ThomBassmonkey

[quote name='Phaedrus' post='744266' date='Feb 13 2010, 07:35 PM']Hmmm . . . Might just try it on my VMJ, though TBH, it's already a bit of a handful on my BB605. My Tascam CD-BT is earning its keep on this song fo sho . . . Yep, a fun bass showboater - hope the feckers in my band apreciate the work a line like that involves. I actually have my tone (with headphones & CD-BT) pretty close, so I'm sure I'll get it when we rehearse amplified on Tuesday. Thanks all, Mark[/quote] A while back I learned this bassline for a college covers band I was in. I don't think they ever really appreciated the bassline, but it was gratifying to learn it note for note all the way through (though it's lost in the misty depths of my memory now). Can't help with the tone though I'm afraid, always just used my own. If he was using a Stingray through his GK rig (to be honest, I have no idea what he used, just that he's used that gear at various times) then both have a fairly distinctive tone so I'll sure you'll find good descriptions of both of those around then it'll just be a case of tweaking to get it right.

[quote name='Paul_C' post='744238' date='Feb 13 2010, 07:09 PM']you could have 4 x 16 ohm cabs [/quote] Not with 2 outputs. Unless you modified your amp, of course. Or would it work if you used splitter leads? Could be an interesting theory for anyone wanting more cabs without forking out for a new amp.

[quote name='AlanP2008' post='743863' date='Feb 13 2010, 11:59 AM']The first part of your posting was correct, but the above is incorrect. Two outputs from a mono amp, each marked 8 ohms, is a reasonable marking but not too helpful (and potentially misleading if you don't understand about speaker impedance). Yes, either one or two 8 ohm cabs can be plugged in, and that would probably be the normal case (and two x 8ohms in parallel gives 4 ohms). However, a single 4 ohm cab may also be used, although that isn't explicitly stated. From the ratings, with an 8 ohm load the amp will provide 240W, with a 4 ohm load it will deliver 350W total, and if the 4 ohm load consists of two 8 ohm cabinets, then those cabinets will share that 350W - ie. 175W per cab... ...And you might also want to ponder on the idea that in an 8 ohm cab containing 4 separate drivers, each of those drivers will be sharing the total that the cab is receiving... Hope this helps. Alan[/quote] Ah ok thanks, I wasn't sure about the last bit. I just went for the simple option and bought a head and cab that were advertised together.

The confusing thing is about ohms. The ohms combine when you add bits of gear together. So in an 8ohm 4x10 there's 4 32ohm speakers. Instead of doing 32 x 4 to work out the total, you divide it by 4 which gives you 8ohms for the cab. If you're running 2 8ohm cabs, same idea, so you get 4ohm total. From 4 ohms you'll be getting the full 350w from your head that's available in 4ohms. If both outputs have 8ohms next to them, is it possible that it means you can't just run a single 4ohm cab from it? The only way to achieve 4 ohms is to have 2 8ohm cabs? I'm not an expert anyway so I might be wrong. Any way, it should work out, as has been said, 2 outputs from 240W doesn't mean 120W a side, they're both in the same channel so it'll actually go up to the 350W for both.

The best: Music Inn in Nottingham. I've been in to try stuff out and they're always pleasant. I wouldn't hesitate to buy from them, they just never seem to have anything in that I want apart from an RG370 that I picked up and have never had problems with (beyond the usual setup ballache on a floating FR. ). To be honest, I've never really had good experiences buying anything expensive and music-related from any shops. I could produce a list as long as my arm of bad shops though. Worst: Take2Music in Long Eaton, only a little shop and to be fair I've never had bad really bad experiences with them personally (they sold me an awful acoustic guitar a while back but I should've known better really by then) but I work in a music shop and the amount of people that come in to see us for help with their guitars that they've bought at T2M is absurd. We've literally had 9 year old kids come in with full size Spanish guitars because that's what the guys at T2M have said would be best for them. It's not even an isolated incident. I could rant about them for hours. The guys at Academy of Sound in Nottingham were always awful. They always thought they were better than you and, as such, you weren't worth their time. Also there seems to be way more mess ups at GAK than chance would explain. I'll make my choice on whether or not I'd use them again (which I will if I will) depending on how a current order goes.

