All Activity

Met up with Lorenzo this morning to buy his Ditto Looper. Really lovely guy and a pleasure to deal with. Had a great chat about all things bass! Deal with confidence folks!

My hard rock band's first PA used a pair of Carlsboro speakers. At the time I really didn't like them, but in fairness to them the rest of the chain was awful, there was some ancient desk where half the channels didn't work, a rack of god knows what crossover and amps, and then some subs that had been made by some local DIY shop. They had the awful circular speaker grills. I think the tops were 15s and the subs 12s which is entirely the wrong way around. The only things in the PA were three vocals and a kick drum and yet somehow it still sounded awful. Was it the gear? Maybe. Or was it because it was my first stint as soundman and I didn't have a clue as Phil says? Yeah, that. Mea culpa. Anyway, my point is that we did several successful gigs with absolute cheapest of the cheap, bottom rung stuff and you know what? It was fine. Not the great sounding "why do people buy anything else?" experience I've had with some cheap gear like the Alto rig we upgraded to, but it was absolutely usable. I wish I could remember more about that mixer and amp rack but it's probably for the best to be honest. I know the mixer had wooden sides, a sure sign of quality. Since then I've had my grubby mitts on: Also TX10 Alto TS115A Alto TSUB118A Barefaced FR800 QSC K12.2 (still own these) RCF 705 as ii and been in bands that have used RCF 912 RCF 932 RCF 910 RCF 708 as iii For about eight years I was in both the above hard rock band and an indie rock band. The hard rock band had upgraded to the frankly brilliant Alto 15" tops and 18" subs listed above, whilst the indie rock band used the RCF 932 and the 905ii (I owned one sub, the guitarist another matching one). Both bands used my Behringer XR18 as a mixer, I'd have expected a bit of a jump between the two systems but honestly there wasn't much. Yes maybe you could do more with less of the RCF, we nearly always used just one sub with the pair of 12s, whereas the hard rock Altos always got the pairs of 18" subs and 15" tops, but maybe that's more to do with the band being louder than anything else. Certainly by the time one factors in the room, the other gear in the chain, and my deficiencies as a soundman I don't think there was much in it. The best pa I've ever owned as a band was my pop punk bands rig of a pair of RCF 910 tops and the single 15" sub. That was an awesome rig: played loud enough, sounded great and we were totally ampless. I would 100% recommend the Alto rig to anyone though. Ours must be about 15 years old now and I'm sure the newer stuff is probably even better than ours. There's a lot of posts on here about people being cautious about investing in a PA but it's not much more than a decent bass rig if you hunt for bargains, and it can certainly be a lot cheaper than two guitar rigs and a bass rig all added up. Thomann will do you this set for £1300, and whilst it may be own brand stuff, Thomann stuff is nearly always excellent and the same shop wants almost as much for a Darkglass 410 bass cab. Has anyone tried the Thomann DSP or DSX powered cabs? I'm really keen to hear hands-on reviews. Here's the Alto rig, as the Americans would say, getting it done. And doing it just as well as fancier speakers. Especially in what must have been a bad sounding room given that they're pointing at walls. Oh, bargain basement gigging...

What constitutes a woody tone? It's impossible to just go, 'just finger pluck a Fender Jazz with flats and push it through an Ampeg B-15,' because this alone isn't wholly how tone is done. You could give this set up to ten different bass players and you'd get ten different tonal results. There's dozens/hundreds of threads here from people going, 'how do I sound like <insert bassist name here>?' As @snorkie635 said, your opinion on what sounds woody would probably be somewhat different to someone else's opinion. What do you want to sound like?

Did you ever get around to trying this? I keep running into this and the ampeg micro vr during search binges and I haven't heard much about them.

Not sure what it is.....but, it isn't a Greco.

I think the answer is yes, but the tone will change - the classic MM sound is parallel

I agree large rubber feet would make it better

I agree that would be awesome

I use one at our practice room. We’re a 7 piece band and we practice with electric drums, guitars and keys into a PA. One of the guitarists uses an amp and the other has an active PA wedge. The volume is fairly controlled so the PF50 does very well. It has the matching 2x10 cab. I think I run it at about half volume with the gain also halfway up.

Def not Freddie but could be Stanley, Larry or maybe someone else? Anyway Chuck Rainey played on the original studio recording if that helps at all.

The Smell Faces

Greetings from Sweden! A friend of mine happened to buy a Rickenfaker this weekend. Is it possible to determine a maker? He describes that the neck is good quality but tuners and pick guard are of the cheapest possible sort. (I haven't seen it my self). All the best!

This is fantastic news, it's a really cool shape and pretty unique!

Get this.... Awesome cab and all you'll ever need.

Yesterday afternoon at the "Piv" in Nuneaton. It's our only gig this month due to the guitarist being off touring elsewhere. The Piv is a great social club that belongs to the allotment society, and has survived by having regular entertainment. As we were leaving our early evening gig in the lounge, people were arriving for ballroom dancing in the big room and others were setting up a poker night in the conservatory. I should really have taken some photos while the lights were on, but was a bit out of sorts after the guitarist's Mesa Boogie combo released the magic smoke! We think it might have been a dodgy socket it was plugged into - duly "sorted" by sticking some gaffer tape over it 😂. Anyway he luckily had the foresight to carry a spare amp with - and what a fabulous little amp it was. Switchable output up to 50W and sounded great plugged into the Mesa speakers I did ask him why he was still lugging the big heavy combo around! (The tablets are Vocalzones btw) The afterthought photo just about showing my Rumble and Stingish bass... Oh and you can also see my new Gravity lighting stands - the black ones. I've been wearing shorts since the spring but went back to jeans, which felt strange. Footwear were black DMs to match the rest of the garb

Get A Haircut - George Thorogood

Mwoa… those Vintera II pickups aren’t just “standard MiM” pickups. They’re a whole different beast, and built exactly like a blackbobbin. I even went as far as sourcing such a pickup for my latest P-assembly project, as it punches WELL above its weight. It even sounds better than the PV63 when it’s being used in a slightly overdriven setting.