JPJ

From my experience with my NS NXT, strings maketh the bass. I changed from the stock NS Contemporary to NS Traditional strings and it made a noticeable difference to the acoustic double bassiness. Also, I find a tickle of reverb helps my NXT sound fuller, and more acoustic DB like, especially in the upper registers. 

2 hours ago, zitherman said:

Having had a look at bills comprehensive website which i found very interesting ,is it feasible to scale up his sla pro design to 4x10 plus tweeters and keep the advantages of the original design.the cabinetry isnt a problem for me but the correct dimensions and hence volume would require a new skill set for me.cheers

I was thinking 8” rather than 10’s myself, given the performance of modern drivers. 

Our drummer is a recent convert to wired IEMs. His comment after his first gig using them “that’s the first time I’ve heard my bass drum in years” 😎

Wow! Beautiful work sir!

I’m a fan of the ABG currently owning two. I’ve tried lots of different strings but settled on La Bella low tension flats for the best compromise of acoustic volume vs finger noise. 

Recording, I’ll mic both sides of the bass drum, one for thwack (suitably gated) and one for boom. 
Live, it’s one in the hole (ooh er missus).

Whether I mic the whole kit live depends on the drummer, the venue, and how well attended. Lots of bodies in a long narrow venue and a light to moderate hitting drummer and I’ll close mic the lot to try to get them to project. I’d rather have control than not. 

3 minutes ago, Rich said:

Dammit. This would be the ideal match for my Shuttle 9.2 (which is 600w into 8 ohms) for smaller gigs. Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?

I feel your pain, but as we all know, GAS is inversely proportionate to bank balance 😂

15 hours ago, Mottlefeeder said:

The picture is of one of Bill's designs - you could do a lot worse than buy his plans and build one of them.

https://billfitzmaurice.info/SLA.html

I have no connection to Bill other than having built several of his designs.

David

What I meant to say was Ooh I like the look of that SLA Pro PA top from Bill 😍

Ooh I like the look of that SLA Pro PA top 😍

38 minutes ago, TRBboy said:

Damn, I wish I was closer to you! 😅

 

Do you know what the speaker is in these?

 

Thanks,

 

Oli

Not sure what driver is in these, and it’s lightweight so postage is an option 😉

Here we have my Ashdown Neo Series 500W 8 ohm 1x15 cab, recently purchased off of our own SharkFinger to pair with my Ashdown 1x15 combo. Truth is, the combo is more than capable of covering small gigs on its own, and for bigger gigs I have my Ashdown Head of Doom in combination with a Vanderkley 2x12 rendering this cab pretty much redundant. 
This is a lightweight cab with a sensibly placed handle on the top which makes loading in/out a breeze. It also has rubber feet on both the side and the bottom for maximum cab placement flexibility. All working as it should, cosmetic condition as seen in the photos is a solid 7 out of 10. 
I’m including a padded Hotcovers cover I bought for the cab, and I’m only seeking to recover what I paid so you’ll be getting the cover for free.

Collection from Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne, or postage at buyers risk/expense.

Any questions, shoot me a pm. 

Oof if this is anywhere near as good as my Indonesian crafted Lakland Skyline P bass it’ll be one awesome bass. If (and I don’t imagine for one second it will be) this is still available whenever either my SWR Marcus Miller preamp, or Warwick Rockbass Alien 5 string sell, you’ll be getting a pm 😎

So today (yesterday)  I played two gigs with two different bands. First gig was a local bar with in-house PA & engineer. You play on a small corner stage and the acoustics arn’t brilliant with the drums dominating the on stage sound. Result was we made a lot of mistakes and we were well off our best. Anyway, dashed off from that gig to my second gig 30 mins later. Threw our PA and lights into an already packed pub, quick sound check, and on we went. Great gig, great on stage sound, and the punters seemed happy with my FOH mix. Thank god for the Behringer XR18 as the ability to recall saved scenes make setting up on gigs like this a breeze. Oh and we must have done something right as the landlady gave us a little extra in the pay packet 😎

Woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise and it got me thinking of those warm summer days that are just around the corner, sitting in the garden noodling away on an acoustic bass 😎 If this was my only acoustic bass she would be going nowhere but she’s not, and as she’s probably the more saleable of the two I own, she’s up for grabs. 
If you fancy playing alfresco with no hassles, this is the bass for you. 

