Opticaleye

I noticed a while ago that the fumed oak option has been removed from the configurator and been replaced with birdseye maple. Not sure why.

Hammersmith have gone a similar route too. Although it may have all started  with some of the Ibanez Roadstar II's.

Musicman liked the V shape enough to copy it with their Cutlass 😏. My VS4 does look a bit small on me but I'm used to it now.

From an aesthetic point of view, if I was so worried how I looked when gigging I'd probably have spent less on basses and more on gym membership...

I have both series. The old ones are good but the new shaped ones are a step up in class to play, ergonomically, balance and weight wise. I didn't like the new T shape originally but I've grown more accustomed. If they were a radically different shape that felt unfamiliar I doubt I would like playing them.

3 hours ago, jazzmanb said:

Can you put that in laymen terms 😃,the simple layout appealed to me .I read a bit about experimenting with the gain

It sounds good if you crank the first knob from the left 😁

Make sure that you try it with the gain at about 7+ (depending on your bass's output) so that the sweet limiting kicks in.

My latest

2 hours ago, discreet said:

 

On the 'chronology' point, what I meant was that pickup design and placement has much more bearing on tone than neck and body 'resonance'.

A point you refuted despite me not saying that it didn't. I suppose this confirms confirmation bias in that you wanted to read something because I disagreed with you 

2 hours ago, discreet said:

Er... clearly you can't say that your opinion would be supported scientifically until it has actually been supported scientifically. Which, as far as I know, it has not. It is still just your opinion. But if any actual 'science' has been done, I'd be happy to see a link.

Well I come from an engineering background (mechanical and electronic) and the science is so obvious that I guess no-one thought it worthwhile. Anyway your pedantry is a bit tortuous.

There are a number of aspects to a bass guitar's tone. The mechanical aspects include strings and all mechanical components including body and neck. The electrical aspects including pickups have the possibility to change the sound more radically (as indeed does an amplifier) but in a different way. Not everyone,for instance, compensates for the (mechanical) loss of string brightness through age by turning their treble up on the amp. It's not the same thing.

I owned a fantastic 1976 Precision 18 years ago, lightweight and resonant but sadly with an unstable neck. I bought a replacement neck. Everything good about that bass disappeared along with the faulty neck.

I have 2 Sandberg Umbos one rosewood necked and one maple. The maple fingerboard Umbo is considerably quieter than the rosewood and by your logic swapping the pickups and electronics over from one to the other should have resulted in the rosewood bass having the lower output. It didn't. The maple one was still by far the quieter bass. My conclusion was that the mechanical side of the tone had a big impact. It seems logical and many bass/guitar builders seem to think so too.

4 minutes ago, discreet said:

Either it's your opinion or it's scientifically sensible... Claiming body wood or finish affects tone is extraordinary in my view, so I'll need to see some extraordinary evidence to support that view before I change my mind. I've certainly never heard any difference in tone after refinishing a bass.

Saying body and neck resonance comes before pickup choice and placement in the production of tone is risible.

Simply changing strings will have a much more pronounced effect on tone than any wood or finish choice. In my humble opinion. Which in this case I'm posting as fact. 

Well, where do I start! 

I've never read a paper on bass guitar physics but it is my opinion that if one existed it would support my opinion. Scientifically.

"Saying body and neck resonance comes before pickup choice and placement in the production of tone is risible."

Chronologically how could it be otherwise?

Simply changing strings will have a much more pronounced effect on tone than any wood or finish choice. In my humble opinion. Which in this case I'm posting as fact.  

Agreed. And you can polish a turd too. The result might not be agreeable that's all.

42 minutes ago, discreet said:

Before I very stupidly sold my Road Worn P, I did notice that it was physically lighter than most other Ps I've had, and played acoustically was very loud. In fact, if you held it forward there was an astonishing amount of sound coming out of the back of it! This is a 'real' phenomena I'm sure, but whether or not that translates into any difference whatsoever at the pickup..? I'm still sceptical.

In my humble opinion  anything that affects the way that the string responds will be transferred to the pickup. Attack, decay release, etc. will be affected by the bridge, tuners, body and neck resonance. That is the basis for the instrument's core tone. After that strings and pickup choice and placement will be a big factor.  Whether the effect is better with different woods and finishes is subjective but scientifically it makes perfect sense to me.

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

Thanks and that's helpful.

But it's very unfair of us earlier in the thread to be giving Alex a hard time for 'less than complete' information about his cabs on the BF website. Need to be applying the same yardstick across the board, methinks?

I don't want to be critical of Alex's perfectly fine products but I find the website tone to be annoying marketspeak and the self aggrandising offends my sensibilities a little. My problem though and I don't expect Barefaced will change their business model if it's successful.

