Al Krow

Alto have recently released their 3 series, with a lot more headroom than the previous 2 series, which our dep guitarist went for in preference over Yamaha and QSC on value for money grounds. If Alto's quality of components is on a par as some of its peers, as Luke is implying (and I have no reason to doubt him!) then maybe RCF, Yamaha and QSC need to start looking over their shoulders

One thought: have you tried putting a compressor before your filters? My signal chain is Thumpinator (i.e. HPF) to clean up low end crud --> TC Spectracomp --> Filters I find that the my filters (particularly the MXR BEF) are significantly more responsive with the compressor before them in the chain. I just wonder whether you would find your Fwonkbeta able to handle slap if you had your compressor at the start to feed it a tighter signal? Be interesting to see if this makes a difference or not.

That's reassuring! i.e. 'odd' in the sense of 'unexpectedly good quality' for what they seem to be charging?

Genuine Q - have you A/B'd the Alto and the RCF or are you going on reputation (and I agree RCF has a great reputation and our PA speakers have never let us down). Reason for asking is that one of the guitarists I work with decided to go FRFR with his full fat Helix. We went to PMT Romford and he A/B'd Alto, Yamaha and QSC. He left with an...Alto (!) - neither of us could hear anything materially better with the two better known / more highly rated brands to justify the additional price. But maybe the price difference is not reflected in sound but in the quality of components and reliability / longevity?

Agreed But for some reason he starts by saying it is a comprehensive guide! Why do that? He does it indirectly by saying that his students complain that their basses are not cutting through the mix and goes on to say that an active bass won't help them to do that. Well, with due respect to Scott, that's bollox: just flick the active switch, give the mids a boost and see if that doesn't make a difference compared to playing the bass passively. It will, believe me. Tbf - he may not be aware of this as he "only ever plays his basses passively". Lol! Ok I'm just kidding, he knows this stuff very well... Anyway, I'm sure you and I have other things to be doing this evening than discussing this one point! Have a good rest of the day Mr Tobe

@Tobe we're at cross purposes here mate. My point is that tone of a preamp in a bass, a pedal and an amp is much more than about EQ settings. Scott is suggesting that tweaking the EQ on an amp can have a massive impact on tone but doing that on a bass makes no difference. He can't have it both ways. EQ is basically EQ, albeit centre points play a part. Let's agree to disagree on this one.

@Merlino - our Fwonkbeta settings are pretty close!

Cheers Cam. On price grounds then a single TS308 is going to win hands down over multiple Helicons. I take your point about individual monitors and would certainly be ideal. But it's a trade off between simplicity and quick set up (particularly for pub gigs) and the ideal.

Errr not quite my reading. Scott says "students come to him all the time and say things like they are not cutting through the mix" [7.05]. And then he dismisses using an active bass to deal with this. Well, actually, that is a BIG reason why I would use an active bass - by boosting the mid EQ to cut through the mix. He can't in the same breath say that the EQ on the bass makes no difference and the EQ on the amp makes things wildly different from a tone perspective. And when referring to "pre-amps" he only refers to the EQ not to whether it is SS, valve etc and the fact that each pre-amp has it's own tone completely irrespective of the EQ. He's conflating and confusing a whole bunch of issues.

One other thought on the TC Helicon getting back to John's initial point is that, unlike the TS308, in an emergency it wouldn't be a back up for the PA speaker (given the 150W power rating). The Alto is only an extra £30 on top of the Helicon, so relatively marginal in terms of benefiting from that additional 'insurance'. Of course, if I do start getting Alto gear I'm going to be totally tempted, and completely without good reason, to get this TS218S as well god help me! 😂 🤣...

Very interesting suggestion, thanks. Love the weight / size! But is it going to be much louder than the Behringer - they are both rated 150W RMS? I think with the full back line behind them, a chunk more volume from the monitor would be welcomed by the singers (and the rest of the band being able to hear them from behind the PA also).

