alexclaber

I think I just jumped on the eminent Mr H. Jack a little too fiercely but the reason was that the Big One is specifically designed to have very wide dispersion and therefore be excellent in cramped spaces where you have poor PA support and monitoring. 'Very long throw' is exactly what it doesn't have. So in this situation it is without a doubt a question of operator error (which could also be a product of what HJ's bandmates are up to - though they'd have to be behaving fairly strangely). When musicians/sound engineers refer to speakers having long-throw they are usually making an incorrect assumption based on the speaker having too little midrange and treble and up close their ears are struggling to discern the tone from the lows alone in the denser onstage mix. Also the lows are not attenuated by the air, furnishings and audience members whilst the midrange and treble are, so any bottom heavy sound will carry further than a balanced sound. I know for a fact that the Big One has plenty of midrange and treble so in this case the source of the problem is the signal coming from the amp down the speaker lead, which may originate in the amp EQ, the instrument knob settings or indeed the player himself! The true meaning of 'throw' in a speaker is as the inverse of dispersion. A large PA main should have narrow dispersion to focus the sound to the audience and not send it off to the surrounding campsites or venue walls. A small PA speaker should have wide dispersion to spread the sound around the typically more weird shaped smaller venues and to get it to the very up-close audience as well as to those stuck in a corner or at the far end of the venue, and do so with reasonably consistent response. Likewise onstage monitoring equipment should have wide dispersion so everyone can hear each other clearly (but most guitar amps are appalling and most bass cabs aren't great either). Quite simply the Big One completely blows away every bass cab I've ever heard in helping you hear yourself well onstage without compromising your tone to do so. Fact. Anything else is humans messing up! Alex

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='545293' date='Jul 20 2009, 01:44 PM']I was thinking more in terms of using the Midget as an on-stage monitor to replace DI'ing my bass for foldback purposes. The Big One chucks out PLENTY of volume, but it has a very long "throw" and on the tiny stages I get to perform on I still struggle to hear it. Put my Zoom H2 at the back of the pub and the bass comes across clear as a bell.[/quote] It doesn't have a long throw at all, in fact it's better up close than the Midget or the Compact, or in fact any other bass cab I know of. If you can't hear it clear up close then you simply don't have enough midrange in your tone. The only reason using an on-stage monitor is making your bass easier to hear is because the monitor is adding midrange through its own colouration. More midrange - or alternatively less bottom - is the answer! If I were you I'd simplify your signal chain as much as possible (which adds clarity by removing distortion artifacts etc), roll the tone knob back up a bit on your bass and then add a little muting so you get more clarity on the attack of the note. Alex

[quote name='chris_b' post='545169' date='Jul 20 2009, 10:49 AM']What exactly does "a generic bodge" mean?[/quote] More speakers generally equals more sound, even when mismatched. But doing so messes with the tone and particularly the consistency of the tone from directly on-axis to well off-axis. So in this case it's an umbrella term for stacking cabs willy-nilly. It's not such an issue with traditional designs where seemingly little or no consideration has been given to off-axis performance but when a cab has been specifically designed to perform well in that respect then I'd rather not suggest throwing a Midget shaped spanner in the works! Alex

Most rechargeables self-discharge very fast - like effectively dead in a month. The only ones that don't are Hybrios and I gather you can now get 9V ones. They really are very very good - precharged when you buy them and barely self-discharge at all. Alex

[quote name='chris_pokkuri' post='545149' date='Jul 20 2009, 10:09 AM']Thats exactly what I was thinking![/quote] If you reach the limits of the LH1000/BigOne pairing then its time to give out earplugs to everyone at gigs, including those in adjacent buildings. Alex

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='545097' date='Jul 20 2009, 08:23 AM']What happens if I put a Midget on top of my Big One? (Please take the [i]"oo-er Missus"[/i] as read.) Will they complement or compete?[/quote] Well you could use one for a small gig and one for a big gig but I wouldn't recommend using both simultaneously - you might as well just throw more power at the Big One. Both at once will get more SPL out of a low powered head but it's a bit of a generic bodge, not like a Midget/Compact pairing. Alex

The first few Midgets will be ready in the next week or so. Get your order in now! Alex

The offset speakers is to smooth the response by reducing the peaks and troughs caused by the baffle-step and related edge diffraction. It doesn't cost anything to do but it's proper hi-fi geekery so no-one in the bass/guitar world seems to ever consider it! Alex

