ThomBassmonkey

[quote name='neepheid' post='1162782' date='Mar 15 2011, 09:44 AM']Interesting, but I can't quite visualise how that's going to help. Can you find any pics of what you mean? Had a bit of a setback last night - my Mouse sander went pop. Bah![/quote] I can't find any pics, so I drew an awesome diagram! (apologies, I'm no artist at the best of time and this was a 2 minute sketch in paint). If you're looking at the lower horn from the back, the centre line is the countour. To the left of it, you thin the horn, it means your hand doesn't hit a solid block of wood and some of your fingers can go behind the body instead of wedging next to it. How thin you'd need to make it would depend on the body thickness. From the front it doesn't look any different as all the carving's done at the back.

I can't really sing at all, I do do the odd bit at some gigs though. Just joining in through the mic on crowd participation bits really. I find the best way to do it is to break down the beats in your head and take note of where they all lie in relation to each other, then you can try and merge them into one action. So you have it in your mind "when I play that E, I'm singing a note, then on the beat between the two offbeat Es, I change vocal pitch." that kinda thing. If it's straight beats on bass, it's pretty easy, it's when you have different rhythms, there's one song we do where I'm two hand tapping (nothing flash, just a melody) and singing a different rhythm, that one's always interesting.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqKBZOLZ29Q"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqKBZOLZ29Q[/url] Shame it's a lefty.

[url="http://www.gallien-krueger.com/products_mbCombos.html"]http://www.gallien-krueger.com/products_mbCombos.html[/url] The MB112 will be easily enough, only weighs 28lbs too. I'd agree with the others though, we do acoustic stuff sometimes, I have a little 10w practice amp that I take. It doesn't sound great, but I can hear what I'm playing and I take my big amp to gigs so it doesn't matter if it's the right tone when it's just the 4 of us.

I've never understood it either. I used to teach and help out at a small guitar shop locally and one of the guys that worked there used to "show" people an instrument. Very frustrating to watch and I did tell him a few times "ok, let him/her have a go" (without causing a fuss). I don't think I've ever played an instrument someone's asked to have a go on while working (without being asked to by beginners, at least). I hand them/plug in the end of a lead, make sure the amp's on and assume they can figure out the rest. I don't tend to put up a fight if people do it, but I get bored very easily and it's always really apparent so people tend to click on quickly when I start ignoring them and having a look at the other instruments. I've jammed with some amazing musicians and I find it very hard to be in awe of a single musician showing off, even if they could play every note on the fretboard cleanly in under half a second.

[quote name='shemeckfrac' post='1164823' date='Mar 16 2011, 07:15 PM']The confusion about whether it was allowed to make noise or not was annoying. Most vendors very allowing people to crank up any time, other said they were not allowed by the landlord (only at the top of the hour or something like that). Stupid thing was then even 1hr before the end of everything they were still paranoid.[/quote] Apparently initially it was supposed to be from the hour to 15 past that people could play but some people kicked up a fuss so it got knocked up to from the hour to half past. It would've been fine if people had stuck to it, but enough people didn't that the ones who were trying to (including us on the GK stand) gave up. One of the main reasons there was such an absurd amount of slap (other than people trying to show off) was that the percussive sounds were pretty much all you could hear most of the time. I was there as a demonstrator, but I spent more time talking to people than playing the amps because I honestly just couldn't be bothered getting into volume wars. It would've been better IMO if there'd just been a steward with some common sense going around telling people to quieten down where needed all day instead of in intervals. There were some people that felt the need to put their amps on 11 the second they could play even when everyone else was being quiet. The rest of us had to either follow suit or give up and accept that people wouldn't be able to hear products. On the GK stand we even ended up using headphones some of the time which is obviously far from ideal when we're trying to demonstrate amps. It probably would've helped with a little extra planning with where the amp exhibitors were place too. Apparently when we were loud on the GK stand, we were very loud but we had the TC stand directly opposite us (they were one of the ones that decided the second they should play, they should crank it), there was another amp company (I forget the name) next to Bass Direct that had their rigs facing us (though to be fair, he didn't make a lot of noise and did turn down when we hinted at him with a nod) and we had Mr Roto Clank'n'slap right next to us too. With the three of those going we were struggling to hear ourselves think, never mind play.

