alexclaber

[quote name='GreeneKing' post='583205' date='Aug 28 2009, 08:43 AM']I spot a theme there BRX[/quote] So do you drive a Veyron, Maybach or Austin Maestro? Alex

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='583172' date='Aug 28 2009, 07:55 AM']I just wondering if the SVT has been put throught the Barefaced...[/quote] It's quite a big impedance mismatch when you bear in mind the low Qts drivers I used and thus the very high impedance peaks at resonance - can't see it working that well. Shame it hasn't got an 8 or 16 ohm tap. Alex

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='583166' date='Aug 28 2009, 07:44 AM']Sorry - misread the above. I thought that he prefered the Shuttle through it to the SVT through it - but the text doesn't necessarily infer that![/quote] Nope, P into Shuttle/Compact vs SVT/NV610 - flyweight knocks out super-heavyweight! Alex

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='582850' date='Aug 27 2009, 08:08 PM']Hmm. Another one. No love for the SVT through barefaced it would seem![/quote] 4/2 ohm taps and an 8 ohm cab so I doubt it's even been tried! Alex

[quote name='Absolute-beginner' post='582284' date='Aug 27 2009, 11:21 AM']Does this mean that i will have no 'headroom'?[/quote] For some reason the whole of bassdom has taken the meaning of headroom to be 'amp power output' minus 'cab power handling'. i.e. 300W amp into 200W cab gives 100W of headroom. Sadly that's completely wrong. Headroom is the difference between the peak output of your rig - say 120dB - and the peak loudness you need - say 115dB. That's 5dB of headroom. Having a 1000W amp and 200W cab might sound like you have tons of headroom but if you have to push the cab to its limits whilst the amp is still cruising yet you're still not loud enough then you have no headroom at all! Conversely if you have a 200W amp and 200W cab but neither is reaching its limits because either your band is quieter than the previous example, or the cab is a lot more sensitive (i.e. more dB SPL for the same watts in) then you have headroom. Whether your rig has any headroom at all is down to how loud the guitarist and drummer are that you're working with. If you're pushing it so hard that it sounds bad then make them play quieter! Alex

[quote name='Mizzle' post='581684' date='Aug 26 2009, 06:12 PM'](to be honest I actually prefer the sound of my P into this setup than the SVT )[/quote] Now that's what I like to hear! Having used my Shuttle in anger last night I'm very impressed at how the organic nature of this amp works with the clean low distortion sound of my cabs, a great way to get maximum output and minimum weight without compromising tone. Alex

I have a 10 year old EH Big Muff (the black one) that sounds great on bass. I don't know what the QC is like now but back then they all sounded quite different due to the loose tolerances on the components - I bought mine online from the Bass Centre not knowing this and just got lucky! So yes, but don't expect the first one you try to be the one to buy unless they're really tightened up their manufacturing procedures. I've actually replaced my Big Muff with a Bass Blowtorch which gives a toothier nastier fuzz but is very versatile with its EQ and blend control. Alex

My experience with EBS gear has been that it's got quite a lower midrange scoop going on and quite a lot of colouration from the preamp, like a load of extra harmonic colour being generated by the valve stage. The UL902/410 is another lower mid-scooped rig though both the amp and cab are cleaner, likewise the LMII/UL112. I think a lot of what you like is either the valve colouration or the cone break-up modes adding to the lower treble content, and the Compact is really rather controlled in that area - the Midget has much more of that going on. EQing in that region on the Compact isn't going to do a lot - I think the solution is to add that colour via a valve stage that responds dynamically, therefore I think an EBS head could work rather well! Alex