Bass player, lead vocalist, main songwriter (sole lyricist) and general dictator (or at least I would be if we didn't almost always agree on everything!) Nowadays I try to avoid getting involved in the logistics/bookings as there's only so much I can do! Alex

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='532359' date='Jul 4 2009, 11:54 AM']Bear in mind the "ohm" thing with separates. If you get a head and 1 cab, it'll only be running at 2/3 power, if it's 8-ohms. You either need two 8-ohm cabs or one 4-ohm one to get the most juice out of your head. Combos *tend* to be 4-ohms, so run hotter. That's not gospel, but a good rule of thumb to bear in mind. Nothing more frustrating that upgrading to head and cab and then wondering why it doesn't sound very loud![/quote] Unless you have a completely weedy head then the difference between having an 8 ohm and 4 ohm cab is very minimal. The sensitivity of the cab makes far more difference than whether you can coax a few more watts out of the head. Alex

Aural Enhancer adds extra valve gain for the first part of its travel and then starts scooping the mids. Go too far and you'll totally vanish in the mix. That's probably one of the loudest combos you can buy - good score! Alex

Steve Swallow has a really unique custom bass and plays exclusively with a pick. John Entwhistle used a pick some of the time and his later basses were almost as esoteric. I rarely play with a pick but I like my unscratch-plated basses getting that nice authentic road-worn look. Alex

[quote name='BigRedX' post='531645' date='Jul 3 2009, 01:25 PM']IME people who are unhappy with their custom-made basses have over-specified them and got too far into the fine details that should be left up to the luthier who ought to have far more experience than you when it comes to knowing what will make the right bass for a given customer. They specify woods, based on examples that may well have been grown in a completely different continent to the stock their luthier is using, and electronics and pickups based on word of mouth and sound clips off the web rather than actual first hand playing experience. As a player pick what you know about. The look, the playability and how you want it to sound. It's up to the luthier to then turn that into the right bass for you, and a good one will be able to guide you in the right direction. You should know what you want the bass to sound like and so the luthier will be able to pick the right woods and pickups that will give you the correct end result. If you want fancy wood finshes remember that there are plenty of different timbers that will give the same look and if for instance you want a flame or quilt top it doesn't have to be maple - there are plenty of other woods which will look the same but may be far more appropriate for the sound of the bass. Don't push your luthier in building an instrument they don't feel comfortable with. There's plenty of luthiers to choose from - over 10 first class ones building basses in the UK alone. Someone will be willing to build what you want, although I think you should decide based on what they've made previously that matches what you want. And once you start looking world-wide (a much easier proposition nowadays) someone somewhere will already be building something that is pretty close to your dream bass.[/quote] It took me about three years to make all the decisions on what I wanted in a custom bass. It was a scarily deep process, not dissimilar to what I got into with the cabs, and then I had to find the right man to build it, who brought his own ideas in terms of aesthetics and form that really completed the concept perfectly. The end result blew me away - it sounded just like I had hoped but even better. However it took SO long ascertain what I wanted, string spacing at both ends, neck profile, wood combinations, fret material and size, scale length, pickups and positioning, even the details of exactly how the knobs are arranged, that it amazes me when I see people write "I fancy a custom bass, what should I get?" Have they any idea what they're getting themselves into?!! I guess I came at it from the opposite direction to most players - I worked out what I needed to get the sound and playablility I wanted and then found Robbie McDade who could turn that into an aesthetically pleasing reality. I know I bang on about it but all you people going custom and not trying 36" scale, chambered bodies, Q-tuners and passive electronics are missing out! Alex

[quote name='OldGit' post='531566' date='Jul 3 2009, 12:05 PM']Oh Well that counts me out then Scrub all I've said[/quote] Me too. Two 'boutique' basses in most people's eyes and still under the £2k limit! [quote name='Tait' post='531544' date='Jul 3 2009, 11:50 AM']or back to the topic of this thread, if i had £3000, i'd be happier with that £3000 than with a boutique bass...[/quote] If all the money in the world you had, or a significant portion of it, was £3000 then I bet you would feel happier with £3000 than a boutique bass. But if you had tons of £3000 lots of money in different bank accounts, stocks, shares, property, then I suspect you'd feel a lot different about spending £3000 on a bass. Look around and see how many flash cars people are driving - and consider before the recession how many had been bought on credit. Not only would those interest payments cost more than a boutique bass, by the time you've finished paying for the car the value it would have lost through depreciation would be enough to buy a whole host of nice instruments! Also bear in mind that if you spend £3k on a secondhand instrument, like a nice Alembic, you get to own it for as long as you like, use it as much as you want, and then if you bore of it you can sell it for what you paid or probably more. So is it spending the money or is it investing in a stable and possibly appreciating asset? Alex

