Fraktal

[quote name='Brave Sir Robin' post='348927' date='Dec 8 2008, 07:57 PM']played a corvette standard swamp ash passive, very mellow, very woody earthy (hey?) tone. lovely. Was a 4 string though. [url="http://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_corvette_std_5_nat.htm"]http://www.thomann.de/gb/warwick_corvette_std_5_nat.htm[/url] more expensive, 30 days return policy though. [/quote] That bass is a real beauty!

Whats your bass string spacing? If it is tight (16-17mm) I would recommend a Rockbass Streamer Standard, pretty similar to your bass, MEC pickups, the cheapest warwick clone out there and also the best tone IMHO. I love mine to bits. Also with tight string spacing (16.5mm) there is the Ibanez SR505, this bass has a very good reputation in these forums, though the neck is ULTRA thin, nothing in common with warwick neck feel. Cant help you with wide string spacing, I have been avoiding those basses for a long time now, sorry.

[quote name='rjb' post='346090' date='Dec 5 2008, 09:31 AM']Wow, loads of "cheap 5 string" questions at the moment! If you want to buy new then my rec, as ever, is the Ibanez SR505BM. Nice woods, useful pre-amp and very playable.[/quote] Just what he said. Also, the Rockbass Streamer Standard. The clarity and definition of its B string is hard to find even on expensive basses. Soundwise those 2 are the best cheap 5stringers I have ever played.

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='345439' date='Dec 4 2008, 03:18 PM']So lose the pick [/quote] +1

[quote name='The Burpster' post='345331' date='Dec 4 2008, 02:06 PM']I guess teh 305 stayed in teh shop?[/quote] Yup!

+1 for the Ibanez SR 505, bought one 2 months ago and I love it to death. Its true, the string spacing is 16.5mm instead of the standard 4stringer 19mm, but to me thats actually a plus, less effort to pluck the strings and you said you never slap, so no handicaps there then. The 16.5mm string spacing is also very comfortable if you have relatively small hands/fingers. +1 also for what Hamster said, a 4 string bass (such as an Ibby SR 500) restrung B E A D will be cheaper, lighter, easier to play, more comfortable and with less neck dive. Are you gonna miss that weak G string to play metal? I wouldnt TBH.

[quote name='lowhand_mike' post='345243' date='Dec 4 2008, 01:13 PM']the sr 500 are worth the little extra, and i found compared to the rockbass's that i tried the SR 500's had more tone to them, more substantial. the rockbass just felt a little thin and wet.\[/quote] Wich rockbass model did you try, Mike? I wouldnt say my Streamer is thin at all, but maybe I got lucky. 2 months ago I went into my local shop and asked to try an Ibby SR505 that, as usual, they didnt have in stock. The salesman, who is a very helpful and friendly guy, insisted me to try the 305 since it was so cheap and had such a killer tone and blablabla. So I told him: Ok, bring both models to the shop and I will buy one of them. They called me a week after, both basses were at the shop. They were kind enough to set up a markbass 2x10 combo at the basement so I could try both models extensively without scaring the sh*t out of the rest of the clients. I spent there a whole morning and the only better thing I found in the 305 was its weight, slightly lighter than the 505, though this was expected since the 305 body is made out of plastic (sigh!) and the 505 body is mahogany. Regarding tone and looks, there is an obvious difference between the two. It was even funny because the 505 was equipped with elixir strings that I hate (sound wise, that plastic layer kills the sustain) and still blew the 305 out of the water. The mahogany body, the 5 piece bubinga/jatoba neck plus the bartolini pickups and pre are a killer combination. Guess wich one I took home?

Ever heard of Markbass or Schroeder, just to name 2 examples? The current trend is all about small size and light weight. If you cant find that on the manufacturers you are checking, Im sorry to say this but you are checking the wrong brands: Too big corporations without the capability to react to the market needs, aka dinosaurs.

It sounds strange a 4x10 cabinet with 4 ohms impedance... It could happen, but 95% of them are 8 ohms. You can check it by connecting a cable to the cabinet and using a multimeter on the other side, if it reads around 6ohms that means it is actually a 8ohms cabinet. I may be wrong, but I think if you connect 2 cabs with different impedance values, most of the power will run through the lowest impedance cab. And yes, mount the 4x10 above the 1x15, that will give you more low end and better perception of mid range frequencies.