Fair. But, if so, he could (and should) have simply said that this was an introduction rather than imply that this was a comprehensive and full picture. I'm not sure that would have lessened the impact or benefit of this for beginners. I just think folk who are in a position of influence and regarded as the "experts" by beginners (and I have a huge amount of respect of what Scott has managed to achieve), just need to be a mindful about making overblown claims about what they are putting out.

Just upgraded our Allen & Heath small mixer (Zed10fx) for a slightly larger one (Zed14fx), John. We did think briefly about a digital mixer, but decided to stick to a simple quality analogue as we don't have a dedicated sound man and felt there was going to be too much of a learning curve / opportunity for things to go wrong with a more sophisticated digital mixing desk. That and a significantly higher price for a quality digital desk. I've had figures of £2k suggested for going IEM. But from what you're saying that's maybe too high? Realistically, I think that will be something for the next upgrade in 2 to 3 years time rather than something we are ready for just yet. I do like very much the suggestion of no back line, but I did the math and to get rid of a bass cab and putting bass through the PA, we would be looking at either swapping the 310As for 745As to deal with the low end well or alternatively adding a separate woofer / sub woofer. And the weight saving was actually negligible (or actually a greater weight for FRFR only).

Sorry, fair point, I read your post too quickly. The vocalists are pretty happy to just have the vocals going the small B205D (just one), possibly with acoustic guitar, as the drums and back line are audible behind them.

@Quatschmacher "Running a bass through a Moog 1". Some great sounds for sure, no question, BUT.... it's not going to fit: - on my pedal board (or currently anywhere at home for that matter!); - my budget either at a bargain basement £6k!! Kinda feels wrong to be playing it as a bass pedal when it's really a polyphonic keyboard synth? But for a pro, it could well be an amazing piece of kit and I can see why you've fallen in love with it.

Haha, that took all of 3 posts! 😂 Min cost of IEM for 3 bands and 14 different band members + a couple of deps, for a decent quality set up?

Pardon, what did you say...I'm not sure I heard you? Could you shout a little louder please? 😂

A lot of you will have already seen this and there's a lot of good common sense. And actually I really liked the tone on his bass at the very start of the clip!! But I totally didn't get his comment that active bass EQ makes no difference whereas EQ settings on the amp can result in a "wildly different tone" [8:20]. He also seems to be suggesting that speaker cone size [9:15] has an effect on tone - smaller speakers give rise to a tighter, punchier tone. And how does he manage to not mention the pre-amps whether onboard, in a pedal or in the amp? Surely one of the biggest determinants of tone of them all? So his claim to have gone into 'every single one of the big steps' that go into bass tone (and been viewed nearly 300,000 times) seems a little over-reaching.

Does kinda make very good sense though. Why would you want to put a cab sim through another cab? If you want to go FRFR you can do via the DI.

Too much squelch?!! Sorry, I'm completely unfamiliar with that concept! Some might even regard it as heresy! 😂

Congratulations and immense respect to Billie Eilish for "When we fall asleep, where do we go?" What an amazing creative achievement.

"We have several vocals, sax, acoustic guitar and most recently a touch of kick drum going through the PA with lead guitar and bass going through separate back line."

All good points John. Around £300 for a Mk III plus cover. Ok not a big difference at all if it's a better product. Power rating for the Alto is higher and it's a lot more compact (literally half the volume of the RCF 310, which surprised me!) and weighs 20 lbs rather than 28 lbs I'll have to confess that every little helps when it comes to portability as I'm the old geezer in the band but have, in the tradition of bass players, somehow managed to have responsibility for PA, lights and bass gear for both my bands!! Lol! And we are replacing our ultra-portable Behringher B205D so that will be missed in terms of convenience and space.

It's too light** and would be ineffective in such a capacity. **the technical term is ultra-portable.

Guess what the turned up on my doorstep today? Did anyone say ultra-portable?! Well it really is! Comes with 6 AA batteries and can live on a corner of my desk and I can listen through a pair of headphones. So in terms of barriers to getting to grips with the basics of synth, I think this little Stylophone has just removed a few