alexclaber

[quote name='bremen' post='122802' date='Jan 18 2008, 12:52 PM']wouldn't risk asking an amp designed for 8 ohms to run into 4. It wouldn't double the power anyway, unless it had a huge power supply. Might add +2 or 3dB. I'd add a 15" cab with its own power amp.[/quote] I wasn't expecting most of the gain in SPL to come from the extra power of a 4 ohm load, I was expecting more SPL from the adding sensitivity of two 15" woofers working in unison. [quote name='bigjohn' post='122852' date='Jan 18 2008, 01:46 PM']I know what you mean - He's been playing drums a long time though - a lot more of an experienced and successful musician than me. His bass drum isn't drowned out - it's a huge Ludwig thing. Just that when he's loud, it's so very, very loud![/quote] My drummer uses a huge Vistalite with 26" kick for gigs because it's so loud so I know what you mean. But for rehearsals and recording he uses much smaller quieter kits. [quote name='bigjohn' post='122852' date='Jan 18 2008, 01:46 PM']What about modding the cabinet and fitting 2x10s along with the 15?[/quote] Not a good idea. The reason your combo is loud is because the 15" woofer is operating in a large air space - compromise that by squeezing other speakers in there, which will have to be in a separate cab with its own port, and you'll lose all the benefit. Alex

[quote name='bigjohn' post='122806' date='Jan 18 2008, 12:55 PM']So running a 2x10 would get full power from the amp - Those 10s are 16ohm 100w speakers - isn't that the same load as a 8ohm 200W 8" speaker? Are you saying that running bass through an 8" speaker will just sound sh*t?[/quote] No, I'm saying that with the huge difference in sensitivity between an 8" and 15" woofer, you simply won't hear the 8". Far better to leave the 8" as a midrange speaker which will make it louder as when the LF amp runs out of power the HF amp will still be running clean. [quote name='bigjohn' post='122806' date='Jan 18 2008, 12:55 PM']New drummer is really good - Don't want to curtail him![/quote] It isn't curtailing, it's learning about dynamics. I bet, if he's as loud as you say he is, that his hands are drowning out his right foot anyway. [quote name='bigjohn' post='122806' date='Jan 18 2008, 12:55 PM']Not sure the LF amp will drive an extension - Only thing I know about impedance is that you need the minimum![/quote] If it will then that's your problem solved. Upgrading the speakers could get more from the combo but only if you have enough power to take advantage of them. I'm actually planning a DIY cab with 15" woofer and 6" mid and similar dimensions to your combo but I'll be driving each speaker with 550W from a big power amp. But once you're going down that road you might as well start from scratch. Alex

I'm not really sure what to say. Whatever speakers you put in there, you will need to run them with a crossover, so the 8" is a mid and the 15" is a woofer. There are practically no 4 ohm 15" woofers on the market so your SVT3 will be driving an 8 ohm load, combine that with the SVT3 being a particularly quiet head for the money and any gain in SPL is likely to be minimal. Because your combo is biamped and is pretty big it will be a lot louder than a normal 150W combo. The combo is not the problem - your drummer is. Buy him some lighter sticks or offer him the alternative of helping buy you a louder bass rig. Take advantage of room acoustics to make your combo louder, by always placing it against a solid wall or preferably in a corner. If that fails, consider an 8 ohm 15" extension cab - I presume the LF amp will drive a 4 ohm load. That'll get you another 6dB which is a useful amount. Alex

Russ, if you want a huge amount of bass you will need a big cab, there's no way around it. As you're a fellow Brightonian I could possibly build something for you within budget that will do a better job than any similarly priced commercial cab but it depends how much of a hurry you're in! A modular approach is viable but it will cost more to get the same performance as one big cab. Alex

One of the baddest rhythm sections ever - need to reclaim 'Thrust' from my saxophonist... Alex

The onboard EQ is by far the most powerful I have ever encountered - it can really change the whole character of the instrument. Combine that will a more aggressive ballsy choice of strings and I think you could cover all the basses. Alex

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='121029' date='Jan 15 2008, 06:30 PM']sweet as![/quote] I think you meant to say: "Nice." Alex