Personally I find the great joy when gigging with the Big One is that the dispersion is amazing and the tone very similar to that from a big high-quality PA system, so you can either go sans PA and let the cab carry the house (it's plenty loud enough for any pub and dispersion is good enough to get the true tone out to everyone) or you can DI into the PA and get the same sound outfront as onstage. I have never ever bothered micing bass cabs when playing live, it's bad enough getting the drums, guitar, sax and three vocal mics sorted! Alex

If you're into the POD thing then the Big One could pretty well simulate any rig out there. I have some ideas for a similar cab for guitarists, something much better than the Line6 cabs. Alex

I don't quite see why you'd want speaker emulation when you could just mic the cab?! Part of the design behind the Barefaced models is that they're relatively even sounding and therefore if have a clean DI through a good PA it won't sound all that far removed from your cab. Passive subs don't work very well at all - you need steep lowpass filtering and the cost of doing that well passively is as much as an entire plate amp with active filters built in. BK Electronics do very good subwoofers at low prices but whether they'll sell you one is a different matter. I orderd two from them last year and apart from an email telling me there would be a wait of a few weeks I never heard anything again, despite chasing quite a few times. Alex

Have you looked at the prices of double basses? They make even the most high-end boutique bass guitars seem incredibly cheap. Likewise any other instrument you might find in an orchestra. And also the price of a really high-end bass is much less than the first year depreciation on an expensive new car. Or the annual interest on a typical mortagage. Alex

You can't put a midrange into a cab without a highpass filter or you'll release the magic smoke the first time you use it in anger. At the very worst get a stock crossover with an 800-1000Hz highpass point. Alex

You're not wrong about that driver! That's exactly the sort that gives 15"s their undeserved reputation for boominess. Alex

I'd use 18sound, without a doubt. I wouldn't bother with two 12"s if you're using a midrange, one better 15" will match the output, weigh less, cost less and sound almost identical (because most of the tone character comes from the midrange driver). However crossover design for a such a cab will not be easy so unless you plan to spend an enormous amount of time and invest in a measurement rig then you'll need to use an active crossover. You'd be best served by choosing the 18sound 15" that has the most similar response and impedance curve to the 3015LF and then using the fEarful plans on talkbass including the various passive crossovers posted on there. Generally the neo models have superior performance than the ferrite models due to being more recent designs. Alex

[quote name='Musicman20' post='530848' date='Jul 2 2009, 05:43 PM']So, I think its a tradtional view from tradtional cabs. New designs may indeed be different [/quote] I think it's more a case of most bass guitar 15"s having always been pretty cheap. Some of the big heavy expensive old EV and Fane 15"s are very much revered and referred to as 'not sounding like 15"s'. But if the majority of 15"s you hear are the ones in those 'my first combo I can gig with' and then when you buy a good rig you do the standard thing and get a 4x10" plus head, then no wonder a 4x10" seems a much better configuration. Alex

[quote name='Linus27' post='530643' date='Jul 2 2009, 02:01 PM']OK, talking from a non-expert background. I have always found that a 1x15 was always a lot bassier and boomier, especially when comparing like for like.[/quote] The boomier thing tends to be because cheaper 15"s don't have strong enough motors to control the big cone. On the bassier thing, well my old Acme 2x10"s had tons more bottom than the Compact does. Alex

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there is no such thing as a 4x10" sound. They all sound different! Same with every speaker configuration. The sound is down to the specifics of the cabinet, driver and crossover designs, not the nominal diameter. Or to look at an analogy, the performance of a car is not determined by the number of doors it has. Yes, there are lots of fast 2-door cars but there are plenty of 4-door cars with far better performance than many 2-doors. What matters much more is the weight of the car, the stiffness of the suspension, the centre of gravity and the power of the engine - just as with a loudspeaker the cone mass, suspension compliance, cone break-up modes and the voicecoil/magnet motor power matters much more than the nominal diameter. Alex

[quote name='Musicman20' post='530578' date='Jul 2 2009, 01:20 PM']Is it a 'vintagised' Compact?[/quote] No. Why does everyone want them vintageised?!! Personally I prefer how the Compact looks in its standard form, due to its symmetry and the imposing speaker. The Big One does look v nice vintageised though. Alex