jensenmann

For recording basscabs I usually use a Beyerdynamic Opus99 for it´s fat lowend without the usual lowmid dip which most bassdrum mics do have. Occasionally it might be a AKG D12 (sounds oldschool), EV RE20 (neutral) or Neumann U89 (very detailed with exceptionally controlled lowend). If the bassound is distorted, then it´s a SM57. For acoustic bass it´s a U47fet or U89. For ambience I use Neumann CMV563, SM69fet, U87, Shure VP88, Beyerdynamic M160, depending on what I want to achieve and where the mics are placed in the room. Looking at the other thread you posted about interfaces it seems that you you´re asking for a mic to record the roomsound of your bass. In 30yrs of recording I never had the desire to do so. But maybe I should give it a try. In an acoustically untreated room the result could be disappointing due to standing waves messing with your lowend. If you have a room with a properly designed acoustic then you could get predictible and useful results. I´d use U87/89/47fet in that case. A man cannot have enough microphones. But don´t tell missus....

I have a vintage B15 for recording and couldn´t be happier with it. At some point I´m sure that I want to compare it to the new PF20/50 amps. But it´s a keeper anyway. The last amp I will sell. I´ve recorded all types of basses through it, be it Precision, Jazz, Thunderbird, Stingray, Wal fretted and fretless, ... All of them sounded great. No issues from active electronics. For live sessions I always wrap it in absorbers to have less bleed with other open mics. But it doesn´t need to be played loud for a great sound, anyway. But unfortunately there´s quite a monetary difference between PF heads and B15s.

Now that´s a car. Tasty and classic. Never seen or heard of this.

What do you mean with FF? Sorry, I´m german, not a native speaker...

You may want to contact Tim at https://www.studiosystems.co.uk

Any realworld experience with the BQ250 available?

I´m using a KMT DC5 poweramp together with a Peavey Alpha tube bass preamp as well as a selfmade preamp for my fretless. Those KMT amps (or relabeled as Red Rock) are wide spread among german bassist. They are very reliable, sound great and not too expensive. Inside there´s a linear supply, not switchmode like most modern amps. This raises it´s weight to 9kg compared to a few kg less with switchmode amps. The powersupply in poweramps makes all the difference for me. I still have to find a good sounding amp with switchmode supply. If you´re used to your oldschool Marshall with tons of headroom then be aware of the powersupply problem when you replace it.

1. Wal Mk2 5string fretted 2. Wal Mk2 5string fretless 3. Wal Mk2 4string Midibass 4. Fender Jazzbass 1962 5. Fender Jazzbass 1992 MIJ 6. Fender Precision 1974 7. Greco TB-70 Thunderbird 8. Spirit/Steinberger XT-25

Thrust is a patented circuit in API 2500 compressors. It´s basically a sidechain highpassfilter which causes the compressor to react less on LF signals than on HF. https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-what-does-api-2500-compressors-thrust-control-do Let´s wait and see if there will be a patent violation lawsuit....

If I understand you right you´re looking for a remix with bass muted? You should be able to do this in Logic X, too. But if you don´t have any Logic at all then drop me a line, I can do that for you.

In my early days many bassplayers in my area used Trace heads. Whenever I tried one I hated them. They were not made for me and that stuck in my mind longtime. >10 years later I was using a SWR SM400 which died at a gig. I went to a Musicshop to have it checked and had to rent another head for the gig this day. They only had a Trace head available, everything else was already out. I was a bit grumpy because I didn´t like the idea of doing a rock gig with a Trace amp but there was no way out, I had to. Surprisingly I got along very very well with it or lets say I never before heard myself as good on stage. When my SWR was back in business I sold it as fast as possible and bought the Trace. It´s an AH600SMX which I still play 18 years later at gigs and rehearsals - not for recording though. The SMX series is something special and different to my ears than the earlier transistor-only heads. The tube really does the trick for me. It´s always fully on.

I finally made it to see Iron Maiden last weekend in Freiburg, Germany. What really impressed me is with how much energy those guys are playing after all those decades.

Now that´s a fine collection. Congrats! How do those early Bassman amps compare to the 59 and blackface?

+1 Definitely keep at least one of your Ps. You´d regret it later on.

