Dan Dare

Good advice. With multi driver cabs, you should normally mic' one driver only. They should all sound the same, so for the purposes of mic'ing, that's the way to go. It can get a little more complicated - the BF multiple 10" cabs for example, where some drivers are fed a different signal and obviously cab's with tweeters or mid-range drivers. No such issues with the C4. Be aware that with close mic'ing, you are not getting any cabinet sound, but just that of the driver itself. For live work, I'd agree with Phil and others that DI is the way to go.

You should experiment to find the sweet spot on cabs that have no tweeter. On cone drivers, if you point the mic' directly at the centre of the cone, the sound will be brighter. It's often better to point it more towards the edge of the cone. If you're mic'ing a cab in a live situation, you want to get the mic' as close as you can to minimise spill from other instruments, drums, etc. Using a hypercardioid mic' helps. They pick up in a narrower/tighter arc and are better at rejecting sounds from the sides and back. It's also important to aim the axis of the mic' at what you want to pick up. In other words, ensure that the capsule diaphragm is flat/180 deg. to the sound source.

It wouldn't make much sense for brands to make their budget offerings too good and take sales from their higher priced lines. Often, companies will own other brands that cater for different price points - Yamaha owns Nexo, which is a pro' audio PA brand, for example.

There's a clip of the new cab up on the BF YouTube channel. No sound, just someone showing how easy it is to lift it.

Surely it's a practice tool. Handy if one lives in a flat, where even the sound of sticks hitting pads can be annoying to neighbours or flatmates.

Took the words out of my mouth. If I'm paying, it's my business and I'll do as I see fit. As for the "someone's paying" point in a pro' situation, I've been there, too. We didn't expect everyone else to be in the control room, hooting, hollering, high-fiving and "engaging" during tracking/overdubs. It would have been pretty naff, actually.

Yep. That massive low end may sound good in isolation and at low/practice/studio volumes, but use it in a live situation and it's usually mud city.

I'd rather poke out my eyes with sharp sticks.

Depends on the individual. I prefer to be left alone to work on something without half a dozen pairs of eyes watching my every move. You can't generalise..

Fair points, but the truth is that, unless one has unlimited funds, resale value has to be a consideration for ordinary mortals like me. I know people say things like "this is the instrument I'll never sell", but who knows what life may bring? Something even nicer may come along and the funds from selling the previous "forever instrument" will be needed or come in handy. Worse case, one might need funds due to some disaster that crops up and be forced to offload something(s) to raise the money. At my age (70), I recognise that the time could come when I am no longer able to play (or lose the desire to do so). If that combines with a need for funds - to cover care costs, for example - I'll have to sell some instruments since, next to my house. they are the most valuable things I own. If I've spent a lot of money on a bitsa, even a superior one, it's likely be less easy to sell for a good price. I was in this dilemma some years ago. I decided to spend quite a large sum on the mandolin I'd always wanted (an F5). I spoke with custom builders and was very impressed by some of their instruments, but decided in the end not to commission one but to get a Gibson because it would hold its resale value.

If you're buying a bass for the sort of money custom shop instruments go for, you'd be foolish not to do an online lookup of the serial number before handing over the cash.

I bought a decal for my bitsa that says Findus Sea Bass. haven't got round to putting it on yet as I'm rather fond of the Dinky Toys decal that's on there already. As far as the OP's question - why is putting Fender decals on bitsas allowed in the first place? - who's going to prevent it? Somehow, I can't see Fender or anyone else knocking on doors at 2 am and the Old Bill certainly wouldn't be interested. "We have reason to believe you have a fake decal on your bass. You're nicked, sunshine". Caveat emptor as always. It's not hard to spot a fake, unless it's so well done it's better than the "real" thing. Nobody moans about high quality copies from the likes of Limelight.

That's my experience, too. It doesn't sound that great when you're stood next to it. Not bad by any means, but nothing special. Out out in the room, it's a different story.

Fohhn LX150 plus XS22 subs (which contain the power amps and software to drive them and the tops, so the whole rig is active although the tops aren't on their own). Like a big hi-fi - very clean, with great projection/coverage. Not the most powerful low end, but plenty for the size of jobs I use them for and I love the clarity.

I'd put it towards the gas bill...

Same here. It's the overdone artificial flavouring/smell. As far as generally imposing your wishes on clients goes, it's your territory, so your rules. Clients can come and go/nip out for a smoke, drink or a munch, but you have to be in there the whole time. If you spill your tea on the gear, it's down to you to clean it up or fix any damage done. I wouldn't have a problem with a studio (nice looking set-up you have there, btw) asking me not to eat or drink in the control room. A few years ago, everyone smoked in them. Now we don't. As a smoker, I was happy with being asked not to indulge my addiction in studios before the law was changed.

Originally, the carpet covering used on cabs was Ozite, which was developed as carpeting for vehicles. Other "rat fur" type products are used, too, but they are all pretty similar. Being synthetic material, it isn't particularly absorbent and the glue layer beneath it (as referred to by JPJ) will help prevent any paint finish from soaking in. I think there's a good chance you'd end up with a horrible mess if you tried to paint a carpet cab with Tuff Cab, which is intended for hard surfaces. Imagine the finish you'd get if you tried to paint your carpets at home and that will give an idea of the likely result. There are articles online about removing carpet finish from cabs, but they all warn of the aggro involved in getting the glue off (again as JPJ points out), not to mention the carpet itself, which is tough stuff and won't peel away neatly (it tends to delaminate, leaving patches of black fuzz and glue, which is hell to remove). If it's still sound, you can revive carpet covering with a stiff brush which will spruce it up to an extent unless it's really badly worn. I've thought of removing the carpet from my Berg' cab for a while now and Tolexing it to match my other cabs, but have chickened out so far because of the potential issues and the fact that it isn't in too bad shape. I think I'll put it off until it gets to looking really awful.

Blimey. The studio must have had an enormous tape machine. Why not a sign saying "No food or drinks in the control room"? It's safer if there aren't cups of tea and drinks cans waiting to be knocked over the gear. As long as there's an area where people can eat and drink, that's quite reasonable.

I should imagine that, at somewhere named PMT, you'd be very likely to be told to eff orf because they were having a bad day...

Get a cheap thin foam camping mattress and cut a bit from it. Will cost you around a fiver. The foam is dense and closed cell, so it compresses, but doesn't squash flat. One mattress will give you enough to do hundreds of basses.

I used to have a bit of a collection of amps, but I sold them all and went lightweight. Now have an AG700 as main amp and Carvin B1000 as spare.

Developing on that a little, I like to set up a quick, simple drum pattern and use that as a click. It's still metronomic, but it feels more real and is easy to play with than beeps and boops.

In isolation, the best bass sound I ever heard from my instrument was when it was DI'd into a Neve console and listened to via some ridiculously expensive studio monitors (can't remember what they were). The "in isolation" was important, though. That hi-fi sound rarely works well in context in my experience. Add the rest of the band and the subtleties quickly get lost and/or clash with everything else that's happening. You end up boosting the upper mids, getting rid of a lot of the delicate higher frequencies, rolling off almost everything below about 80hz or so, etc to make it sit nicely in the track and hey presto, P bass with semi-knackered strings.