LawrenceH

[quote name='jimcroisdale' timestamp='1323710054' post='1466108'] As a slight aside, knowing what I now know about xmax and fartout, do you think that manufacturers use the Deltalite 2512 instead of the Basslite 2012 just so that they can quote the higher wattage? [/quote] The 2512 has a cast frame, which from what I understand, in general leads to greater stiffness/less resonance compared to typical pressed steel (as seen in the basslite). The frame is also important for wicking heat away from the driver, and cast alu should be better at that so in theory you'd expect the deltalite to show reduced power compression in comparison to the basslite. It's not all down to T/S parameters, how the thing performs under load matters, and Xmax is not the only relevant measure. I bet waterfall plots would favour the deltalite. In a general sense cast woofers tend to sound better, though obv there are plenty of exceptions and cast frames tend to be reserved for premium drivers so you'd expect them to perform better anyway.

If you look at the insides of the traveller 10"-based cabs they (certainly used to) use a driver based on the B&C HPL64, whereas the Classic 108 uses what looks like B&C 10CL51. Assuming the specs are similar to the OEM drivers (and the travellers sound like it to me) then these will give quite different voicings, the former being more aggressive in the upper-mids and the latter being a bit more rich in the bottom end. Afraid I don't know about any other driver sizes but it's evident from the 10"s that Markbass use more than one chassis type depending on application.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1323614247' post='1465021'] It all depends on what you are painting it with and how compatible with the original finish it is. Personally I'd take back down to the grain filler level just to avoid any misshapes. [/quote] Surely a Squier factory finish is going to be 2-part polyester or something equally inert? A new finish might even be more likely to react with any filler than the poly coat. I'd suggest keying a small bit of the original and spraying just that to check for good adherence and compatibility - stripping the whole lot off and getting a new flat black undercoat is a lot of work only to get you back to where it started.

[quote name='JohnFitzgerald' timestamp='1323515552' post='1464055'] but where do you draw the line ? [/quote] This for me sums it up. Better off just making sure all your kit, including the bass, is well looked after and regularly serviced.

[quote name='Bobby K' timestamp='1323292971' post='1461789'] Typical innit... I almost bought the orange label one, as they were going cheap in Watford Valves It turned out to be one of those "if it ain't broke don't fix it" things; I've put the original driver back in and it's fine. If truth be known, I was looking to save some weight by putting the neo in. It did make a very noticeable weight reduction too. Lightweight isn't everything though eh. Sound is king! [/quote] Doh! Yup I snapped up a couple of neo drivers when I had some cash before the price hikes put them out of reach...sound may be king but my back loves neodymium. I see watford valves still have the 4 ohm version of that orange label as well, tempting me...

[quote name='Bobby K' timestamp='1323288364' post='1461721'] The resulting sound was underwhelming, to say the least The cab space in the combo is tiny really, as you can see, so I'm blaming the resulting sound on the fact that this speaker enclosure is far too small for the Celestion to work properly. Or, perhaps my combo's amp section (200 watts) is under-powered for the Celestion?? [/quote] That speaker is a bit of an oddball, unusually high Qts for a bass guitar speaker - seems designed to give an old-school midbass 'hump' to the sound but it needs a big box tuned low to stop this being ridiculous. Probably the opposite of the type of driver you want for that Trace unfortunately! The Orange label equiv from Celestion would probably have suited it a lot better, unfortunately they're pretty expensive now.

I'd have thought loudspeakers are (or certainly should be) designed to cope with relatively rapid and extreme changes in temperature, given that we regularly flay them with several hundred watts. I don't know what a 'typical' minimum operating temperature is but I'd be more concerned with moisture than heat per se.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1323170689' post='1459979'] So what do you think... should I change my amp so that the DI is PRE EQ now!!?? [/quote] If you are using the preamp purely as a tone-shaping device then it makes no sense to change it to pre, under those circumstances you'd be better off getting a high quality DI box!

Have a look at Dave's pic on here, it may be the same for your amp http://basschat.co.uk/topic/156445-markbass-lmii-effects-loop/

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1323165782' post='1459888'] I think we need a bit more info before we get bogged down with a gazillion confusingly different ideas... like, does this beginner have any musical or playing experience at all (might explain the overly high budget)? [/quote] Listen to this! 'Best' instrument is going to depend on style of music, tonal and playing goals. Even though some basses are very versatile there is no one-size-fits-all.