OK, after playing a Rockbass Streamer 4 string and a Musicman StingRay 5 string (not the Sterling) I found they both fell nicely into my hand. The problem was that the Ray had a very old set of strings on so I couldn't get a real idea of the tone, that and I was trying them on a Pro Fet so the sound test was very much biased in favour of the Warwick, which hands down thrashed the Ray which almost had the punch I'm after using the single coil setting. But saying that, I know that they're usually punchy basses and it was still very clear even down to the low B. Does anyone know of any soundclips of the Sterling by MM ray 35 through a Gallien RB? I think I'm still edging towards the Ray purely because of the finances (I can get one for only a tad more than the high end Rockbasses) and if there's a problem with it, I work at the shop I'd be buying from, so there would be no problems. The clips people have posted on youtube playing the ray 35 sound great and punchy so I feel relatively confident that the sound would be great for me.

I know that sometimes I find cheap gear more appealing. If I spend a lot of money on something, it sometimes seems like it's something to be proud of and to admire. Something cheap just seems like more of a work horse and if it gets the job done, the feeling of excitement is as much fun as playing a more expensive bass. There's also the fact that you've put a new pickup in it. A stock £3k bass might be nice, but if you have a pickup in a squire that gives you the exact tone you want, the squire will be a better bass for your purposes regardless (assuming it plays well, of course ).

The guy had some nice grooves going on but I thought when he was doing the fast slap his right hand sounded very messy. Everything else was really good though.

[quote name='bigsmokebass' post='742724' date='Feb 12 2010, 01:22 AM']Don't get me wrong, you see one going cheap and you like it, go for it! I haven't seen many go and when they have, hasn't been cheap. What shop be that? Sounds ace, ones near me are complete sh*t and nasty or sh*t service *cough* Dawsons *cough*. I do like Warwicks, they too pack a punch and versatile also but would personally save up and buy one new, even if they do go over £3k =][/quote] Rattle and Drum in Derby. I'm kind of swaying towards Sterlings now. I really need to just sit down and play them, but I've found out the music shop I do a bit of teaching at can get in MMs, so I can get a new Ray 35 for a bargain. R&D don't have any of the 5 strings in that I'm looking at but they have all the 4 strings so I'm hoping I'll get a good enough idea of the neck and tone from that. Should be heading over tomorrow to have a go then I'll know what I want hopefully.

It's a very good venue, it's my band's "home" gig. There's a video of us (I'm not playing on the recording because I'm pretty new to the band but I'm on stage in the vid) playing here: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnKio9pXkM0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnKio9pXkM0[/url] hopefully you get some idea there. It's a great venue, everyone's friendly and apparently every gig attracts a fair crowd regardless of the band (though it's not my local pub so I haven't been to many gigs myself to confirm).

Having been at college and asked to learn some basslines, the two that really caught me out were my generation by the who (I just didn't really know the song at the time and wasn't expecting it to be anything like that on bass) and a song by Alanis Morisette, you oughta know (I think it was called that, but Flea basically jammed over it and compared with the rest of the album, the bassline's far more interesting though a pig to learn in a short period of time when nothing's repeated).

[quote name='Steve_nottm' post='742298' date='Feb 11 2010, 05:18 PM']A somewhat related question. In my (now on a break) covers band everything was 1/2 step down to help the singer hit some of the high bits. All fine, no issues with that. What would you recommend setting up differently on a bass that I would be using tuned this way? Different strings? Action? anything else. I haven't made any changes, and it seems fine, but just wondering.....[/quote] Check your intonation too, changing string tension (including by keeping the same tuning but changing string gauges) can sometimes send it a bit out.

My mate's first guitar was a westfield strat, all it needed was a setup and it was beautiful. I actually ended up lifting the action because he was complaining it was too low compared to what he was used to. The sound wasn't there, but a couple of new pickups and it would've been a nice all round guitar. Though I've seen some terrors. I think that there's just a few corkers that get through.

Just wondering what people do with tweeters when you're recording? Are they just something that you let influence the sound from a bit of bleed into the main speaker mic or do you use an ambient/specific mic for it? My band's going into recording in a couple of weeks and I've only just got a new amp (in fact the cab hasn't even arrived yet) and since it's a GK, I assume the tweeter's going to become more important in my sound, especially after moving from a single 15" speaker. Thom

[quote name='bigsmokebass' post='741638' date='Feb 11 2010, 12:22 AM']i dont think bongos are in your price range unless EXTREMELY lucky =/[/quote] I have seen one or two around that price. I'm still far more interested in the Warwicks though. Gonna head over to a music shop in thr next few days to try some out and see if I can narrow it down any. They stock MMs too so I'll give a ray a go.

I have an oldish Carlsbro Bassline 150 that's easily loud enough to play with a band (I've played gigs without going through the PA before plenty of times) and would probably be £150ish. I need to check the volume pot though since it needs to be gaffa taped at the moment to stop it vibrating and cutting out some. If I get it sorted soonish, I'll let you know if you're interested in it.

