51m0n

You may just have a fetish for heavy things??

I'm only interested in getting the right instrument for me, which means it must play incredibly well, have a tone that makes me find it irresistable to pick up and play whenever I walk past it (acoustically and amplified), it needs to be light because I have a dodgy back, and look great (to me). I ended up with the Roscoe, because it ticks all my criteria, and I love the thing, I really do. But the minute you step away from the Fender basses (at least in look) you are exposed to a frankly bizarre fact. If you are trying to get into a band and you don't play a Fender, you are walking on think ice. I've not got into a band before now because, although I was alledgedly a perfect fit (according to them) I didnt play the 'right' bass. They even asked if I was going to be buying a proper bass soon - oh how we chuckled - which made them not a perfect fit for me anyway, but never mind eh! Its not like the Rosoce actually looks like a fancy bass, it doesn't have an outlandish shape at all, doesn't have a really fancy top, just a plain bit of Swamp Ash with the grain slightly enhanced. Yet it simply wasn't a Fender and that didn't 'work' for them. Weird. I wouldnt play a Fender because it doesnt fulfill my criteria. Not for any other reason, they can sound lovely (except for the B strings on the 5ers), I've never found one even close to the Roscoe's playability, and they just look a bit naff to me, and are waaayyyy too heavy as a rule. Find the right instrumetn for you, and play what you want on it.

[quote name='shizznit' timestamp='1348565443' post='1815152'] Knock it off 51m0n!! You know that have serious GAS for a Berg HD410!! This is not helping [/quote] Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaahhhhh....... Oh, err sorry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DyC02BM_P4&feature=related

If I had the space and the roadies......... I didnt go for the ae410 for anything but tone and fit into the car though, the weight is only just a bonus as its still a struggle as a one man lift (esp compared to BF cabs for instance). I really need to hear the magic missing thing (I havent noticed anything I'm missing yet), but to do so I think you really have to compare two versions of the same cab from the same manufacturer one loaded and tuned for ceramic and the other for neo. So that would mean if someone can bring along an HS410 or HD410 to the SE Bass Bash we could do a meaningful comparison Anything else and you aren't really comparing like with like, and there are too many other variables clouding any judgement you make IMO.

[quote name='benthos' timestamp='1348502779' post='1814436'] I'll try and resist the temptation to tweak. I already get enough 'no information' looks, mostly from guitarists, when folks first encounter the TC compressor (never mind the rest of the pedal-board, with some fx in line and some via a Wounded Paw Blender) Yup, I positively love it in line, with the ability to alternate between soft and hard (knee) at my whim [/quote] Well they are guitarists..... Oooh soft knee or hard knee, now that is a good question - matroooonnnn!

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1348500357' post='1814394'] One of these? [url="http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/focusrite-voicemaster-platinum-compounder-analogue-comp-noise-gate/109101547#gallery-item-full-1"]http://www.gumtree.c...ery-item-full-1[/url] Looks complicated.... [/quote] Not really, its a stereo compressor, so you use one side or the other (or both, but lets keep it simple for now!). That halves the controls in one go! It has a noise gate/expander on the front or each channel, which I dont use (two knobs I don't twiddle). It has a single knob limiter (nothing wrong with those) that I do use, to catch any nasty spikes after the compressor section. But the metering is adequate so its trivial to set up. It has threshold, ratio, attack, release and a bass knob in the comrpessor. Which is one more knob than a normal compressor and that knob basically allows a little bit of parallel compression in the low end (ie its a bit like a bass boost knob). So you have a standard compressor, plus a bit of bass boost, into a one knob limiter. And if you come to the SE Bass Bash I will show you how to set up such a beast in about 5 minutes.....

Course you can me old mucker, knock yerself out

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1348488111' post='1814144'] I'll forgive you 51mon, just send the ae410 over my way so that I can remove the temptation for you [/quote] I'll think about it.... ...hmmmm.... ..well.... [size=5][i][b]NO WAY HOSE A!![/b][/i][/size]

They are different. They produce different side effects, give you different results, neither is better all the time, either has different merits. As ever, experiment use your ears, and listen critically, preferrably to recordings of each to determine which you prefer the sound of, and try and see if you prefer the 'feel' of playing one more than they other. There is no fixed definitive answer I'm afraid. I like it in line personally - oo-errrrr!

[quote name='benthos' timestamp='1348219085' post='1810919'] ... I'm not sure of the efficacy of running a compressor in the loop as you'd get both compressed and uncompressed signals to the amp, which to my mind defeats the object of what a compressor is trying to achieve, but finer minds that me may be able to shed more light/correct my line of thinking ... [/quote] Well what you have described there in fact is parallel compression, whereby the signal is split, one side is compressed and then the signals are mixed together again. This is a technique used a huge amount in recording, for all sorts of things. On an entire stereo buss, on a subgroup (like the drums for instance), on individual drums, or the bass. Adding eq to the sidechain input to accentuate certain areas, or filter out stuff that you dont want to affect the parallel compression is done too: depending on what you compress like this, and the type of filtering done, you can get overall effects known as Motown Compression (on vocals) or New York compression (on the entire mix) - they are completely different results based upon the same idea. The reason to do it is you can compress the compressed side really hard, slamming the nuts off it if you so desire, and mix it back in a little with the uncompressed signal (or quite alot), the result retains alot of the natural feel of the original uncompressed signal, but adds a lot of the good stuff compression brings (fattening up, musical pumping, whatever depending on the settings you use). Its a very very valid technique, which does need a bit more control than a straight 50/50 split to get the best effect from, which can be done still with judicious use of the makeup gain on the compression side on the MB amps.

