jensenmann

I remember the Bass 300 combo very well. The tone wasn´t the best but at that time it was the loudest amp around for affordable money. The barking tone helped to cut through and frighten the guitarplayer and my mom. Not the worst feature. It could not be called lightweight, though. Unfortunately it has been stolen... After that I played an Alphabass Preamp + CS800 poweramp. Again this rig had a barking, midrangey tone which cut through and could be unbearingly load. At that time I´ve been gigging huge open air stages and I never had any problems with volume. But the very best was that it never let me down. Not one single gig with problems. The only reason to sell it was to finance my SVT rig. Better tone but less reliable.

I´ve always been into vintage rigs from my early days on. Whenever tone was important I chose my Ampeg SVT, B15, Hiwatt DR103 or Bassman 135 rigs. Back in my days as professional player most often serving certain types of music was more important than my own tone, though. Therefore I used to play Trace Elliot and SWR amps + Boogie cabs. That combination always delivered but never hurt anybody or came into their way. Since I don´t gig that much anymore but mostly record originals in my own room I´m back to those old mofos. Not having to carry them doesn´t hurt either.... I don´t miss the days when I had to load my cased SVT and 8x10 into my car ALONE

@ Pentode: The HV winding was defective. 40V is not enough for this amp :-) @ Ancient Mariner: My kit was bought from Musikding.

My custom trannies are done by German company [url="http://www.mueller-rondo.com/produkte.htm"]http://www.mueller-rondo.com/produkte.htm[/url] They are very good with torroidal stuff and are willing to wind single custom items.

[quote name='Bigwan' timestamp='1426882457' post='2723192'] The thought of building a single channel G9 had crossed my mind, but I figured the Ampeg preamp would better suit the sound I'm going for. Nothing to stop me trying both, other than a serious lack of free time! [/quote] In the meantime I´m a bit further with my DIY basspreamp quest. The BP1 finds no use anymore. I´ve perfboarded a 3 stage FET preamp with with the intention to simulate the Bassman 135 preamp wit FETs. It has one volume control and a bright switch with 5 frequencies which sounds nice. After fiddling with a tonestack which I didn´t like I finally added a trusty workhorse EQ which I know very well from my studiowork. It´s a DIYed API553-stylee 3 band swinging input EQ. For techies: It´s inductor based, low and mid band proportional Q bell filters and a shelving HF filter. All bands have 3 switchable frequencies which are optimized for my basses. Finding the good sounding frequencies took 10hrs alone... The output stage is a Melcor DOA driving an API 2623 transformer. Here´s some porn, inside: [url="http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3985/fqao7pgu_jpg.htm"]http://www.directupl...qao7pgu_jpg.htm[/url] Outside, the one with the silver frontpanel: [url="http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3985/k8mifzzz_jpg.htm"]http://www.directupl...8mifzzz_jpg.htm[/url] No tubes, sorry.... The single G9 PTP Basspre is in the works, too. The layout and most of the drillwork is done, turretboard stuffed... Pictures to follow...

[quote name='stevie' timestamp='1431967059' post='2776717'] When you do build your cabinet, I'd strongly advise you to have a look at JBL's own plans for these drivers. The 2 cu. ft. or 55 litres that Bill suggested will work, but will be a bit bass light - around 80 litres would be better. Also, you need to tune the box to between 45 and 50Hz, preferably using 4-inch ports. If you tune it to 30Hz you will most likely blow your drivers. JBL suggests a volume of 3.75 cu. ft. for a single driver and 5.75 cu. ft. for two - that's 105 and 162 litres. I personally would stay at the lower end of that range because a smaller box will help power handling a bit and going any larger doesn't really get you any extra bass. There is plenty of discussion on the web about the K140 (lots of positive comments from bass players) and if you search you'll find quite a few plans. The JBL ones are here: <http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/jbl/plans/1970s-kit.htm>. Good luck! [Edited to fix the link.] [/quote] +1 I had a K140 mounted in a 60s Fender style closed 1x15 cab. This combination couldn´t deliver what the speaker is capable of, sounding small and bass-shy. Later I got the original JBL cab which is double volume and ported. That was a revelation. Now it goes lower than my Boogie 1x15 (EVM15L). To me it sounds well balanced and I don´t miss any treble. I don´t do slap stuff, though. Good enough for finger and plec sounds with my tube heads. In the meantime I stuffed the other cab with a D140F which seems to be a perfect fit. This one still has a lot less lows compared to the JBL cab but it sounds organic with a very different character.

If you remove the SM58´s basket you´ll be surprised how close 57 and 58 do sound like.

Thanks, Mike. The 400 is still on my wishlist after having it played only once many years ago. But they are hard to come by, at least here in Germany.

Mike, would you mind to elaborate how close both Boogies are sonically?

This setup would mean that your tuner is in the signal path. Maybe Korg has resolved the issue I had with mine in the meantime, I don´t know. Make sure to check it out. Anyway, if you´re recording you don´t necessarily need to have it in the recording chain all the time. Unplugging for tuning the bass is not that much of an effort. Besides that your Avalon offers two outputs. Use the line-out to send the signal to your dbx EQ and the mic out to send it to the tuner. If Avalon didn´t mess up their design (which I bet they didn´t) then there should be a buffer between both outputs which makes them backlash free.

