Ramirez

Well yes, that’s exactly the point I’m making. Gain staging is crucial in order to get the best from each stage in the chain. If your peak light is permanently on, then you have too much gain - the light responds to the level going through, not to the actual physical position of the control. You need to set your gain so that the peak light does not come on. If the output is sounding ‘weak’ (can you elaborate on this?) then turn up your monitor volume (or amp, however you use it), or you might need a little gain at the mixing desk to bring it up to operating level there. The gain level will not make your bass sound weak by itself- it’s just to set a healthy working level for your signal, loud enough to be noise-free, and quiet enough to avoid clipping/distortion. It’s not an ‘effect’. If the lights are on, you simply have too much gain.

The entire gain range is there to be used, so that’s no problem. In a well designed circuit the gain does not change your tone (obviously, circuits designed to deliberately overdrive/distort behave differently) It is simply clean gain, designed to optimise your signal level for the next stage. Your gain has a wide range in order to cater for difference in output between different basses, as you’ve found. Just set it accordingly.

Regarding the separate EQ and HPF thing - a quicker/more practical solition might be to apply a HPF to your aux output instead (effectively cutting the lows out of everything in your IEMs, rather than just the bass), and let the FOH subs fill in thay low end, retaining clarity in your IEMs. Less hassle to set up than splitting your bass channel to two channels on the desk, and possibly more effective too.

Quite. Though it did involve a posh new set of strings, as well as a lot of work on the fingerboard, nut, bridge and soundpost. My guess is I'll be brilliant and famous by this time next week then. Happy days.

Well, the bill came out to more than I paid for the bass… in fact it’s more than I’ve ever paid for any instrument… so a new one is not on the cards for a while! Now to take it seriously again… picking it up tomorrow hopefully.

I've used IEMs exclusively for the past couple of years, and have no desire to go back to monitors if at all possible. When my originals band did a theatre tour, wed took our own system and engineer with us (and no support, so no changeovers!), so we had sorted mixes in rehearsals, and they were saved for every show (Allen & Heath SQ5 system). For festivals / other gigs, I've sorted an IEM rack for us using my Soundcraft UI24R, using splits if provided at festival, or bringing our own if not. We've just done a couple of shows where our IEMs were mixed by the festival sound crew during very quick changeovers - far from ideal, but still better than poor monitors. For me, the advantages are consistency, hearing protection and less to carry as I don't use an amp (I use a HX Stomp). Personally I enjoy the isolation, though I accept many struggle with it. It focuses me, and since I can hear myself properly, I play better. And personally, I'll do anything to make the sound/show better for the audience rather than myself- I don't care about the 'pleasures' of having a bass amp moving air behind me if it causes problems elsewhere. For me, the enjoyment comes from delivering something to the audience, and my bass is just part of that package - the whole thing needs to be delivered as one thing, and as good as possible. I don't really get pleasure from 'just' playing bass - I get it from playing a part in a cohesive ensemble that's delivering something for an audience to enjoy. It's about sharing a moment, as it were. Of course, that's perfectly possible without IEMs, but in my experience both on stage and behind the mixer, and from mixing recordings of our shows the sound is usually much cleaner and better if the band are on IEMs, so the whole show benefits. I'd argue that maybe, perhaps, just possibly that a very good monitor mix in a good sounding venue is more exciting than playing with IEMs, but that's a rare thing, and I'd rather have consistency from gig to gig - and the worst I've had with IEMs was still a 1000 times better than the worst I've played with monitors.

Well, by the sound of it there'll be plenty of wood shavings for me to eat anyway....

I’m glad to hear positive reports on these… In had one and I didn’t like it all! I wanted to like it- nice build, nice price, nice look, and the gain reduction LED is a really nice touch. But for me, it took something away from the sound (I only tried it with my Jazz, I think). It wasn’t the compression characteristics as such, but tonally it took a big part of what I like about the Jazz away. I can only use silly meaningless adjectives, but it took away the slight ‘chewiness/stickyness’ that I like in my Jazz. Something in the upper midrange. That’s just me though - the same effect could very easily be complimentary to other basses and playing styles.

Well, the bass had been sent to the doc… quite a lot of work needed! And a hefty estimate too, as expected. I don’t think I’ll be looking at a new bass for a while!

