Sean

The other one. Slightly different settings but just a few teaks to the EQ. Very quick pre-rehearsal practise tracks for the band but my first 12-string recordings for many years. My throat is now officially sore! Surrender Practice .mp3

On Sunday at the SW Bash, I’d decided to not take a Spector to that audition, I just thought, nah, they’re so Marmite, they’re too “Spector”, especially the way I just run them all with a Haz-clone flat out. I was going to take my Valenti PJ or the BB2024x. Anyway, when I tried to play the songs on the Yam, I was all over the place, two frets out, what a mess and thought, well just be yourself and go for it. The fella in before me was wheeling out a Trace on a big dolly. It looked like it weighed a ton. I went back to the car afterwards in one trip.

They offered me the gig!

Here’s a sample.I’ve recorded it this morning for the guitarist and drummer to practise with. It’s using a patch I adapted from @Wolverinebass. It’s using the Orange Rockerverb 50 and Orange 4x12 models for the >500Hz and the RB800 + Ampeg 810 models for the low end. It’s got some compression in the mix but that’s it. Bi-amping is so much fun, I can’t to try it live. There’s a rig rundown video with Tom Petersson and it shows his amp settings so copied those over for the Rockerverb doing the high end and then I moved away from the Orange AD200 for the bass as I just didn’t like it and thought the RB800 model sounded amazing through the Ampeg 810. I put TP’s settings into the RB800 model as a start and tweaked from there. One thing I haven’t done yet is put a dash of chorus >700Hz as recommended by Andy. @warwickhunt we're not going into competition with the awesome Cheat Trick 😉 IWYTWM BD+V.mp3

My next adventure with the Monaco is gigging it with my 12-string using a bi-amp patch in a couple of weeks. It sounds great at home but it'll be interesting to hear it at the venue, see what the sound engineer says and hear any reactions. It's a jam night that's attended by quite a lot of gear hounds who always like a nosey at who's using what, so we'll see.

That's my new stage name, that is. Thank you.

The body reminds me of the Status B2. Is there some direct influence there either way?

I've just PM'd the three of you about Matt Gleeson's slot. 😉

I'm on standby to bring mine too.

Bring it along. I'll have one of the best guitar techs in the UK with me on the day, so it'll be in safe hands.

One thing I learned the other night was to consider using a chart if the song arrangement is different from the record. Mr Blue Sky by ELO. Sit me down with cans on and I'll reproduce that line every time playing along to the original without any visual aid or chart or anything. Playing it with just a drummer, two guitarists and a singer, in an audition scenario, you lose a lot of your cues and, unrehearsed with a very different arrangement, it's easy to drop the ball. In retrospect, I should have said that I'm going to use a chart to stay on track as I know the song but not the arrangement. The end of the song was played differently, which was a surprise and that's just something you have to deal with on the spot. The other songs were very guitar based and had simple arrangements so there were no issues.

What do you need setting up? What needs doing exactly? I was going to do set ups at the SW Bash but there was very little interest.

No. CTS pots might not be what you need. It's important to measure the diameter and length of the shafts. CTS are large and generally suitable for USA-made instruments. Bourns or Alpha are alternatives that are different sizes. I have a vintage high end Yamaha that recently had new pots and I went for Alpha because they were the same size as the originals. If I fitted CTS, I would have had to have reamed out the holes and that would be absolutely off limits on such a treasure. As usual, the answer to the question is, "it's depends".

Interesting strap button location.

Very nice indeed! If you ever need to find a new home for it, you know where to come 🙃

Amen.

I think a better thread title would help loads 😉

Worth mentioning too is that I had that experience where I thought I was loud enough and they were telling me to turn up. I think that is a rite of passage with these cabs, isn't it?

I went to an audition in a rehearsal room today. Monaco, GK Legacy 800, Spector. All I had between songs was how good it sounded, what is it? never heard such clarity from a bass rig, never seen anything like it before. What brand is that? etc etc. I wasn't even using my pedal board, just the Comp4 on the GP5. I've always thought that Spector + GK is magic but add in a Monaco and there's the holy trinity right there. I don't know if I got the gig but the gear made people smile and I had a lot of fun.

That is absolutely shocking and should be rejected. It's damaged! There's absolutely no pride in that work at all. Did someone really look at that and say, "that's good to go, he'll be over the moon with that."?

Couldn't agree more. Obviously, I paid the pro forma invoice within 3 minutes of it landing. There's 100 years of gigging left in that amp if looked after properly. If Macca and Slipknot are still gigging them then there must be a reason...

The Brutal Truth About Owning Big Boxes of Bottles My 400+ has been in The Amp Hospital in Guildford. It costs £84 for an inspection and diagnosis. Then you get a full report and a quotation. Small repairs are done within the £84. Here's the quotation for the work. Note that there's no valve replacement in this cost. You can buy a very good high end used solid state or Class D amp for £454.80 i.e. the £84 plus the repair charge. Slipknot sends its 400+ amps to the same place. The work and knowledge of Mesa products is what you pay for. I'm sure that I could get it done cheaper but this is a relic and it needs the TLC that Surrey Amps gives. One thing is for sure now, this thing is going out gigging to earn its keep. The point of this post is, just understand what you're getting into before adopting one of these beasts. @Beedster @agedhorsefor interest, Chris, Andy😉

My advice to anyone getting misty eyed about valves goodness is, understand that, like cars, they have servicing costs.

It's modelled on the Walkabout, so that's the comparison for the WD-800. The Walkabout used a MOSFET power section. The newly released 800D is modelled on the 400+, which has a valve power section. The current range of Class D Mesa amps are very highly regarded by fans. The big advantages of these Class D amps is that they're not 30kg and they don't have huge servicing costs to keep them running over the long run. Valve amps aren't the "gold standard", they're just different technology. For many of us any advantage they give is "outweighed" by Class D amps' convenience. Yesterday I took my Laney 400 to the bass bash, it's 37kg. It's a behemoth of a thing. It takes some handling. Currently my Mesa 400+ is away for repair, that's going to be expensive! Mesa products are a gold standard whatever tech they are and, being very customer focused, Mesa makes very different flavours of amp for different needs. I'd recommend trying out the WD-800, TT-800 and 800D and seeing which ones suits you best. You can't go wrong with any of them, they're just different.

What happened? Did you buy it? What did you think? @Rigetto