EBS_freak

My first Markbass.

If you zoom in on the side... I'm sure thats a PJB vent on the C pillar.

@Al Krow - knowing boxpart, I would say you are going to be better hiring in a rig - assuming you playing in the wide open seating area. You won't be able to get any kind of volume there, it's as good as playing outside. You'll need a lot of air moving - more than you can achieve through your backline and 10s (and even by adding a decent sub or two).

How fitting that it’s got the vinyl roof too.

Just out of interest, what amp (guitar or bass) is an absolute work of art, visuals wise? For me, the THD Bivalve was always the one to beat... I know the Jules Birdcage amp follows a similar vibe... but it just doesn’t tick the boxes. For bass, and admittedly it’s a combo - but the earlier B15s really are a work of art imho. They both go away from the whole steel folded box vibe so I guess that’s why they largely appeal. It’s otherwise difficult to make such a functional thing look damn cool... but it’s the choice of mulled aluminium from Darkglass (clearly somewhat Apple inspired) that really bucks the trend for me.

Looks like it was thrown together from components from the parts bin (the 70s parts bin at that). But I guess some people may appreciate that kinda thing.

Oh and I always appreciated the design of the SWR Headlite and Amplite (shame they didn’t really deliver the goods)

Umm.... not for me.

Would disagree with this... you don't have to be bloody good - you just have to have some sort of notoriety. There's plenty of players that can hardly string two notes together (but that's another thread... or maybe not given the directions this one seems to take!) but have a signature xyz.

That's the one I was thinking of - more so trying to prove that just because an amp is red, doesn't immediately make it ugly! You can keep the gold knobs though!

Other pretty amp candidates...? Markbass F1 Phil Jones Bass D200 Yay/nay?

Little Mark Vintage - center frequency 68 Hz; level ±16 dB So, no shelving, no word of Q or slope... can't really tell if it's muddy or not... but interesting to see the if you are cut the bass on this amp, it's certainly way above the sub range! Back on track? EDIT: Does Mark King actually use bass (let a lone sub bass?)? He's more in the staplegun frequency range...?

Get a sine generator and listen to 45 Hz and see what you think. Now consider that live music generally doesn't utilise things as nice as sinewaves. Imagine a smearing of sub between 30 and 50 hz coming out of the foh mixing with all the rest of the complex harmonics that is going on. It's kind of akin to mashing your left hand on the bottom octave of a piano whilst trying to pick out individual pitches that aren't clashing with everything else that band is playing...

Bingo. Music no. Jurassic Park in the cinema, hell yes. (Although wouldn't want it in the theme tune either).

There's a good chance that the bass will start getting cut quite high in the frequency spectrum by the engineer - but the key element is the slope with which that cut occurs. A slope of 48dB/octave is worlds apart from 6dB/octave. Never mix by numbers - mix with what your ears are saying. If the bass sounds huge and how you want with a roll off beginning at 120Hz, then great. With aux fed subs, you have a lot more control of this whole sub band than simply shaping EQs. Your stated preference doesn't necessarily stand as the room itself may lend itself to boosting the lows - and is why a lot of serious engineers will invest in SMAART to understand and tune the PA to the room to get a more flat response across the system. In the same way that rooms can have hot frequencies, rooms can have hot lows. For if example, if the speakers are coupling with the floors/room etc and as a consequence, enhancing the levels of low end that is produced, you will need to cut those lows, 100%. The Thumpinator is primarily about increasing headroom in your amp and not making your speakers work so hard to produce frequencies that you can't hear. I would still wager for most (all) band situations, you will want to be cutting the bass output way above 28Hz. Hell, most subs can't even get that low. (You are looking at some specialist cinema subs to get that sort of low end rumbling). Pro subs tend to have a maximum lowend frequency response somewhere between 30 and 40. If you were to put those sort of signals through them as a constant, they wouldn't last long and the music would sound awful anyway. Get some raw stems in a DAW and play with the bass and see how much the mix cleans up and bass sound tighter and hits harder as soon as you start taking away the sub bass...

A thumpinator isn't really that big of a deal to add... especially if you are already rocking a pedal board.

The kick is used as the focal point as that is what derives the beat. If you can’t hear or in some cases, feel the beat, the whole band sounds flat and lifeless. Of course, in larger venues this problem is furthered because amplifying that lowend is really difficult and it gets soaked up quickly. I agree though, a lot of sound guys hit the kick so hard it pretty much over powers everything else. In smaller venues, where the kit is generally the loudest anyway, the overpowering of the kick is all too common - and the bleed of the cymbals into the vocal mics... you end up with all low end and piercing cymbals through the speakers. This is where your drummers have to have some sort of self restraint and the vocalists impeccable mic technique. If they aren’t eating the mic at all times, they aren’t doing it right. Anyway, you are right - you will save a lot of power by hpfing. Additionally, you may get away with going much higher than 35Hz (again many bass cabs won’t go that low anyway) as the effects of psycho acoustics put the rest back in. I’m hoping guys reading this will be inspired to have a play. As I stated earlier, losing the lowend may actually give you more and ultimately make your band sound better!

Just kiddin'

I recently did a festival where a Fender 500 was the backline - have to say, I immediately thought, oh gawd, going to be a nightmare... but have to say, it was an awesome piece of kit Mightily impressed. OK, was going out the PA out front, but that thing was thundering on stage and certainly more than enough for most gigs where the backline is providing the FoH sound. Got headphone jack - and as far as I am aware, is basically what Genz Benz became. It's manage-ably heavy... but for transportless students, it's easy enough to cart around on the bus, taxi I guess... or put on a sack truck.

Or at least the DI sound of it being processed by the FoH desk will...

A pure gem of a dutch auction.

On another tangent - I've just realised that I've played a Dingwall NG2 - I quite liked it, for what it was... but hated the cheese grater on the pickguard. I'd have to have that taken off!

I wouldn't worry - I've just realised that I've just described a naked woman as wearing leather trousers... that doesn't make much sense does it?

Oh! NOLLY. (Sorry, only know by the forename, not the surname) Yeah, I don't know much about him per se, just his name... but am aware of what he has apparently done for the sales of Dingwall. Wouldn't know about Darkglass (although rumour has it that they make beautiful looking amps). Talking of Darkglass, I know that their pedal sales are very much in keeping with the genre... but pretty much all the players of Darkglass that I know, don't use them for the genre which they are perhaps more famous for.