Fraktal

I have used both Dunlops and Schallers for years. In my experience the Schallers are more robust and secure, lasting longer than the Dunlops. Oh yeah, regarding the leads, there is nothing like Neutrik plugs.

Hello fellow Line6 pals, I thought I should share a sound that I discovered 3 months ago and every day that passes I love it even more. I came by this sound while doing a bit of my typically obsessive research that I always fancy with all kind of technological gadgets such as computers, processors, plugins, multiFX... you name it. Since the Line6 Pod Xt Live is such a complex unit, giving you zillions of options, I used my standard approach to multiFX: I turn everything off, then I turn on one thing at a time with flat EQ, neutral tweaks, etc. This way I get a better perception of what a particular element of the signal chain does to my tone without being fooled by another effect/emulation/whatever plus I remove a lot of sh*t from the signal path that I might not really need to use and prevent degradation of my tone. You know, most of the time, less is more, heh. Then I found this particular amp model called doppelganger that had a decent sound out of the box but a much beter tone with my typical "start with everything flat and move on from there" approach. It is funny that the distortion you get from overdriving this amp model is generated out of the low frequencies but perceived mostly in the mid frequencies while leaving the high frequencies pretty much clean, though heavily compressed. There is no typical harshness associated to most overdrive/distortion sounds, neither lowend loss. Unless you use too much gain, the dynamics of your playing will alter the overdrive instead of the overall volume creating very musical, ear-pleasing harmonic overtones in the mid fequency range, to the point where you can easily hear dramatic character changes depending on how hard you pluck, the time you hold a note, etc. It adds a lot of sustain, also, but I guess this was obviously expected. Enough chitchat, knob twisting time: Create a new patch, select the doppelganger amp model, set the amp EQ to "neutral" (all knobs at 12 o'clock), deactivate EVERYTHING else in the signal path, such as speaker, mic/room, AIR, stomps, etc. Then adjust the amp model gain to your taste and finally tweak the "bassy overdriven" character using the bass eq knob in the amp with VERY subtle changes (a 5% addition/substraction could have dramatic effect on it). If you find there is too much zing due to new strings you can easily reduce it with the high eq knob, this sound tends to boost the zing effect a big deal. You may also need to enable the parametric EQ to clean a bit of the lowmid range (150-300hz, YMMV) to get rid of some muddiness in case your rig tends to boost those frequencies. Dont panic, your speaker isnt farting and your amp isnt gonna blow up, its just this sound It is crucial to set the right amount of gain and low knobs, they are EXTREMELY sensitive in this particular model. In my experience, the sweet spot is found when you pluck hard and get a clearly distorted sound, then you pluck softly and get an almost completely clean sound. Yes, this sound is THAT temperamental. I would gladly post here my .l6 effect patch file, but having in mind what I said before about the gain and low knobs, that would be next to useless cos there are also huge output voltage differences between different basses, not to mention plucking techniques, etc. Additionally, there is not much tweaking needed, just "finetweaking", since we are using only an amp model here so I prefer to explain the procedure rather than giving out a file that wont work for you. Im using it with an Ibanez SR 505 and a Markbass 2x10" combo (everything flat) and getting a surprisingly old school sound. Playing with my band I feel guilty for having such a versatile and advanced FX processor while discarding all my old effect patches in favor of this one, LOL. It is really working THAT good for me. Incredibly, it works in all styles we play: Swing, blues, funk and rock. If you didnt drop asleeep already and take the time to try to reproduce this sound with your rig, I would love to listen to your experience. Mine has been 3 Months of tone nirvana and non-stop fun, surely must be worth a shot! I hope you enjoy it. Feedback welcomed!

[quote name='jonsmith' post='523818' date='Jun 25 2009, 05:11 PM']My only complaint would be that although the onboard compressor works quite nicely most of the time, I'd like proper access to all the compressor settings, not just threshold and gain.[/quote] Its an emulation of the legendary Teletronix LA-2A, a studio rack that has exactly those two control knobs, plus an extra 3-position knob for vumeter display (input/gain reduction/output). I guess implementing more parameters to that model would be complicated, arbitrary and would somehow reduce the fidelity of the emulation. I see your point, though, ie it shouldnt have been hard at all for Line6 to implement another digital-like compressor with every tweak possible, modeled after "nothing at all" just as they did with their own Line6 amp models, heh.