[quote name='7string' post='119355' date='Jan 13 2008, 12:24 AM']Why doesn't it have the fishtail though ?? That's the feature which makes it unmistakably R.I.M. [/quote] Just a little too exotic looking for my liking - plus I wanted a body shape that's stable when I prop it against a wall (I don't tend to use stands - sacrilege! ) [quote name='Buzz' post='119376' date='Jan 13 2008, 01:25 AM']I have to ask Alex, interesting choice of control combination, I'm suprised there's no blend control for when they're in parallel.[/quote] I have a 3-way switch on my Warwick which works great. I don't need the added tweakery of a blend control - 4 basic tones from the switch is plenty and then how I use my hands covers everything in between. I expect the tone control to mostly be used to mellow out fresh strings, gradually turning it up as the strings break in. Alex

Excellent... Alex

Yes but rarely consciously and it doesn't require expensive gear, it requires knowing how to effectively use your gear. Most gear is adequate, within reason (i.e. don't expect a practice amp to fill the FOH with bottom without PA support!) Alex

I think music tuition is a good thing, I'm just unconvinced that these modern music schools are the right way to deliver it. One on one tuition with a good tutor, plenty of individual learning/practising and then applying those skills in bands seems a more financially sensible and practical approach. I hate to think of the self-obsessed and blinkered sub-culture created by a whole pile of late teen / early 20s wannabes thinking they're learning how to make a million by rocking out! Alex

[quote name='silverfoxnik' post='116318' date='Jan 8 2008, 04:36 PM']That sounds very much in line with another Basschat member who I was talking to yesterday who attended BIMM for 1 year but he left feeling it wasn't taking him where he wanted to go. One thing he said really surprised me, which was that BIMM often encourage their students to be in as many bands as possible which he described as having 'killed the live music scene in Brighton' because people were in loads of bands which they didn't really have their heart in at all!! To me, that's just crazy advice [/quote] I hadn't realised it went that far! All I'd noticed was the proliferation of short lived bands that will do anything to gig because they have nothing better to do and/or it scores them points for their course, so those of us that are trying to either generate a following or make money struggle to get gigs or break even... IMO if you want to get into the world of pro playing, get out there and play, don't do a degree in it! And if you want to do original music, write some songs, put a band together, and start gigging and recording. Alex

Indeed, a lot of walking bass on upright, particularly faster tunes tends to be well ahead of the beat. This is partly because a double bass speaks more slowly than a ride cymbal so the note sounds later than it actually is. One of the more fundamental things to a getting a good groove happening in a rock band is for the bassist to sit behind the beat to add width and swagger to the groove. And something else to consider is that when playing drums different parts of the kit may sit in different places relative to the beat. A common example is the snare being furthest behind the beat - listen to Al Jackson Jr on 'Green Onions' - whilst some of Bonzo's amazing grooves have really cool shifts. The vibe on 'Kashmir' is due to the kick and snare sitting back, with non-downbeat kicks behind further behind than those on the downbeats, and the hi-hat pushing ahead of the beat. Of course talking about this is one thing, doing it is another. If you want to get better at playing around the beat you have to learn how to feel these placements. Whatever you do do not try to consciously sit ahead or behind the beat or you will not groove at all! Alex P.S. And don't even attempt to do the D'Angelo/?uestlove/Pino/Saadiq thing unless you want your brain to melt or you're such a bad mofo that you can't help yourself! Go here for elucidation - actually this is so badass I shall embed it:

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='116295' date='Jan 8 2008, 03:58 PM']Now listen to Aston (Family Man) Barrett's bassline on [i]I Shot The Sherriff[/i] - that's NOT the version by Eric Clapton! - and you'll hear that he gets so far behind the beat at times that he's limbo dancing under toilet doors.[/quote] Just had to go and listen to this to double-check and I am now 100% sure that Family Man is playing well AHEAD of the beat on this song. A lot of his basslines sit in this manner, unlike many other reggae bassists, despite Family Man having all but defined the various reggae groove in The Wailers. Alex

Zero hour approaches!!! Alex

Last year we playing on the same bill as a BIMM band. They were insanely tight, grooved well and generally did all the right things on a technical basis. Unfortuately they were also totally hopeless at writing songs, particularly on the lyrical front, deeply uncool, totally emotionless and one of the least rock and roll things I have ever encountered. Music by numbers. A bit like Dream Theater actually... I guess with almost everyone going and getting a degree in some strange media related field you might as well go and spend your time playing bass with the government paying for it (is that possible?) But I'd be very surprised if even 1% of their graduates went onto a career as a professional musician and once successful in that field considered their diploma/degree as an important stepping stone. Alex

