd, not on stage. Here you need something bigger than 10" speakers.

Don´t worry about the impedance. Piezo tweeters won´t do no harm impedancewise. But it might be too loud. Maybe you need a pot in front of the piezo to adjust it´s volume.

My 9098 is probably not exactly what the racked 9098 pres are because there were differences between the rackversions and the deskversions. My DIYpres are derived from the desk schematics. They are great allrounders with a very rich tone. Not colourful, more on the neutral side but they deliver a very detailed sound. Everything is there, nothing missing, nothing favoured. These are my goto-in-a-hurry pres, I can´t go wrong with them in any application. Never tried the Buzz audio stuff. I´m trying to stay away from the 500 series hype. I remember people throwing API desk away because they sounded too coloured - well, long time ago. Same with the old german broadcast stuff. Today the hype goes the other direction. Everybody´s crazy for analog nastyness :-)

The U47fet is what will be my next purchase. People always tell me how good they are for bass but I never had the chance to check it out. This has to change. If you know someone selling one let me know.

Oh, you asked for preamps. Did you mean basspreamps or microphone preamps? As for the latter I´m DIYing a lot of studiogear. So did I with my mikepres. A phantastic preamp is the Gyraf G9 with a stunning sounding DI. It´s fully tube and gives great control about input distortion. Not in the sense of cranked Marshall but more in the sense of harmonic enhancement. Very creamy sounding, esp. for fretless. Here´s a link to the DIY-project: [url="http://www.gyraf.dk/"]http://www.gyraf.dk/[/url] Then there are some Neumann v476, Telefunken v676 , Siemens v72, Langevin AM16, RCA BA31 racked pres and my version of the Amek9098 pre. My next DIY preamps will be Hamptone Jfet preamps. They are famous for nicely coloured bass-sounds. I´m really looking forward to get them finished (after having completed the overhaul of my Amek desk - which will surely take another year and a half). Hamptones are available as kit if it´s from interest for somebody: [url="http://www.hamptone.com/HJFP2.htm"]http://www.hamptone.com/HJFP2.htm[/url]

[quote name='Mcdrewson' post='275764' date='Sep 2 2008, 08:42 PM']Jensenmann - what mics and pres do you normally record with out of interest?[/quote] Fortunately I have around 60 mikes and access to boatloads more. So there´s pretty much choice. The above mentioned mikes are no brainers, you can´t go wrong with either of them. I´ve recorded with each of them. They are kind of industry-standard for PA and recording, hence they are available in most studios and in most PA companies. I´ve been recording (bass) with beta52s, too. But they are not no-brainers. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don´t. Some Neumanns are pretty good for bass. The last recording I did was a bigband where the upright was picked up with two U89. I´ve been using SM57s for basscabs successfully when the lowend isn´t that important - means: recorded through DI+mike. Lowend came from the DI, life has been added with the SM57 sound. Other mikes which I have been using: Beyer Opus99, M201, Sennheiser MD441, MD409

Do yourself a favour and get a real microphone and stay away from cheapo BS. Sennheiser 421, EV RE20, Beyerdynamic M88 or Shure SM7B are the ones you want. Everybody and their grandma uses these mikes for basscabs since ages (besides AKG D12 which is no more made) and there is reason why. These mikes deliver everything you need but without too much coloration. This will keep your sound flexible. Bassdrummikes often have a presence/treble boost which you don´t want for bassguitar so you have to be careful with some of these mikes (D112, Beta52, e602). They might work - or might not, depending on what you want. I know, late reply but I thought it´s worth to mention

I saw this amp once. It had (IIRC) three power amps: 300W+300W+600W The cab meant to use with it was 2x 2x10 + 1x15 (yes, in one enclusure) The idea behind that was a stereo bassamp with biamping capability: Lowend mono and topend stereo

could you show us a picture to see how much it has been damaged?

Still no reply from Paul. Maybe my mail got spammed? Did someone over here actually have email contact with him?

[quote name='tayste_2000' post='270243' date='Aug 26 2008, 12:34 PM']Yeah I always try and take that approach, I think you are right in the whole feel thing especially with my music, I still want to improve my whole sound out front (FOH) though was thinking of getting an Avalon u5 but wasn't sure if I should put that through the amp as well?[/quote] Ask your FoH engineer what he thinks would improve your FoH sound. I´m pretty sure there will come up very different opinions than you´d expect.

oh and btw if you buy an inear do yourself a favour and get a Sennheiser. They are the most reliable. Surely they cost more than others but they will give you less trouble. Once buying professional gear saves you from having to buy twice.

Inear monitoring is not made for me. I prefer to hear what´s going on on stage and in the crowd and I don´t want to be acoustically isolated. It never happened ever that I couldn´t find the sweetspot on stage where it sounded perfectly balanced for me. Inear doesn´t rock. Too much control, no sensations. Get yourself whatever bassrig really thrills you and be lucky with what you hear.

