electric nate

[quote name='StevieD_FenderP2009' post='1361987' date='Sep 4 2011, 06:02 PM']You need to be aware of the ohm ratings and the wattage to make sure you don't overload whatever you're powering or underpower whatever you're sending in to it as from what I've heard, you can "strain" the equipment and damage it. Also, if you're not really looking for something fancy, why don't you try getting a rack mount equaliser, run your bass into that then send the equaliser to the power amp. That's worked for me before on many occasions. Something like [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Behringer-Ultragraph-Pro-FBQ1502-15-band-Graphic-EQ-/130571620981?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Outboards_Effects_MJ&hash=item1e66acd275#ht_525wt_1139"]this[/url] will do the job. Just shape your EQ on that and your ready for action! That's my two pence... haha[/quote] will an eq take an instrument level signal ok? and will it output a big enough signal for the power amp?

Looking for a preamp to drive my QSC RMX2450 power amp. I guess what i'm after is something that will just allow whatever I put in front of it to shine though. I play a fairly wide range of genres and I get most of my drastic tonal changes from pedals and settings on my bass, so I'm really just looking for something to help my sound reach the power amp. I'm not after massive tone shaping - but some kind of eq can be useful if I end up playing a boomy sounding room or an outdoor gig or something that requires a little tweak to retain clarity. This isn't a deal-breaker though cuz i can always buy a separate eq if needs be. I really like what i've heard of the Avalon U5 but it's slightly pricey - especially with the rack mount kit, are there alternatives I should be considering? I'm open to any and all suggestions as long as they can drive a power amp, they don't have to be bass-specific, they just have to sound good .

I'd suggest a valve overdrive of some sort, but set it so it's barely doing anything. You don't want actual crunch from it, just a little bit of warmth, life and the natural subtle compression that valves provide. I think ideal point is to set it so that you can just about tell there's overdrive there when you're digging in and playing at your absolute hardest. This will sound better with a passive pass though. Also, you mention using both pickups - I always find that produces a kind of flat uninteresting sound. Choosing one or the other usually provides a far more articulate and characterful sound in my opinion - but just use your ears I guess, go with what sounds good to you. There's only so much people on the internet can help.

sounds like someone in the crowd whistling to me? Is it there on the album version? I have no idea, i've never gotten into tool in any great depth.

I've been to Denmark St. numerous times being a londoner and all. I've found the best way of dealing with staff animosity is to just ignore it and bluster through it. If they put you on the spot about a purchase, say you're fully intending to buy and just lie to them, then make up something you don't like about the product after you've tried it. "Oh the neck is a lot thicker than I was hoping....it's just not my sound...blah blah" Knowing a bit about the thing you're potentially interested in is good too, if you can proactively talk the talk before they have a chance to question you, you'll most likely get your way. Failing that, just carry your credit/debit card or wad of cash in your hand, use it to gesture towards whatever it is you want to try, they probably won't think to question your intent to purchase if the money is in your hand already - but you haven't made any actual commitment to buy anything. I remember going into the bass cellar to try a gain boost pedal, I basically just launched in there with what would usually be an offensive level of enthusiasm - i was in a rush and didn't have time for anyone saying no to me that day. "HI THERE MATE" I half shouted at the dozy looking gentleman behind the counter. "How much are you doing the MXR gain booster pedal for? 80quid yeah?" I said, thudding my wallet onto the counter. The till-monkey looked startled but confirmed the price. "Can I have a look at it?" I said, and proceeded to babble on about how bass fx were getting better and manufacturers were taking us seriously as a separate entity from guitarists. This was mostly just so he didn't have a chance to say no. He soon decided I had more words than he had patients and obliged my request. I took it in my hand and said, "Can I just give it a quick play before I buy? I wanna see how it pushes my EBS Valvedrive" I was halfway across the store before he had a chance to reply. "This one here?" I said nodding toward a Gallien Kruger rig in the corner with the power light on. "um yeah" he murmured, un-enthused, and brought some jack cables over for me. After about 2 minutes of playing I knew it wasn't what I wanted, but I figured I'd play for a few minutes and just enjoy the opportunity to actually demo a product in the bass cellar without handing over my testicles as collateral first. I used to work in telesales so that kind of infuriatingly upbeat wont-let-you-get-a-word-in-edge-ways attitude is something i've practiced, and although a part of my soul dies every time I do it, sometimes it's the only way to get what you want. It tends to kind of bowl people over if they're expecting you to be yet another mug traipsing about mouth-breathing on their expensive stock. In fairness, not all of Denmark street's shops are like this. By contrast, Wunjo guitars had all the time in the world for my quibbling and dicking about with a jazz bass. In fact, by listening to me and being knowledgeable and friendly my trip there ended with the purchase of said jazz bass and i've never been happier.

