ThomBassmonkey

Yeah, I can't imagine it ever running out of steam either. The good thing about the RB series is that NEOs and RBH cabs are both "matching", they're both bi-amp compatable so if I fancied using my 2001 but with the lighter cabs, I'd still have all the benefits. The MB Fusion head doesn't have bi-amping, but it's only one switch to flick on the back of the cabs. There's a video of Norm Stockton online somewhere and his preferred rig is a 1001RB-II head into a NEO212. When you say straight DI, do you mean before your head? I could never do that now, I use distortion that I rely on my heads for, the MB Fusion's got two independent gain structures (basically two channels with a shared EQ, still footswitchable) so it'll be DI out from that too, same as with my 2001.

[quote name='phil.i.stein' post='1199946' date='Apr 14 2011, 09:07 PM']try swapping compressor between start of chain and end of chain.[/quote] If your compression is subtle, I'd suggest this. Have you tried taking out the pedals one at a time? It might be one or two pedals clashing that's causing the problem.

I'm curious about these, they're incredibly expensive (buying your full rig from somewhere like BassDirect would cost over £3,500 iirc) and I've not seen any groundbreaking features on them. What kind of tone are they? What would you liken them to? I'd be interested in hearing a demo if you do any recording/videos with it. Not planning on moving away from GK, just idle curiosity for the record.

It depends on what style is being played. I find that guitarists tend to know their straight major, minor and a few 7th etc chords, including barres, but as soon as they're off up the neck, they cease to know what they're playing. A lot seem to look at the lowest note in their chord then assume that that's the root note and chance a guess at the rest of the chord, that kind of thing. So long as they're competent in playing what they're playing and you're not on a tight schedule for writing/learning, I can't see it causing a problem. It can even be a bit more freedom if you're not thinking of it in terms of root notes, you can move over it however it feels right instead of trying to follow another instrument. Of course you can do that anyway, it takes a bit more effort to ignore root notes if you have them in front of you though.

If you'd get bored and stop practicing if you were tied to one bass, having lots of basses to pick from is obviously better for your bass playing. I've always had a main bass and at least one backup, I generally use the one best suited to what I'm doing or the better quality one.

[quote name='EBS_freak' post='1197361' date='Apr 12 2011, 09:33 PM']I've read about a few people on here breaking strings. I have come up with a one string bass. It means that there are less strings to break, therefore less of a problem. I've seen Sandbergs 2 string bass... this is better![/quote] Sadly it's already been done. [url="http://www.bas-extravaganza.nl/?page=bassen&BassenID=26"]http://www.bas-extravaganza.nl/?page=bassen&BassenID=26[/url] Some good ideas here though, I'll be in contact with the patent office over the next few days stealing some of them.. By the way, did you hear that if you want a fat bass tone, you should smear lard over your speakers? A good coating dulls the high end but still lets the punch through.

Bump up for this, hopeing to get a good turn out.

You should do it. Or take advantage of the distance selling laws where you have a certain amount of days to return it if you don't like it. I don't think you'd be disappointed.

Shouldn't that be the light side? Light? Geddit? Oh dear... The light rig will be used for most gigs. I do a lot of driving to gigs in my Fiesta, I can't get my RB/RBH stack in (head and one cab fits, just about) and since usually at best I have to get over to the other guys' houses before we car share, it means loading and unloading on my own. The Neo212s weigh half as much as my RBH cabs and the MB Fusion is 4.5lbs compared to 46.5 (not including my rack case and tuner) so I can definitely see them getting the majority of the use. We're on tour over the next few weeks, so it might see some heavy use straight away if I take that instead of my RB/RBH rig. I'm really looking forward to trying them out in anger without Clutterbutt drilling a hole with his Warwick-beating into the back of my head from 2 meters away.

[quote name='umph' post='1043126' date='Dec 1 2010, 12:12 AM']These old valve amps + modern speakers are pretty good, the reliability of watkins and voxes are pretty questionable though[/quote] I was thinking the first half of that. I sold a (Watkins) WEM Dominator MkIII last year, brilliant sounding amp. Still had the original valves (it'd been stuck under a table at a shop with some people that didn't know what it was for years) and worked fine. I loved that amp, if I played blues or similar it would've been great, a single channel amp was and is no use to me though.

Assuming you want to buy new, there's not a lot of choice for maple boarded 5ers. 2nd hand opens up a lot more options, you'll possibly be able to pick up a Stingray 5 for that, Sandbergs, possibly Fender USAs (they're usually a little more) are both options too if you can find the lesser spotted maple variety for a good price.

