LiturghianPope

I owned a Helix LT, struggled for years with it, with tons of settings and presets which always sounded wrong in one way or the other - but I didn't understand it's purpose and limitations, I was expecting amp-in-the-room sound. I admit that I didn't know how to properly use it and never mastered it, despite spending hundreds of hours tweaking it. Numerous times I thought I've finally managed to create a proper tone just to return a day later to the rehearsal room and be horrified by it. "That" sound was always there - it wasn't the amp I used, the cab or the eq settings. I'm just stating my experience with it. I guess we've all seen bands sounding both good and bad with digitals, and it's amusing and sad when members are enthusiastic of their digital gear, its ease of use and light logistics etc. and then your ears get pierced FOH with unintelligible tones. Also I'm referring mostly to metal and therefore heavy distortion. What I'm trying to say is that I've failed (and witnessed others failing as well) in making digital gear sound "normal" (not even good, just plain normal, if that's an accepted term in this context). I guess that was also the premise of the thread, right?

Sounds interesting, you're hinting at the fact that when you're designing a tone you shouldn't just "use your ears" but rather anticipate the way it's going to be integrated in the whole mix. Something I'm actively trying to figure out and be increasingly more aware of. I actually always found it inconvenient when I was encouraged to focus on what I hear, because that differs according to how much and what I've listened to lately, the room, the time of day, how tired I am and what I ate. But I'm intrigued, do you have any exports of such recordings? Did you use his pickups or similar ones? I mean, as many others, when I use presets (doesn't matter the context - guitar, bass, helix, VST, whatever) they're not even close to sounding "normal" or "acceptable" let alone "good". I end up adjusting them to the point they're nowhere near the original.

There's a lot of stuff i didn't know and in order to understand some of it I need to make more research. This is definitely not the kind of stuff you can understand in a day. And yes, I am trying to rely on the actual sound because that's after all, the whole point. However, one of the underlying aspects of the question, besides wanting to better understand what's going on beneath the casing, was whether passive pickups would allow greater flexibility and the ability to try various different external preamps and hearing major differences, as opposed to active pickups which already use a preamp which has a certain profile. I mean I'd like to try various pedals especially some darkglass ones since they're very popular for metal bass tones and I was wondering if the weight of those pedals in the whole signal chain doesn't diminish if a preamp is already there (the pickup premp). Meaning, maybe, I'll keep trying various pedals but there's something I won't like in the tone and that might be the preamp in the active pickups. Alternatively, changing the pickup preamps is highly inconvenient - I mean sure I'd like to try three or four preamp pedals, but I wouldn't change the pickup preamp three times. Am I being too theoretical and hypotethical here? Am I imagining some cause-effect relationships that don't really translate down in engineering/physics? Just trying to figure out if I should get active pickups or not, I'm currently playing on schecter diamond series and it took me a while to come to the conclusion that I don't like them.

Hello everyone, I am trying to understand the difference between using an active pickup compared to a passive pickup + an external (I mean, outside of the bass) preamp. I guess it's much more versatile to use passive pickups since it offers the possibility to try various preamp pedals, right? But what are the downsides to this? I guess that until not long ago I just took for granted that active pickups are the way to go, especially for heavy music, due to their higher output, but now I'm trying to better understand what are the implications of these two different technologies/approaches. Are active pickups designed different knowing they will be marketed and sold followed by a preamp? Or are they just regular pickups and the whole 'active' pickup thing is just the (optional) addition of a preamp? Thanks in advance looking forward to hear your opinions and past experiences with these two different kinds of pickups.

Awkward. I actually looked for a 'Other' topic and wondered why can't I find it :))

No, I'm definitely not sure. I wasn't aware, I'll check it out. I guess if any mod considers that place to be more suitable for this thread, it can be moved, so that I don't double-post. Thanks!

Yeah I love Tool, when I asked about bands, I meant bands in which members of this community play in, so that we can maybe discuss the rig. I definitely don't chase Justin's tone, with his several thousand dollars rig and top engineers, but rather just try to improve my tone step by step, and go in the right direction. I've seen Tool live I guess they would have sounded just as good with a wide variety of pickups, all I'm saying :)) Appreciate the input!

Hello everyone! I would like to upgrade my Diamond Series on my Schecter Omen Extreme 5. I would also like the new pickups to have the same amount of pots (or, oh well, fewer). I definitely do not want to make any modifications to the body, carve the pickup slots or anything like that. That's why I would appreciate some advice on some pickup models that can be changed without any modifications/issues. Active pickups, that is. Any suggestions and thoughts on the matter are greatly appreciated! Extra info: I play in a progressive metal band - mostly heavy stuff, but, common to the genre, we dwell into melodic, clean parts as well. We are a three-piece band, so just one guitar. Not sure how and if I should take this into account for choosing the pickups. I don't (think I) want a modern metal, 'dingy' sounding tone, but rather a warmer, maybe ...grittier? sound. I'm thinking at Black Sabbath's 13, for example. If someone plays in a three piece metal band and worked towards getting a proper tone to fill in for the lack of a second guitar, send me a link to the band, I'm curious. I have, very recently, made a comparison with an Ibanez SR 505. The BH-2 Bartolini are quieter but also cleaner. While it seemed exciting at first, the Diamond Series seem to be unnecessarily loud and dirty for me. I'd rather add distortion with pedals, based on a clean sound, rather than having that huge gain out of the box. I wonder if higher-end pickups have an output similar to the Bartolini or to the Diamond Series...? For now I'm just thinking pickups upgrade. I know that based on the specifics above, suggestions may include other gear as well - it's all welcome and appreciated.