The 305 has noisy electronics with plenty of "hiss" and a mids equalizer that is hard to use, not intuitive at all and most of the time you wish it was a 2band eq instead of that crappy "parametric-wannabe" pot. I have no clue why manufacturers build such cheap circuits inside cost-compromised intruments, when passive basses are much more reliable, less complex and sound much better with proper pickups. As an example, compare the Ibanez 305 sound with the similar priced Rockbass Streamer standard 5 stringer and be prepared for a huge surprise: The Warwick clone has a tone to die for, much better than the Ibanez, and total absence of noise since it is passive. Those MEC soapbar pickups are a miracle!

Some Laney combos have a decent sound, but in my experience most of the particular models Ive tried were kinda crappy... There were one or two good enough for my likings, unfortunately they were a minority.

[quote name='Faithless' post='335000' date='Nov 23 2008, 06:15 PM']I don't dig one thing about string spacing.. IMHO, 6 strings tells a bit about the, let's say, approach to bass playing, so, in this case, what [i]should[/i] be the problem, should a [i]wide[/i] string spacing be, not narrow..[/quote] It all depends on personal preferences. Some people hate narrow string space, others love it. In my case, for some strange reason I wont claim I understand, a narrow string spacing saves me a big deal of pain. My right hand, the plucking one, aches a lot when playing wide string spaced basses. Ive heard a lot of friends complain about "strings are too close" when playing my basses and slapping, but hey, slapping is more fun with 4stringers, aint it?

As far as I know QSC have always had a very high reputation, so I suppose older models will also be nice. Anyway, if you provide links we can maybe help you choose. And remember not all QSC series use switching mode power supplies, so the weight might vary a lot.

I've got the 505 (5 strings) and I love it: Very good sound, versatile, and excellent ergonomics (light weight, thin neck, good balance and close string spacing) I havent tried the 506 but I assume it might be close to mine, you should really try it.

We got a basschat member, name Ian, username 'chopthebass'. He crafts a line of headless basses called "Sirius" that you can see in his avatar pic, they look gorgeous and you can order a custom passive one for cheap prices, having in mind its a hand made instrument and such.

You can never go wrong with QSC power amps. Sure, they arent the cheapest ones around, but their technology is decades ahead most other brands. They have some series using switching mode power supply, so they are incredibly light without sacrificing tone/power at all, plus you can do silly things like I used to with my old 2400 PLX: Wiring both channels on bridged mode to a sennheisser headphone, turning on the power amp at full volume and laugh my ass off while playing music on it during hours without the headphone blowing up... That was FUN! Their electronics will protect your speakers against failure, so such a power amp might save you serious bucks in the long run.