Well although the Midget has been rather on hiatus these past few weeks, I did get the opportunity to try the Shuttle 6.0 with the Big One at band practice last night. Very impressed with the Shuttle - valve preamp seems to add a certain juicyness to the sound. EQ is nice - as this was a fresh woofer which hasn't loosened up yet I had the LF boost in though I know it won't need that once it's settled into its long-term specs. Out of curiousity I tried cranking it up until it started squishing (really great compression/limiting/clipping curve once you get within about 2dB of full power that allows it to handle another 6dB of input before true clipping happens) and it got way louder than I'd need in my band, completely overpowering our Bonham influenced drummer. I'm sure it would be possible to take it to its limits if you were against a really hapless guitarist but once you're at that SPL it makes everything such a nightmare for vocalists and soundmen that I'd say re-education is a better solution than more power. My bass is an unusual beast, a 36" scale chambered passive 5-string, so I like my rig to be very responsive to what my hands are doing and to the effects of the 4-way pickup switch and passive tone knob. The Shuttle/Big One seems to achieve that really well without being quite so demanding as my U5/PLX/Big One which really shows up every nuance of technique and has stupid dynamic range and endless bottom. The tighter warmer punchier more compressed tone of the Shuttle seems a very good thing in practice. Tonewise I cover a pretty wide range - yesterday there were some 16th note fingerfunk grooves happening, some punk 8th note things, some full on dub/reggae moments, some strumming power chords around the 12th fret, some prettier fingered chordal moments, plus I brought my Bass Blowtorch along and we had one awesome jam akin to Prodigy by a live band with synthy fuzz 16th note root basslines (tiring on the right hand) as well as some RATMesque grindy groove stuff down on the B/E-strings. Didn't touch the EQ on the amp once (and I have no EQ bar passive tone on the bass) and it nailed them all. Am a happy camper and very pleased with how this little amp is man enough for a cab that can handle so much more power but doesn't actually need it unless you're mad/deaf/doom. Alex

I think the first place I'd start at would be using a different pick material, like those rubber picks you can get. That should get the attack much more similar to fingerstyle. I can't see EQ ever being a truly satisfactory solution unless you can find a way to replicate the note envelope. Alex

Having just read the review of the M6 in Bass Gear Mag, it's interesting to note that their tech's opinion was that historically Mesa's have been really hard to work on but the M6 is much better laid out and the manual's much more helpful. If they used to be hard to fix I imagine that would make the perception of the failure rate seem higher because those kind of jobs tend to stick in your mind, even though their reliability might actually better than average! Alex

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='582194' date='Aug 27 2009, 09:51 AM']On pro sound web PA forum, they reckon that you should stay out of clipping at all costs - for subs and tops.[/quote] Usually best not to listen to 'them' or over-generalise across applications! Bear in mind that clip/limit LEDs light first when limiting. Clipping comes quite a lot later. If you ever use distortion then you're putting a clipped signal into your cab - doesn't matter whether it comes from a pedal, the preamp or the power amp, it's still the same signal shape. And most guitar sounds rely on clipping at some part of the signal chain, even the 'clean' ones. Alex

[quote name='4000' post='582195' date='Aug 27 2009, 09:51 AM']My Rics are kind of in early-ish Roger Glover (think Made in Japan) or early Mike Rutherford (Genesis Live) territory. Not quite as distorted as that but that sort of ballpark.[/quote] So what's your Sei sound like? Alex

Put a metronome on 40 bpm and practise clapping your hands perfectly in time so that the metronome clicks disappear. Alex

[quote name='Gunsfreddy2003' post='582185' date='Aug 27 2009, 09:32 AM']I always avoid the clip lights coming on my Aguilar AG500 at all costs - is this wrong?[/quote] Trust your ears instead - clip lights can be calibrated so many different ways. Having a clip light on most of the time is bad but I'd expect to see clip lights flickering frequently when you're working an amp hard. Bear in mind that before we had 300W+ amps your amp would have been clipping loads at gigs but back then no-one put clip lights on anything so we didn't worry about it! Alex

Have you tried using an outboard preamp for the Seis and running that through the Ashdown's power stage via the FX return? Alex

