ThomBassmonkey

Well I'm not looking to get a new pre-amp for my BTB, it's just the thought of that that sparked me off, I'm happy with my Warwick and although I'm looking for a new bass, whatever I end up with will be a significant upgrade from my BTB. I've just had a drink and get a mixture of curious and hypothetical after a bit. I only keep the BTB for sentimental value and in case I ever need a backup for a period (I don't even take it to gigs any more) but I'm after another bass anyway so I doubt it'll ever get used. So rather than the basses, maybe amps is a better comparison. There's the transparent sounding pre-amps like the Edens and the coloured pres like the GKs? If one was to try out the outboard pres, wouldn't the onboard pres colour the sound, making the test invalid anyway?

[quote name='icastle' post='1034590' date='Nov 23 2010, 11:34 PM']The biggest problem with using a resistor in place of a speaker is that there is nowhere for the power to go and therefore it becomes heat. The resistor would need to be something capable of handling 300W or it would just burn out - to give you an indication of the sizes involved, the standard resistors that you see most frequently in amplifiers, effects pedals etc are usually rated at 1/4W. I have an A4 sized board hanging on the wall in my little workshop which is covered with rows of big wirewound resistors which allow me to dissipate just over 300W into an 8Ω load and it gets hot enough to make touching it impossible. Speakers dissipate this power mostly by moving the cone so stay a lot cooler.[/quote] Thanks for the explanation, but I was talking hypothetically, I realise 150w is a lot of heat to dispose of if that's it's only power sink.

Surprised no-one's said it yet, but £1500 is a huge outlay to try out a 6 string. If you're going to spend that much, make sure you go 2nd hand so you won't lose much (if anything) if 6 strings doesn't suit you.

So in the same way that Jazz basses, Warwicks, Stingrays etc etc all have their own distinctive sounds, yet different depending on model, brand, woods etc, do pre-amps have similar distintive characteristics (obviously varying depending on which bass they're put in?) e.g. Is there a certain pre-amp that sounds more hi-fi than others, another that's more growly etc?

[quote name='wotnwhy' post='1034550' date='Nov 23 2010, 10:44 PM']The blend thing is only really to keep things simple, not essential as you say but a factor nonetheless[/quote] I didn't mean to ignore it completely. Loop pedals let you hook up an FX loop that you can then switch in and out with a footswitch, some of them use blend pots. If you have your distortion pedal set on all the time and the blend on the loop pedal at 50%, when the loop pedal's active then you'll get a 50/50 mix of distortion and dry signal. Assuming the loop only contains the distortion, the switch on the loop pedal would essentially be your distortion switch. It's a simpler solution than carrying around two amps and it really opens up the options in terms of distortion pedals as you don't need to find one that has a blend pot. If you stick an EQ pedal in the loop, it'll also give you more control over what frequencies you want distorted without the extra amp. Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, I've had a drink and stuff's a bit fuzzy.

If you put in an 8 Ohm resistor, would that not actually lower the power going to the speaker? Just trying to find out, don't know (hence asking instead of stating) but if you have a 300w into 4 Ohm amp, due to the nature of the beast and because it's not as efficient at 4 Ohms, wouldn't it run at about 200w into 8 Ohm? So into one 8 Ohm speaker you'd get (guesstimate) 200w, but if you added an 8 Ohm resistor, you'd get 300w split in two, meaning the speaker would only get 150w? That's just my logic speaking, it could be complete crap, just curious.

I know a lot of people change pre-amps in basses, I've thought about it in the past (particularly with my old BTB which sounds a lot flatter than most basses) but I wondered how you know which pre-amp is the best suited to your bass and what you want to achieve, when a good pre-amp costs about £200, I can't imagine people experiment to see what suits what. I also can't imagine it being easy to find the same bass/pre-amp combination that people want to try out. So how do people know what pre-amp to pick?

Instead of worrying about what pedals have a wet/dry blend, you could find a simple loop pedal that has a blend on it.

Bass distortion doesn't have to be heard over guitars, I use distortion on my head to fatten up the sound for choruses and guitar solos (one guitar band), there's no blend either, just pure fat distortion. I have been looking for a good bass distortion pedal for about 9 years before I got this head though and never found a good one. The Fender one seems ok and I was looking for a Blowtorch to try out though.