Fair enough. I misspoke, now that I'm reading what I wrote. Ideally, I'd just like to sell these, and get something more appropriate or better for this particular use for the money. If we have to top it a bit, in case there's a highly significant improvement, we can do that too. But yeah, certainly not going to bust the bank just to get a slightly better sound at rehearsals. Maybe ignore that 1000 euro mark, I may have rushed saying that. It's more of an exchange plan, with the possibility of a little extra. The speakers are currently valued at about 800 euro new. It's not that these active speakers don't work, it's those huge 15'' speakers that are...you know... improperly used. And most of the voice is just coming out of the horns. I was thinking maybe something with 6'' / 8'' speakers, even if at a lower power, might deliver better for vocals. I really don't know.

Money is not a problem. Just kidding. Can't put my finger on it, I think 1000 euro tops. I mean, sure, if at 1100 we get something significantly better, that won't stop us. But I don't want us to go down the rabbit hole, that happens too often :))

Hi again everyone! So I previously asked on the forum about bass and guitar for our band, and now, the time has come - I need some suggestions for vocals. Without getting into too much historic detail, we ended up in our rehearsal room with two Pyrit 15A's. Yeah, probably not the best way to go about vocals, but again, it's an inheritance from an older rig we used. We're a metal band with two vocalists, so we don't exactly sound like a choir of angels and mermaids. Ofc, sound clarity is our goal, but within reasonable limits, we're not planning on spending a fortune on this. Since we're not taking these speakers to gigs (d'oh), so they never see the light of day (or, more appropriately, the stage lights)we don't really see the point of getting anything high-end just for our ears. However, if we can sell the two abovementioned active speakers, which are probably around 550 - 600 euro? used we can chip in some more and try to get something more suitable. We play loud, meaning both these speakers are usually at about 80-90% volume (running through a behringer QX1204 mixer or something like that) but overall they don't throw a big punch, it's not like the vocals easily top the guitar. We can hear the vocals pretty good, but I am aware that these speakers are just not optimal for that. Right? What do you guys use and recommend for vocals? Amplifier + passive speakers? Some other kind of active? Three-way? Monitors? Have you ever tried something that just doesn't work and we should avoid? Thank you in advance, looking forward to any suggestions!

You make it sound like 'cab shaming' is a real thing :D. No worries, I have no desire in impressing others with the size of my gear and anyways, I doubt I'll show it to anyone. Unless they want to come to our private rehearsal room, but then their (auricular) orifices might hurt, and I ceartinly don't want to force anyone to go through such pains. Slightly besides the point, but yeah, we're not trying to build a rig that turns a palm muted D to a cosmic rupture that spits out the very bowels of existence, separating spirit from body - even though that would be nice, we're just slowly getting better gear. I have seen many 210 + 115 combinations, and it's definitely not out of the question that I may end up with a similar gear. But getting them one-by-one. Even if I get a bigger cab for rehearsals... I wouldn't be able to carry it at gigs, therefore I'm not very interested in investing in gear that only me and my bandmates would hear. Maybe that will change if we get a van or travel with two cars. But for now, lightweight is key.

Hi Rob, Yeah, I can tell these cabs are yet to be widely tested, since there aren't too many reviews and opinions on them. Now I don't change gear that often tbh, quite the contrary. So I don't really want to get a used cab, because - honestly - if I don't instantly like it, I'll just return it. I just want to enjoy the sound from the first moment I plug it in. But more than that, I want the gear to help the whole sound of the band, rather than just satisfy my tastes. I've had some gear which I thought 'it will take some time until I get used to it' but that never happened. So I want to take full advantage of the return options large stores like Thomann offer. Now I've only played on a 103 Markbass a long time ago (combo, don't know which model), and if what you said is true - that they probably don't deviate much from their sound with the new models - then, what can I say, I'll most likely be happy with it, because that sound stuck with me enough in order for me to get a MB LMT800 years later. Regarding defects, well I just hope that won't happen anytime soon.

Hello everyone, A while ago I was asking for suggestions on a cab for a Markbass LMT 800 - some of you may remember the topic, thanks for everyone sharing their opinions there. I have recently decided to go for a Markbass 102 58R cab. There are little to no reviews on these, apart from the specifications on the Markbass website. I'm looking forward to some opinions specifically on these models - has anyone tried them? Is there a significant difference between the Traveler and these? Which of these would you chose for metal / prog metal? I'm inclined to believe their names were given to help buyers, and therefore I can only assume that the Energy model might be slightly more suitable. How about the XL versions? I need the smallest size possible, so I wouldn't go for the XL versions, but I wonder if the tone difference is significant and if the compromise is worth it. I'm going to use it for rehearsals and live monitoring - I assume the volume will suffice (while we play loud, we only have one guitar in the band, so I think a single cab should do the trick). I don't know, maybe I'll even mic it up at gigs to see if there's a significant improvement compared to going line-out (as I do now) in the mixer. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated, thanks!

Hello, Our band's mesa dual rectifier amp has a broken rectifier lamp. Is it safe for us to remove the lamp and use the amp on diode tracking? Thank you!