rmorris

I thought this PSW thread on DI bass would be of interest here: [url="http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/22821/0/0/0/"]http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php...sg/22821/0/0/0/[/url]

[quote name='Welshbassist' post='201829' date='May 18 2008, 11:16 PM']Looks like it's designed for style more than substance! I find that low power bass amps are a waste of money, you NEED at least a hundred watts to reproduce the low end! There might be amps that defy this rule, but this is what I've experienced.[/quote] seems like a lot of wood in front of the speaker ?

[quote name='obbm' post='171776' date='Apr 7 2008, 09:25 PM']Yes he has. Studiospares do a very acceptable Stereo Mic cable which I have used for stereo guitar leads. Also I have a drum of stereo cable with two individually screened cable inside a single round jacket. Great for stereo jack cables but no good if you want to come out to separate jacks.[/quote] But if its being used to / from a high impedance source input eg into the 'standard' hi-Z input of a amp / preamp / DI then should really use 'low noise' cable that has a semiconducting layer between the core and the screen. Usually available in single core only I think. Like Klotz Instrument Cable and most other sources have similar I think - Maplin / Farnell etc. Anyway it reduces cable handling noise - the interference type noise you can get from moving a cable - triboelectric effect - by dissipating the charge which builds up ( basic explanation ). High impedances mean much more susceptible to this than line or mic impedances where the use of cotton and other fillers to maintain the position of the cores is considered adequate.

[quote name='Mottlefeeder' post='210255' date='May 31 2008, 09:24 PM']That was my thought. If the 12 volt power supply was wired the opposite to the 9 volt supply, that might draw enough current to fry a track.[/quote] Apparently it was correct polarity. I know what you mean though but no - any realistic polarity protection should work up to 100V or so minmum. It only has to be a simple diode at the minimum complexity. Having said that I had a diode fail in a mixer power supply once and the resultant noise was terrible to behold ( no - it wasn't a Behringer :-)

[quote name='ahpook' post='212162' date='Jun 3 2008, 10:49 PM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=10927&hl=ahpook+sansamp"]thread here[/url][/quote] Ah - OK . I posted to that thread. Did the Sansamp that got blown get fixed ?

Hi all. Eventually getting round to this. rmorris. I'm in Brighton and played around with bass for longer than I care to remember. First inspired by Postcard records stuff - esp Josef K and post punk - gotta give Joy Division / New Order / Peter Hook a mention here. Generally leftish field stuff. Also into recording and design of gear ( used to design electronics / systems for pro-audio ). Various basses in various states of repair and disrepair. But if I look around now I'd grab maybe a Westone Thunder 'ex - 1A' - a 'woody' one - now fitted with a EMG P pickup ; Hoher B2A ; Balck Westoe Thunder 1 or OLP MM2 ( well once I get the action sorted ). Amp wise I'm a little stuck atm as my old TE amp is troubled but I'm mainly recording to PC via Sansamp BDDI. Techniquewise - mix of fingers and plectrum as called for. Bit of (tongue in cheek) slap. Cool Site. Cheers

[quote name='ahpook' post='211635' date='Jun 3 2008, 11:03 AM']i had one till it got fried. to my ears, if you want a speaker/amp emulator then go for the behringer - i'm not sure i'd trust it on stage (being mainly plastic and all), but for home/studio use it's great...and you're not forking out lots of money for it either. imho the mxr di + pi55es on the sansamp from a great height...the sansamp made my bass sound good at home on my own, but the mid-cut just sucked the life out my tone live. the mxr's got a better eq and the distortion's better. ymmv of course[/quote] How did it get fried ? My Sansamp sounded good in front of my Marshall Jubilee 4x10 ( via TE amp set flattish ). The 4x10 is pretty midrange biased so I guess thigs sort of evened out. But I mainly dip aound 800Hz - 1KHz anyway. I guess I should try out the MXR but then again I'm trying to sell more than buy atm !