[quote name='onehappybunny' post='506597' date='Jun 5 2009, 09:01 PM']Even thinking about hiring rehearsal space to mess with settings at loud volume without the inconvenience of other musicians[/quote] Please excuse me, but I would think that is a very bad idea. The sound of an electric bass has lots of frequencies that overlap with the sound of almost every other instrument, fooling your perception, specially in the 200-700hz range. In my experience, its very easy to tweak a bass tone until it sounds great when you are playing alone, but as soon as the other instruments start rocking, your bass sound might lose a lot of definition. So, a great bass tone during a live band setup might sound harsh, middy, nasal and crappy when playing alone, and a great bass sound while playing alone might get lost in the mix during a live band setup.

Boss CE-2B Brown painted, made in Japan. Discontinued but relatively easy to find on evilbay I suppose. Without a doubt the best bass chorus I have ever heard. Now if you would excuse me, need to find a wall where to bang my head for a few hours... Happens to me always when I remember I had one of those and I sold it!

I love the MEC soapbars, they have a very natural tone, well rounded and transparent. Very warm but never muddy... Tight lows, perfect definition on a 5th ( string. You can use them on 5 or 4 string basses since the pole pieces are (hidden) bars instead of dots. Very clean highs also, but never too aggressive or brittle. Their frequency response seems smooth across the whole spectrum, or so my ears tell me. Its amazing such a cheap and passive pickup has this kind of natural, uncolored, transparent tone. 200% recommended.

I had a problem that was very similar to yours on my Alesis M1 MkII monitors. One speaker buzzing, the other one ok. I thought I might have blown one of the drivers, though after careful examination, it turned out that the problem was the rubber band covering the mounting edge of the speaker. It was badly glued and simply ripping it off my monitor solved the problem. I didnt even glue it back in place, it was there just for the looks, so I didnt bother. Check carefully if your monitor has any loose pieces, sometimes its hard to discern between a blown woofer and just a perfectly ok woofer that makes something else vibrate.

[quote name='maxrossell' post='480664' date='May 6 2009, 10:11 AM']The fact that they're also upgrading to a two-piece bridge is a bonus.[/quote] Based on my humble experience setting up string heigth and intonation on Warwick basses, plus considering the mechanics of sustain and vibration and the role both those bridges play on it, I would think Warwick's 2 piece bridge is actually a huge drawback from the former bridge.

[b]Fender[/b]: Old. Ancient. Antonio Stradivari didnt design the first violin, yet he nailed it. To reach perfection, you need to improve. A LOT! [b]Lakland & Sadowsky[/b]: Excuse me? Why on hell would you repeat the same old mistakes? [b]Warwick[/b]: Should include in their price your first visit to the chiropractor. [b]All Headless[/b]: Pain killer. Perfect balance and ergonomics. The Joy of Playing. [b]Ibanez (Soundgear)[/b]: Ferrari. Air-thin neck. Time to humiliate a few guitards. [b]Washburn[/b]: Lack of taste. [b]Rickenbacker[/b]: King Crimson, Yes. The sound of an age when rock music was an art instead of a show. [b]Ritter[/b]: Michelangelo, Leonardo. The gates of Heaven are open and angels walk amongst us.

Do you have a laptop? If so, you should really try out [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=39694"]THIS[/url]. The sound quality is impressive and the possibilities are literally endless. Netbooks and ASIO soundcards are very cheap lately anyway.

The Warwick Rockbass Streamer (passive, 2 MEC pickups) has the best tone of all them, by far. Of course, this depends on personal taste. I have one and will NEVER sell it, very few basses I have tried had a comparable tone, even high end ones. The sound guys that worked with my previous bands loved that bass to death, too. It is also the only bass I ever tried that allowed me to cut the treble pot completely and still have an useable tone, without losing any mids/definition. It has a very solid neck, really stable, never had to adjust the truss rod and the action is super-low! Highly recommended!