I agree to a point, but my post only suggested this if the posted saw this as something long term. And if he decided to sell, they'd make a good chunk of the money back on an M88 (especially if they bought used!) A good budget all-rounder is the Rode M3. I'd lean towards a small-diaphragm rather than a large-diaphragm as their off-axis colouration are usually much better, so any spill/room reflections will not sound as nasty. Also they are inherently more accurate/neutral sounding, so can be a good fit for a variety of sources.

If you think this is something you'll want to build on in the future with more equipment, more mics etc. then I'd suggest it's worth spending a little more to get a properly good all-rounder - I'd suggest a Beyerdynamic M88. It'll do a good job on pretty much anything, and it'll always be useful even if you buy more nice mics in the future. A cheap mic, on the other hand, will probably have no use when you have better options, and will have next to no resale value if you want to sell it! I do agree with @fretmeister though - I'd be tempted to go direct with any electric guitar/bass recording and use plugins. I often do this out of choice in the studio as well, despite having a wonderful, large controlled recording room, nice amps and lovely mics!

Thank you both. Well, the plan is to get the Stentor fixed up and for me to start taking things seriously again, then see how it goes. I'm also hoping to drag @Owen in for a second opinion! I don't see myself playing pubs etc. I run a commercial recording studio, so it would most probably spend most of its time there, with the occasional theatre tour thrown in. I do know what I want to a certain extent... namely because every DB I pick up that's not my own sounds better and is much easier to play than mine! Maybe a fairly new used bass would be a good option if it comes to it... some nice things seem to pop up in the classifieds here!

I'm thinking of picking up the old DB again, after neglecting it for a good while. My current cheap Stentor Conservatoire is in dire need of a set-up, so that's the first call, but I can see myself being tempted to sell it on and buying a better model if all goes well. I'm drawn towards buying a brand new bass instead of used - does £5k get me a considerable upgrade on the Stentor (bearing in mind they seem to be over £2k new now!)? What are your recommendations? Aled

Hi all, I'm sure this will be of no interest to most (all?) of you, but we'll be having an online 'listening party' to launch our new album on February 28th, 7pm. https://crhb.bandcamp.com/merch/mynd-r-t-am-dro-listening-party It's alt country / Americana / Neil Youngish type stuff, so hopefully someone somewhere will enjoy it! Aled

It won't run a passive cabinet obviously, but you can plug it into any active speaker that has a suitable input. (I won't call it a "FRFR speaker" for the same reason I don't call my car an "Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle" - it already has a perfectly fine name that everyone understands!)

The H9000 is a fairly recent product from Eventide - I think you might be thinking of the classic H3000 rack. But your point still stands - it's not all about processing power. If they sounds good, they sound good - the old Eventides ar a good case in point, as are the high-end digital reverb of their time such as the AMS RMX16. We have an RMX16 at the studio (and an old H3000!) and it sounds absolutely fabulous. To the point where they're able to charge £1000 for a modern version with exactly the same limited processing power in a small 500-series chassis! The UAD plugin version also sound brilliant. Digital processing has so much flexibility that it's hard to objectively quantify the cost sometimes. I think the new Eventide H9 is an interesting one - if you look at it as a guitar pedal, it's extremely expensive (about £1000). On the other hand, if you look at it as two of their wonderful old SP2016s reverb in a box with line-level I/O, it almost becomes cheap (I think a new single SP2016 in a reverb in a rack is around £2k!) - and that's before you consider all the other effects!

Well, I don’t mean that they build a hardware pedal than can host VST plugins. What I meant is they probably port the code over to the hardware platform. I can’t imagine they would create a brand new digital recreation of an LA2A when they already have arguably the best one in existence.

Well, the code would need to be ported over to whatever hardware’s in the pedal. But the hardware in the pedal would have been chosen for this task. But I don’t think they’d code a new emulation from scratch when they already have such a good one! These digital pedals are all computer codes running on a chip, and they’re usually available as plugins too (Helix, Tonex etc) that are cross-compatible. The car engine analogy doesn’t really work. Not saying the Cali76 etc isn’t good! But the UA is probably more accurate to a real 1176. But who cares about accuracy really.

I’m assuming this is essentially the UAD 1176/LA2A plugins in a pedal. Top level mixing engineers have been using those plugins instead of the real hardware for years. I’ll bet they sound closer to the ‘real deal’ than any analog ciruitry anyone could fit into a pedal enclosure…