I used to have a VS Bassamp Head and also a small sealed BASS BABY 15" Speaker Cab. The amp always sounded to me like it didn't have enough oomph. Not the power rateing but more like the power supply voltage sagged and it had trouble supporting real low frequencies ? The VS 'Valvesound' switch was useful at low volume but at higher volume sounded too obviously distoreted to be of much use most of the time. But I loved the green illuminated backing to the controls and the style of the thing with the moulded side pieces / handles and the big knurled srews on the side. Well put together too for access servicing. I think they used '741' opamps - barely adequate for audio so shouldn't expect real hi-fi performance ? EQ could be a bit noisy too. The cab was well put together and sounded pretty good except not really able to get the low frequencies - expected that from the small size and sealed box - ut on the other hand response was smooth. I used the amp with a bigger cabs also so caould tell that the low frequency response wasn't just due to the amp. Eventually traded in the head against a used Trace Elliot 7-band head which I still have though atm it's tempremental again.

[quote name='Paul_C' post='133360' date='Feb 4 2008, 12:51 AM']Is the Sansamp still the D.I. unit of choice ? I've sold my rig and fancy gigging in a minimalist way P.[/quote] I use Sansamp BDDI myself and find it a great tool for both direct recording and before my amp / cab. I guess I'm usually looking for that midrange scoop. The Drive / Presence controls give a good range of sounds - although you need to check the noise levels with the presence control especially. For useable 'edge' to the tone the Drive control is very effective whilst not too good for real 'distortion' sounds. Anyone have one of the Behringer 'copies' Bass DI - the one which has the same functions on the controls and goes for about £28 - £30 ?

[quote name='rmorris' post='210803' date='Jun 1 2008, 10:22 PM']re: Its a HUGE hum the goes away when i touch metal parts - does that include touchig the strings / bridge ?[/quote] sorry - I meant 'touching' - problem with my wireless keyboard

[quote name='gafbass02' post='129284' date='Jan 28 2008, 03:02 PM']Its a HUGE hum the goes away when i touch metal parts and only occurs when any one of the several dimmers is on in the house even if its up full! Its not there on any of my fully active basses with active pups and preamp, i.e. Status jazzbastard, and streamer, but the basses with passive pups and a pre amp its really bad on, ie my ray and my KSD, its there but not too bad on my squier VM. Sounds like earth hum but is a pain in the ass! I tried the belkin pure av from work and it did nothing at all, gutted![/quote] re: Its a HUGE hum the goes away when i touch metal parts - does that include touchig the strings / bridge ?

[quote name='bnt' post='206621' date='May 26 2008, 04:10 PM']A plainer English version of what that Rane document says about multiple paths to ground causing ground loops: A common cause of ground loops in a studio setting is having two bits of mains-powered gear, connected together in the audio path, that have different mains earths. "Different" in this context means e.g. one bit plugged in on one side of the room, the other bit getting power from the other side of the room, or more subtle problems like grounding to a rack. You can sometimes get mains current flowing between them along the [i]audio[/i] ground, because the mains earths on the two sides of the room are not equally-well earthed. (Sometimes, Earth... isn't!) In a live situation, you probably won't have that problem, and you would not want to lift ground anyway, for safety reasons. If you were sending a signal to the PA, it would be a balanced signal that wouldn't cause a ground loop.[/quote] yes - the RANE notes are really good. Also look up the technical notes etc. from JENSEN transformers for more about grounding / balancing / earthing etc. re: and you would not want to lift ground anyway, for safety reasons. it shouldn't be a safety issue to use the ground lift switch on the amp. Unlike removing the yellow/green earth wire in the plug , with the switch the chassis metalwork etc remains 'earthed' but the signal 0V ( 'ground' ) is disconnected from earth, or more usually connected to it via a resistor of around 100ohm. The resistor prevents the earth and 0V voltages drifting too far apart and exceeding the common mode range but should be enough to 'break' the earth loop. Ground lift can be a bit hit and miss - in fact I think that on one Rane tech note the question is asked : 'When did a groud lift [u]really [/u]make things better!' or something along those lines. AND NEVER REMOVE THE MAINS EARTH !!!!

[quote name='ahpook' post='115167' date='Jan 7 2008, 02:24 AM']i suppose it's possible the track was a dud...and something finally gave in the end. the supply was rated 12v @500mA[/quote] Assuming you're using a 'standard' unregulated supply then the actual voltage you get out of a '9V' PSU will generallly be a couple of volts or so above the '9V' anyway ( similarly with any voltage rating of course ). The '9V' applies only at the rated current and will rise as the current drawn from the supply is reduced from the maximum rating. I guess you had the polarity correct - but any half decent designed piece of kit should be protected against that. As has been said sounds like a dud pedal just waiting to blow.

