JPJ

Fascinating work by @Blartfactor10 who happens to be local to me, and I have heard his Pfretzschner in action and can confirm its a lovely sounding beast.

I’m a huge Behringer X-Air fan, having used the XR18 for about five years. I have mine racked up in a 6U rack case, along with a 1U draw for all your essential cables/adapters/iPad etc, and the obligatory DriveRack (great when you are mixing FOH from the side of the stage whilst playing). The essential external router, in my case an Apple AirPort Express is velcro’d to the top of the draw unit, and I have a patch bay in the rear for the connections to the tops and subs. I added an X-Touch controller (along with a clever magnetic overlay) for on-the-fly adjustments as physical faders are much easier than the iPad for quick changes. I recently experienced a strange ‘dead’ aux out which I eventually tracked down to being a routing issue, and this was causing me to consider moving the Behringer on, but now shes fully functioning again I see no need and will instead focus on upgrading the tops and subs (currently 2x EV ZLX15P & 2 x Peavey 400W powered bass bins). Obviously my setup could hardly be called ‘compact’ but I get some nice compliments on the sound we achieve across the two bands I am involved with, and I have had a few other bands ask me to do sound for them so I must be doing something right. NOTE: in the third photo I was using the MacBook to record all outputs at a ‘technical rehearsal’ for my newest band and normally, the X-Touch would sit on top of the rack case with the iPad propped up in the open lid on the meters screen.

This used to happen to me (once mid-gig) and it was diagnosed as a form of cramp. Secret is to drink plenty of water whilst playing/rehearsing and it seems to do the trick for me.

Here’s my 21.5” fretless Harley Benton Uke bass. Bought on a whim a couple of years ago, and restrung with Aquila Thunderblack strings. just took it out of its gig bag for the first time in ages and it was only a couple of cents off being in tune.

Hmmm it certainly gets the DB vibe doesn't it 🤔 Nice playing by the way and thanks for sharing.

Cheers Jim, The sound clips I have heard of the Ibanez are interesting, but I really want something in the longer scale.

Howdy folks. Having parted with my five string KK Baby Bass, the inevitable has happened and I’ve landed a gig that would really suit me doubling on EUB and electric bass. I’ve spent a lot of time researching options (I’d love a BSX but its well out of my price range, as are the higher end NS Designs). The Warwick Triumph seems to give a pretty convincing DB sound for not a lot of moolar (around NS WAV secondhand prices). Whilst the WAV is still leading in my mind, the quirky body shape of the Triumph is tempting me. Question time - any Rockbass Triumph users on here who would like to share their experiences with this bass?

The epoxy idea isn’t as daft as it first sounds, but I’d use an epoxy putty rather than liquid. The obvious alternative is to drill the smaller hole diameter and then file the flats using a square needle file.

Not a fan of Marcus's style but boy he can play. Really enjoyed that, what a lovely down to earth guy.

Small update, the correct height desktop speaker stands arrived yesterday and I've installed them this morning. Now bearing in mind the mix was tremendous with the speakers sitting on my desk (on foam isolation pads) but now they're up where they are supposed to be there is a noticeable improvement. How would I describe this? Well clarity springs to mind - the ability to mentally separate out the individual instruments, the way the vocals sit on top of the mix and not buried in it. I've always looked at the audio community with 'emperor's new clothes' suspicions but after this experience I think I might have to adjust my position. Now has anyone got any links to those gold plated cables? 🤣

Funnily enough, this just came up on an SWR lovers Facebook group earlier today - why someone hasn’t done this with the SWR Grand Prix preamp. I know I’d buy one if somebody did 😎

That’s what I bought mine for. Obviously you have to be mindful of the limitations of the speakers, but as i am running a preamp, compressor, and Micro Thumpinator before the bass hits the DAW, and setting the levels correctly to avoid unwanted clipping I see no difference to playing a track through them that contains recorded bass?