@Bigwan Why don´t you built the entire G9 sans mic-input/phantom circuit? This is the best bass DI I´ve ever used and I own many, even big name and big $$$ ones. The G9 has outperformed all of them. It´s output has app 1,2k output impedance and can easily drive most EQ circuits - no need to mess with the circuit by installing an interstage EQ. I´ve DIYed the Madamp BP1 a few month ago. The kit was incomplete, with some faults in the documentation, some parts didn´t fit and the mains tranny was defective. Not that great if you´re a beginner in DIY-land (which I am not). After having sorted all that out + some mods and tweaks to the circuit it turned out as a nice bass preamp. But it couldn´t hold a candle to the G9! This convinced me to build another version of the G9 as a basspreamp in PTP. Since it has no EQ I´ll add an AMEK M2500 EQ which I have sitting in the corner and pre/post EQ DI outs.

Unseen which one you use, make sure that it get´s fed from a tuner out and is not between your bass and amp. I have two different Korg rack tuners and both create clicking noises when they are in the audio signal path.

Being a microphone nerd and having app 150 microphones at my disposal it really hurts to read people seriously recommending cheaparse mics. There´s a german saying: if you buy cheap you´ll buy twice. Anyway, your shop is right to not recommend the PG series. These have nothing common with all the attributes of a SM58 except the brand name. Get another used 58 or a SM57 which gives you another sound option if necessary. In case you want to go more versatile then have a look at a Beyerdynamic M88. These are the very best bang for the buck most versatile dynamic microphones ever. Besides being a great vocal mike it´s fantastic for drums (yes, kick, too), bass guitars, guitar, brass, etc. That mic would be my desert island dynamic microphone.

Recapping is a good idea. I did that with my Mk2 5er, too. IIRC I used 10uF or 22uF. Increasing coupling caps lowers distortion and phaseshift.

I´m using Rockinger strings for my fretted Wals and Pyramid Nickels for my fretless.

After a second look at the Kreutzer pre I´d strongly vote for a chip with better output drive capability than a TL072. The first amp sees a load <2k which is the minimum rated load for a TL072. It will distort depending on the setting of the pots. Besides that I´d lower R12+R13 to reduce thermal noise and then use a BJT input chip for better noise performance. Inside an EQ circuit it will make a difference. Thanks for the LT1169 info. I´ll give it a try. Some parameters do look promising.

I just stumbled across this DIY project which has similarities with what I built a few month ago. It´s basically a Bassman 135 converted to FET transistors. My version had the original tonestack - EQ with switchable frequencies for every filterband. The sonic quality of my build reminded me on my Bassman. Success! That´s what I was looking for. The EQ behaved similar, only the fequency switching mod didn´t turn out as exiting as I expected. It seems that Mr Kreuzer was on the right track with buffering the EQ, though he used a different topology. I think I´ll go the same route. My DIY background is studio gear, that´s where I´m coming from. I´d say +1 to passinwind´s comments about TL072s and OPA2134s from that point of view. But in my expierience with MI gear I´d propose to use TL072s because their artefacts make a certain sound which might help a signal to cut through on stage. HiFi sounds are not the easiest to handle thing for me on stage.

A friend showed showed me his AER combo some time ago and it was stunning. Definitely something to check out if your looking for small and loud.

Unfortunately that´s not an old valve amp but some cheap crap pretending to be something which it is not. There´s a german saying: if you buy cheap you´ll be buying twice.... If you want an valve amp which is capable of gigging then get something with 100W or more. Fender Bassman 100, 135 or studio bass are fantastic as well as Boogie d180 or 400, Ampeg V4B or SVT or Hiwatt Custom 100. Get one of these and don´t look back. Anything transistor or - even worse - digital will never ever come close.

At least there´s a picture of that bass on page 2 of this thread. When I picked it up Pete told me that it was one of the very first fretless sixers he ever made.

I traded it for a Wal Midibass with our member Spiritchaser. IIRC Oliver sold it later on. If you want to know more you need to contact him. He´s a nice bloke anyway.

That picture has been taken at Pete´s old place in High Wycombe, isn´t it? Looks familiar to me. I´ve been there in mid 90s to pick up my ex-sixer fretless.

I´m using a KMT DC5 with 2x500W. It´s not lightweight since it runs from a linear PSU but it has punch and lowend for ages, not like a switchmode-PSU amp which craps out after a few seconds of loud LF massage.

Since I have tons of hardware I´m not very interested in plugins. But from time to time I check what´s going on in softwareland and there are a few pearls which I consider as good tools. I like the softube CL1B plugin a lot. From my UAD card I´m only using the 33609 compressor. I might be using more of the other plugins but I have many of the hardware originals, so I simply don´t need these, even didn´t check them all out (sorry, this sounds a bit snobbish...). Another great tool is the Lawo plugin collection.