Leave Watts to the marketing dept. What’s more important is SPL. A lot of the 12” & 15” plastic box speakers are around 128dB whereas their wooden sisters are often around 132dB. That said, my two bands use a pair of old 400W powered Peavey bass bins, combined with a pair of EV ZLX15 tops. Nominally that’s 900w per side, and we put the whole band through a Behringer XR18, then through a DriveRack PA loud speaker processor to these speakers, and we receive plenty of compliments on the sound. The rig can cover a social club concert room albeit we’re not going to be the loudest band you’ve ever heard.

I've just strung my Overwater 35" 5 string Jazz with D'Addario XL Chromes because I've been playing a lot of fretless recently using the same strings and going back to rounds felt like playing sandpaper. I've gone with what they call their regular light gauge (45, 65, 80, 100, 132) and I'm loving them. My bass is top strung from the bridge and the standard long scale fitted fine but they would have been short on a through body strung bass. 

Wow, great result, and as I said in response to an earlier video, I actually prefer the sound of the Wal'ish. For me it has the overtones and the distortion of the Wal but it's just a little bit more open and fuller sounding to me. 

I see no lack of heft in your collection, but I imagine that the VBA will sound rather glorious. I once had the pleasure of playing a festival where the supplied back line was a VBA400 and matching Marshall 8x10. 

On 05/02/2024 at 12:15, jrixn1 said:

Remember to budget for cables.  A significant percentage (gonna guess 20%) of your budget is going to be on cables...

….and stands, and cases etc etc

On 05/02/2024 at 14:37, dave_bass5 said:

I’ve finally got all my band to all go in to the mixer (other than most of the drums). This was mainly for those of us using IEM’s. 
When i played bass i always went through the PA for more dispersion, especially in a packed room. 

I have run the band through our PA a couple of times and it sounded really good, but those were just me experimenting at sound check. My worry is that my guitarists have a habit of turning up during the gig, and with no one out front keeping our mix in check i can imagine the guitars through the Pa could get overwhelming. It’s bad enough the on stage levels going up. 
I’m working on it, but it’s a work in progress. 

My solution is a good hard knee compression on the guitards channels. Yes they can still turn their back line up, but it’s not going to mess with my FOH sound. Although to be fair, since all four guitards I work with across my two bands have amps with DI’s the problem of the FOH signal changing with a back line change has largely gone away. 

3 hours ago, Belka said:

 

In the UK, Overwater seem to have the pro market pretty well sewn up, but go back a few years and there were plenty of players using Wals at the West End, on BBC sessions etc. (Rob Burns is one that springs to mind). Even Laurence Cottle seems to be using his GB more than his Wals these days (too valuable to play out perhaps?).

 

The bizarre thing about Overwater is, despite the quality, they do not retain their value on the used market. I own three that will probably go to the grave with me, but they were all £2k+ basses purchased secondhand for less than £1k. My main Overwater (J5) cost the original owner near £2.5k and I picked it up for £850 a year later. My original series five string has a 36” scale and a filter preamp (like the Wal) and should be worth a lot more than what I paid @BigRedX for it when I prised it out of his hands. 

D’Addario Chromes XL MEDIUM SCALE flat wound 4 string set. Brand new, the packaging has been opened but the strings have not been fitted to a bass due to them being the wrong scale length. Purchased in error recently from Strings Direct for £69.99. £35 collected from Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne, or £40 posted UK first class. 

To dismount the amp you need to remove the top speaker to gain access to the screws. Don’t ask me how I know this - expensive mistake involving letting all the tone escape in the form of white smoke.

Just my two’penneth but I also think they are quite niche. Probably on the aspirational list for many of us, and then sold on when you realise you have a £10k+ bass but you only play covers on the local bar circuit. Not just Wal’s mind, loads of other high end basses appear to suffer the same fate.

TC Electronics BG250 series combos, but my personal favourite is the 208 variant with 2x8” speakers. You often see them pop up on here around the £150 mark.

That looks like the “easier” fix