So I've finally got the last of the Christmas house guests away and had some time to set up and play with the KRK's and I think I have become an instant audiophile. Please bear in mind that I've only been listening to mp3's (so heavily compressed) tracks but the stereo image is so good you would swear the sound source was directly in front of you. In fact, I had to check my GarageBand settings as at first I thought they had weirdly set themselves to use my screen speakers and not the KRK's. Playing bass through these is a joy. No loss of bottom end and as loud as I need them to be (and considerably more in reserve) and they are not vibrating the room to bits while I am playing. At the moment they are sat on my desk so about 8" lower than recommended, but I will rectify that tomorrow when my desk stands arrive. I've had a play with the handy free KRK app to 'tune' the speakers to the room and for me it did make a noticeable improvement. In summary, I only wish I had done this a lot earlier. If you are considering going down the studio monitor route, I can happily recommend the KRK RP5 Gen 4's for a small home studio setup.

I see your argument and I’ll be the last person to get between GAS and your wallet, but the QSC still has you making on-the-fly adjustments using a touch screen rather than physical faders. I’ve got my XR18 racked up along with the DBX drive rack and a handy rack drawer in an 8U flight case that has a patch panel on the back for the main outs from the DBX and a power strip. My X-Touch is in an old pedal board flight case that sits neatly on top of the rack case which is normally on my side of the ‘stage’. My iPad or Surface Go sits neatly in the X-Touch flight case lid from where I can monitor the meters screen whilst playing.

A fellow XR18 user here, mixing on stage whilst playing bass. As Smanth says, edit your iPad screen settings to not go to sleep but this still leaves you trying to make on the fly adjustments on an iPad screen. After searching for a long time I managed to get hold of a Behringer X-Touch controller secondhand for a reasonable price and using that, along with DCA’s mean I can tweak the mix on the fly easily, even mid-song if necessary.

@Phil Starrso the Rokits arrived on Christmas Eve, but with a house full of guests I haven’t had chance to even unbox them yet. Looking like tomorrow or Wednesday before I’ll get a chance to play with them.

You’ll be missing so much with the silver, I much prefer the detail you get with platinum 😂

45 mins to play one ‘flyer’ - we can do nine or ten songs in that time 😂

Bass corner from tonight’s gig. First time I’ve played a “social club” in years, I’d forgotten about the 45 minute break between sets!

So, thanks to this thread I have today pulled the trigger on a pair of KRK Rokit RP5 G4 monitors. I’ve gone for these based on the published frequency range, the front ports, and the relative shallow depth. My desk is pushed up against the wall so depth is my enemy and these seemed to be the best compromise.

I’ve refinished a few guitars and basses in nitro from a rattle can and my experience is its always best starting from clean wood to avoid the type of reaction I got with the telecaster body below. Nitro is very temperature sensitive so if you are thinking about spraying out doors at this time of year I’d recommend you don’t. The black telecaster was sprayed from bare wood using rattle cans from Rothko & Frost. The secret to a good finish is preparation of the body, and finishing of the paint by wet sanding and buffing. Don’t forget nitro is a carcinogenic so invest in a good filter mask (not one of the FP Covid jobbies either) before spraying. When you take into account the cost of all the materials (primer, grain filler, undercoat, top coat, wet’n’dry from 400 grit through to 2000 grit, corse medium and fine buffing compounds) not to mention the hours and hours of work and potential for pink torpedo-ups along the way, you understand why the pro’s charge what they charge to refinish a body - and believe me, it can be money (and time) better spent.

Just to close out on this thread, I sent the Micro Thumpinator back to Max at SFX and he identified the problem as something fried in the power supply. I flipped my meagre pedal board over and to my horror realised that the micro switches for the output used to power the Thumpinator were set to 18v and not 9v. It’s most likely been like this for a while so I think we can chalk this one down to ‘user error’. Anyway, Max repaired my unit for a very reasonable sum and returned it to me promptly. Case closed.