So you liked the sound of the one at the bass bash on Sat? [quote name='dbass' post='1033131' date='Nov 22 2010, 08:05 PM']My amp has two power amp channels. 2 x 600w @ 4 ohm so that sounds similar to yours.[/quote] Remember that 2 x 600 at 4 Ohms means that you have 2 600w amps running at 4 Ohms, so you can run 4 8 Ohm cabs or 2 4 Ohm ones. If you were to run 1 8 Ohm cab, you'll only get 375w out of it, if you ran 2 8 Ohm cabs on the same side, you'd get 600w, if you ran one 8 Ohm cab on either side, you'd get 750w etc etc. The Hartke and some other amps (including my GK) can be ran in bridged mode to get the full power out at only 4 Ohms. I don't know about the Hartke, but my GK runs 240w at 8 Ohms, 360w at 4 Ohms or 540w at 2 Ohms (per side) or 650w at 8 Ohms or 1080w at 4 Ohms bridged.

I've had a look at ACGs, they look VERY nice basses for the money, saving up another few hundred pounds to get a custom could be an option. If I'm up your way in the near future, I'll defo take you up on the offer for a noodle on yours, thanks mate. The problem with customs is I don't like asking about prices for hypothetical basses when I'm only doing a rough look at what I want, especially at small companies. There is a GORGEOUS Skelf SC though (the Lazarus bass, 0017 on the gallery page), I bet it was way out of my budget though.

I have no idea who I sound like tonally, I use the gear I use because it suits my play style when it's in a mix. I've heard basses and amps that sound slightly better than my gear when I'm sat in a shop noodling (I love the modern hi-fi amps solo) but once I'm sat with a band, I sit exactly where I want to in the mix with my gear. I barely even EQ anything, I just run my thumb with both pups and the EQ flat (often pul the volume for passive) into my GK rig with the EQ all roughly at 12 o clock.

[quote name='dincz' post='1031980' date='Nov 21 2010, 10:15 PM']Vertically dispersed audiences tend to work well with side-by-side speakers.[/quote] It did cross my mind actually that in terms of on stage monitoring, horizontally places speakers could be an advantage for the better vertical dispersion (hence my question in the first line of my last post). Maybe whoever posted earlier (apologies on forgetting who it was) saying that they put their 2x10 horizontally on a table is on to something!

Ok, I still don't understand the physics (it's been a long couple of days), but I'll take your word for it. Is it fair to assume that the same equasions work for the vertical as well as the horizontal? I still wonder how much of an issue it is though, especially with an instrument like bass that is less directional (or more directional, depending on how you think of it) than trebly instrument. In a small venue, there's probably always going to be enough people too close to the stage and not getting a proper sound anyway. In larger venues there should be PA support (which would make the dispersion of the bass amp irrelevant unless you really have it cranked and it's affecting the sound out front) or people would be stood far enough back that they'd be within it's dispersion anyway. Anyway, I'm a bit out of my depth so I'm going to just keep an eye as other people who have a better understanding discuss.

I've looked through this thread, but I can't see specifically what the problem caused by horizontally placed speakers is. Also, why wouldn't it affect veritcally placed speakers? I can see horizontal dispersion mentioned a few times (caused by phase cancellation? That's probably wrong, but it's just my guess ), but I don't see there being a big issue with that anyway, most gigs have monitoring and bass is usually either DI'd or mic'd, neither of which rely on dispersion. Plus bass amps are far more omnidirectional than, say, guitar amps anyway. I upgraded from a 700RB-II into 2x 210RBH cabs to a 2001RB-II with one 410RBH, so I'm basically using the same head (with a larger power amp, which could affect things) into 4 10" speakers, but moved from vertically alligned 4x10 to a standard 4x10 configuration, using the same brand and series of cabs. If anything, I'd say that the cabs sound fatter now (though that could be with the bigger power section in my head), but I put that down to there being a single large "box" instead of two smaller ones. Excuse my ignorance, I'm happy with my amp regardless and I can't see myself going back to using 2 2x10s (especially after my other cab shows up) but I'm curious about the physics behind it.

