NAD! Roland and Tecamp content….

[LukeFRC]

So…. in a bit of a curveball I bought a new bass amp today….

I have a Tecamp puma 1000 and M210 cab. It's great and gives a really punchy sound. But for a while something had been making me think...

Recently we've been practicing at a church using their PA and using no amp and just putting my bass and monitoring of the rest of the band through a HK D.A.R.T. Wedge - it was great, even in the mix I could hear myself (it was pointing straight up at me) and more than that… it sounds amazing.
There's a wee lack of low end but… well I plugged my Jazz in… and it sounded like a jazz bass, I plugged my p bass in and it sounded like a P bass and I plugged my warwick in and it sounded… well good most the time. and bad sometimes.

I've got an ACG pre in my warwick - capable of some of the most amazing tones ever made by an electric bass guitar - and also some… that don't work as well.

Then playing back on my own rig… it didn't sound as good.

So I started a thread on here to find out from clever folk why this wedge sounded great http://basschat.co.uk/topic/210554-pa-gear-as-bass-ampcab-one-of-the-most-amazing-bass-tones-ive-heard/

and I found out that the HK wedge was a great full range speaker with clever DSP flattening out the sound (that's my quick description of what DSP does…)

So then I had a number of options….

1) Explore using PA gear as a bass rig
2) get a more full range bass cab
3) get a bass cab with inbuilt power amp and DSP...

so how did it go? Well 1) PA gear as bass rig… well isn't as easy - most PA gear is designed to split the signal to the tops and subs. So there's not an amazing amount of stuff out there that can cover the full range with a good low end….

2) a more full range bass cab - a good option - the new big baby 2 from Barefaced looks really good and I could use my tecamp amp. Still an option...

3) Get a powered bass cab with DSP…. which would be a good option - and would love a Bergantino IP series (well the 112, not the 310 cos I'm not hulk) except they are as rare as rocking horse poo and theres not much else out there….


and then artisan stuck up his roland D-bass 210 combo up for sale… and it's a 210 combo with DSP…. 160w power to each driver and 80w to the tweeter… so 400w in total (but as we all know that watts don't mean much unless you take speaker efficiency into consideration) well it's a odd thing - good review and people who use it seem to rate them, but over on talkbass roland stuff is as about as popular as the plague….

Well I went put some notes in artisans hand and brought it home… and it's… it's pretty good - side to side with the tecamp rig the tone is way way more even - much less of a middy hump. The low end is impressive and the high end is good - not quite as bright and sparkly as the tecamp.
It's even better when I used the effect return to send the preamp from my Puma to it and bypass the slightly cheesy sounding COSM preamp in the roland.

It's good - it will get a play tomorrow at church.

[LukeFRC]

so played it this morning…. big grins here - it's really good! Much more uncoloured tone than the other rig

[artisan]

Glad you like it Luke,i always thought it was a cracking amp'.
Isn't strange how Roland bass amps don't get much love but are infact superb,that is the best combo i have ever heard.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='artisan' timestamp='1383517467' post='2265471']
Glad you like it Luke,i always thought it was a cracking amp'.
Isn't strange how Roland bass amps don't get much love but are infact superb,that is the best combo i have ever heard.
[/quote] oddly enough it seemed to really really impress our keys player!