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323046449' post='1458746'] crushing the life out of a track to less than 5dB of dynamic range as a part of the mastering process just destroys the musicality and power. [/quote] I agree with all this and was trying to make a similar point...but also it's worth recognising that the process is reflexive ie people including musicians will adapt and respond to these trends in (bad) mastering which has additional impact. Getting their instrument heard in a mix that's been thrashed to within an inch of its life [i]or, playing in bands that are consciously or unconsciously emulating that 'fashionable' sound[/i] is a challenge that deliberately introducing additional harmonic distortion helps them to meet. Of course, this then makes the overall mix even more busy and fatiguing and it becomes like an arms race, getting even more difficult to give each instrument its own space in the mix. Also, I absolutely don't buy the argument that flat, accurate monitors are undesirable for real hifi. I think that's a myth, built partly on misunderstanding arising from incomplete measurement information for certain 'flat' speakers. Except, if material is mixed to sound good on ipod headphones or cheap consumer docking stations then it probably isn't going to sound that great on speakers actually capable of reproducing real detail.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1323013730' post='1458264'] IMO if it was possible to build a completely flat amplification system most of us would find the sound produced dull and bland. It's those "good" distortions that make our music sound pleasing. [/quote] Pprobably true, but the distortion through decent studio reference equipment or even good hifi gear is a lot lower than what you get through a sansamp etc. You'd be fairly disappointed in your hifi if reproduced speech sounded no less coloured than through a Trace Elliot combo

[quote name='eddiehoffmann' timestamp='1323020145' post='1458361'] I have a QSC PLX1602, which also can have each channel running at 2 ohms simultaneously. You don't necessarily have to use both channels, though. If your cabinet(s) have a total resistance of 2 ohms, you can power them through channel A, for example, and have channel B turned all the way down. [/quote] It's probably better for reliability in the long-term to run 2 channels at 4 ohms rather than a single channel at 2 - look how the distortion spec differs for the PLX series at 2 ohms versus 4. As above, the parallel switching config makes this a doddle.

Does bass guitar have a natural sound? I'd say yes to an extent...a pickup is an inherent part of the instrument, and how it's loaded electrically in terms of impedance has a big effect on the frequency response of the pickup. But. Distortions introduced in the preamp and afterwards don't just alter frequency balance, they add in extra harmonics that weren't present in the original signal from the string/pickup system. In that sense they are unnatural, and the more distortion that's introduced the more 'processed' it's all going to sound. I think there's too much distortion in modern sounds, perhaps as a result of trying to cut through a mix where all the other instruments have also been compressed/clip limited. Everyone's slightly distorted and all those extra harmonics are competing.

I remember that when I switched the jumpers in an F1 from US version to UK, there was some discussion about whether I should go for 240 or 230 V settings, and this led on to how variable the mains supply voltage can be. Is it possible that this problem could relate to, or be exacerbated by, mains supply issues?

I play fingerstyle, quite hard with the odd bit of pop/slap, and my black beauties on one bass are about 2 years old and still going. They're worn to silver at the backs at the fret points and somewhat worn where I pluck the strings but that's really not at all visible unless you're staring from close up - more importantly they still sound less dead than eg a set of Rotos/Slinkys etc of an equivalent age/playing time.

I do think a lot of the so-called 'valve-y' characteristics that some modern amps like the Terror make sound very over-processed (and the Sansamp type pedals), and I struggle to think of any bands I've seen who actually have such a heavily coloured sound in practice - basschat seems like a different world! I really love the sound of high quality studio valve pre-amps, which to me sound a world away, just 'the same sound but better and more responsive'. I also don't like cabs that colour the sound too much with respect to EQ curves, or smear the low-mid time domain info. However I think I do quite like the sound of cone break-up from a high quality driver, as well as the gentler end of the distortion introduced by exceeding xmax on a well-designed bass speaker.

[quote name='fatback' timestamp='1322763158' post='1455625'] Thanks, Bill. The cab on stand is chest height, so not so far off 5 feet. Do you lose midbass at lesser elevations? Unfortunately, I don't see using the notch filter as very practical in the kind of situations we play in most often, ie tiny stages and no soundcheck; just stand up and play. I'll certainly look for that resonating frequency of the bass, as Alex described, but I can't see the speaker on the floor close behind the bass body ever being other than a problem. Luckily, the cab on stand approach is workable, as long as I don't need to get much louder, as I'd reach the amp's limits (with one cab) pretty quickly. [/quote] If you used a notch filter that was centred on the resonance of the bass body that would stay pretty constant so you wouldn't need to adjust for each soundcheck, as Alex says. Behringer used to do a cheap little DSP device called a Shark, I think they probably still do, that has an adjustable notch filter with variable Q (filter width). With something like that you could work out the problem frequency at a practice/at home and just leave it in your signal chain, bypassed if you liked until needed. To understand boundary effects it's important to recognise that there are two potential aspects - reinforcement and cancellation. The former is due to the boundary effectively acting to constrain the directions in which waves can propagate. The latter is due to reflections from the boundary coming back out of phase and cancelling out the wave from the listener's persective. A cab 5 feet from a boundary will have a primary cancellation around 55Hz-ish, this frequency will be raised as the cab gets closer to the boundary. Raising a cab up high has the effects of both lowering the frequency below which boundary reinforcement occurs, and introducing cancellations, each of which will reduce output. Bear in mind also, that the double bass's output is probably not that low frequency so both midbass cancellations and loss of boundary loading could each be contributing. Walls also count as boundaries.

