cheddatom

I played guitar since I was 8 and only bought a bass when I was 16. I never tried to play it like a guitar, although I do play chords a lot. I'd call myself more of a bassist than a guitarist, but that's because i've never played a gig on guitar I think.

I'm rather jealous of some of these boutique boards!

Thanks for all the help. So over the weekend i'll make longer cables and re-position the monitors. I'll have a look at power amps next month

yeh I have one. Tap tempo means you set the rate or tempo of the delays by tapping. On some pedals you have a little tep tempo button to do with your finger, but the echohead has a tempo tempo input for a momentary footswitch so you can tap with your foot!

Sorry could I get an answer on this? Just to make sure... [quote name='cheddatom' post='863143' date='Jun 10 2010, 12:09 PM']And putting the two sets of speakers together would I think give me 4Ohms each side, so i'd want one that goes down to 4 Ohms..?[/quote] Because I am considering a poweramp, but I do tend to think i'll need to do something else to be able to use it to it's potential. The mics i'm using are a 58beta and a 57. I have another 57 on the way, which is good 'cos this feeds back less, but I do prefer the tone of the 58beta. I'll make some longer cables and put the cabs right infront of the singers, rather than at right angles to them. I'll also check my gain staging. I think maybe it's just too easy to overdrive the Kustom "line in", and I think i'm right in thinking that an overdriving signal path is much more likely to feed back as there's less dynamic range? Maybe there's a poweramp with decent EQ built in? I know I saw a bass amp on here not long ago with a really big graphic EQ. The line in on that sort of this might do? If you can't, tell i'm a cheap skate.

[quote name='silddx' post='863152' date='Jun 10 2010, 12:18 PM']I did a gig recently and they had huge [url="http://www.noisecontrolaudio.com/products_sw15.htm"]http://www.noisecontrolaudio.com/products_sw15.htm[/url] wedges that were stomach churningly powerful. It sounded amazing on stage.[/quote] I would absolutely LOVE that!! I used to gig with a 1 x 15" combo, 1 x 18" extension, 2 x 12" guitar combo, and still asked for DI through the wedge!

the mixer alien linked has input gain controls - it looks good for what you need!

In a live situation I don't think anything is going to substitute a big bass amp behind you rumbling your sack (unless you know for sure the venue has amazing on stage monitoring). That could be driven by a modelling pre-amp though. I think where the modelling really shows it's quality is when recorded. I'd be interested to try Kiwi's test but I don't have speakers at work.

Well, yeh, that's what I was wondering really. "Is it just that the power amp is sh*t? " well apparently yes. So cheap power amp solutions? And putting the two sets of speakers together would I think give me 4Ohms each side, so i'd want one that goes down to 4 Ohms..? Ta for all the help guys

I was considering that, but I have the parametric on the desk and it has a 7 band on the main output which i've been using. Do you think a big 31 band (thought they were 32?!) would make a big difference? I could put that on the line from the desk to the PA. Perhaps the best solution would be to buy a fairly decent powered mixer with inserts for recording the vocals, but then I might still need the EQ.

I don't have leads long enough to have the speakers facing back towards the singers at the moment, although that would help a bit I suppose. Well, level is the major issue, and the only thing in the way of that (AFAIK) is feedback. Perhaps though I have some of my gain set wrong which is creating distortion which could make the whole system more susceptable (SP?!?) to feedback. I've attached a pic to try and explain the set up.

That's really cool. Get on with it!

I didn't think it had a hold function? That would do for tap tempo I think

For the last couple of years we've had a crappy Kustom 100W PA. It came as a deal, two crap 10" speakers, a crappy power amp and a free mic. We always struggled to get much level out of it, and it's always been a bit distorted and muffled. We have it turned up as much as possible before feedback kicks in. Recently i've set up to record every practise, which means the mics now go to a mixer, and a line out from that goes into the PA. The mixer has a better EQ on it, and by cutting some frequencies I got a little more level out of the PA before it started to feedback. More recently I bought a couple of Peavey PA speakers which are 12" and have tweeters. These sound a lot clearer, and it seems I could get more level out of them than the other speakers, but I can't turn it up because the point of feedback seems to remain at the same point. Also now that it sounds clearer it seems i'm getting some distortion from somewhere. On the back of the PA it has two outputs for speakers that both say 8 Ohm. Both my good (peavey) and sh*t (kustom) speakers are 8Ohm, so, without re-wiring them, I think I can only run one set at a time? At the moment I have the two speakers in between the two singers, at right angles to their mics, angled back to basically point at their ears. Any tips?

