LawrenceH

[quote name='basskit_case' post='1003330' date='Oct 28 2010, 08:37 AM']We definately need this "stickied", these are great basses, but there is so little information on the web![/quote] +! It might help if the thread was boringly just titled 'SGC Nanyo Bass Collection information resource' or similar. There are a lot of them kicking around in the UK, and they are very nice basses especially given how cheap they go for.

[quote name='silddx' post='1002546' date='Oct 27 2010, 02:55 PM']They are very easy to apply, so don't listen to the hamfisted Email this guy and ask for what you need. I have used his decals and they are excellent! [url="http://thedecalshop.co.uk/"]http://thedecalshop.co.uk/[/url] Cheers.[/quote] +1 for the decal shop - but I'm not the world's most clumsy person and I messed up two(!) large late-60s/early-70s style logos trying to do it the way he suggested, they're just too damn big to manoeuvre easily without tearing. I think there must be a bit of a knack to it and it's potentially quite expensive to get good at. Annoyingly, had no troubles with the smaller practice bits he included. It's very easy to scratch the inks off as well, especially the gold, even just excessive wrinkling of the decal seems to lead to small imperfections. If anyone's got any hints and tips I'd appreciate them. Had most luck using paintbrushes, am thinking a really big one that'll just let me lay the logo on flat might be the way to go.

Love Thodrik's list, those features add up to pretty much my 'dream' amp of uselessness. Quite like a parametric mid though, but then I prefer passive basses! Oh yes, add in clip lights that come on either too early or too late.

[quote name='Phil Starr' post='1000645' date='Oct 25 2010, 11:26 PM']So, my conclusions are: piezo's can sound OK even in midpriced/mid-performance speakers and speakers really do 'break in' over time. If anyone is interested I'll start a new thread and put up a few details[/quote] Definitely interested in that - what piezos, how many, crossover and frequency if used. Id love to know how to make piezos sound less than awful!

Great review, I really, really want to try one of these. But on the other hand if I do, it would ruin me, so I mustn't!

[quote name='bigevilman' post='1000216' date='Oct 25 2010, 05:14 PM']Hey guys I've just invested in a nemesis 15" cab and am looking to make it my main cab. I want to put a new speaker in there as 250 watts rating ain't nearly enough! I'm looking for something that's a good all round speaker for all styles (play in a few different bands). I'm not too bothered if it's neo or not, my backs still relatively good a high output rating though @8ohm is essential (600 upwards) Cheers guys [/quote] 600 watts is asking an awful lot of a single 15" speaker. The Eminence Kappa 15LF will take it thermally, but it will be a heavy cab as the driver alone weighs over 9kg! And the xmax doesn't offer any advantages over the neo kappalite 3015 (NOT the 3015LF), thermally rated at 450w and weighing a much kinder 3.6kg

The Ashdown octaver thing, especially if we're talking about the small combos like my old Electric Blue 12".

[quote name='CHRISDABASS' post='996764' date='Oct 22 2010, 10:09 AM']I really missed the way that a little fret buzz cuts through the mix!![/quote] :smug:

Just to buck the trend, recently I've realised I far prefer a nice clanky low-action fretted tone. 90% of it gets lost in the mix and you're left with something with a bit of character, that when you dig in can really jump out. I love the way that on a jazz bass with a low action you can just go beyond a certain point and bang! It's there in your face. With a high action I find the bass just gets lost. Good for P-bass rock tones, bloody rubbish for funk and fusion. But if you play with a pick or just play really hard all the time, then I guess a high action is preferable. EDIT: Also I've just realised that where I pluck the string makes a huge difference with respect to where the action should be set.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='994727' date='Oct 20 2010, 01:05 PM']One thing im confused about is the cab experts saying 'dont mix drivers' yet the BF site says you can mix the 12 with the 15....who is right?![/quote] You can mix drivers fine if you design the cabs with that in mind (no doubt the BF cabs are), it's mixing random cabs that can lead to problems. You need to design them with a compatible group delay or you'll get phase issues in the lower registers which will screw up the combined frequency response. You can get just as much a problem if you use two cabs built around the same driver but with different port tuning. Which means, incidentally, that I'd be rather cautious mixing all these different 12" Markbass cabs together! Having said all that I've heard plenty of great-sounding rigs where the speakers are highly unlikely to have been matched in this way...as we keep coming back to, if it sounds good it is good!