Wow, that´s along story. Here we go: Passive pickups can be seen as a mixed circuit which consists of resistance, inductance and capacity, hence creating a resonant peak at a certain frequency above which the frequency response is going downwards. This resonant peak is highly important for the sound of the instrument because it sits in the presence area of our hearing range. Now if you plug such a PU into an amp then the amp´s input impedance will interfere with this resonant point, usually lowering and eventually broadening the peak as well as lowering the frequency. We´re used to that and we want to hear our passive instrument like that to a certain degree. To make things worse the cable has it´s impact, too, as it sits between amp and PU. That´s why some people like cables of a certain length. Now there comes the DI with it´s own input impedance, typically 50kOhm for a passive DI and 1MOhm for an active DI. This again will interfere with the PU resonance and alter the sound. And things get more difficult if you go through the DI unbuffered into an amp because that will increase the load on the pickup and the resonance point will go lower again. Technically spoken both input impedances are parallel to the pickup giving an even lower impedance than each single one of DI and amp. For historical reason most bassamps have an input impedance of 220kOhm (many exceptions, though) while guitar amps typically have 1MOhm. To have a proper matching between output impedance of a PU and input impedance of an amp/DI the later one should be x10 of the source impedance. Pickups of passive basses have worst-case output impedances of 17kOhm, hence there should be a load of at least 170kOhm. Passive DIs cannot deliver such high impedances. They are the wrong choice. You´re better off with an active DI. Active basses have worst case output impedances of a few hundred Ohms. Here both passive and active DIs are fine regarding impedance matching. The PU resonances are already buffered by the active electronic inside the bass in a way that both DI and amp cannot have an influence on that. For the studio nerd there´s more to check out: if we have micpres with variable input impedance then this will be the next parameter to look for in a chain of passive bass, passive DI + amp. A lower input impedance setting of the micpre (e.g. certain vintage Neve preamps have this possibility) will be reflected through the transformer of the DI. That means the DI seems to have a lower input impedance than it´s nominal value (wrt 1,2-1,5kOhm input impedance of the micpre) and will load the pickup even more down, eating the treble range even more. Historically this problem has been recognized in times when there were no active basses around. The solution were active DIs, back then made with tubes. All that is theory. You will not destroy either bass, amp or DI with the technically wrong choice. It does influence sound, but if you like it then all is good. If not, then see above.

Sometimes convenience and a fast workflow are more important than sound. Depending on the situation I grab what´s next just to make it work fast. Musicians are mostly not interested in minute details of sound, they just want to play. As an engineer I don´t want to get in their way. While I can hear and know the difference in tonality between all my DIs I can get along with each of them. There´s no bad DI amongst them. For my classes I have a few crappy DIs which I´d never use on a real session, just to show my students (with lesser trained ears) that there are relevant differences. Even more important is to know when to use active and passive DIs.

I frequently do a lot of proaudio gear shootouts with my students, the obvious DI comparison amongst many others (I teach audio engineering). My personal conclusion is that the simple and not too expensive BSS DI box is pretty good on an absolute level and unbeaten in it´s pricerange. You´d need to pay x4 the price to get a clear improvement. The above mentioned Bo Hansen DI (it´s a DIY project, not available prebuilt) is better that the BSS, but it depends a lot on the parts used for it. I made eight of them for myself in several versions and each of them cost me app. 100€. If you occasionally need to use the DI for piezo pickups (e.g. double bass PUs, classical guitar, etc.) then the Radial PZ DI is the best option. It offers a 10MOhm input impedance which 5-10x higher than all the other DIs. That makes all the difference for piezo PUs. There´s no better option available in this application. In case you want to chase the last 3% of sound quality, then there are other options. Many people rate the Avalon U5 in this league, but I don´t. On occasions it sounded great, on others it has been beaten by the BSS, Bo Hansen, or a few others in my tests, even by a cheapo passive DOD DI. But it has a few advantages which should be mentioned: It has a preset EQ (if you´re into that - I´m not, I have better options) which may be helpful if you want to track with EQ, it looks expensive since it is expensive which helps half-educated people to nod their head and say "wow, an Avalon DI" while ignoring what they are hearing, it has a line-level output (you won´t need a micpreamp to amplify the signal from mic-level at the DI output to line-level while (the sound of most DIs depend a lot on which micpreamp will amplify their signal). The king and unbeaten DI in my book is the Gyraf G9 tube microphone preamp. Unfortunately it´s stereo, so if you want only one DI then you have another one left over. But since it´s a micpre after all you can use the second channel to mic your bassamp. The micpres are some of the best ever made and cheap compared to other offerings in the same quality range. They beat my Siemens V72 preamps and many others lefthanded all day long. And that´s a statement... http://gyraf.dk/product/g9/

My Ampeg B15 has a ported cab and still is sonic heaven. Who knows if it´s because or despite the port.

At some point in the mid 90s I was fed up with my Wal and tried to sell it. Luckily nobody bought it, so it stayed with me, sitting unused in the corner. Three years and a Musicman and Precision later I rediscovered the Wal and play it as my main bass ever since. So my advice is that if you think everything feels right with your Wal then go cheating, but keep it.

I´d chose alder for the sound. There´s quite an audible difference to ash. In fact all my Jazz and Precisions are alder. Check the Fender Customshop videos at youtube:

Jaco Pastorius playing on Ian Hunter´s (Mott the Hoople) solo record:

AFAIK that´s the company who supplied Wal Basses with the Midibass system which has been released in the 80s.

If you say interface/mixer with FW then I suspect that you have a Midas Venice F. If so make sure you run your Macbook on OS 10.11, not 10.12. The latest Midas drivers only work upto 10.11. There seems to be no support for higher OS since Behringer took over Midas. If you have a different interface then ignore this commen (didn´t read all posts, sorry).

I have a ´74 Precision in mocha. It looks like derrière but sounds killer. If I find a non mocha P that sounds as good I´ll happily get rid of that insult for my eyes. But it didn´t happen upto now. It easily rivals my buddy´s 61 Precision. Chances are high that I will have to live with it for quite some more time, yuk.

If you like the SWR sound then check a Baby Blue out.