I've only had a go on one of the combos and I [i]think[/i] it was the MB210. It sounded great though, again it was at the show but it was audible while everything else was going on and it sounded fine as far as I could tell (couldn't really hear the tone properly). One thing I found out at the show was the MB combos don't actually use the same pre/power as the MB heads, I couldn't tell you offhand exactly what the difference is but I overheard one of the guys from Polar telling someone else. I'd imagine it's very similar, maybe missing an option or two though, he might just have meant that it's not a removable head though. The only negative I've heard about the MB combos (since they resolved some reliability issues a while back) is that they're not braced or have baffling so they can get a bit boomy if you EQ badly. But apart from that they punch well above their price, so adding a bit of padding and/or bracing should sort that out if you feel confident with that kind of thing. If not, they're still brilliant amps for the money from what I've heard. I also heard something a while ago about the extension speaker jack being wired oddly, can't remember the specifics though but from what I saw it was an easy fix (if GK haven't rectified it themselves). To be honest, I've only properly spent time with the RB and MB heads, RBH cabs and to an extent the NEO cabs. I've read up about the rest and had a quick play with the Fusion 550 and MB210 but I've not spent time using and abusing them.

Let me know how it goes, Merton. I'm probably gonna be picking one up at some point as a small backup I can put in my bag and forget about for emergencies so it'd be good to know how they go in a proper gig. Like I say, it did well at the LBGS but obviously it's not the same.

Have you got any material up online that we can listen to to get an idea of what kind of thing it is?

Yeah, I spent the whole LBGS playing with the MB Heads and Neo cabs. Like I've said elsewhere, I was expecting them to be good for what they are, but only compromises on what the artist series stuff (that I use at the moment) is. I was totally blown away, I must've spent 50% of the weekend playing an MB200 through a Neo212 which is pretty good going for a 200w head over the din at the show. I told GK straight away I'd be getting another rig from them, and here we are.

The GK NEO series 2x12s. Specs: Neo 212-II • 8 ohms (also available in 4, but I'm getting 2 8s) • 600 watts • 23.5x24.5x16.5 • 50.5 lbs.

I think that from what I've seen here and elsewhere, if your cab sounds alright, then it's probably doing alright. You're just walking a finer line than you would be with a more evenly matched head and cab.

I've talked about it on other threads, but my new "light" rig is actually properly ordered now and should (all things going well) be with me Monday! Wewt. If you've missed my other posts on it, I've ordered a Gallien Krueger MB Fusion and 2 NEO212s. Not exactly a small rig, but saves me lumping around my 2001RB-II and 410RBHs, which is stupidly awkward and heavy, even only taking one for practices and smaller gigs. I'll still be using "the big rig" for big gigs, but it's going to be heaven to have something lighter. Roll on Monday!

[quote name='alexclaber' post='1199348' date='Apr 14 2011, 01:21 PM']No, absolutely not. It will be putting out 250W only at the moment when the voltage hitting the amp (which depends on how hard you're hitting the strings, how loud your pickups are, any gain your onboard preamp is adding, any gain FX are adding), multiplied by the gain applied by the amp (which depends on gain, EQ and volume knobs), then squared and divided by the speaker impedance equals 250W. Pluck a bit harder or a bit softer and the same point in the note could be putting out 500W or 125W. Pluck a lot harder or softer (like twice or half as loud) and your amp could be clipping hard as it tries to produce 2500W (thus you get 500W for a longer portion of the note) or producing just 25W. And I bet in the course of any gig you play with a dynamic range of more than just going up and down fourfold (20dB).[/quote] Ok haha, I'm obviously way out of my depth. I'm guessing (from what I understand of that, it was a very technical explanation ) that I was along the right lines though that less volume from your amp means that less power is being pushed into your cab. Ultimately I'm just asking "if you play quietly, even if your amp's wattage is higher than the speaker's rating, then you won't be pushing too many watts through it?". The whole thing's very confusing and I would never judge an amp's compatability to cabs by it's wattage. I used to run a 700RB-II at 480w through two 210RBHs rated at 400w each and if I pushed it then they'd distort and that wasn't anywhere near full volume, so I'd always use my ears either way.

Something I've wondered about this train of thought. If you run a 500w amp at half*, is it only putting out 250w of power? Or does it not work like that? Obviously it's easier to just listen out for distortion and knock it down when you get it, but it would mean it was easier to see that powerful amps would work with lower rated speakers when people ask. * assuming everything's (hypothetically) running 100% efficient, perfectly flat response over the whole volume range and there's an even volume increase so 5 on the volume dial is actually exactly 50% of the output from 10 on the dial.

Seriously nice bass. What's the neck profile like? Is it p-ish or have they gone with a slimmer j? Glad you're happy with it, I've not heard of those pups, but I'm sure it won't let you down when you plug it in.

Just a note, make sure to call speakons speakons and jacks jacks, it'd be confusing to someone if you're trying to get them to do a repair and telling them to repair the wrong thing. Also it shouldn't cost too much, it's a fairly simple and quick repair from what I understand.

I thought Fender's QC was supposed to be improving? I've never really been into Fenders until recently so I've not played a lot. The thing that changed my mind was that I was hideously bored one day while I was looking around a music shop and had a noodle on a MIM Jazz and it blew me away. If it had been a 5er I probably would've bought it on the spot. Since then I've moved onto Sandberg (still playing a Jazz though which I hated up until that point). I've heard that their older stuff was very hit and miss but generally the quality's improved a lot recently. Not sure if it's true as I avoided Fenders for so long and now they don't appeal to me as much as other brands based on them so not played many.

Mmmm, Sandbergs.