Tdw

You could try recording your bass into a computer or mixer or some other device directly from the heads di/line out, not using the cab at all. If you play it back through a half decent stereo or PA it should give you a fair idea of what your amp sounds like while taking the cab out of the equation.

Expensive but the Kubicki x factor is light, ergonomic and awesome.

Id say that if you like trace heads then get another there's usually plenty about in the for sale section here and they go fairly cheap in my opinion.

Why not just sell the 8 x 10. The svt and barefaced 212 should be a good "full" rig for special occasions, and you could just use the fusion plus either cab for smaller gigs?

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1444074016' post='2880130'] As short as possible with the lowest capacitance you can find and 100% shielding. There are capacitance specs available from various wire manufacturers, like Belden, Canare and Mogami. [/quote] Thanks for the info.

[quote name='Bill Fitzmaurice' timestamp='1444068371' post='2880052'] Hi fi interconnects and speaker cables are a different beast entirely, and yes, there's no justification for high prices there either. But they differ in that they don't have to deal with high impedance pickups driving relatively low impedance loads, ie, valve amplifiers. It's that particular combination that demands very low capacitance cables for best results. That's not the the case with interconnects between line level devices or speaker cables, or low impedance mics, nor for that matter active basses. [/quote] Out of interest, what sort of cable would you suggest between a passive bass and a valve amp? A short one, or is it more than that?

I think it might be that some preamps have a mid cut built in as it were before the james tone stack so on flat it kind of has a mid cut (reducing the overall gain level), make it seem like the bass/treble is boosted when "fully up" but i dont think that anything is actually boosted, i think its all achieved with passive reduction of frequencies, although i am far from sure about all this.

Yes passive eq offers only cut no boosting of frequencies. The only kind of passive eq i am familiar with is the fender/Marshall style tone stack (bass, mid, and treble controls often with a deep/bright switch) , its usually found on valve amps, especially for guitar. The advantage of this (as far as i know anyway) is that because there are no amplifying elements and less parts in general in the eq the sound remains purer and on valve amps it means a pure valve signal path with no solid state amplification components at all can be practically attained. An active valve based eq would add a lot of cost, weight etc (the fender /Marshall tone stack is basically just made of resisters and capacitors). The disadvantage of this eq is that it only really offers various forms of mid cut and is not intuitive, the position of one control affects what the others are doing and the mid control can almost become another volume knob. However valve bass amps with this kind of eq such as the Trace Elliot v types often have a very high quality sound. So this kind of passive eq offers a purer signal path but active eqs usually offer the option of more kinds of eq shape. Hope that helps

Yes, as long as they are short, say 10 seconds or so.

[quote name='synthaside' timestamp='1439280965' post='2841441'] Discreet is sounds like you need a Bright red or green T-bird mines the best thing for hiding behind in the world For me its small "modern" shaped bodies .. ala Ibanez or Warwick and I fully expect to be stoned for this comment the post 51 P bass shape Love the sound HATE the look give me a slab any day. My perfect bass looks like this but sounds nothing like it after trying one in wunjo's it was like a Musicman on helium [/quote] Thats an ovation magnum 3 , it can sound a little strange, especially if you favour the bridge pickup (stingray on helium) but if you favour the neck pickup and cut the tone it can supply huge low end power. A great if somewhat unusual bass, i gig with a practically identical magnum 1 all the time. These are the basses Jah wobble usually uses.

Ive only ever used 1 class d, an ampeg pf. I thought it was awful - it was lacking in umph but also there seemed to be a kind of weird graininess to the sound, a slightly abrasive sounding texture that i hated.

The big cab id like to see would be a vertical 4 x 10, same height as the ampeg fridge but with less width - are eight speakers really necessary these days? The idea is to make a big stage cab, with less weight and a little less bulk that retains the height (and ability to be heard) while improving dispersal. perhaps with four 10" speakers in a box with around 3/4 or 2/3 the volume (area not loudness) it could remain sealed while having improved bass response.

without an age limit id go for David Bowie

Maybe Jack White not sure if hes under 40 though

Another vote for fretless with flatwound strings.

i would say that unless one of your cabs is really significantly more biased towards the high frequencies and likely to beam alot (in which case it should go on top) it doesnt really matter much.

Not an amp but my acme lowb2 cab and fender p bass with flats dont seem to get on to me

I think either would be OK, ive generally heard that a lower impedence setting ( 4 rather than 8 in this case) is better but im far from clear about the details of this, however i think that using either would wear out the power valves more quickly, when compared to using a more accurate nominal impedance amp and cab.

Maybe it would help if you could relate the eqs to typical bass amp controls, ive not seen the parametriq eq on the mesa but for example a bass control might be centered at between about 50 and 120 hz, a mid about 400 - 1000 hz and high about 4000 - 7000 hz.

I think generally there should be a small difference in percieved volume between these outputs but not a very obvious difference

I have one amp (eden david series) with a built in compressor which i sometimes allow to come on a little bit, other than that i dont use it myself - but the sound engineers generally compress the bass i think, so most gigsi do i reckon it ends up somewhat compressed anyway.

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1412982515' post='2573949'] Free gigs? Blue [/quote] Ive seen it the odd time when the band point out that they havent been payed and that they would appreciate a contribution etc,.... but pretty rare

I think in the uk this is pretty rare, maybe at free gigs but its not something ive eve done or seen many times

Thats an Eclipse, i have one just like it.

HI Happy Jack, i could well believe that a status vintage artist would sound fender like, the vintage range certainly has traditional looks so would probably be made with a more trad sound (ive never heard one). But i dont think think the vintage range is what people consider to be the status sound, id say that was more represented by models closer to the series 2 with a pretty hi fi sound. Also couldnt say what effect a graphite neck has - im one of those people who thinks a bass's sound is mainly in the pickups/electronics.