[quote name='urb' post='208672' date='May 29 2008, 10:43 AM']I'm pretty sure the Sei has a low impedance output - the weird thing is that my Epifani 502 doesn't really like being used a pre-amp as I can't seem to get the signal level I want from it - anyone got any tips on this? But the tube head of the SWR BBB is just wonderful - and the resulting sound is just smooth and clear. The only draw back with that combo is that it's only got a 10" speaker - so it's only good for small gigs. Mike[/quote] So is the 'problem' with the Sei that the signal level straight from the bass is simply low but sounds fine tonally or does it sound tonally unbalanced to your ears - not enough low frequencies ?

[quote name='urb' post='170751' date='Apr 6 2008, 04:06 PM']Hey guys Just wanted to share little experience I had yesterday with home recording set up - sorry for the less than coherent title of this thread but I thought as I had use some lateral thinking to get the results I did - that it would be good share any 'discoveries' you've made while working stuff out for yourself...! My thing was that I plugged my lovely new bass into my Mackie Onyx base station firewire interface a week ago and found I had an incredibly weak signal from the bass - my old Thumb bass has a Schack 3-band EQ in and puts out a red hot signal - so this was a bit of a shock to me - that my lovely Sei doesn't blast out bass frequencies in quite the same way. So I thought sh*t - I'm gonna have to shell out for a Sansamp or similar thing to boost me bass before going into the audio interface - then I thought of my lovely little Baby Baby Blue amp - and the fact that it's basically a "studio reference" amp (i.e. people in studios like them I guess) and that you can turn off the speaker on it and take a line out from the back of the head. It's also a real tube amp - albeit a single tube - so the signal is both crystal clear and warm as well. Anyway it worked a treat - just be adjusting the Gain I got the level I wanted and with a bit of additional 'am modeling' in Logic I got the tone I wanted and the signal level too. So I save myself some cash and got a great sound as well - thank f***! Markbass are about to launch a new software plug in that will do the same thing and I know Ameg already do one as well - I just really pleasantly surprised by the quality and lack of noise with the SWR - it's such a great little amp - not as powerful as some of the combos out there but still a really quality little amp - I've used mine loads and love it. I know this stuff isn't rocket science but there's so much to recording that you discover by trial and error - mainly error - so I realise I may sound like a total doofus going on about this but if any of you have any other money/time saving tips then please post away - I'm off to finish my tune. Cheers Mike[/quote] looking at basic electronic stuff - the Thumb presumably has an actively powered lowish impedance output which will work well with a typical line level input which I guess is what you'll find on the Mackie Onyx. Does the Sei have a low impedance output or a 'traditional' high impedance passive output ? ( which would 'want' to see a high 470K to MegOhm + impedance on the input ? )

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='173096' date='Apr 9 2008, 01:50 PM']Without being contentious, I can't see how you can play WITHOUT using your pinky. One finger per fret plus two more frets by stretching (obviously not at the bottowm of the neck - see my avatar). If you don't use your pinky (other than due to a disability), you really are cutting your potential by 25% or more (because it is the finger that can stretch the furthest).[/quote] quite. and my hands aren't huge so it's sort of essential for me especially lower than 5th fret even with slimmer necks. Also agree with whoever said about 'how else to play minor 3rds without changing strings' which can give a very different feel depending on your strings , action , technique. And much much more control / fluidity when playing octaves I find - becomes easier than using 1st and 3rd fingers. If you don't use it the persevere with it - it's worth it.

[quote name='ped' post='206260' date='May 25 2008, 11:15 PM']It's just nice to see, that's all.[/quote] that's fair enough - much nicer to post without the shouty capitals - I'll get back to the intro / profile stuff when I can - it's got late now. cheers

[quote name='BigAlonBass' post='206239' date='May 25 2008, 10:23 PM']and ANOTHER one joins to try to sell stuff, without so much as an introduction! [/quote] and your point is....?

[quote name='BigAlonBass' post='206239' date='May 25 2008, 10:23 PM']and ANOTHER one joins to try to sell stuff, without so much as an introduction! [/quote]

I just put an original Line6 BASS POD on yesterday - gotta turn some gear into cash... [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270240239243&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...E:L:LCA:GB:1123[/url] Very Good Condition - all good. btw if you look at my 'Other Items' I have a 4U rack cabinet on also