[quote name='Ou7shined' timestamp='1322667856' post='1454201'] You've misunderstood what I meant about "harmonically pleasing" [/quote] Probably then, since the scale length constantly changes, what is 'harmonically pleasing' more often than not will depend a certain amount on the keys and neck positions a player tends to use most often. However a complicating factor is that although scale length changes with fretting, string thickness and tension for a given string stays the same. So the harmonic character of a string with solo neck pickup [i]doesn't[/i] sound the same to our ears as the same string fretted further up through the bridge pickup, because not everything has been scaled proportionately. That suggests that absolute placement will have a defining character whatever the key, notably at the extremes. However, a cm here or there on a [i]solo[/i]'ed pickup especially as you get closer to the neck is going to make very little audible difference over the effect of key choice (which is pretty marginal in a semitone range as long as it doesn't force changes of position).

[quote name='thumperbob 2002' timestamp='1322664386' post='1454134'] by putting everything into the pa you will have more control and will sound better. [/quote] I wouldn't say that it will sound better necessarily if everyone is mic'ed up. It places huge demand on the PA, and it has to be up to the task or sound quality suffers. Similarly the mix is much more complicated as you now have to balance backline noise against a load of mics, all open and with potential for feedback and phase issues. You're now talking about getting a dedicated sound engineer involved or at the very least getting pretty tech-savvy yourself. There's merit to keeping it simple for small/medium gigs - less complication means less to go wrong. FWIW I also don't think there's much between the SRM450s and the Yamaha passives that I've used in the past, in fact if anything the Yamahas have had the edge for vocals. Adding subs and an active crossover will make more of a difference if you go the full band route, or a decent pair of 3-way top speakers.

[quote name='geoffbyrne' timestamp='1322525064' post='1452277'] I mean, where does that leave my son, having done 5 years at music college & come out with an LRAM & later a BMus? I suppose he'd better just saved all my cash & got a couple of turntables, then? [/quote] Depends if he'd then practiced them through his childhood, got up to a decent standard and then spent 5 years REALLY practicing, like you do at music college! He'd be pretty good then I reckon, probably make a very tidy living (not that I've noticed orchestral musicians doing badly, quite the opposite in fact). Lots of late nights though...

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1322582493' post='1453094'] But that doesn't mean you have to get a Behringer desk. Spirit, Mackie, Yamaha, Studiomaster etc. etc. all do little club mixers. Don't forget though if you need reverb and its not included in the desk you'll also need outboard. [/quote] I have to say, I own plenty of cheap and cheerful Behringer stuff so I'm not snobbish about it...but I've had desks by all those brands, and I must say the Yamaha has sounded sweetest, closer to say Allen and Heath (a proper 'mid-level' desk) than a Behringer. Oh yes, I definitely agree about keeping the bass out of the PA.

Until you prang the speaker cone with a mic stand or something then it's fine

[quote name='fatback' timestamp='1322574550' post='1452848'] I use one Midget on a stand for my upright (to avoid feedback), but seem to lose a good deal of low end volume that way. Wondering if a second Midget in front of me would give me the extra oomph I feel I need. But would that cause any kind of phase problem? Haven't a clue about these things, so your thoughts much appreciated. Amp is an EA Doubler 550. [/quote] Separating bass speakers is generally a bad idea...witness the classic 'corridor of bass' when bands use the one-sub-a-side setup for PA - gives a very uneven, location-dependent response. For controlling feedback without losing low-end you may be better off using something like a gramma pad that keeps the speaker low down, and/or putting the pin on something that provides similar isolation. Mechanical coupling to the floor is different to acoustic coupling obtained by being close to a surface. This will only work if firstly it is not mechanical coupling that is giving you the low end (tends to be 'boomy' and centred on a particular frequency) and secondly if the sheer volume of the low-end isn't what's causing the feedback. In that case you may have reached the inherent limitations of double bass and need to look into notch filters or foam inserts on the bass itself, I seem to remember Clarky had a thread discussing this?