***WARNING: EXPLICIT FLAMING BELOW*** 11-12 years ago I bought a hartke HA7000 head and a 410XL cabinet. The HA7000 was at that time the top-of-the-line brand flagship amplifier, 350w+350w with built in crossover, valve preamp, compressor and everything you could need from an amp. I also added a 2x15" celestion sidewinder cabinet and ended up with a rig 6 feet tall that I thought was the truly ultimate rig. Strangely enough, I couldnt get a really good sound out of that monster gig, and also lacked volume and power somewhat, compared to any other similar power amplifier. but I blamed my inexperience as a musician. All that happened around that age we all suffer when looks matter more than anything else (Uhhh... aluminium cones! Wooo... SHINY!). It soon turned out to be a very expensive mistake. One of the two 350w power stages started failing often, so a sound engineer friend and me decided to open it and check the insides. I wish I had a camera to immortalize his face when he saw the power stages: He couldnt believe such an expensive head was using so cheap components and such a crappy design: Instead of using the good, old, reliable and trusted metal encased bipolar power transistors they used 3-legged epoxy chips. He was the most reputed man in my city when repairing stuff and knew those transistor models pretty well. His diagnostic was immediate: Overheating triggering the protection. He said that was a tipical case with those transistors he had seen hundreds of times before and he even advised me against replacing them, charging me nothing for the diagnostic and losing a fair amount of bucks, since most likely the same problem will happen again shortly after the repair in his experience. Shortly after one of the 10" aluminium speakers started rattling and the combined efforts of a few people to fix it without replacing were in vain. We found no visible reasons for the problem, the cone looked to be in perfect condition, so we though it might be a problem with the piston and magnet alignment/movement. I'm still wondering how a 10" aluminium speaker, supposedly thought and designed to reproduce the full frequency spectrum of a bass guitar could FAIL while working with a crossover cut @250Hz (high pass), while also handling half the RMS power it was rated for. RIDICULOUS. LAUGHABLE. SHAME. FAIL!!! That was way too much for me, I was FURIOUS after spending big bucks in the rig of my dreams to find out it was made by Toys'r'us. At that time, the dollar price was very high and I really had to make a very serious economic effort during many months to afford it. Years later I understood a few basics about professional audio, such as speaker sensitivity, decibels, etc. Then a few things started making sense to me: a 4x10 cabinet with a 98dB sensitivity 1w@1m is, by all means, a clear sign of inefficent speakers. By comparison, a Markbass 4x10 cab is rated at 103dB. You might think 5dB difference is not that much, right? Wrong. To achieve 103dB sensitivity using the hartke 410XL you will need FOUR OF THEM. Thats right, 16 hartke speakers to do the job of 4 markbass (B&C) speakers. I also learnt that SAMSON bought HARTKE some time before I bought my shiny rig. SAMSON quality control, reliability and sound quality have been rated as low as BEHRINGER and often even lower... Go figure. Moral of the question? I wont touch sh*t with "hartke" brand written on it with a barge pole. IMO and IME they sell overpriced and overhiped crap with a quality in par with behringer. There. Now I feel much better! xD

I have an Ibby 505, a Rockbass Streamer 5(passive) and a Rockbass Corvette 5(active) that I got as a gift from a friend that bought it out of necessity and 1 month later upgraded to a second hand Alembic, so it was as good as new. I have played them A LOT during the last 6 years. The best B string BY FAR, hands down, is the passive Streamer Standard. Ugly as hell, I know, but in fact this bass has not only the best 5th string out of the three, but the best 5th string I have ever heard under the 1500 pounds price tag: Tight as hell, crystal clear, perfect definition, even its volume is very well balanced with the E string, you know most 5stringers tend to kick vumeters horribly hard when playing the B string and not much at all when playing the rest of the strings... This is not the case. You can forget about the Rockbass corvette, at least the active version I have (there is a passive version out there I have never played) the 5th string is dark and muddy, at least compared to the Streamer one. The EQ and general tone are harsh. It sits in my wardrobe collecting dust most of the time, and only play it at home these days, unplugged. The Ibby 505 has a very decent tone and I tend to play it the most, not because its sound, but due to its weight and ergonomics: Very light, good balance and a wonderful thin neck. The EQ has a neutral sound on its middle position that I can live with, though if you add some gain the tone becomes unreal (in a bad sense), specially the highs. If you are looking after the best sound in that price tag and can live with its aesthetics, try the Rockbass Streamer Standard and be prepared for a HUGE surprise. Every day I play that bass I get a stupid smile in my face while wondering how such a cheapass bass can sound sooo good, specially the 5th string. Heck, even if you hate its looks as I do, you GOTTA try it!

The 5 string Streamer is very good, I own one and play with it most of the time. The low B string has amazing definition, the string spacing is very narrow (I love that), its passive and very cheap so I wouldnt cry if it got stolen/broken, and has a tone we all love in the bands I play with. I have tried a few other Rockbass models (such as the 5 string corvette active) and I gotta say I dont like them much, specially the active ones. Not that they are bad basses for their price but the 5 string streamer model has much better tone IMHO.

Beyma... Extremely underrated speakers, Im positively surprised someone has mentioned them. Powerful, tough and reliable, even cheap here in Spain since thats where they are made, no clue about international prices. Many years ago I had a 250w HH combo, probably a bassmachine model, cant remember precisely. I blew up its speaker and replaced it with a Beyma K250, a 15 inches 250w RMS speaker (discontinued unfortunately)... BEST... BASS SOUND... EVER! I punch myself in the face every time I remember I sold it, havent heard a better bass sound in my life.