It's part of making music groove. It's most obvious when you focus on drummers that are playing behind or ahead of the beat - for instance Stewart Copeland with The Police plays way ahead of the beat, whilst Zigaboo Modeliste from The Meters sits way behind. Alex

[quote name='Chopthebass' post='115781' date='Jan 7 2008, 09:13 PM']I don't know why more manufacturers don't opt for a small speaker instead of a horn...[/quote] Cost. The QS410 has speakers with whizzer cones, not dual voice coils. Check out what people say about the treble response of the EA Wizzy, which AFAIK is the only other whizzer cone bass cab on the market. I used to own a whizzer cone cab and it's quite a neat solution to added treble without electrical crossovers (the voice coil / cone/ whizzer cone flexible joint acts as a mechanical crossover) and mid/tweeter units. Alex

Four, I think... All originals, written by me and my first time singing and playing bass, so I was busier than it looks! Also produced our first EP. Alex

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='113395' date='Jan 4 2008, 10:16 AM']It was me who made the original comment and I was going by my experiences of comparing my Acme B2's to my EBS 212 with a sensitivity difference of about 10dB. There was definitely a difference in volume.[/quote] A pair of Low-B2s are ~96dB. A typical 2x12" is ~98dB. However, based on the EBS cabs I've heard I'd expect a sensitivity peak in the high midrange plus a very high sensitivity tweeter which would make it sound more than 2dB louder. Lowpass the two rigs at 500Hz and you'd hear little difference in output. Lowpass the two rigs at 200Hz and the Acmes would probably be louder. Lowpass the rigs at 100Hz and the Acmes would be significantly louder. Alex

[quote name='jammie17' post='113340' date='Jan 4 2008, 03:33 AM']Wouldn't that mean, in a speaker with a frequency rating of 20-20k, there would be literally 20k different SPL ratings if the manufactures referenced their speakers SPL output to each frequency that speaker could reproduce?[/quote] Yes. If you want to see real world speaker ratings, then looking at Aguilar's newly updated sensitivity specs (ignore the frequency response ones, they're too vague to be useful), Ampeg, Phil Jones Bass and Acme. Bearing in mind that none of the Aguilar line are designed to go particularly low you can use them as a reference for how much sensitivity is possible from a bass cab. If a manufacturer quotes a higher figure than this then it is based on a peak in the response and possibly even the peak sensitivity from the tweeter! So expect no better than 95dB per 10" woofer, and add 3dB every time you double the number of woofers. Alex

Not a bad speaker - very similar to that used in the Epifani UL112. As with almost all bass guitar friendly 12" woofers it's a bit short on Xmax IMO limiting it to only ~100W power handling in the lows. Alex

You don't need more power than that Yamaha, in fact I'm sure you could have much less and never run out of headroom. You need more gain and that requires a more sensitive power amp and/or a hotter preamp. Alex

[quote name='Machines' post='111559' date='Dec 31 2007, 05:04 PM']So can I use a 15w head with an 810 cab ?[/quote] Yes. And it'll go a damn sight louder than into the usual 1x8" 15W combo and will be as loud as a 150W 1x10" combo. And it will be completely impossible to blow the speakers. Alex

Sort out the whole band's sound and even the worst sound man won't be able to screw it up. That means stopping your guitarist from playing too loud and having too much bottom or extended treble in his sound, stopping your drummer from bashing mindlessly - the kick needs to be loud enough acoustically and the cymbals should not overpower the rest of the kit - and everyone controlling their dynamics and naturally slotting into their place in the mix. The more I understand the sound man's job, the more I realise that sound men tend to be more competent than I've given them credit for. Not so long ago I spoke to a sound man because the snare was insanely loud and suggested he turn it down - he then showed me the fader positions which demonstrated that only the kick mic was up and the awful mix FOH was entirely due to an uncontrolled overly loud drummer. Acoustic guitars need tons of bottom taking out if they're being used in a band rather than by a solo singer songwriter. Alex