la bam

Well ......... a last minute bit of luck today. Looking for a smallish cab for a small set up (if i had to travel in a car etc) i managed to win an Ashdown RM212 for a great price. Now, these look very lightweight to me ......... but theyre not. Theyre well built i must say. Sounds good on first play in the house. Although not that much smaller than my 6x10. Good to see the return of no wheels for transportation and a welcome hello again to the side handles which help remove the skin from your knuckles when going through doorways! So, ive now got 2 very capable set ups, and im very happy with them .......... lets see how long before the next swap!

A big heavy rig for home, and lightweight rig for gigging love it!

It just makes no sense when i look back! Swap a massive full on stack because i want something small, then get something small, be happy, and then decide to beef it up a little by making it bigger than the original big rig. I swear i could have swore out loud when i actually picked up the QSC and it felt like a small planet! (id forgot how heavy old school power amps are). The irony is its now heavier than an Ampeg rig - which this is supposed to be a lightweight version of !

I managed to get a speakon today to rewire. Its a NLT4FX. but, i cant for the life of me work out how to open it, it seems like a metal version of the usual speakons? any ideas?

For literally £2 a year, its a crazy warranty. If that includes valves etc its a bit naive from them, but worth it to anyone buying!!

valve pre amps do work, although i suggest theres more to it than just bunging them in there. They must be designed well to work with the rest of the amp. the ashdowns ive had all work well using 12AX7s, but its quite a subtle change, and you really have to understand or spend plenty of time using the valve drive and eq together to see what works for you. BUT: 3 valves in the pre amp. 500w in/out socket comprehensive eq lightweight and more all for £250 WITH A 6 YEAR WARRANTY! You really cant lose. Its a hell of a gamble to offer a 6 year warranty on anything, but i dont see how you can lose on these?

Hi all! Just thought id share just how unexplainable my actions as a bass player can be! I cant be the only one? In a nutshell: Ive always been fairly happy with my sound. Ive played through heavy rigs, when heavy was just a part of being a bass player. My first 2 main rigs were a 100w Trace elliot commando combo. Not loud, but flippin heavy and awkward to carry. Next was an Ashdown Mag 300 with Mag 4x10 cab.The head wasnt heavy as such, but was large. The cab was perfectly designed so that when you carried it yourself with your elbows out you couldnt fit through doorways! Another downside was not being able to see where you were going as it seemed to block all you vision to the floor as well as to each wall! I fell off a step once carrying it - gees that wasnt pleasant! So from then on were a few different changes, then i settled on a lovely set up - MarkBass LM3 with a 210 traveller. Plenty loud, very lightweight, and very easy to carry. Lovely. That lasted about 2 years. Then after selling due to a band split, for no reason at all after being lightweight, i decided to go for a full on Ashdown ABM 500 1x15 and 2x10 rig. Again plenty of getting stuck in doorways and heavy lifting for no reason, but the lure of a big rig had taken over. Then i decided to sell and buy a Markbass Evo modeller 500w amp at 3kg and a barefaced Super Compact G3. Magic. Could easily carry both in one trip. Just as powerful (if not more) than the ashdown rig. This rig would be with me forever. A year later i decide for no reason at all, that as much as i love the 1x12 of the supercompact i would like something just a little bigger,, so i dont buy another 1x12, or replace with a 2x12 or 2x10 - i buy a 6x10. (confused look). Well, i say buy, im sure my body just bought it without telling my brain. Anyway, i love it, so fair enough. Not lightweight or small, but i love it. So now i have the ultimate backwards rig - a lightweight head and a heavy duty cab. 6 months later, i decide to sort that..... not by buying a lightweight cab as a normal person would, but by buying a heavy Ashdown ABM600 head. So now a have a large, heavy rig. My heaviest ever. Ive gone from a one carry load in, to having x2 load ins just for the head and cables, never mind the cab! Deciding this was heavy for quick in and out gigs / upstairs to stages etc, I decided to go pre amp into power amp for one rig, and keep the 3kg markbass head for smaller gigs. So i managed to find a lovely sh VTRM pre amp and thought id pair it with a great class D lightweight power amp for one awesome adaptable package - powerful, loud and lightweight. ......... somehow, my brain blanked the lightweight idea when it came to buying and i ended up with a QSC RMX1450. I think thats about 20kg just for the amp, never mind case as well. So ive sold a heavy amp and replaced it with an even heavier one!! At the moment im looking for a small cab for the lightweight rig. I just cant trust myself to have one rig now as it varies from 15kg to 90kg depending on what i buy! So, i need 2 rigs, so i know what to take to what gig. No matter what i try, I just cant cope with one rig. It just seems to constantly change for no logical explanation! So, what is it that makes us do these crazy purchases? No matter what I try and do, at the last minute i always end up buying something else that doesnt fit the requirement!

