dave_bass5

Although we do also have a pair of dB 715’s I could use if we aren’t supplying the PA.

Ah, but I never got on with the F112. I’d hate to actually go FRFR, but it’s an option. I love what a coloured cab does, although obviously it has to be the right colouring. At the moment i have no job or income, and might have 1 or 2 gigs before I get a job. You can see why I’m considering using what I have, unless it’s a more regular thing. I must admit I’m very, very tempted by the CN112 in the classifieds, but it’s way too early to spend money, at least until I know I’ll need to.

I don’t mind carrying my DBR. It’s not the lightest of cabs but is more than manageable. My head tells me it would be fine with the Zoom B4 in front, it’s rated well above my Heads and I’ve never needed to turn to hide up too loud, but my guts tell me it’s not ideal for using as back line and FOH, even in a small pub.

I think handle placement also makes a big difference. I went from the F112 to the much larger CN212 and the larger cab was almost a pleasure to carry. Going up and down 3 floors each way with all the weight on the one handle was quite painful. I may be needed back on bass if i can’t find a replacement for the one that just left us, and although I’ve still got 3 nice heads I don’t have a cab. I’m hoping my Yamaha DBR12 will do the job but I’m still sceptical about this sort of Rig. I might have to get a proper cab.

Also FRFR doesn’t necessarily mean lightweight IME. The F112 i had was one of the hardest cabs ive ever had to carry.

That looks really cool. If I was to get another Helix that’s the one I’d get.

I’ve done that a couple of times when the singer has said she can’t sing in the key we have rehearsed it in for the past month lol. im fact we did All I want for Christmas is you at our last Christmas gig with me using the Stomp to transpose the bass 5 semi tones up 😮 It sounded very poor on its own, but with some EQ and a band playing along it sounded fine, even on the recording I did. Not something I’d want to do regularly, but for one off songs like that It made sense.

Had a rehearsal last weekend. I’m on keys these days. Bass player has been struggling with a certain run. Band were really pleased he finally got it consistently right. When they congratulated him he piped up that he had no idea what they were talking about, as he stopped trying to play it so didn’t play anything. All eyes looked at me…….. 😎

I’d read as much of this thread as possible, you will get a lot of knowledge and a very good idea of what it can, and cant do. Short answer, yes to all the above.

I think this is where we all start out. While we might have been happy with a couple of effects that just go on and off, we start to build more and more presets, because as you say, its all there in front of us, and then get bogged down trying to remember where they are….and then never use them anyway lol. What i did is set my core effects to 3 or 4 presets, with just the last foot switch being different. I named the presets using that effects name. This way I always had what i used the most, and used the patch change to bring in any unique effects to a particular song. I wasn’t a heavy effects user so this work for me. I was going to go the one patch per song route, but we don’t have set lists, and i could never really set in stone what i wanted to use most of the time.

It’s been mentioned before, but it’s always worth pointing out, you can have more than one function assigned to each foot switch. For example, you can set one foot switch to turn one effect on at the same time as turning another off. I used to have a BDDI always on, with low gain. I also had a BDDI with more gain, and less high end, and a slightly lower volume. I had both assigned to the same foot switch, so each time i pressed it it would swap between the two. This worked really well. I could balance the two out so the high gain version was well balanced, volume wise with the first one, just a bit dirtier. Worked great at give it a bit more when needed, without the tone changing. You can also assign the foot swtiches to control different settings within each block.

Yeah, thats what I remember as well.

Yeah, i had some as well. To be honest, what they ended up closing after TAX and Import duty they worked out quite expensive.

I had a HPF set in the Global section, but nothing else was changed from default. I just used a normal jack lead in to my amps. Just using the main out (Left).

Yeah, ive used that twice when my singer decided the key is wrong at rehearsals rather than when we are all (or are all supposed to be) learning the songs. After us taking two weeks to learn the songs in one key, i wasn’t going to bother changing this. They were only Christmas songs so not part of our normal list.

I’ve had the v1 and v2 Paradrivers. Fantastic boxes and much better for EQ, but I always went back to my BDDI. I just felt it had the character i wanted. It didn’t help that I also had a Q/Strip when I got the V2 Paradriver. Thinking it could be a good middle ground between the other two.

This is why its a ‘thing’ IMO. This blanket statement is just not true. The V2 has a mid dial which allows the Mids to be independently adjusted. Thats also called a BDDI 😏. For those using it as a just a flat DI then it can be flat, for those wanting to use it as an amp sim , why would you want it to (which we all agree on of course) It doesnt have to be used as an amp sim though.

Might have been from my post, where i did say I use it at a low setting. This suits me. I do have a bit of drive to thicken things up but without the noticeable tone change you get when verything is running higher.

Cheers Paul 👍

Cheers mate. Its not perfect but a good learning experience. I even mixed it on my IEM’s lol.

We had a singer ask if we could record this for her, so thought we would give it a go. My bass player is on guitar and bass, me on the rest. Really struggling to get guitars and vocals sitting in the mix, more the guitar though. He always records direct to his DAW, no effects what so ever, and i add in the colouring etc in Cubase. I think i tend to over process them a bit. Good fun learning how to use all the controls though. . We’ve done 12 now, but none of the singers have used a decent mic (one used a phone). Would be nice to work with a really well recorded vocal at some point.

I loved the early version for years, but the V2 was just noticeably better to my ears. Slightly less harsh when using the Presence. I belive they made some under the hoods tweaks to the signs routing as well. The larger BDDI’s would have been perfect for me (ive had them), but after hearing the V2 i stopped using the others as i felt they weren’t as nice. I mostly use my BDDI with Blend around 9 o’clock, so not a lot of amp sim, but a healthily amount of active EQ if i need it. This seems to be the trick to getting the best out of them. For the first couple of times i had my first i had the blend right up and hated it with a rig. Now id never play without one if i was still playing Bass.

Yep. I had a BB2, which was a nice cab but lacked ‘oomf’. Same goes for the Frealess F112 i had. I just preferd a coloured cab. Strangely both BB2 and F112 performed quite differently, but both lacked ‘something’ that more than dial cab had. Ive been using a BDDI in front of almost anything ive used for the past 20+ years. Never too much Blend, and not for drive as such, but when my current amps sounded bland the BDDI always came in to its own. The secret is the Blend knob and keeping it low.

Good post. Personally I find ‘flat’ and even ‘FRFR’ to be over used by some people who think they need them. What’s the point of having a flat response? So you can colour it 😂.