[quote name='HollyDTVGE' post='741344' date='Feb 10 2010, 07:22 PM']not too worried about that, i'm currently sewing pedal board cases for 2 friends and i made my own wooden pedal board with lid so i'm careful in terms of that, it'd be more so the unit as a whole would take up less space and would depend on what i got, for example i'd make small runners for the amp to fit in inside the cab if there was room. still lots to figure out.[/quote] Funnily enough, I bought a separate head and cab because of the issue of room (and options for future expansion). Yeah, a combo might take up slightly less room, but with separates you have more manoeuvrability. I don't think a GK700RB-II/210 combo would fit in my fiesta, but I think (hope) the 210RBH will go in the boot and I can have the rack case on the back seat (though really I could do with a shallow one, but maybe in time).

After looking around, I think I'm swaying towards a Warwick $$ (Streamer/Corvette still depends on what's available and which I prefer when I get a go on them but the amount of variation in tones on them looks awesome). They just look awesome and I've loved them for ages, not to mention a lot of my heroes play similar basses. After looking around though, a few sites have said that there's some problems with definition in the low string, does anyone know anything about this either way? Thanks again. Though I do still love the look of the bongos, so it's still very much an open book.

Beautiful bassline well played. Nice one!

I'd put a boot up his arse. How dare they replace you and not even tell you? Earlier in the thread you said it was a social thing too, do you really want to be hanging around with someone like that? He obviously has no respect at all.

I used to keep my 6 strings tuned down a step, the guitarist in one of my old bands used to play in drop D and used loads of open D riffs so I needed an open D string but didn't want to screw with my intervals between strings.

While I agree that a bass's tone* is one of the least important qualities, I disagree that it's not important. If you pick up a bass with a nice rumbly deep sound when you play with your fingers but you want it to sound like a punk p-bass, you're going to lose a lot of character from the bass. I prefer to have all my EQs set flat if poss, if I don't like the sound of my equipment as is, I wouldn't use it. I usually EQ my bass a bit but I'd rather mess with the signal at the source than lose signal there then try and boost something that doesn't exist at the amp. I can understand the possibilities with using digital equipment, but after playing guitar with a GT6 or studio amp sims for a number of years, I know that the tonal character is never fully there. Amp sims and multi-FX are great for deciding what you want IMO, but once I know, I'd never pick a sim over the real thing. But then I only like 1 tone per gig. For people who want to be playing a different bass through a different amp every song, they completely make sense, but then that kind of player would never have a signature tone anyway. *Disclaimer: I'm calling it tone because I think of a player's sound as everything including style, genre, proficiency and of course tone.

If you're worried about your amp being damaged while in transit, you can get rack ears for most heads, then for a bit more cash get a night flight case. Only probably is they're about twice as big as the head, but you can get shallow ones if you look around.

In fairness when I posted this, I was still frustrated. It's not the worst place ever. They just seem very disorganised. Noone's been rude or actively done anything wrong, it's just a lack of communication. There hasn't really been a lot of hassle (compared to some place) but on the other hand, if stuff isn't going as expected I'm very on the ball about ringing up and getting it sorted out, so I don't know how it would've been if I'd let it be longer. Mark's sent me a PM so I'll let him know what's going on, hopefully it'll all go smoothly then. On the upside though, I've just had my first practice with the head I ordered last time and it sounded amazing, so hopefully the cab is pretty swift and I can have my new setup booming out asap.

Just wondered if it's only me or do they seem to have HORRIBLE service? Ordered something from them a while back and after being told a delivery date, it failed to arrive. After ringing up I'd been told it hadn't even left the warehouse yet. I managed to get that sorted out and they kindly refunded me some money. Then today I decided to give them another chance and rang up this morning at about 9:40. The person I was told I should speak to was busy but I was told he'd be free in 10 minutes so I decided to hang on. An hour later I rang back and he was still busy, so I left it again assuming he'd be free soon. I rang back after another hour and just placed the order with someone else (which was all I wanted to do in the first place, I don't know why I got told I should order from a certain person). I just (4:45) got a call from the person I wanted to speak to originally and he said he'd only been told I wanted to speak to him within the last half hour. They didn't have the item in stock but they say it should be with me in a week at most, I really hope I don't get messed about any more. I'm very unlikely to use them again which is a shame as they have a lot of nice gear for nice prices. The problem seems to be with communication between their different areas rather than individuals, it seems very sloppy though and I'm surprised that such a successful store has these problems. EDIT: I should add that they've been polite and quick to sort out the first delivery as well as the partial refund and that they've given me a good price on my current order which is good of them. I'm just still quite frustrated at the whole thing.