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='411544' date='Feb 16 2009, 11:13 PM']Is [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Line-6-TonePort-UX2-with-POWER-PACK_W0QQitemZ300294130803QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMidi_Controllers?hash=item300294130803&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1688|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318"]this[/url] overkill?[/quote] Not at all.

[quote]I either had a mess of crackles or decent tone with major lag[/quote] That happens all the time when an audio interface is not suitable for real time recording+processing. I doubt you can blame your laptop.

[quote name='benzies123' post='406230' date='Feb 11 2009, 02:20 PM']Anyone played the Ibanez 1006 EFM Prestige? I Played the 506 and loved it, and assumed that the 1006 would be similar but just more lovely. I'm gonna hopefully get one soon and get a college grant to pay half. Any advice ect?[/quote] Hurry up if you really plan to buy one of those, they went out of production with 2009. A real shame, since the 5000 range (that replaces 1000 series) are not neck through body, and the differences between 5000 series and 500 are now hardly worth double price.

Have in mind your amp is still an amp, even if you set a "flat" EQ, and consequently filters the sound of your bass to its particular tone. Amp emulations will always work much better when listening through headphones, Hi-Fi, monitors or PA.

kennyrodg: Go to Control Panel and double click System. Copy here the info that appears on your screen, that will give us an approximate idea about your PC.

Yup, most audio cards' input are meant to plug a microphone (low impedance). To have a good signal level when plugging an instrument directly into it you need a soundcard with a high impedance input. Some cards have a button next to the input to switch between high/low impedance.

I use no laptop ATM, I havent bothered yet, but on a desktop Intel Core2 duo E6600 @ 2.4Ghz it runs perfect. CPU usage never goes above 20% even using insane rig configs, just for geek purposes, such as tuner on + 6 stomps + valve driven amp + cabinet with ambience in one channel and a second parallel channel with the same config but different models and settings. This would be the most CPU intensive processing the stand-alone application is capable of. 99% of the time the stand-alone application (you need no VST host to run it, neat feature for live use) will only consume 10% of my processing power. On a Pentium D the CPU usage will never go above 25%. I would expect an intel dual core laptop processor around 1.8 Ghz to eat up to 50% CPU, wich sounds stable to me. Its only a guess, but in my opinion worth a try. Watch out for the StealthPlug though, there are probably ASIO driven audio cards with better sound quality for about the same price, such as M-Audio Fast Track USB, wich can also run Protools M-Powered and is much more versatily than the StealthPlug, giving you 1 input XLR or TRS and 2 RCA outputs. Edit: These are the minimal + recommended specs required to run Ampeg SVX copy-pasted from their official website: System Requirements Power PC based Macintosh® Minimal: 866 MHz G4 processor, 512 MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Suggested: dual 1.25 GHz G4 or G5 processor, 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS. Intel based Macintosh® Minimal: 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo processor, 512 MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later. Suggested: 1.66 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 1 GB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later. Supported Plug-in formats: AU, VST, RTAS. [b]Windows® Minimal: Pentium 1GHz / Athlon XP 1.33 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, Windows XP / Vista or later. Suggested: Pentium 2.4 GHz / Athlon XP 2.4 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP / Vista or later. Supported Plug-in formats: VST, RTAS. [/b] Sounds to me like almost any PC, even singlecores, could run it, according to their own info.

Hey Dood, No need for a standalone VST rack, you can simply use a laptop and an audio interface, such as the StealthPlug from IK Multimedia, wich is just a TRS-USB cable, and there are plenty of alternatives out there. As long as you dont mind carrying your laptop to the gig... This is what Im planning to do on an immediate future!

