Al Krow

Pleasure! What I do want to know, however, is a full list of the brands and models of the several lush basses you've used on your various videos (e.g. was that a Yamaha BB3000A on one of them)? Guess I'm secretly trying to work out whether I've actually fallen for your playing, or I'm just lusting after your basses...😁

That's fine. Some folk don't like jazz or can't stand classical music or opera, or death metal, or... You don't have to like everything and you'd be pretty unusual if you did. There isn't a right or wrong answer to any form of music. At the end of the day if you enjoy playing a particular style of bass and your audience enjoys listening to it, surely that's all that counts?

That's not a bad approach to using the comp. The fact that it has some form of metering, albeit pretty limited, is definitely helpful. But at the end of the day it's a one knob compressor (which @51m0n would regard as being the devil's spawn and has gone on record, saying so) and I personally find that the make-up gain over compensates for the amount of compression resulting in an overall increase in volume as you increase the compression levels, which you then have to "un make-up" elsewhere. The comp is outside the AO circuit and so available for your clean sound, if you want it, which I suspect for most folks will be the more common use. There's a fair bit of compression in most drives anyway but I guess you can always double-up to further increase the sustain if this appeals and probably no need to faff adjusting it down mid-set when you switch from clean to drive given that the drive will, in any case, dominate the more subtle impact of compression. There was some suggestion that DG had included a Hyper Luminal "Lite" as the compression circuit, which does get a lot of positive reviews from users elsewhere. So looking at what we've got included: it's essentially got a Hyper Luminal Lite(?) compressor + AO Ultra preamp + 900W class D power amp + footswitch in a pretty handsome package with DG's reputation for build quality. And if you can pick one up used for a decent price (which I was fortunate to do), you're not going to be doing too badly at all. Unless, of course, you really don't like the AO drive tone, in which case you'd probably be better off spending your hard earned cash elsewhere.

That's good news. A good set of ear plugs will see you right! 😊

It's actually our very own @doc40hz's crew - and must admit he's slapped me into his fan club hook line and sinker...

We've had an enquiry this morning from a significant venue that will be opening up from May 22nd onwards. Fingers crossed that we manage to bag that or one of the following Saturdays - if we don't then no doubt others will be booked in our place. (Guess I'd better get a Glock 3 band preamp ordered for one of my basses then). Any others seeing bookings for end May / June starting to coming through?

Yup, looks like it was off on that particular pic but those are, in any case, my drive settings for when the AO is engaged. Fyi - I'm using the footswitch, which overrides the distortion button on the amp ie will engage / disengage the AO drive unit irrespective of whether the button is pressed on the amp. The led will still come on on both the amp and footswitch though.

Thanks Paul. Here's my settings (at home rather than gig levels!) for comparison. I see we've both gone for pretty similar EQ settings including a bit of bass boost at 80Hz that adds some nice weight to the low end and counters low end suck that most drives seem to suffer from without adding boom-iness at the 40Hz and below range. Key difference seems to be you've cut at 1.5kHz whereas I've boosted, as I'm a fan of the additional "presence" that gives me. Similar amounts of clean blend (about 40%) with our drives - I'm obviously preferring the mid heavy Omega over the Alpha which you've gone for, with bite button engaged for us both.

"What have you got against slap bass?" Absolutely nothing when it's done as well as this!

Clearly been relic'd. Along with the rest of my gear.

I guess you might expect the heavier bridge to have some impact on increased sustain, but corresponding decreased resonance - from transferring less string vibration to the body.

The irony that we're both making use of Tech 21 pedals (in my case the VT Bass DI and yours the dUg) to get the most out of our DG M900 AOs has not been lost on me! (Nor the fact that the one I'm using is precisely the one that didn't work for you straight out of the box 😁).

This review has had 175 likes and no dislikes - it's a really nice (no talking) demo of the preamp, EQ and cab sims available on the M900 AO. Link to detailed review of the amp http://bit.ly/DarkglassAlphaOmega

@NancyJohnson - completely agree with you that the some of the YT clips featuring Dingwall basses sounds nothing like what I'm hearing from the AO drive through my rig and basses either! Scott's review of the preamp is pretty thorough (together with lots of chat!) - worth picking this up at about 7.00 onwards. And if you want to cut to the chase then at 15.30 he does a comparison of the alpha and omega drive tones. My personal take is that the AO is a more "mainstream" drive tone whereas the B7K is what I think of as being "classic Darkglass" and to my ears the Tech 21 YYZ sound is a lot closer to the B7K than the Omega I'll be using on the amp. What I would say is that if you dislike the AO drive tone, then the M900 AO wouldn't be an obvious choice of amp in my books! Although its very capable clean power amp section should pair easily and well with the preamp pedal of your choice.