That's great, thanks.

yes, so i could wire the amp end +1 and +2 = but what would i wire the cab end?

So would it just be: amp end = POS +1 and NEG +2. and then at the other end = whatever the NLF2 cable is wired as?

Hi all, does anyone know where i can buy a made up speakon lead that is: +1 POS +2 NEG so i can run my qsc rmx 1450 in bridged mode? thanks in advance.

Don't forget though in the majority of occassions of you put the geddy through the fx loop you will get the colouration of that amp also. I'd either go: Geddy and power amp. Or A stand alone amp.

Rotosound 77 flatwounds for me in a 40-100 scale. lovely.

Thanks. I'll have a look at those.

It does divide opinion - although it would seem daft to build in a bridged mode if you couldnt use it. The QSC RMX1450 is designed to work at 2ohm. So, if i bridged my 6ohm 900w, 6x10 cab - would that be fine? Specs are: RMX1450 280 8ohm. 450 4ohm. 700 2ohm. 1400 4ohm bridged. Would that mean for my 6ohm cab id be getting around 900-1000w when bridged?

I couldnt find one to buy locally. Bridging an amp divides opinion. Some say theres no problem at all, some say it halves the life of your amp.

I never got to that. It was going to be £30-£40 for a cable, then the same again for a spare. When i then rang the local shop for advice to make me one up, they recommended not running any amp bridged. So i took the amp back for a refund.

I tried both, that's how I learned about the bridging issue with the xls1502. You need a different cable making up, regardless of whether the amp is put into bridge mode or not.

Its a misconception that all power amps are the same and uncoloured. They are mostly different - the higher end power amps are much more full sounding, with more pronounced bass and bottom end. It debateable what difference it makes for bass guitar, but there is a big difference. There is also a big difference between traditional amps and class D, (the dreaded heft word). BUT class D is more than acceptable - you wouldnt know the difference if you werent A/B ing them. I currently have a QSC RMX1450 which works really well with bass. (i use a tech 21 VTRM) Flipping heavy though. I had a Crown 1502 - very light and clear - but if youre going to get one id just consider a couple of things: 1) how many cabs/speakers are you driving? (i used one to power a barefaced sc 1x12 and it was really struggling. 2) if you are bridging you WILL need a different speakon cable to put the amp in bridge mode. It needs setting to bridge, then using a differently wired speakon.

I'm not sure. It's almost a sheet over the string, so you can't feel the actual wound metal like on round wounds.

Well, i decided in the end to try some flats. I went for Rotosound 77 - the 40-100 guage. wow! what a great sound. Lovely and warm. All the warmth ive been trying to dial in over the years on various amps - and its in the strings. Just one issue though - what IS the silky / sheen on the strings? Im not a big fan of that. Makes control a bit more difficult. Although i guess its just a case of getting used to it after 20 years on roundwounds.

Im sure years ago i fell foul of this type of marketting. It isnt really fair. It should only spec what your buying. Ie what can you get out of the "combo" you have bought. ie 250w - not what its potential is. Then it should caviat you can add an extension cab for a 500w stack.

Its not my kind of thing at all, but im sure a lot of people love it. I do wonder how people remember whats coming next in instrumental versions like this and more jazzesque stuff, but i think im just a simple rock song bassist - if i get lost the vocals will bring me back in somewhere in the future! Id be questioning why youre being dictated songs from one person when youve no restrictions on what can be learned (ie singers range etc), but sometimes someone has to take the lead to keep things going. Alternatively, if youre really struggling, id just take it as a bit of a breather. Keep it simple and let the others show off. Or id make it my own and work out something slightly different to do to make it interesting. No one, and i mean no one, is going to know if youve changed it - as long as it fits.