[quote name='Slipperydick' post='994315' date='Oct 20 2010, 12:21 AM']Thought about a Bass Collection 5 string ? Never tried a five one myself, but my old 4 string one feels like its made of Balsa Wood, bought it when I had back trouble and compared to my Precision it really is featherweight and not at all neck heavy.[/quote] Good call, I have an SB330 and it's probably even lighter than my Ibanez was - Sen body looks like nice ash but doesn't weigh anything like as much. Lovely balance to both the SGC Nanyo bass collections and Ibanez SRs too, better than you're ever likely to get with a Squier IMO because of that big fat maple Fender-style headstock.

If you know enough music you can find these 'rip offs' everywhere. It's more just a reflection that a lot of pop and rock's pretty simple and hasn't really changed much other than in superficial elements of production over the last 30-odd years.

A drummer? Being a twat? It just sounds so unlikely! But seriously, I'd be pretty annoyed about this and if the bloke didn't offer a proper, decent apology then I'd find it hard to work with them. I'd also consider billing them for your time...seriously! A band is a business after all, as well as a hobby, whatever level you're at (and regardless of whether you actually make anything) and if they cut you out after putting work in but before getting the chance to get something back then you'd be justified in doing this.

[quote name='JTUK' post='992957' date='Oct 18 2010, 11:37 PM']In that case you should at least be able to build a decent looking box. There are a few self builds on here that are pretty damn decent from the pics...and that is from guys who may profess to not having done anything like this before.[/quote] The man hours are the issue! There's a killer build thread on talkbass relating to a composite cab, foamcore and fibreglass I think. Weighs next to nothing, stiffer than a conventional build cab and raw materials cost pretty similar. But the labour is the deal-breaker for making those things commercially, unfortunately, or we'd have cabs that you could carry with one finger.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='992902' date='Oct 18 2010, 10:53 PM']Yes, I agree aesthetics are not a priority, but if its between a high end fantastic large manufacturer and a small DIY high end manufacturer, I know which I would choose.[/quote] If, and it's a big if, all else were equal, then I think I'd usually choose the small manufacturer assuming they were in the same country as me. One voice has a lot more weight with their reputations so I'd hope that would translate to good personal service. East, Shuker, Wizard and Barefaced all seem to fit this judging by the bulk of reports on here. And in terms of value for money, I think the loss of bulk buying power is easily offset by their lower overheads. Despite what I said about the Eminence drivers, the cast chassis Kappalite range Barefaced uses are a lot higher build quality than, for example, the OEM Sica speakers loaded into Tecamp cabs (whose build quality gets raves about) with a noticeably higher rrp. These are pressed steel chassis models and not even the premium Sica models. I was quite surprised when I discovered even quite high end cabs are typically not using the top-range drivers offered by companies like Eminence, Celestion etc. Alex's cabs are by far the best value in this respect. Again though, if you don't like the sound of them then that's all that matters in this particular case! But I would think that reflects a particular aesthetic rather than an inherent aspect of 'small v big' companies. Wizard are another whose products seem to cost a fair bit less than equivalent big-name offerings. This may reflect the fact that both conventional cabinets and pickups are pretty old, mature technology - most of the hard design work for cabs is done by the speaker manufacturers, the 'big name' cab manufacturers are just box builders really.

[quote name='Lozz196' post='992632' date='Oct 18 2010, 07:30 PM']Very true, a watt is a watt, however you rarely see 100 watt solid state amps being able to cut it in a live situation in heavy rock/punk bands, but 100 watt valve amps don`t have any trouble at all. Straying onto guitar amps, our rhythm guitarist used an Orange Tiny Terror for a while, all 15 valve watts, and at gigs it had no problems keeping up. This in venues that held 150, and we are a punk band (tho not a hugely loud one). I`ve never seen a 15 watt solid state that could manage that, even flat out. Valve amps do seem to be louder pound for pound/watt for watt. Dunno why, I`m not a technical person, but I`d stand in a practice room with a 100 watt solid state amp flat out. Valves - forget it![/quote] It's the distortion, innit. Sounds a lot less noticeable when you're driving a valve amp to absolute blue b****ry whereas solid state clipping is just nasty and onset is very sudden once you exceed the rail voltage.