28 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

http://trickyaudio.wixsite.com/trickyaudio/products

Next to nothing in terms of information on the cabs, their power handling etc.

So we were giving Alex and BF a hard time a hard time in this thread 'cos he hadn't provided an accurate RMS / AES number for their range; but they look positively angelic compared to the Greenboy / Fearful boys in terms of being helpful to potential customers!

The specs for the TKS 1126 are available online. http://www.tks.se/

The F112 specs will be similar enough to get a general idea (except the high frequency range will be around 20khz due to the tweeter). Specs won't tell you too much given, for instance, that the stated power handling is quoted at 450watts and Ed Friedland in the review is using a 2kw amp. I'm using 450/500w @8ohms into my TKS but a lot of Fearless users are using a lot more.

The more important factors in tone will be the crossover points and the sound of the mid driver used. As with the Barefaced cabs there is a lot of user chat/reviews out there regarding the Fearless line. 

The Greenboy website states this about the DIY fEARFUL cab

• A 12/6 is almost as loud as most 210 cabs with one watt input, and more extended in response. When driven fully it can get nearly as loud as a good 410. The fEARFUL will sound fuller while maintaining clarity, and will disperse wider. It will not lose its punch when driven hard.

41 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I changed my post as I realised I was quoting hearsay. I have a great deal of time for Dave Greenboy's designs so I would not discount them, except that the cost over here is quite high. I also think TKS have the right idea as the Kappalite 3012LF is, in my opinion, not good enough on its own.

Tricky Audio's base price for a F112 made in the UK is £750. That's not bad considering an Aguilar SL112,  for instance, will cost possibly more with much cheaper components.

9 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

The Gen 3 Barefaced Cabs use an OEM version of the Kappalite 3012LF. So why dismiss the Barefaced? Trust me I am not a Barfaced Fanboi. 

I didn't dismiss Barefaced. I didn't mention them as I gather that, given they shifted the frequency range of the 3012LF upwards and had no mid driver, I couldn't add any more than @dave_bass5 did in his post (as I've never tried one). In a later post I mentioned that they are probably a good option.

10 minutes ago, stevie said:

Although the midrange driver on your TKS may go up to 9kHz,  it still starts to roll off about 2kHz off axis. That is, of course, a great improvement on a 12" on its own or a 12" with a bullet tweeter, and you're right: it will allow you to hear mids on-stage much better. Not only that, but it will project the mids better into the audience. A two-way with a small midrange driver is a great solution, and one that I gigged with for a number of years. But I'd say that a two-way with a (proper) compression driver and CD horn is even better. It's also likely to be more expensive. That's what I've found works best for me anyway - so far.

Well I don't have much technical knowledge on the subject but the mids/highs certainly sound better off axis than the Barefaced One10's with their "usable frequency range" of up to 6khz 

My Markbass cab has  a "1" voice coil tweeter" a term that they interchange with compression driver. The highs sound good off axis and the mids sound good in the audience but using the single cab pointing at my calves onstage the mids seem missing in comparison to the TKS cabs.

20 minutes ago, stevie said:

You make a valid point. A midrange speaker is going to make any cab subjectively louder than a 12" driver on its own or one with the usual tweeter on top. It will also have more "punch" and clarity if implemented properly. This, as I'm sure you know, is directly connected to what's called the "power response", which is the total output of the speaker at all frequencies and at all listening angles. It's an aspect of cab design that is ignored by just about everyone making bass cabs, with a few exceptions including Greenboy.

I've experimented with the 12 + midrange configuration but was never totally happy with it. I felt that a midrange speaker on its own didn't have enough highs off axis, and adding a constant directivity hf driver on top made the crossover very complex. I did complete a design with an Eminence 3012LF and a Celestion TF 0615MR self-contained midrange unit, which I could revisit and publish if anyone is interested, but I felt that a better solution was just a single crossover point with a high quality compression driver and constant directivity horn. I think Duke Lejeune is the only commercial builder to go down that route because 1) it's quite an expensive approach and 2) the costs incurred are not immediately apparent to the average cab buyer.

I have a 3 way TKS 1126 and a 2 way without tweeter. The 2 way does extend to 9khz and is enough for me. Both are excellent off axis and I don't have to angle the cab up to hear mids onstage like I do with my Markbass 121HR (luckily the Markbass is also usable in kickback mode). I get the feeling that Tommy of TKS knows his stuff.

Quilter make a 1x12 Bassliner cab that uses a 3012LF, a horn and no mid driver. I've heard clips and read reviews and it sounds good.

Ed Friedland's Bass Player review of the Fearless F112 is very relevant to this topic (although it does have a 5" mid driver as well as the 12"). The section headed "Road Test".

https://www.bassplayer.com/gear/greenboy-audio-fearless-f112-cabinet-reviewed

My similarly configured TKS 1126 also seems louder to me than my old Eden 410XLT given enough watts and never sounds boxy either. 