Hello everybody! I couldnt resist myself showing you all my new toy, a piece of (virtual) gear that so far has the potential of forcing me to reconsider my signal chain "Old school setup, "bass->cable->amp and everything else is a toy and will suck my tone away". IK Multimedia is a very famous producer of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software, those of you with previous studio experience will surely remember their Sampletank, T-RackS and Amplitube products as they have been so successful. Not long ago, they revised their aging Amplitube plugin, totally revamped and diversified it. Now there are 6 different Amplitubes: Amplitube 2, Amplitube Fender, Amplitube Jimmy Hendrix, Amplitube Metal, Amplitube Live and, last but not least, the holymotherofallthatisgoodandpure AKA Amplitube Ampeg SVX. To run Amplitube software you need a decent PC, even laptops, and a low latency audio card with ASIO drivers or USB cable audio interface. The Ampeg SVX, just as any other Amplitube software, can be run as a VST/RTA plugin or directly as a [b]stand-alone application[/b]. The latter has extra features such as "SpeedTrainer" that I will comment on soon. Ampeg SVX emulates a complete bass rig including rack-like tuner, 8 bass stomp pedals, 4 Ampeg bass amplifiers, 6 bass cabinets, and also some guitar amps, cabs and stuff thanks to Amplitube X-Gear, bundled with all amplitube models. X-gear also allows you to select 1 out of 8 signal path/chains with serial/parallel modes and all the goodies. Enough chitchat already, lets watch some pr0n... Here is the rack tuner: Yup, thats me tuning the low B string of my Ibanez SR505. The tuner is very precise up to 1 cent, and you can calibrate it to ANY frequency you wish, simply by overwriting the "tune 440.00" field on the left side. I set it up at 900Hz once, just for fun! On the upper left corner you can see the SpeedTrainer wich is a feature only available while running Amplitube as a stand-alone app. Im gonna explain how it works. First, the "open audio" button allows you to open audio files (MP3s, wavs and such) to play them, then you have the play and pause buttons that I wont comment on, LOL. The A and B buttons allow you to precisely mark the beggining and end point of a loop, for those passages hard to play you need to practice a lot. The clear button resets the loop. You also have Vol, Pitch and Tempo buttons, you can choose to play a song very slow so you can better hear a difficult passage, while keeping the original pitch, or choose a different pitch, in case you prefer to play the song on a different tonality. Then comes the display, a graphical render of the audio file, where you can zoom up to 32x to set the loop A-B points with surgical precision. In this image you can see a white and a blue vertical lines, those are A and B buttons we spoke about. You can drag them or set them again by clicking the AB buttons. Finally, there is a metronome with Vol and Tempo knobs. On the lower part of the screen you can see, from left to right, an input pot and level meter, you also have an extra +24db digital gain in case you need it down on the white bar. Next is a very smooth noise gate, a parameter display that shows you the value of the last knob you tweaked, a mini-tuner, related to the rack tuner, but in case you leave it switched ON you dont need to go back to the tuner screen while tuning on the amp, stomp, cab or rack screens, very handy. The following controls are for mixing purposes, and a master pot and level meter. The next screen is the pedal board: Depending on the signal path/chain you choose (with those 8 little buttons besides the red patch name) you can have up to a max of 12 stompboxes on serial, or 6+6 on parallel. The stompboxes include overdrive, octaver, analog chorus, analog delay, bass wah, compressor, envelope filter and volume pedal. Their quality is absolutely impressive, they can be controlled via any MIDI device (such as a sequencer or pedalboard) and you can even expand them by purchasing other Amplitube versions, so you can use also guitar stompboxes and everything. You can use them on any way you wish, you can choose a pedalboard with 6 overdrives to annoy all your bandmates to death if you wish so, you maniac! Ok, lets get serious... THE AMPS: [b]Ampeg B-15[/b] [b]Ampeg BA-500[/b] [b]Ampeg SVT-4 PRO[/b] [b]Ampeg SVT[/b] The quality of the amps is superb, you can even use 2 in parallel thanks to the bundled X-Gear software, and there are plenty of tiny details that left me with a retarded smile in my face for hours long, such as being capable of overloading the compressor stage in the SVT-4 PRO for a very subtle but creamy overdrive, while leaving the gain and power stages completely clean, or realizing that the distortion coming out of the gain stage is totally different from that coming out of the power stage, even though both belong to the same amp model... Sweeeeeeeeet!!! That is what call serious modelling! Now, onto the cabs: [b]B-15 speaker, single 15"[/b] [b]BA-500 speakers, 2x10"+tweeter[/b] [b]BXT-410H cab, 4x10"+tweeter[/b] [b]PB-212H cab, 2x12"+tweeter[/b] Damn! I triggered the imagespam filter... LOL! Ah, well, if you want to check the looks of the SVT-410H and SVT-810E