I'm constantly wanting this or that, sometimes it's enormous solid state headroom and clarity, sometimes it's all-tube overkill, sometimes I think a small package would be nice, sometimes I think 'damn the consequences, a whole host of massive cabs is worth the effort'. *shrug* I tend to go for flexibility and capability, but then I start thinking 'well it's ok at that kinda sound, but it's not quite as genuine and authentic as having ____ amp'. I think the problem is that I love pretty much all kinds of music and tones, textures, timbres and vibes. It's hard to pick one and stick with it. My most recent philosophy has been one of comparative minimalism. Just bass, a dirt box, input gain and power amp into a single well-chosen cabinet. I'm thinking in the direction of fEarful or barefaced cabwise as the consensus seems to be that they're scarily transparent, efficient, powerful and lightweight. Kinda thinking some sort of EQ would be a good idea in case i have to deal with crappy room acoustics, but I feel torn up enough about having an overdrive pedal in there! It ruins the minimalism! Ideally, I'd literally just have an amp with a single input and volume knob and amazing tone would magically come out! I suppose having as few componants as possible, and as well made as possible is the closest I can get to minimalist nirvana.

My vote goes to the Ibanez PD7. I bought it as a dumb teenager and never really realized quite how magnificent it was until I grew up a bit and learned to apply the concepts of 'subtlety' and 'taste' to my sound! Good points about this pedal are the overdrive tone itself and the "attack" setting switch. I'm not [i]entirely[/i] sure what the attack switch does but it seems to provide a slight scoop to the sound and apply less of the effect to the midrange and lows and more to the treble and overtones - which sounds bloody fantastic on my Aerodyne Jazz bass especially with new strings. It sounds more gritty and grindy with attack in position 2 or 3 rather than fat and beefy with it off (position 1). The attack setting doesn't seem to have much effect on the actual attack of the sound which is curious. The build quality is also magnificent, built like a cliche similie. Has "tone-lok" knobs too that can be pushed inside the pedal to keep them out the way of your feet PD7 also has a distortion setting and a clean setting - both of which are rather 'un-special' in my opinion and seem like they were probably afterthoughts or marketing gimmicks. I guess the clean setting could be useful to push a tube amp hard or as a boost. However, one thing bugs me about this pedal, and I couldn't reccommend it without mentioning this: the EQ section. OK, so it's a little bit better than just having a master 'tone' knob - but the bass and treble frequencies seem to be set to "bowel loosening" and "ear piercing" and there's no way to turn off the eq or just have a neutral sound. I've tried just running the pedal in clean mode, matching the levels and then trying to make the pedal tone as close as possible to the bypass signal and it's just impossible. Maybe it'll sound great with someone elses bass, but personally it's the midrange I want detailed control over when applying overdrive. bloody hell, that turned into a mini review - too much coffee methinks

[quote name='Ian Savage' post='1326973' date='Aug 4 2011, 02:02 PM']Surely you could just adjust the output level of your dirt pedal to achieve the same effect?[/quote] I could, but the thinking behind my idea was to emulate the sound of running a bass into a bass amp and a guitar amp together so adding distortion to the highs whilst keeping lows clean and retaining a clean full range signal for definition. Turning the gain or output down on the dirtbox is still going to give the character of the dirtbox and doesn't let me have a clean signal doubling the dirty signal. At some point I'd love to run this setup using a proper guitar head into a power brake, instead of a bass dirt box, but all this is just a dream at the moment!

[quote name='topo morto' post='1326844' date='Aug 4 2011, 12:59 PM'][url="http://www.sfxsound.co.uk/mainpage.asp?page=xm"]http://www.sfxsound.co.uk/mainpage.asp?page=xm[/url] any good?[/quote] Yes! This looks perfect! First response to the thread and you've nailed it. I love this place Are there any alternatives worth considering? Edit: I've just noticed the 'mix' portion of X&M is mixing the relative levels of the high and low bands - I was after mixing the effected signal with the clean, which is a slightly different kettle of fish. If that pedal had a master wet/dry knob it'd be perfect