[quote name='davideleira' post='1164946' date='Mar 16 2011, 08:29 PM']Really? I think that was the inverse, because I saw ABM 410H more cheaper than ABM 410T, but the shop that is selling the ABM, it's T. T - Tweeter, H - Horn. And I think that ABM 410H is made in China too. (all new!)[/quote] Horn is often used to describe tweeters too, the larger speakers are usually woofers. I've just had a look on Google and they seem to be around the same price. It's possible one's a newer model or something, I don't really know Ashdown gear. I was thinking of the MAGs though with the cheaper stuff, so apologies for that. xgsjx was talking about horizontal dispersion. Someone like Bill is far better to comment on this, but basically if you have two speakers next to each other, the sound waves will cancel each other out to an extent (at least I think that's the cause) and you'll have a narrower signal horizontally. A (square) 4x10 will be louder than a single 2x10 but if the audience is spread out around your amp and you don't have PA support, it'll be more directional. Stacking two 2x10s vertically will also be taller than a 4x10 and 2x10 horizontally, meaning that it'll be closer to your ears and you'll get better definition from it. I use 4x10s and I can't honestly say it's ever been a problem though, so I wouldn't worry about it. The other thing to be mindful of is if you're using two cabs with different wattage ratings (which if you have two cabs from the same model but with different speaker numbers, you probably will be), the power from your head will be split equally between them. If you have a 1000w (number picked for ease ) head, both of your cabs will be taking 5000w each. Again, it'll probably never cause a problem, but if you're pushing your amp bear in mind that one of your cabs will be splitting the power between two speakers (meaning up to 250w each with a 1k head) while the other splits it between four (125w), essentially meaning that your 2x10 will be always be worked a lot harder.

There's a guy called TOOLbassplayer on youtube too that's got the tone pretty nailed. To be fair though, both of them are using almost exactly the same gear as JC. It's a lot of money to invest in sounding like someone else, though it is an amazing tone. I'd have a Wal if I could afford it without a moment's hesitation.

I believe that the 410t is the cheaper cab, the 410h is the more expensive american made one.

[quote name='BassBunny' post='1163892' date='Mar 16 2011, 12:01 AM'](1) Volume(pull bright), (2) pan, (3) treble, (4) bass. I think Martin works for Overwater so i guess he should know. I tried this actual bass at the moffat Bass Bash and it was definately a 2 band Eq.[/quote] Sorry, that'll be me not reading properly haha.

Since it's removed from the signal path, it's also nice that it doesn't affect the signal quality since it's not outputting into your amp. Especially with cheap tuners.

[quote name='martin lee' post='1163574' date='Mar 15 2011, 07:49 PM']Hi Ead, I do believe there has been some miss information regarding the contemporary jazz bass circuit, its actually a two band. Volume(pull bright), pan, treble, bass. hope this helps [/quote] Are you sure? Looking at the pics of the contemporary Js, I see 4 knobs.

All my gigging gear now is either 2nd hand or bought through endorsements, so I've not paid full whack for any of it. I'm finally about to sort out insurance (way overdue) but was wondering, should I insure it for the price it'd cost to replace it new/full price or should I insure it for the price I paid for it? I guess it'd cost more to insure it for new prices but then if anything happened to it and I'd insured it for 2nd hand prices, it'd be harder to replace it (not quite the same for endorsement gear). Thanks for any help! Thom

*cough* GK *cough* The Fusion 550 and MB Fusion are both in that price range, they're both hybrid amps with tube preamps and solid state power amps. Both are 500w at 4Ohm and 350 at 8Ohm. The Fusion 550 has more features (such as GK's bi-amping system and motorised knobs for different EQs between channels) but is a weighty bugger. The MB is a smaller (and cheaper) beastie, it's still got two channels but is more basic, still sounds fantastic though and it's small enough to put in your gig bag. The 1001RB-II is also in that price range, it's all solid state but it's got GK's G.I.V.E. (gate induced valve effect) so it can produce a valvey growl. It's a bit more powerful at 700w at 4Ohm and 460w at 8Ohm. All of them use the GK 4 band EQ though, no fancy parametrics here. I've always ran mine totally flat though (I have the contour up a bit which gives it some mid scoop) and it's always sounded great. A bit of tweaking makes a massive difference to the tone though and they're very versatile. If you really want an all valve sound, you could pick something up 2nd hand for that budget fairly easily I'd expect. Couldn't help you with what though as I've never really been a big fan of valves on bass gear. Don't worry about your cab's power rating too much, it wouldn't matter if your head was a million watts so long as you didn't crank it.