cabs, here are the links: [url="http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/60/cabsvt410hpe8.jpg"]SVT-410H cab, 4x10"+tweeter[/url] [url="http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6656/cabsvt810ebx5.jpg"]SVT-810E cab, 8x10" beast[/url] Now, for unstoppable drooling, here you have a tweeter attenuator control available for all cabinets, save the 8x10" monster: [url="http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/2548/tweeterqp2.jpg"]Tweeter level[/url] As you may have noticed by the pics, this software also modelled 6 different microphones, including the most popular ones such as Neumann, Shure, AKG... Its easy to recognize them in the pics if you are familiar with the original ones. You can choose the particular mic you want to use and the position. You can place it on-axis, off-axis, near or far the speaker. The differences in sound are huge, and they arent limited to different equalizations, the whole sound character changes completely when messing with the mics and their placement. You can also see a fader called "Ambience" that allows you to add room reverb to the dry sound. Its a very good reverb that simulates a medium sized studio recording room, and has plenty of early reflections. Upright bass + Ambience = Instant tone heaven! If you purchase and install another Amplitube version, you can mix all the different amps, speakers, stompboxes, etc. and that will also add rack effect processors including digital delays and reverbs, 3 full parametrics with Q factor, a 31 band 1/3 octave EQ, tube compresor... You name it! Think about the possibilities! Uh, wait, you better dont... Please excuse me while I pick up the pieces of my brain. [b]FINAL THOUGHTS[/b] Overall, I think this is the most powerful bass processing tool I have ever seen, with the most intuitive user interface I have ever tried: Every single knob, fader or button you see in the screen works just as it should, like the real thing, they arent there for the looks, everything has a function and is placed at the spot you would expect it to be if you were just in front of a real bass rig. Using it is a joy, no messing with menus, no bullshit, just straight-forward "what you see is what you get". PISS EASY! Sound-wise, I have never heard an emulation sound this good. I cant claim to know the original amps this software simulates because I have never had the pleasure to meet them live, but the same can be said about any other FX processor I have tried before, lets say almost everything from Line6, Korg, Rocktron and Digitech. So, when comparing this FX processor with all those, the only thing I can evaluate is the sonic quality, and in my humble opinion Ampeg SVX blows everything else out of the water. You can even process the sound at 96kHz/24bit if you are so anal about sampling rates and bit depths. The noise levels are ridiculous, providing you have a decent soundcard or audio interface. The overdrive stompbox could easily be the best stompbox I have ever tried, it is really usable and has a character very well suited for the bass. Most other overdrive pedals I have tried so far were mostly noisy and sucked lots of tone. The octaver tracks very well. The analog chorus is superb. Maybe the only stompbox of this software that I dont love to death would be the envelope filter... Too many parameters, not so easy to tweak the sound you want out of it, though surely lots of people would argue the opposite, since its possibilities are almost infinite. Regarding the amps, I am very impressed by 3 out of the 4 of them. The B-15 has such a vintage sound, the SVT-4 PRO is so versatile and the classic SVT can be insanely fun. Havent played much with the BA-500, so its not that I dont like it, simply I had such a wide tonal palette out of the other 3 that I didnt bother with the BA-500, LOL. The cabs are wonderful, they drastically change the sound of the amp when you switch them, just like in real life. The microphones also have their own character each one, and the possibilities are endless: Choose an amp, then a cabinet, then a mic, then mess with the mic placement, add some room ambience, then mix it all with DI sound, or add a second chain with a different amp, or maybe the same amp but cranking up the gain and master pots to overdrive it... BOOOM!!! My head just exploded! If you cant dial your dream tone out of this software... you better retire and play balalaika! If I have to speak badly about it, the only thing I can think of is that it is a software, and as such it needs a physical host and an interface to be functional, namely a PC and a low latency sound card or audio interface, but by these times, almost every musician has a PC, many of us laptops, and also ASIO driven soundcards. Even if you still havent bought an ASIO soundcard, there are extremely cheap alternatives out there, such as the StealthPlug (A cable with a guitar jack, a microscopic soundcard and a USB plug) or any of its cheaper clones. So, from now on, instead of thinking about buying an expensive, non upgradeable hardware multiFX, it might be wise to carry a laptop with this software installed to the reharsal room, studio and even gigs. I am NOT endorsed by IK Multimedia! (I wish I was, though, heh!)

