alexclaber

I've found that since I started singing and playing I've become even more obsessed with dynamics but also as I'm filling two roles I have that much more control of the band's dynamics, which is nice. I've attached a live recording from a gig back in August which is a good example of this - because it's onto a minidisc via a tiny mic in the room there's a ton of compression on it but you can still hear the inherent dynamics quite clearly (and if you can't then listen out for the audience talking during the quiet bits and then being drowned out in the loud bits!) Alex

[quote name='Andyalfa' post='356959' date='Dec 17 2008, 02:09 PM']Would I be right in thinking that where you stand in relation to the speaker is an important factor in how you perceive the sound? I understood that a 15 projects more into a room and sounds excellent from an audience’s listening position, but slightly woolly close up where the player stands. A 4x10 combination sounds better close up but touch thin further away.[/quote] The position of your ears relative to any speaker has a huge effect upon the sound. The key factors determining this are the on-axis vs off-axis response, the power response (sum of all the responses at all angles on and off-axis) and the room acoustics (boundary reinforcement and cancellation). The larger the sound source the worse the off-axis response becomes as you go higher in frequency. The more similar the power response is to the on-axis response then the more similar the cab will sound when it's up close and pointed at your ears as it will when you're the other end of a venue (because you gradually hear more and more of the reflected sound and less of the direct sound as you get further away). The closer your cab is to solid rear and wide walls the more bottom you'll get both up close and out in the room. The reason 4x10"s often sound better up close but thin at a distance is because their inherent sound is strong in the higher mids but when you stand well off-axis those higher frequencies don't reach you as strongly so you hear a nice tone. Stand further away and hear more of the true sound and it's thinner sounding. A 4x10" designed to have less high midrange would have the same pros and cons as a more typical 15" - woollier off-axis, better on-axis. Two solutions - get a cab with tolerable off-axis response (a single 15" or vertical 2x10" is much better than a 2-way 4x10") and then point it at your ears onstage. Or get a cab with good off-axis response by virtue of using a smaller midrange speakers to disperse the higher frequencies move evenly. One mistruth that goes round and round is that big speakers project the lows better and have more 'throw'. This is not true at all, not unless you're planning on using a 2x15' as opposed to a 2x15"!!! Alex

Usually about as clean as I want to be, though that varies a lot! I've done quite a lot of metronome practice in the past and also working with programmed beats - it's a good challenge to really groove with a computerised beat. Nowadays I tend to practice unplugged and unaccompanied (but my bass is quite loud acoustically) and enjoy getting maximum groove happening without anything to help or disguise my playing. A big benefit of unplugged practice is learning how to use your hands to get your sound and volume, both things that too many bassists equate with knob positions. Alex

[quote name='Linus27' post='355745' date='Dec 16 2008, 10:47 AM']How is this done? Is there a program to do this or is it just something that was done for these tracks?[/quote] I believe they're mostly taken from Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Alex

Fascinating! You can really hear the brilliance in some playing and the utter mediocrity in others. I haven't listened to them all by any means but kudos to Jamerson and Jason Newsted and commiserations to Guigsy... Alex

[quote name='Paul S' post='354967' date='Dec 15 2008, 12:54 PM']This is fascinating. I had assumed that the 1x 15 would be the cab of choice but obviously that was wrong.[/quote] It used to be. Then 10" speakers got better and the tide shifted that way. If you compare most 2x10" and 1x15" combos the latter are cheaper because the single 15" they use is pretty cheap. When you put a cheap 15" in a small cab you end up with two problems - the weak magnet hasn't enough power to really push the large cone and give good strong midrange punch so you end up with a muddy tone, and the small enclosure size kills off your lowest lows but makes the midbass go all boomy. Hence most people think all 15"s are muddy and boomy. When I started working on cab designs a few years back I went through tons of different configurations and drivers and ended up back on 15"s because you can now get really amazing ones which no current 10" or 12" can match for sheer output and bottom yet clear punchy tone. How? Really powerful magnet gives midrange punch and larger cab gets you deep yet not boomy bottom. That's an oversimplification but it's the essence of the situation. What do we learn from this? That the only thing the nominal diameter of a speaker can tell you about it is how big it looks! The tone and performance are down to many other factors all of which interact. (For instance you might assume that making the magnet ever more powerful will get better and better performance but actually it'll just kill off the bottom - it's delicate balancing act). Alex

[quote name='Bass Culture' post='355004' date='Dec 15 2008, 01:44 PM']I'm quite impressed with the spec on the SWR Workingpro 12 from what I've seen. Does anyone have one? Would it be loud enough for (small) gigs?[/quote] Depends on how loud your band is! If you have any degree of rock then no. Try gigging with just one GS112 positioned on the floor and tilted up like the SWR. If that struggles at all then the SWR definitely will. Apparently hard rock and metal becomes more popular in times of economic downturn and judging by recent threads so do combos - what a worrying combination!!! Alex