[quote name='algmusic' post='1163178' date='Mar 15 2011, 02:59 PM']so add a 15 band eq to the complicated amp and the very confused man and you have...... well a load of **** I think it's because they just want to have a review online.[/quote] Yeah, if he did a video about the amp, the (two) 15 band EQs were pointless. I intend to do a video on the GK stuff soon (I've been meaning to do it for months, not got around to it yet, hopefully soon), hopefully it'll be a bit better than these. The worst bit about GK gear is because there's hardly any around, it means there's very few videos around. When the few that there are aren't very helpful, it doesn't help people out that are interested in them, so people who want to know what they sound like have trouble finding the few good videos between this kind of thing. Try finding a helpful video on the MB200 to see exactly what I mean. In the MB head thread I started, I had a look for a video with sound clips so that I could post it, the best one I found was at a trade show.

[quote name='dbass' post='1163177' date='Mar 15 2011, 02:57 PM']I was across from their stand and after two days worth it was really grating on me. Slap is good in the right place and tastefully done but the whole "play as fast as I can whilst slapping/tapping" doesn't show off the quality or variation of a string?![/quote] Every time it started and we looked at each other, I think we were thinking the same thing. It had people stopping at the roto stand for sure, but I doubt many people were looking at the products. It was more "wow, look at how fast that is", then they moved on. Most of the people looking at the other stands around them were actually looking at the products (god knows they weren't listening, it was impossible).

When people do videos like this, they should really know the amps well, it's not the best overview when he doesn't understand how the amp works properly. In saying that though, GKs aren't the simplest amps to use (mainly the boost knob is confusing to most people, don't think I've ever really heard it described properly). I don't think that it shows the amp in a bad light, it just doesn't show it off properly.

[quote name='Bottle' post='1162766' date='Mar 15 2011, 09:35 AM']I'd be interested in any GK 2x12 cabs, especially Neo drivers.[/quote] My current cabs weigh in at about 43.5kg, the 212 neos are 22.9. I do prefer the RBH cabs slightly (I've only played the neos at the show though, even before it opens there's always someone twiddling about) but the neos still sound great (various endorsees use them over the RBHs by choice) but at almost half the weight, it's definitely a no brainer for portability. They're still fairly big though (23.5x24.5x16.5 inches) but I find the 410RBHs are just a bit too big to get two in my fiesta so they should be managable. The 112s are 13.6kgs and 23.5x15.5x16.5. If I do go ahead and get them, as I said to MM20, if you're in the area, you're welcome to come have a play. I'm 99% sure I'll either be going for 212s or 112s (or one of each).

With that kind of budget I'd look around, find something that's as close to perfect as possible, then go to a custom builder and have them make one but with the tweaks that would make it just right.

I find straplocks mileage varies. Anyone that uses a long strap and often tilts their bass up should have them. Even with a stiff leather strap they can still slip off. Single cutaways need them (because the strap pins are often angled up, talking more from guitar there though, les pauls are terrible for it). Anyone that flails around like a madman will also benefit from them. If I was playing a Fender at a smooth jazz gig, I wouldn't be rushing to the bar for a round of Grolshs though. It never hurts though, it only takes one awkward movement to send your prized instrument crashing to the floor. It's possible to drop the weight of your bass onto the strap while it's twisted in a moment of carelessness at any gig.

I had a play on them on Sunday and was impressed. The guy on the OW stand (sorry, I've forgotten your name) was incredibly helpful and forced some of the more expensive Overwaters into my hands even though I'd already said I couldn't afford them. Was very close to leaving with one but they just missed a bit of a spark for me. If they'd had a maple boarded one in black and in the non-jazz shape, I'd probably have struggled to come home empty handed.