Yeah, that was the other one I really wanted to try while I was there, but I don't fancy another 2 hour drive just for that. If someone local has a Lakky that I can try to get a feel for it, if I like it, it'd probably be worth going to try out but it's a long way.

After playing a Dingwall through my amp yesterday, the tone didn't quite cut the mustard for me. The one I tried at BD sounded brilliant through the GB rig, but I'm not using a GB rig, so that makes the difference I guess. Since I didn't get to try out any of the other basses at BD (gutted about that, Mark (?) disappeared into the back to take a call and I had a long drive back so I ended up just setting off), I'm back to being unsure about what I'm after. I liked a G&L I tried through my GK yesterday, so I think humbuckers is possibly on the cards and I still like J style pups, I'm unsure about soapbars now, they don't seem to have the punch of buckers or the clarity of Js to me through my GK rig, though I've only tried a few. I'm still looking at Laklands (55-02 maybe or a JO) and Bongos (HS or HH pref) lustily, the G&L also impressed. Is there anyone around the Derbys/Notts area that has a Lakland or Bongo 5er that wouldn't mind me invading their house with my amp or coming to mine (I'll give up some petrol money, of course) at some point to see how they match up?

haha thanks, I was tempted to yesterday, but I don't think it's for me. I like fretless but I still use them as a fretted but with a slightly different sound, I can't use the techniques that make it worth having the fretless strings when I have the same tuned strings but fretted so I'll politely decline thanks. It did sound brilliant though.

It was great fun. Highlights for me were BRX's Fretless Sei, Oakbear's Ritter and (maybe surprisingly comparing to some of the other basses hanging around) Simon's G&L L2500, I was seriously impressed with the fat tone on that thing, definitely a brilliant bass for the money. Bonus points for "things that are awesome and I want, but I could never justify" go to Dave's bass synth and Shep's Ibanez fretted/fretless thingy. My only disappointment of the night was the tone of dbass's Dingwall through my GK rig, I love the feel of them and with the GB rig I tried out in Bass Direct it sounded awesome, but I'm starting to think it might be the combination of soapbars and the GK, though I've not tried enough basses with it to set that in stone yet. I would've liked to try out one of the 'rays through my rig, but I had to shoot off to get to a gig in Wales so didn't get a chance unfortunately.

Not a bass, but at band practice the other day, our guitarist popped out to Wilkos and appeared back with a £40 guitar (inc battery powered practice amp, strap, lead etc) and it was pretty good. Didn't sound a world away from his MIJ tele with SD hot rails. He bought it because he does workshops and it'd be nice not to have to worry about his guitars with the kids, but he's gonna use it as a backup for our gigs now.

[quote name='Delberthot' post='1030094' date='Nov 20 2010, 03:02 AM']Ooh I get it - they're trying to do the same to the Squier brand as Fender already do - have 10 squillion versions of the same bass[/quote] Isn't it just the same as the old one but in a different colour?

Re the 4 or 5 desision, that's a choice that has to be made on it's own. What kind of music do you want to play? If you intend to play 5 string in the long term, there's no harm in starting off on it. It does take a little more getting used to though (not loads, but you might struggle to begin with) so if you only intend to play on a 4 string then there doesn't seem any point getting a 5er to start on. Personally I'd go for the Warwick (as I play 5 strings) or if I was going for 4, I'd get the Ibanez, they've been producing instruments with good consistency and quality for years.

I'm sorely tempted by a Dingwall, which BD carries at the moment. Unfortunately the Take It Away scheme doesn't cover people on benefits which is frustrating. It's a nice scheme in general though and since it's government run, I doubt it's purpose is to screw anyone over in any way.

I don't know about practising alone in the dark, but in dark band practices, shutting off your sight can help you be aware of what other people are doing a little more. Not something I've done regularly since I've been in fairly aware bands anyway, but I could imagine that helping.

Not sure how long I'll be able to stay for now, I have a gig in Shropshire in the evening so depending on what the car sharing plan is, I'll probably need to set off around 4ish at the latest. I'll still bring all the stuff I mentioned (I'm going to need it for the gig anyway, so it makes sense to bring it with me.)