I ignored the B string for quite a while after I got my bass, I just worked on getting comfortable with the other four strings with my band's current repertoire and then gradually worked that low B in. I think anyone switching from four to five would be well served by putting on more balanced gauge strings - most low B's are much lower in tension than the other four strings. I also use a hybrid shifting thumb technique where I rest on the pickups, or any one of the four lower strings depending on what I'm playing. The word 'anchor' suggests far too much tension in the plucking hand. Alex

Great minds think alike! Alex

Put the cabs on their sides so they're taller and then tilt the top cab upwards. Done! Alex

With the pound devaluing so much prices can only go up. I have speakers coming out of my ears and more on the way, building up a stockpile before everything goes up 25% in price! Thus we are all simply making wise investments. Alex

[quote name='molan' post='354532' date='Dec 14 2008, 08:18 PM']I haven't really had much chance to play it 'properly'...[/quote] You'll find the answer once you've spent more time with it. I solely played fours for over ten years and have owned my five for less than ten months yet I feel totally at home on it and much prefer it to my old four. But I'm me and you're you. I doubt the change in scale length is affecting you, much more likely the change in neck width. 35" vs 34" is less than a 3% increase. Alex

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='353230' date='Dec 12 2008, 10:58 PM']After 2 years of trying out different FX pedals, my conclusion is that in the end, they take more away from the tone of your bass than they add. Even a couple of very expensive pedals I've heard/tried that are supposed to be 'completely transparent' aren't really to my ears...[/quote] A misapplication of effects methinks! Pedals don't add or take away from the tone, they change it, usually very blatantly, so it can fill a different sonic space, create a different feel or even have a totally different function. A completely transparent pedal would be a very pointless thing indeed! You can't just play bass and then add an effect for 'more tone', you have to play the bass AND the effect. Saying that when I started singing I temporarily sidelined my gigantic pedalboard and then the FX never came out to gig again - it's since been split up and mostly sold off. Alex

The most accurate measure of scale length is nut to 12th fret doubled, as the intonation adjustment for the strings' imperfections makes the nut to saddle length variable. T'other Alex is quite correct about perceived elasticity - you can't change tension by doing anything other than changing scale length, tuning or mass per unit length - but you can change the 'feel' by allowing more or less elasticity through allowing string length either side of the witness points to contribute to the total elasticity or even give up slack in the coils around the tuning pegs, just as you can change the feel by changing the string stiffness (it's this that mostly requires the intonation adjustment although magnet strength has a small effect) or even the neck stiffness! It's very complicated indeed. I really cannot see the point of using less dense materials for bass strings when most are already too low in tension yet high in stiffness but maybe that's just me - I use 38-58-78-104-134 nickels on a 36" scale. A manly bass. CK, glad to be of service. Alex

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='354180' date='Dec 14 2008, 12:53 PM']I like the idea of a lower mass string in principle as I have a fairly light touch and hope I might be able to play a little faster with the same volume. Not sure what the tension will be like though.[/quote] f=fundamental frequency L=scale length T=tension m=mass per unit length f=(1/2L)SQRT(T/m) (2fL)^2=T/m m(2fL)^2=T So tension is directly proportional to mass per unit length and also directly proportional to the square of scale length (so longer scales are better at adding tension than heavier strings). Alex

Turning up your amp and plucking more softly will get more sustain from any bass - you don't need to buy a new one! And I've always found that if you're short of punch the solution is to shift your plucking point towards the bridge. Definitely the first things to try before considering additional or better gear to solve those problems. Alex

[quote name='escholl' post='353247' date='Dec 12 2008, 11:11 PM']depending on how it's set, compression will add sustain or give the illusion of a punchier sound.[/quote] I suppose you could look upon that as problem solving but I've never had a problem with a lack of sustain or punch since I've owned decent basses (though I have been quite lucky on that front). Cannot both those issues be solved at source with the vast majority of instruments by changing how you play the notes? Alex

[quote name='tombboy' post='352998' date='Dec 12 2008, 07:04 PM']Although the 'hole' could be copyrighted, I'm sure Ernie Ball hold trading and manufacturing rights over the 4+1 machine head configuration.[/quote] Don't they just have the 3+1? Robbie, have you trademarked the RIM headstock?!! Alex