Bergantino would be very very very cool........

Agreed. I understand the reasons, the theory, heck I even spout on about acoustics being ruined by poor early reflection control, and comb filtering being a very bad thing etc etc. Yet I still love the sound of my ae410, off and on axis. On a gig its totally sublime.... I can only hang my head in shame

Spent a fair amount of time on the search for a rig/cab that would leave me forever GAS-less. Looked into Schroeder, Aquilar (older 112, CS??), Eden, Epifani etc Having tried a few of these and various bits and bobs I ended up with the Berg AE410. Caveat, I like a hugely punchy sound on stage, I dotn need massive low end (although the cab will certainly produce it) and I play a 5 string and want no limitation from the cab when handling that low B. Oh and it needed to fit in the boot of my car, which was a hugely limiting factor. The ae410 is (for me, and my tastes) the very best sounding cab I have ever heard or played. A pair of ae210s stacked is very very similar, and I nearly went for that option, but they dont fit in the boot so well. Nothing else I have heard since has sounded better to my ears. Lately I've been enjoying the tone from older strings, for the first time in twenty years of playing. And the ae410 driven by the MB sa450 ([i]still[/i] my favourite head that they've produced, with the possible exception of the heavier silver faced version from yonks ago) just makes the Roscoe with older strings sound glorious in a rehearsal space (not gigged it like this yet, but I will). I've spent a lot of time directly A/Bing the old BF BigOne and S12 against my rig, and the BigOne is a fantastic smooth super deep (if you want it) fingerstyle funk cab, it would be perfect for something like modern R&B or extended range basses, or pretty much anything, but you need a lot of horsepower to really drive it, and very careful choice of preamp too IMO. The S12 is the best compromise I've heard from BF (all these cabs, from BF and everyone else is a compromise), again for my tastes, its seriously close to the ae410, in terms of output and tone. I think it could probably go louder than the ae410, but I still prefer the ae410 tone. As for all that MB cone pistoning, I am willing to bet that the crossover has no sub filter on it, which is what is causing the issue, and the porting may be a bit out of step too. There is no way they really ought to behave like that, its not a good thing, adds nothing to the tone, just wear to the cone. In contrast the Berg cabs dont piston, I mean it! They just dont behave like that, its almost as if there is a really well designed bespoke croissiver in there with a filter to remove all the stupidly useless low frequencies (rather like the SFX Thumpinator)....

Yeah bring the TC along, that would be a really good demo pedal I think....

Love the Beach Boys stuff. Nothing else sounds like it, totally creative, brilliant orchestration, and compostion.... Thanks for putting these up!

Oh right-ho, get it now, makes alot of sense, so you are using those to support the ceiling right across the top of all the studio rooms (they all already have their own high mass ceilings anyway, but for the sake of looking remotely professional you need to hide the 'old' space above without reintroducing anything for sound to be transmitted through thus ruining your hard won isolation. Well that makes perfect sense

Dunno, you hiding all the AC gubbins up there? (see that, thats me grasping at straws that is)

[quote name='barneyg42' timestamp='1348396173' post='1813019'] Maybe this year he could compare and recommend one knob compressors! But seriously, this was the highlight of the lectures a few years ago and I personally would love to hear it all over again! [/quote] Over my cold dead body

How about a very quick "How t set up a/your compressor" type of thing. Should take 10 or 15 minutes tops - best if a few people with compressor pedals are there to be guinea pigs I've done quite a bit of prep for the "How to mic up an ensemble in a room" thing, a fair bit on mics and stereo micing techniques to cover in that you see.

They are hard to find! GAK usually have soem MB pedals in, but phone to check since they used to have trouble keeping the Compressore in stock. I've never seen the FloorQ, however it is the same compressor circuit (exactly) as in the TwinQ and SixQ which I've used an awful lot in the studio on bass. In fact [url="http://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/sets/slow-motion-sickness-e-p-1/s-u42Wa"]this lot[/url] is a MusicMan Stingray through a Joe Meek TwinQ for eq and compression (not me playing, its Plux) and a touch of transformer saturation. Its a great opto compressor IMO which adds lovely fat squidgy compression to bass tracks. Hope that helps

Your welcome to plug my rack compressor in at some point if you like, just bring a coupl eo fextra leads with you ....

There's gonna be a lynching boyyyyyy.....

Well I would say I interpreted waht he said as to fill your head to bursting with the thing you are about to play, so its all you have in there, rather than just starting to play it without having 'visualised' it with no internal distractions at all first. I find this kind of approach really helpful, and I've done pretty much this sort of exercise when getting to know tricky bits in the past a lot. It has helped me to sing (however badly ) a line, or imagine playing it, or just to listen to the sound I want to hear myself make but in my head. I've never heard of anyone doing any real research into how this sort of thing can change musical playing, and I certainly have never claimed it was something really clever I was doing, it just made sense to me to take my hands out of the equation sometimes, and make sure I know what it is I'm attempting before I do.

[quote name='urb' timestamp='1348235150' post='1811222'] Not really... [/quote] Well if you cant we're all a bit stuffed then!