NancyJohnson

So yesterday it was all about Kiss Alive II, but today we get into real noise territory. Right now I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile Deviations 1. It's wonderful. Just wonderful. Oh, and I just ordered some wellingtons.

Kiss Alive II.

My response is very much a, 'Well, I had...' I had a desert gold(?)/orange one, a 5HH and the playability was spectacular. I loved it, there was nothing wrong about any of it (except, well read on...), but sold it on as I had Thunderbirds incoming. My only moan, was that the onboard preamp was a bit hot; I'd start out with everything flattish, just allowing the amp to shape the tone, but as you do, you tweak up and up, so by the end of the session everything was full on and it sounded fairly horrific. I did make enquiries here to ascertain whether I could run things passive...I'd have been happy leaving the preamp in the cavity, but just running with two volumes. I moved it on before I made any changes.

OK...I've gone with the Alto TX210. Should be more than enough. I'll just XLR the dUg into the thing. Fingers crossed!

Thing is, I can just plug into my dUg and it'll be 100 times better...

Queen - A Night At The Opera. Wokring from home...have already done Sheer Heart Attack. Rich Kids next. Then Japan - Obscure Alternatives.

I definitely have a little PJB chubby going on at the moment. One of the ones recently on sale here was just down the road from me too. pink torpedo. One thing that's a great pity is that these things don't have a 9v output on them. Just an observation.

Is that A string machine crooked?

Spector. Yeah, I know my legacy, but put that onto any bass and it works.

I downloaded Futureman Records 'Garden Of Earthly Delights - An XTC Celebration' earlier today (Bandcamp/$12.00); I'm not generally a fan of tribute albums, I suppose in my time I've been on the receiving end of too many of these frankly awful rock tribute albums and I'd sooner avoid them. Anyhow, that said, this is a little different and although I came to the party a bit late, I am an XTC fan. Thankfully there's no heavy metal reinterpretation of anything and it's almost as if Messrs Partridge and Moulding have just gone in and rerecorded 50-odd tracks of XTC/Dukes material with a load of different musicians; in the main, the vocal delivery is extremely close to that of the original recordings, which makes things all the more listenable. Money well spent.

Why not just cut all the ones where Ringo is playing drums? (Runs for cover)

As I understand it, shielding just serves to reduce interference from both inside and outside of the cavity. If you're in a room where you have florescent lights or (in the case I had at one particular rehearsal room) my set up picking up audio from the next room AND mini-cab radio, shielding will lessen that stuff coming out of your amp. The OP is more about a grounding/earthing issue, which suggests something is a bit off with the bass maybe? I suppose this is how these threads meander!

We're talking about shielding as opposed to conductivity? There shouldn't be any need to solder or overlap when you're shielding the cavity.

Look, I know these threads are a show-offy, vanity thing, but honestly, if I had to call on one bass that would be the go to, do it all instrument, it's the Lull. It's a forking monster, even more so since I installed the John East.

It has it's roots when I was trying to describe the sound of my old not-functioning-properly GED2112 thing. Whatever the fault was, it was very anti-clank and the word ponk just seemed to sum up how it sounded. Ponk ponk ponk.

For me at least, while Ashdown stuff was super reliable (I ran a small MAG set up (2x10 combo paired with a 1x15) and used a UK-built ABM rack head for a while), I would say that they needed a bit of help to get them to give me the clank. They were very ponky, so this post stands up. The preamps on their amps just don't drive so much and for the MAG I used a BassPOD into the effects return and the ABM with either a BDDI or whatever the rack version was (RPM/RBI, I forget).

I have no idea what I just watched.

I do love the DG AO900 but with the variety of basses I have the potential to push through it (active/passive, Lulls, Spectors, Hamer), I feel it needs a bit of tweaking with every bass switch. The dUg into the effects return of the AO900 is just far simpler...there's more parity between the sources basses.

@Al Krow (Just an update, @Graemeross cabinets are BB2s, sot Super Compacts. My error.) Graeme runs an M900 into two BB2s. Irrespective of the Barefaced blurb and frequency range claims, I always feel that an HF horn in the enclosure just gives me an nth of highs that add to my desired tone. The more I think about it the more I feel I'd like to go that route. I tried a pair of Aguilars last summer and they didn't do it for me at all. Too flat and ponky.

When all this was fields, I remember buying Gibson plectrums and they had the old Norlin comma and apostrophe squiggle under the Gibson logo. I was amazed that I could buy into a little piece of Gibson for about 20p.

@Al Krow I'm amazed how my amplification set up has changed over the years, from this huge tri-amped Trace/SWR set up, scaling back to a smallish Ashdown MAG/Line 6 POD set up, the Hartke endorsement period, racks of Tech21 and power amps. Mental. If I was starting out now and looking for advice from an amp perspective, I'd just say do your diligence and spend as much as you can on a decent head/enclosure or combo because it will last you years. If the A/O had been about 30 years ago, I wouldn't have needed to throw thousands at my backline, but I guess the road travelled makes the destination a little sweeter, eh? Head aside, the only thing I do think about changing periodically is the enclosure. I won Alex's Barefaced Big One prototype at the SE Bass Bash a few years ago; it's a wonderful thing, but my mate @Graemeross owns a pair of Super Compacts BB2s that edge things slightly tonally, plus they look a bit tidier, so maybe one day I'll look to going that route, but for now, I'm tiptop.

Owned two. A TC Electronic with the modelling thing, it was ok, loved the ease with which you could change patches, but it never seemed loud enough. Currently on a Darkglass A/O. In a band environment it's fantastic; output volume is mental and tonally it's the nuts and I'm 100% happy with what it does. At home though (or at lower volumes) I prefer to use a dUg into the effects return.

I fear for my testicles.