[quote name='silddx' post='391792' date='Jan 26 2009, 03:20 PM']...and although not vomit inducing, they were not far off.[/quote] FAIL!

Do you know Carles Benavent? I met him many years ago, he was playing a fretless Washburn bass that was priced at 240 euros (back in those days the euro didnt exist, but just for the sake of comparison) and the bass came with an extra fretted neck in case you wanted to swap them. That was maybe 15+ years ago or so, and by all means that was an extremely cheap instrument back in those days. Well, Mr. Benavent was playing and all I heard was probably the best tone ever. That day I learnt in shock that, when a minimum quality is attained in the manufacturing of an instrument, the rest is all in the hands of the performer. I have never heard a bass that sounds better than my Rockbass Streamer Standard (around 250 euros cheapest model). There are basses out there, usually 5x its price or higher, that sound DIFFERENT, but no way better. I played around 400 gigs during 5 years with it and got countless sincere compliments about my sound from mixing dudes and musicians. I couldnt help but tell them immediatly the price of the bass and see their faces, heh. This bass was a gift from heaven and it changed radically my perception about budget instruments, I always thought you had to pay big bucks for a pro sound, and probably that was the case until 7 years ago or so, not anymore though. It seems I am naturally gifted with setting up an instrument, so it also has low action with minimal fret buzzing only when plucking hard. Maybe I was lucky to find a particularly good one, but I doubt it cos I tried 4 of them (3 friends bought one from the same shop when I told them to check my bass) and all of them seem to have the same sound. They were all early models, though, just when Warwick decided to start Rockbass... maybe 7 years ago? Could be the quality control is not that high now, but again, I would doubt such thing could happen to a company like Warwick. I dont use it anymore but it is only due to ergonomic reasons, Im particularly picky about neck dive and weight. Its not like this bass is heavier or has more neck dive than the average bass, but I learnt to play with a headless bass that had a perfect balance and low weight and my back and spine are giving me some problems, so it is at home and I only play it while sitting.

[quote]My phones and studio monitors won't really tell me if the lows will induce vomiting, from the audience and the sound guy ;-)[/quote] Dude, there is nothing wrong with a bit of bleargh and tachycardia! Playing bass lines one-hand feedback driven and seeing sixteen 2x18" cabs moving in front of you like old dishwashers is FUN! Heck, even better than SEX!

The Ibanez SR500-505-506 have the thinnest necks I have played so far, plus pretty woods and very good electronics. You should try one in case you havent.

I bought these ones several years ago: [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/alesis_m1_aktiv_monitor_mk_ii.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/alesis_m1_aktiv_monitor_mk_ii.htm[/url] If you plan to spend a lot of time listening them, dont buy anything else. Those are by far the less "ear-fatiguing" monitors I have ever tried. I did an extensive research that took me approx. 3 weeks visiting all sound studios and friends in my city to compare all possible different brands. I tried everything from cheap Samsons to insanely expensive Genelecs and all those reputed standards as the Yamaha NS10, Event, D.A.S., Red Devils, etc. but when I heard the Alesis Mk1 I had to buy them. Perfect for loooooong mixing sessions without headaches or ear fatigue.