SimonK

...I should probably add you need to use a compressor alongside EQ. Often people turn up because they can't distinguish the vocals from the mix, whereas if you boost around 4kHz and also slightly over-compress the vocals to bring the quieter bits up you can get a lot more clarity with no more volume. Then you can get away with a much less powerful PA, although I do agree with not going smaller than 12 inch drivers. The other counter-intuitive thing to try is sound damping especially behind the musicians. A curtain behind the stage stops reflections and improves clarity.

Oh my - and Trace Elliot Watts are louder than anyone elses (I think because they historically quoted RMS Watts rather than peak)! Certainly I've never found a 150 Watt Trace Elliot (GP7) under powered in a llive situation (using either 4x10 or 1x15 cabs). As with the theme of the thread, knowing what you are doing with the PA is probably most important. I've had seriously underpowered PA's before which I just ran vocals through, letting the band use their amps. Knowing how to use a compressor well can also help with peceived volume.

...yes Sunday is harder with a church building as the earliest we could get in would be about midday, and then we'd have to choose a week when there was nothing in the evening. I was thinking a Saturday but if that won't work for the majority...

It's worth holding onto the good services as for me they are certainly not every week! We tend to use "Our God is a Great big God" in children's services which gives the opportunity to put in a twelve bar blues walking bassline often alongside an OTT guitar solo - about the only time we can get away with that on a Sunday! With hymns like the latter two, rather than playing root notes, I sometimes dig out the old organ music as they have some awesomely crunchy bass lines that would never normally occur to me, them being classical musicians an' all.

...I've never quite understood this - just because the wah is on the left doesn't mean you can't still use your right foot! The only complication is if you have to sing at the same time, but even still judicious positioning of the mic stand... Thus said I always have mine on the right for my guitar pedal board as it's first in the chain and the signal tends to go right to left in most pedals.

So no one does the rock 'n roll thing of taping them to a mic stand?? Mind you I've gone wrong with that before (when playing guitar) as you have to put the tape on the opposite side from the direction you want to pull the pick off as othewise it gets a bit embarrassing...

...and yet I've used a thick pick on bass for so long, hearing that other people use 0.73s that I use for my acoustic guitar, I may well just try one next time I play just out of interest... so the benefit is not just to the OP (and yes, contributing to the forum also passes the time!!).

I'm a thick pick player (on the occasion I use them) and particularly like these as I find the hole really helps with the grip:

I'm happy to arrange to book St. Lukes church in Hedge End which is modernish, has a decent PA and carpets (helps with the acoustics!), is close to the M27 so easy to get to, and has a Tescos two minute walk away for refreshments. But will need to collect a couple quid from everyone to cover the cost if others think this is suitable. But looking at some of the other bass bash threads can someone else start compiling a list of attendees and kit being brought?

I'm very similar - my basses pretty much never leave their cases at home unless I am testing something or working out a bass line. For me bass is entirely about playing in a band situation. Conversly I'm quite happy to play guitar alone at home. Of course the social context of bands can be quite interesting and is another thing to work out if you want to be involved... I've lost count of the number of singers I've upset over the years (they are a species who are particularly unstable)!

I learned to play classical guitar as a kid. Then the school decided to do the musical Grease and needed a bass player. I was the closest they could find even though I couldn't read bass clef! However, as I did know where the notes were on the neck I wrote them out over the music - needs must!

I think traditionally the friend who couldn't play any instrument was given a bass and told where to put their fingers... certainly I have been in at least two bands (mainly when I was much younger) where random friends got roped into playing bass. Mind you I wouldn't go auditioning for a band with this skill level - but it works if you have friends who want to form a band!

If SW bass bash is in October, we could go for February/March so people could bring their Christmas presents?

I know of one or two people not on here who would come, including a tech friend who is a wizard at fixing amps and would probably quite happily set up a table in the corner with a soldering iron and fix things on the fly for people - it took him twenty minutes to find a faulty transistor and switch it out on an old Trace Elliot for me this weekend!

Go on then - I'm in and could also get us a hall in Hedge End (a 1980ish church building with OK acoustics) for not a lot.

Introduced my new cab ☝️ to my combo this morning for no other reason than I could! Picture perspective looks a bit weird but they are all 10" speakers.

The perspective of the picture has done weird things as in total it is 8x10, with all the speakers the same size - I had it on volume 1! I do also have a 1x15 cab... but if I added that it would stand well over 6 feet tall! Mind you I only had this rig to test the bottom cab which I picked up a couple days ago. It will be back to the normal 4x10 as of next week (which manages a princely 3 on the master volume!).

Our worship leader is blind - he said something sounded different with the bass this morning... I also caught the eye of one of our guitarists who was in the congregation and gave me a thumbs up and a big grin!

Snuck this into this mornings service 🤘

Yes - hence thinking the head plus cab was a good alternative (albeit spur of the moment purchase) - but as stated above they don't quite sound exactly the same and I love the sound of the combo!

So picked up the below head and amp for a crazy good price this week (£90) and tried it at band practice last night. The cab is almost identical to the one I normally use (second picture) but without a tweeter. Initially I didn't mind as in my mind tweeters extend the high frequencies from about 5kHz to 15kHz (based on old Trace manuals) which my prejudice tells me is only really good for clicking fret noises and slap - neither of which I worry about too much, and yet I couldn't help think that there was more than this missing from my sound last night. Yes of course different amp/cab, no matter if very similar make/model will sound a bit different, but it got me wondering whether a tweeter interacts with other parts of the cab in cleverer ways... I'm sure this has been discussed before so happy for people to point me to a discussion (but I couldn't find one with the search). vs

Just came across this as I run various preamps into/with Trace Elliot kit. At the moment I use a Genzler Magellan preamp pedal into a TE GP7 with the EQ switched out which I imagine isn't far off the TE power amp you have. But I've also played around with a radial switcher (as below) for running two amps in parallel which sounds awesome so long as you don't mind carting around multiple cabs/amps. You could either go bass into the switchbone and then out to two preamps/poweramp/cab combinations (one dirty, one clean sounds great) or put a single preamp before the tonebone and then send the signal to two amp/cab combinations.

I have one of the older Yamaha THR10s. I use it mostly as a speaker for my computer where it works particularly well for zoom meetings, but it sounds fine as a practice amp for both guitar and bass. Looks nice as well.

Did I need it - nope, was it posted on facebook for crazy low price and only an hour away - yup. Do I wonder why on earth people buy new amps when you can bag something like this for less than £100 - yup!

I second this - as bass amps are quite big, and people are keen to get rid of them when the amp stops being the flavour of the month, there are some amazing bargains to be had often for less than £100. Fender Rumbles seem to be available on facebook marketplace.