[quote name='fretmeister' post='992701' date='Oct 18 2010, 08:23 PM']I love my F1 head. It's ace. It goes great with my TecAmp cab.[/quote] Tecamp - good example of a company that offers multiple cabinets based around the same drivers, which appears to be the complaint here unless I'm missing something (their XS, S, M and L I Think?). The point with the Tecamps is that as you increase the size of the bass cab you increase the low frequency output of the cab, up to a certain point at least, even with an identical driver. I'm sure the larger MB 15" cab will have a noticeable increase at the bottom end compared to the NY but it's a trade-off v size and weight. Seems fair enough to me.

[quote name='Musicman20' post='991979' date='Oct 18 2010, 09:44 AM']Are they any better? Well, Im no speaker cab guru, but I would trust Jim's designs over virtually anyone else. That's probably due to reputation more than a massive amount of experience with his cabinets. ... Jim will not ever release his exact driver spec, but Im guessing, and from memory, they are custom Eminence speakers as are most nowadays.[/quote] To be honest, with all the software available it's hard to design a simple ported cabinet wrong these days! Stick to tried and trusted proportions, get the tuning right for the driver and an adequate port size and there's not all that much more to it. And from what I understand a custom drive unit will be based on a standard chassis and will typically trade one set of compromises for another. It won't be all that far off the standard production equivalent in most cases. That's not to say the Berg drivers won't have a nice tone, it may well be tweaked to a particular aesthetic, but it's not full of magic 'custom' dust. I'm no expert at all but I spent a long time reading around the topic a while back, and have made cabs based around Celestion and Eminence drivers including the Deltalite II 2510s, as well as using a few very good PA rigs based around high-spec drivers. People tend to use TS parameters as a proxy for quality, which is missing the point. In terms of sound quality IMO the modern Celestion equivalents are at least as good as the much-praised Eminence units, and the best B&C units (B&C make the Markbass drivers) arguably outstrip both. Whether that gives the tone you like for bass guitar is another matter, but I think the fact that Eminence are American and therefore cheap over there compared to the European units has a lot to do with their reputation and wide useage. A lot of very high end no-compromise PA gear uses B&C. Personally, I think the Markbass gear sounds great with lovely growly prominent mids - but for people who love say the TC RH450 into RS210s, then that Markbass sound is a little off from what you'd consider the ideal, which'd be more biased towards the low-mids. So if I were making the choice, I'd go by tonal preference and assume the quality of the drive units in most proper high-end stuff is similarly good.

I'd add the Ibanez SR series to the list, pretty small slim bodies and slim necks add up to lightweight instruments.

[quote name='TheGreek' post='992040' date='Oct 18 2010, 10:59 AM']+1[/quote] 'Sounds better' is a bit subjective eh? Precision, Jazz, (& MM Stingray to be fair) pretty much have the basses covered (geddit? sigh). If you see the bass as a lead instrument then of course there are others out there that might be more suited. Though having said that, personally I love Jaco's sound but I think Stanley Clarke's tone is a bit rubbish! Always put me off Alembics. Aesthetics and ergonomics are a different matter. If I could have a Fnder sound with a bass that played and felt like my old Ibanez I'd be a happy Larry indeed.

I know it's confusing with all the different opinions, but I had an Ashdown Perfect 10 as part of a trade deal once and it was IMO the worst practice amp I've ever tried. Quite bassy but no definition to the tone making it feel like very hard work to play through and incredibly sluggish-sounding. Good if you just want a general low rumble but not musical at all IMO. Conversely, I really quite like my old Ashdown Electric Blue, even though it's about as budget as giggable combos get. Tried a small Marshall practice amp in a shop and it was fairly honest tone-wise, certainly more so than the posher Hartke 4 x 10" that they initially plugged me into, through which every bass sounded the same!

Rotosounds have more oomph in the mids than slinkies in my experience. It may well just be that the tonal balance of the strings doesn't suit the natural tone of the bass/electrics. Other than that I can only think it'd be worth tweaking the neck a bit just to see if it makes a difference.

[quote name='Spoombung' post='991144' date='Oct 17 2010, 02:39 PM']Anyone know the best place fro pickups?[/quote] Bass direct carry Nordstrands. [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/"]http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/[/url] After hearing on here that you can buy Fender 75 vintage jazz pickups separately, I went into a Fender dealership here in Edinburgh (Scayles) and they rang Fender UK on my behalf - I was then told that my best bet both price- and speed- wise would be to just order direct from a shop in the States rather than wait for them to get them shipped out! I ended up ordering on ebay from Homeless Dog Custom Guitars.