[quote name='51m0n' post='352665' date='Dec 12 2008, 01:06 PM']Maybe I'm just a nutter for using such disparate techniques in a single groove though [/quote] Or maybe you're just a nutter! I should have added a caveat regarding tapping - I'd forgetten it exists... It would be interesting to hear other examples of where compression works an an effective tool in a live situation (other than for bodging a fix for my nemesis 'Mr Poor Dynamics'). Alex

[quote name='Beedster' post='352463' date='Dec 12 2008, 09:52 AM']Ah, now I see how and why a thread on combos became a thread on cabs [/quote] Even before the concept of building cabs was a twinkle in my mind's eye I've been a big advocate of lightweight heads and small cabs rather than combos. The peril with combos is that once you add the weight of the amp the single lift gets that much heavier than if you had two boxes so often the makers make the enclosure smaller to try and get the weight back down which then knocks off some of the low frequency output. So for getting on for decade I've been turning threads on combos into threads on cabs! Alex

[quote name='MikeB' post='351988' date='Dec 11 2008, 06:00 PM']You don't rate Markbass cabs?[/quote] They're pretty good, I'm just saying you can do better - please don't take that to mean that I don't rate them or that I think they're rubbish, just that in my opinion they are not the very best lightweight cabs for the money. Now I would say that because I'm making the cabs that I believe are a notch or two better yet as competitively priced but I have good reasons for my claims! (See my signature and click on comments for a head to head comparison). But I agree that for lightweight combos that you can't do better for the money. Alex

[quote name='Delberthot' post='352391' date='Dec 12 2008, 08:20 AM']I think I'll just get the lightweight amp which comes in at about 20% of the weight of my current one (excluding rack & rack tuner)[/quote] Good idea! (And I presume you'll be deracking and getting rid of the big flashy tuner too! I had one of those in my rack for years because it looked cool but I started to notice it was never getting used - probably a lot more useful if you play a dodgy 'vintage' bass that doesn't hold its tuning well and you have roadies...) Alex

[quote name='Delberthot' post='352339' date='Dec 12 2008, 01:22 AM']I plan on going seriously ultra light next year. I love my Schroeder 1212L but it is far too much for what i need it for. I was using it out front with my rock band but we're not playing so it only gets used as a monitor. I have the input volume on my GK 700RB II at 11 o'clock and the output at 9, sometimes 10 o'clock. Not sure exactly how much power I'm chucking out the amp with these settings. The cab is a 4 ohm fellow.[/quote] Unless you have absolutely no interest in bottom-end then I don't believe you will find anything that can match your Schroeder in output yet is smaller and lighter. But you think the Schroeder is overkill - personally I suspect you're using more of its output than you realise! Why? Becase I wouldn't be surprised if you're regularly using full power with those knob settings and the Schroeder is a high sensitivity cab with pretty decent excursion limited power handling (but very little true bass extension - see plot above) so very little will compare. (If you're willing to take the tonal compromise or you like that tone then the Schroeder concept will give you just about the loudest cab for its size that it is physically possible to make). My Compact 15" is pound for pound about as loud as its possible to make a cab with less compromised bass extension (though it needs more power to get loud than some very high sensitivity designs it can handle quite a lot more power) but its no smaller (a bit taller and wider but shallower) than a 1212. You can't get workable bottom that can hang in a rock band from a much smaller cab. Some perspective is required! Reading the first line of your post is like reading the same line on a car forum by an owner of an original mini - you're already seriously ultra light, what do you want, a bicycle?! You're already sorted! Alex

SPL plot for a Schroder 1212R (vs a 2x10" with 2510-II and an SWR Son of Bertha). Note that the SPL isn't referenced to 1W but it gives an idea of frequency response: Alex

[quote name='cheddatom' post='351856' date='Dec 11 2008, 03:31 PM']Ahhhhh, makes sense. EDIT: But I suppose i'm one of those types who loves a really compressed bass sound. I doubt I have dodgy technique due to the amount of acoustic practice I do, but i'm certainly not technically brilliant. I wonder how you know if you just like compression, or if you're just sh*t with playing dynamics.[/quote] Doing the production side of things as well I've learnt a lot about the importance of compression in getting a good recording for any non-acoustic genres. Nothing wrong with liking a really compressed bass sound, works for many people. As you say, as you practice acoustically (as do I) your control of dynamics is probably pretty decent. Technicaly brilliance as a bassist is far more about control of tone, dynamics and timing than any amount of impressively mad soloing skillz but sadly few people understand that! But if you were to always play and practice with compression your dynamic control could be appalling and then when recorded you'd notice that although the dynamics of your notes may be compressed and thus even enough, the tone wouldn't be. Easy to forget that if you play a note hard and then play a note softly that even if you compress them both so the note envelope is the same they won't sound the same. Alex