I've been looking for a while, assuming this would exist somewhere, but it doesn't seem to. What I'm searching for is a blendable fx loop with crossover frequency control. This would be useful in applying FX to specific parts of the signal only - so applying overdrive JUST to high frequencies while leaving mids and lows clean - and then being able to blend how much overdriven highs are in the signal versus clean highs. The implication of this being that a subtle grind is added to moderate playing, but something like slapping or digging in hard would result not only in heavy overdrive, but the clean highs still having spank and sparkle. Or indeed you could use it to keep something like a phaser away from your low-end and also have a blend for how much phase you want vs dry for the affected frequencies thus keeping any tone-suck from pedals away from your clean sound. Is this ridiculous or impractical for a company to build? I don't have any electronics experience, so i'm genuinely clueless. Bass players seem to be getting more and more attention from fx manufacturers which is wonderful but I honestly think that few of them have yet to clock on to the idea that subtlety, fidelity and flexibility are massively important when dealing with an instrument that's capable of putting out such a broad range of frequencies and plays such a wide range of roles in music. Maybe something like this exists already and i've missed it? Or maybe there's a simple way of doing it without building a specific pedal?

[quote name='3below' post='1285675' date='Jun 28 2011, 08:36 PM']Find a good woodwork shop, ask them to cut the 'cutlist' parts. Get glue, clamps etc and get sticking. If not confident ask woodshop to glue cabinet, chamfer sides etc. Blue Aran - 3015LF, 18 sound 6", T nuts etc. and Tuffcab. Speakerhardware.com for crossover, either loose components (if good with soldering iron) or pre made - easier than sourcing in UK. Paint cab with Tuffcab - I used a sponge pad, looks just like tolex, easy to do. Seal edges of plywood with PVA first, otherwise you get sinkage Get metal grille made, fit all parts, staple polyester wadding inside and way to go. You will be impressed with tone and power handling. make sure you have sufficient Watts available. Total cost £375 to £475 there is a Barefaced Big One on the forum at the moment (or there was yesterday) - might be worth looking at, it is essentially the same thing.[/quote] Wow, thanks for the reply. You really think it's a do-able project for under £475? I was thinking getting all the parts cut was gonna be pretty expensive, but then i've never really had any experience doing this kinda thing before. Anywhere/anyone you'd recommend for woodworking? The kind of studio-monitor clarity they're known for is what I'm going after. I'm planning to use it with a power amp that can push at least 1200w at 8ohms, and i'm on the lookout for good deals on used QSC RMX series at the moment. I'm kind of awkwardly stuck between amps though, I just sold my old gigging rig, and am now left with an Eden Nemesis 1x12 combo and an Ashdown mag115 deep cab to use as an extension, neither of these are going to fetch much on the used market and aren't well suited to large gigs so I've gotta be careful about how I spend my dough so that i've always got a giggable setup. If it weren't for this I'd snap that barefaced big one up right away, but I figured if I build a fEARful, i can do the cab first, then the electronics and drivers, then the finish whenever my income allows. I'm thinking if I get a power amp first, so I can at least push the ashdown cab hard, and then peice together a fEARful, i should always have something loud enough to be heard, and eventually end up with some awesome depth, clarity and punch.

Hi, I'm looking to build/buy/acquire a fEARful 15/6 cab, but I can't find any info on anyone making them, owning them or even talking about them in the UK. If you have no idea what I'm on about, the fEARful is basically a bass speaker enclosure blueprint designed by a guy called Greenboy. Lots of info is available here: [url="http://greenboy.us/fEARful/"]http://greenboy.us/fEARful/[/url] Cab builders have to be 'authorized' (not sure what that entails) to build using Greenboy's designs before they're allowed to offer cabs for commercial sale. Not sure whether that covers one-off customer requests or just advertising the fEARful as an available design. I think the initial idea behind the design is that people could build the cabinets as DIY projects, but I'm really not great with carpentry and I lack the tools to cleanly and accurately cut wood, so I was hoping to find someone willing to either supply me with a flatpack of panels or a fully constructed cab. Similar to what these companies offer: [url="http://www.fearfulbass.com/"]http://www.fearfulbass.com/[/url] [url="http://www.speakerhardware.com/categories.php?cat=138"]http://www.speakerhardware.com/categories.php?cat=138[/url] The shipping is expensive (i was quoted $200!) so unless it starts raining £20 notes over London, I'm not going to be ordering from the USA. ANYWAY, if anyone could point me in the direction of any useful resources that might help me get one of these in the UK, I'd be grateful. Anyone know any reliable and cheap cab builders around London that might be able to give me a quote for building me a fEARful? Drivers, electronics and finish I can do myself, it's really just the woodwork I need.