[quote name='Finbar' post='581808' date='Aug 26 2009, 07:47 PM']Well the Compact sounds like it would happily accept more power if I had more to give it, so I don't think giving it some more juice would hurt the situation! But I was standing anything from a foot away to the cab to 12+ feet away, as well as having feedback from people scattered around the room. It was raised, sitting on top of my other 1212L, so it was at a good height for being able to hear it. Can definitely 'feel' it more though. The clip lights would come on (not fully lit) if I played loud in louder sections of songs. I didn't like it doing that - I wound it down so it would only just start to make the clip light flutter when I played as hard as I could. I do play hard quite a lot though.[/quote] I don't think extra power is going to make all that much difference. However I would encourage you to push the amp a little harder - the limiters on the PLX are good and should get you another 3dB of output before sounding bad. You don't want the LEDs lighting up all the time but having them come on full brightness on big notes isn't going to be a problem - clip LEDs on 25% of the time should be fine. I think you're the kind of player that would prefer the midrange output of the Big One or the Midget - the Compact may be flat through the midrange (and quite attenuated in the lows) but compared to your Schroeder which is very midrangey and has almost no true bottom I can see why you'd think it was bassy sounding. You might like to try some more aggressive EQing in the midrange to help with that. Alex

[quote name='Finbar' post='581770' date='Aug 26 2009, 07:19 PM']His own fault. If somebody asked you to wear 'any old crap', how many of us would actually decide wearing red tights would be a good idea in the first place?[/quote] Would anyone trust Bill Ward to have made a sensible clothing choice during that era when Black Sabbath were snorting their money as fast as they earnt it?! Maybe he thought it was Christmas and decided to dress as an Elf? Amazing drummer, one of my favourites, but definitely a casualty of rock and roll... Alex

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='581585' date='Aug 26 2009, 04:34 PM']The other problem is that years of singing and playing violin have left me with perfect pitch (or near as dammit, anyway). If I hear a note, I immediately hear it as a C#, or F or whatever. I don't think in intervals -- I think in notes, and I know the intervals between them.[/quote] Right. I'm much more of a relative pitch person, than absolute pitch. Though funnily enough, most people have very good absolute pitch, usually singing songs they've heard on the radio in the correct key, etc. Note naming convention does rather bug me because so much of what I write isn't diatonic so there would be sharps and flats everywhere - at least just naming the tonic and then describing the chord avoids quite a bit of that. Alex

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='581547' date='Aug 26 2009, 04:12 PM']How does that work, then? I'm genuinely interested, cos I've been able to read notation since I was 6, so anything else is pretty alien to me.[/quote] I just see the notes and intervals as they're laid out on a fretboard as opposed to on a stave. So say C7no5 to me and my fingers go straight to it. I find this very handy for remembering new songs I'm working on as I'll have little reminders like a certain chord change or a certain rhythm, just in case my brain forgets the intricacies of a new riff/groove/thang. I pretty much write everything on bass (or classical guitar) with the odd moment on piano, so that way of turning semitone relationships into a visual image works well for me (probably too well, that's why I don't get round to learning to read standard notation at speed). It does mean that I don't like non-standard tunings though! Alex

I would like to point out that you can have a good grasp of theory but not be able to read standard notation! Alex

With that degree of sensitivity it's probably worth gambling on one of those really cheap 1U DJ power amps. Ped's got one and as far as I know it's still working! Alex

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='581408' date='Aug 26 2009, 02:13 PM']Yeah... those bloody Fords.[/quote] Wasn't it the famously hopeless BL years actually? Alex

[quote name='Finbar' post='580833' date='Aug 26 2009, 12:00 AM']I'm thinking this is because the 1212L is a 4 ohm cab, and the Compact is an 8, as well as that the Schroeder has a midrange bump right where you can really hear it.[/quote] It's definitely not a power/impedance issue, it's midrange sensitivity. Where were you standing relative to the cab? Pointing it at your ears will help you hear its midrange and treble better. That must have been loud! How often/for how long were the clip/limit LEDs lighting? Alex