Haha, nothing so elaborate. It's just tidied away together with the rest of the PA gear, lights etc and all the other stuff that's not been used during lockdown, in our equivalent of a cupboard under the stairs!

Super impressive combination of pedals @lee650 and looking good too!

I got the VT Bass DI just before lockdown kicked in, so it's not been out on the road yet and my gig-rig has mostly been in storage, for obvious reasons(!), and I've been pretty much using my home rig since then. But a very recent separate discussion around DG drive tones with a couple of BC'ers was motivation to get the DG M900 AO out and give it a bit of a shakedown. I did note pretty quickly that the VT Bass DI had the very welcome ability, on certain settings and with its bite (enhanced presence) engaged, to "lift the blanket" on a MB combo I've got. I'm using a close variation of the same setting with the DG+BB2 (gig rig). For me the VT Bass DI has become a "must have" addition when using the MB combo (which is basically a practice combo I've left up at my folks' place), although I appreciate many MB owners are very happy with their untailored sound. It provides a more subtle / less noticeable difference with the DG+BB2 which are significantly more transparent / less treble-rounded than the MB combo but, fingers crossed, it's exactly the "little extra" harmonic richness I've been on a bit of a quest for. It's also good to have got a very decent / usable Omega drive setting on the amp (which I posted a page back on this thread). This will be a very usable alternative to the B7K patch on my Zoom B1-4, which is pretty good and my particular fav Zoom drive patch.

Speaking of plugging a Tech 21 pedal in the front of the M900, just been doing that with my VT Bass DI. With the setting I've tweaked it on (which I've dubbed "bass sheen"), it seems to be delivering that coveted complex harmonic "tube" sheen, that I've seen promised by the likes of Lehle Sonic Spark, and getting my gigging rig as close to the sound of my home rig as anyone is likely to notice in a live mix. So that's a particular box finally and happily ticked. And on the subject of 6 band EQ, hats off to DG for their choice of centre points at 80Hz, 250Hz, 500hz, 1.5kHz, 3kHz and 5kHz - a very decent selection!

Flattery will get you everywhere! I really don't need any excuse to be reposting a pic my vintage white BB1024-sibling even if it's technically got a redundant thumb rest string! But I'll resist, given that I must have posted it almost as many times as @bassfan has posted his very lovely Status (and which has gotta be one of the most coveted basses on BC) 😁

Just gonna give this a little plug on here, in case anyone is thinking of moving on their 1024 (great choice btw! 😊) Yamaha BB 1024 - Items Wanted (NO TRADES) - Basschat

No worries; I thought you were meaning something like the fx return (and also that you knew what you were talking about, which is usually the case!) Personally I've never gone for pedals in an amp's fx loop, partly 'cos I've not really got my head around as to whether there's any real benefit to doing so! But always had them straight into the front end. As you're probably already aware, the M900 series 2 range is very flexible in terms of where you take your outputs with separate volume controls for DI out (pre or post) and main output as well as an independent volume control for the headphone out. It does have a couple of quirks that you need to get used to e.g. the M900 headphone amp (which is 'post DI' so you get the benefit of the full 6 band EQ) is impacted by the amp mute, so you need to leave the amp unmuted but the master volume set to zero for silent practice; and the aux in only feeds into the headphone amp, and not the main amp, which seems to be an unnecessary limitation when you're not wanting to do silent practice.

Yup, but you don't need to do that! And certainly not what I would be doing. Simply plug the dUg or any pedal in at the front end and you can entirely bypass the AO 'module' (it's clear from the circuit diag in the manual) via a panel switch or footswitch. So you still have the benefit of the 6 band EQ.

Enjoy the red. But seriously...I have to disagree on one point. I mean, how can you say that the dUg Ultrabass is better looking than the AO 900 (even if you have wee D3PX sitting on it)?! I mean, does it have EQ sliders that light up helpfully on a darkened stage? 😁

Oh ok, I think if you read back the emphasis was all around the headroom and 6 band EQ: "not come across many power amps that trump the M900 with it's huge headroom & 6 band EQ" which is the point I've just restated. Wasn't really going any further than that I guess worth mentioning that DG kit does have a good rep for reliability and, certainly to me, the form factor & design of M900 are top notch.