[quote name='umph' post='862208' date='Jun 9 2010, 03:31 PM']I was more on about the modelling, overdriving a digital unit does sound horrific though.[/quote] So you'd say that digital modelling of distortion is horrible sounding? I'm quite interested in what you say about the top end. I tend to roll everything off above say 6KHz anyway (that's live and recorded) so i'm not sure if i'd know what the "air" is you're talking about. I'd love to try out some tube amps, but that's because I want to stand in front of a massively loud rig and play. For recording though (I think) i'd mic it up, compress it a bit, EQ it a bit, then realise I could have got just as good a sound useing modelling.

Heh, oh noooo, quick someone reply!! It's a very nice board

I think it's that Umph was implying that "digital clipping" reffered to what digital modellers do as opposed to "analogue clipping" which is just not the case. Digital Modellers model analogue clipping. They only create digital clipping when an idiot overdrives them.

[quote name='Doddy' post='862037' date='Jun 9 2010, 01:15 PM']I never said it was easy. On your first gigs in a new town,you will invariably play to virtually no one. But,if you do a good job you will get re-booked,and each time you will attract more people than the previous gig. It may take you a while,or it may happen quickly,but it will happen if you are a good band. I know it's do-able,because I've done it myself. I've argued with promoters who have complained that we haven't bought a crowd/sold tickets,but they have still rebooked us after the gig.[/quote] Fair enough, the tone of your post implied it was easy to me, but obviously I got that wrong!

[quote name='umph' post='861982' date='Jun 9 2010, 12:18 PM']listen to the harmonic content especially around 1k. digital clipping is extremely harsh on the ears[/quote] Digital clipping is a totally different thing to digitally modelled distortion. Digital clipping occurs from overdriving a digital unit, which is generally a bad idea. (unless i'm wrong, I know you know your amps etc). EDIT: It's like, you wouldn't wnat to clip the input on a digital recorder, it'll just sound horrible and seriously hurt your ears. Compare that to a tape recorder, which might sound nice if you over drive the input. This doesn't mean that you can't digitally model the effects of the tape recorder using your digital set-up.

With some models, they don't necessarily nail the sound they're going for, but this doesn't mean that they sound crap in comparison, and it deffinitely doesn't mean they sound "digital".

[quote name='Colledge' post='861902' date='Jun 9 2010, 11:03 AM']some i agree with. i've knows people use line 6 guitar amps which sound awful and digital is the perfect wort to explain the sound...[/quote] I disagree! "awful" is the perfect word to explain the sound, and generally it's down to the way the player has his settings.

[quote name='silddx' post='861893' date='Jun 9 2010, 10:57 AM']It's more or less your first point I wanted to discuss, but I've never had any real problems live either. But you're right in that it's down to the PA / monitor situation. I just think there's a lot of negative nonsense spoken about digital modelling.[/quote] Yeh. There's one member in particular (maybe they'll come along later) who claims they can tell if an Ampeg is being used by listening from outside the venue, and would be able to tell it was a "real" ampeg or if it was a modeller - the mind boggles.

[quote name='OldGit' post='861883' date='Jun 9 2010, 10:48 AM']Yep. "Gimmicks" like telling people when you are on (by whatever means) and getting other people to tell people how good you are (by whatever means) Same ol' gimmicks that have been around since before the Beatles' grand dads were born.... only now it's a lot easier as we have t'internet, twitter , text, etc.[/quote] I think in the context of out-of-town gigs, it's much harder to tell people when you're playing, as you don't have contacts for the people, as they're out of town. Local radios and papers can help, but they are generally much more interested in helping local (IE out-of-town to you) bands. You are right that the internet makes spreading the word easier, but again, you can only communicate with your existing contacts. EDIT: But yeh I totally agree on your main principles, it's just that they're a bit vague, and my point was that pulling a crowd out of town is much more difficult than Doddy made out.

If you're comparing listening to the recorded sound of a rig with the modelled sound of a rig, then I reckon no-one can tell the difference. To try and talk about modelling in the context of live performance is difficult, because obviously you have to amp up the modelled sound, and maybe the PA is crap, or there's no wedges etc. or maybe you're using in-ears which I would imagine are lacking in ball-shaking low end.