Thanks for the info. Is there a dedicated site where I can get more infos about Spector serial numbers? This makes me curious. The only reason to part with it could be another Wal 5string or Midibass or an old Gibson T-bird :brow:

Huh, wow, thanks for your warm welcome. I didn´t expect that. It seems that everybody here speaks german, so why not convert this board into german language No, better not, it´s a good opportunity for me to practice english . Hey, Oliver, where are you located? Somewhere close to me (Karlsruhe)? I´d love to check some other Walbasses :-) ARGH, yes, I played an ESH some years ago. But it was a short checkout when a fellow bassplayer visited me at home. He came with his ESH fretless to check one of my DIYed preamps. The focus at that evening was less the bass but more distortion characteristics of tubes and beer. So I can´t say anything reliable about these instruments (except what is my taste about them - but that´s of no help for anybody else). Very longtime ago I met one of the founders of ESH and talked with him about construction of bassguitars - I used to work at a luthier´s place at that time. He had a very welleducated opinion about this stuff and a very good concept of how to translate his ideas into construction. ESH basses have very good detailsolutions to solve problems other bassguitars have because of design flaws. If one likes the result is a different, very personal thing. cheers Jens

[quote name='molan' post='269842' date='Aug 25 2008, 10:31 PM']Nothing wrong with the 'sound of the '70's' - especially if it's a Fender Jazz through an SVT [/quote] I know, bro´, you´re absolutely right :brow:

[quote name='molan' post='269070' date='Aug 24 2008, 07:04 PM']That's interesting about leaving the power amp tubes out - what does this do to the power output in terms of wattage? As you're obviously a bit of an expert on Ampegs I wondered what you thought about running the SVTII into an 8ohm cab. I've read that it really prefers to run into 4 or 2ohm loads but Ampeg say it's 'ok' to run into 8 as well?[/quote] There´s 3 pairs of 6550 or KT88 in the poweramp which work together. Each pair delivers roughly 100W. Leaving out one pair means you get 100W less. But you have to pull a pair that works together. You´d better not pull any two tubes (unless you want it to sound different-it might sound unpleasing). Having said that I remember a gig when I had three dead tubes inside. The band was wondering what´s going on but I enjoyed the biggest fuzzbox ever. There´s no problem to run the SVTII with 8Ohm. There´s never a problem - technically spoken - to use speakers with higher impedance than recommended for the amp. BUT: The sound changes. The output transformer of any guitaramp or bassamp is - well - underdimensioned. If you push full power into the iron it saturates and generates quite an amount of distortion. For HiFi they use much bigger transformer to avoid this, but musical instrument amplification is a different beast, it benefits from distortion because this colours and alters the sound. We want that :-) Now full power means that you have to use a cab that allows the amp to send maximum current with maximum voltage into the speakers. That´s what nominal impedance is meant for. If you use 8 Ohm instead of 4 Ohm (nom. imped.) cabs then you still have a lot of output voltage from the amp but the current is lower and current is what saturates the ironcore of the transformer. This means you get less distortion and less colouration. You don´t do no harm to neither amp nor cab but your ears will probably detect the difference (unless you use two turbo Rat pedals in series anyway) Hope this helps

sorry, slightly OT: I just realized how many Spector models are out there right now (yes, I´m a disinformed old fart). Could someone enlighten me where they all do differ? I have an older one from end 80s or early 90s, serial # is 1289. What are these called? NS4 or did they have a different name? Here´s a picture: [attachment=12637:000_0210.JPG]

I never realized that Spectors are popular. For years they have been a secret, at least here in Germany. Wherever I gigged with my NS2 people asked me what Warwick model this is. yuk

That´s good news. I already mailed Paul for some pots. What a timing: yesterday I signed to this board, today there´s a solution for one of my headaches found. What a day. (I also managed to repair a totally blown supply rail of my console PSU - YEEEEEHHAHAAAAA)

Hiya gentlemen and gentlewomen Just found this place when searching for Walbasses infos. This seems to be a very cool and peaceful place in the web, so why not registering??? My name is Jens, I´m located in Karlsruhe, Germany and into music since 34 years. Bassaddiction came up 22 years ago with my first bass being a GDR-made Musima fourstring-piece-of-sh*t. I soon decided to get something better which led me to the instruments which I´m actually playing: Wal 5string, Wal 6string fretless, 2x Fender Jazz, Spector NS2, selfmade Jazzbass, Squier JV Precision I totally lost control over which and how many effects I have. Some bandmates gave me the name "sound of the 70s". This must have come from not knowing which knob is doing what on all those pedals. My bassrigs are: Ampeg SVT+cab (silverface, first series), Ampeg B15, Trace Elliot AH600SMX+2x Boogie 2x10 Clone (DIYed), some more cabs with 2x12 EV and 1x15 Celestion, some guitarcabs, SWR Baby Blue, Echolette BN40, Hiwatt Custom 100, Acoustic 470 (this thing has barely ever worked no to speak never sounded good. Now that´s 70s) Could anybody please tell what one should need all that rubbish for??? I´m wondering everyday :-S I´ve been professional bassplayer for about 10 years. My mistake was that I learned to read music. So I got one call after another to read and hence played with probably every band and some more in my area with not enough rehearsing. Quite a frustrating expierience since all the other bands sounded good while wherever I jumped in it sounded not that exciting. Been there, done that made me regret having spent so much time with not playing original music. This (and the ever decreasing wages) made me quit professionalism and get a job as teacher for audioengineering three years ago. Today I enjoy not to read music and play originals, recording, practicing martial arts and DIYing studio gear. Besides that I´m running a nice little homerecording studio and enjoy being daddy since 9 weeks (which is probably the best thing that ever happened in my life). cheers Jens

Sorry, all the other gear is spread in a bunch of rehearsal rooms in my area. No chance to take pictures right now. But I will do so in a few weeks when vacations are over.

Thanks, mate, that´s really good news!!!

[quote name='6stringbassist' post='269203' date='Aug 24 2008, 11:34 PM']If you ever decide to sell that, then please let me know. That's beautiful, and has the perfect amount of strings. [/quote] I would trade it with a Mach II fretless 5 string in good shape + something I´m too old and lazy for 6 strings