I liked the tone of my One10's but I had concerns over the fact that they couldn't keep up with my band's moderate volume in certain pubs (acoustically damped by carpets and furnishings). Despite everything they are very small cabinets and do not defy the the laws of physics. I confess that I succumbed to the hype and believed they might be as loud as, say, a Markbass NY121. Unfortunately they're not. I actually replaced the 2 One10's with one Markbass Std121HR and have done a number of gigs with that, with no issues and plenty of spare volume available.

I also think there is a valid criticism of using non-standard optimistic specs on the website ("usable frequency range" etc among others) and the general tone of the site inferring that other manufacturers are "behind the game" in design terms. Don't get me wrong, Barefaced cabs are a good option among many good options but there are other cabs out there are on a par or maybe even better.

7 minutes ago, davideuck said:

At some point the head you are using wil affect the result. I have two Markbass 804, 4x8" for 800 watts 8 ohm, I was on the limit side when powering one cab only with an F500, pub gig with a rock band. Then I switched to the SD1200 and that cab turned out to be a little beast, now I do rock gigs with master at 9 o'clock with a single cab. So, the 4x8" is obviously less efficient than a 4x10" but with 800 watt power handling at 8 ohm, if you give it the right amount of power it'll compete with larger cabs easily. I think it's the same with single "super" 12 cabs, give them the right power and you can compete. If you are comparing a 4 ohm 4x10" powered with a 500 watt head you'll never reach same results with the same head and a single 8 ohm 12" cab, even the best 12" cab on the planet. All IMO obviously. 

+1

I had a Markbass NY604 and TTE500 and it would struggle by itself at 8 ohms. I ordered my TKS cabs and bought a TTE801 and used the NY604 at a rehearsal while my cabs were being built. 

The TTE801 and NY604 combination was a killer. I realised then that what people were saying about the 500w Markbass amps limiter kicking in at 8 ohms was the issue and not the cab at all.

I could have saved myself some serious money!

I've owned 2 Barefaced One10's and no way are they as loud together as a typical 4x10. From what I gather the Two10 is much the same as 2xOne10's as you would expect.

Something based around a Kappalite 3012LF would be the only real option such as a Fearless F112 or the TKS 1126 (I own 2 of these and they are loud given enough watts).

I'd avoid the Orange given the fact that it's Isobaric. Not many real world advantages over a single speaker and plenty of disadvantages including weight.

5 minutes ago, doomed said:

I would think the reason behind Thomann's pricing is likely to be that Quilter have, or are in, the process of shifting amp production to China, they posted about it last week on their FB page, it's to ensure the long term survival of the company as they are sharing qsc's facility at the moment, they also stated that quality will remain as is and not be affected in any way.

Whatever, the Bass Block is a monster of an amp, it doesn't want for anything compared to any of my other amps, if we're travelling any distance to a gig or going in a car it's usually what I take, it sounds immense through the Four10 or the Dubster.

 

Apparently the BB800 production is staying in the U.S. Certainly for now.

8 hours ago, DBerriff said:

I was puzzled by the Quilter suggestions until I saw Thomman’s price. That must be impossible to beat if you need the power. I will stick with my Magellan 350 but, yes, impressive. Assembled in the USA too.

I'm curious why you were puzzled? 

I (sadly) paid £620 for my Quilter and it was a bargain at that. The quality of the tone makes it a serious option at twice the price IME. I rarely use mine above the  160w setting into an 8ohm cab (so it's limiting the output at around 80w). The tone controls are deceptively powerful and it's easy to dial a good tone by "painting" a waveform and using the gain or master to boost as required.

26 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

@Opticaleye you are right, I think mine is a wannabe, which makes you sort of a hero for me.

That and a Forty Eight would be peachy 

 I don't think that accidentally owning something should qualify me for "sort of hero" status. @FacStudio deserves the hat tip I think.

I tried an Umbo in PMT when they first came out and thought it sounded nasal and horrible. I traded another Sandberg (a TM4) for the HCA white Umbo and realised that the Sandberg strings don't go too well with the Alnico II pickups and, through trial and error, have found strings that bring the best out of them. I've disliked every new one I've tried in shops (even when taking delivery of my Marley Blue order) for this reason.

3 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

@Opticaleye you know I have an Umbo fetish and this is doing it no good!

I think that it's me that has the Umbo fetish!

All I need now is a nice California II Umbo and my collection would be complete. They really conjure up all of the classic passive tones from P to J and even semi acoustic . I use the Motown setting a lot but the Jaco setting not so much (although it's on another level).

Here's mine.