Stub Mandrel

I've had my Bass Terror for two years and done plenty of gigs with it. I wrote a summary for someone who asked what makes it special, and I thought it might be useful here. I've been gigging one for two years. One line summary: It's a hybrid amp, so you need to use gain to drive the valve input for the tone you want, and the master volume sends this to the clean class D output stage. The main benefits are: Valve tone - if it's the 'classic' Orange overdriven without ridiculous distortion tone that's important to you, then this amp has it. Great basic tone - the amp sounds good with bass, middle and treble at 12 o'clock, and the controls give good shaping without being too severe. Controllability - it's easy to find a place on the gain control (usually between 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock for passive basses) where you get a signature, only slightly raw, tone that can easily be overdriven by digging in - but the point does change between basses. A switchable clean tone - if you want it. Power - loud enough for anywhere, I saw Diamond Head use one as backline at Manchester O2, which is huge. Plenty of headroom, helped by natural compression of the valve input stage - no compressor required to access that power. Light - easy to carry. Pad for active basses. Very reliable DI with ground lift, I use this at 90% of gigs as I can shape the tone I send to the PA, including that control of the overdriven sound. Speakon connectors. Downsides: Light, I have to strap mine down so it doesn't vibrate off the cab. You can't use a jack speaker lead so you need a spare speakon (but I think jack speaker leads are poor IMHO). Very powerful, so hard to adjust for low volumes - not suitable as a practice at home amp unless you use the pad with a passive bass (which means you lose the overdriven sound). Three feet fell off the carry bag in the first couple of months. The fourth foot lasted over a year. The internal shield started rattling at volume, so I had to open it up and bend the shield away from a nearby valve cover. TIPS: Run the gain high enough to get the tone you want, and use the master volume to set the output. Using gain to control volume defeats the point of a class D with valve preamp. Always start with tone controls at 12 o'clock and work from there. Use the ground lift on the DI as a precaution, UNLESS that stops you getting any sound. Remember to set the switch at the back to match your speaker impedance for maximum protection. Keep it strapped down!

I've never, ever, been bothered by neck dive. I suppose it's either something that bugs you or something you compensate for and don't notice.

I have one of these (slightly different branding but same foot logo, lots of variations out there), it's surprisingly effective for pedal tech nearly 50 years old...

Went to Denmark Street yesterday and my brother was going to buy something! He has my ancient Laney ProBass 150W head, and it's starting to show its age (about 40 years) and an Ampeg Portaflex 1x15. He's unlikely to play with anything louder than a cajon but wanted to be future proofed. He only tried out one amp (through a very nice Aquilar 1x10) and walked out with an Elf, which I reckon sets him up nicely as he can always add another cab to have a rig that would play virtually any venue.

Hawkwind at the Royal Albert Hall, supported by Arthur Brown. Hawkwind played for about two hours twenty minutes, an audio-visual assault that lived up to the promised 'celebration of the sounds and rituals of space'. Pretty the textbook definition of space rock. Not my video.

Follow the manage settings button. It's accessible from the Orange Tab.

I thought people wanted control over Ezoics. The tab, presumably, is meant to make this easy to access rather than having to hunt through a menu. It's overkill, but not an unreasonable response given how reluctant many users appeared to be to adopt a solution requiring following a menu to adjust cookie settings.

0dB reference would be at 0.5m. Would be better to use relative to 1m as that's where amp SPL is measured. So: 1m 0dB 2m -6dB 4m -12dB 8m -24dB So an amp giving an spl of 115dB at 1m would give 109dB at 2m (e.g. standing near the amp at floor level). 91dB in the audience of a relatively small venue. Note that enclosed spaces mean spl will be a lot higher at distance.

AC30 is rated 30W at the onset of audible distortion. Classic Marshall 100W valve combo is 100W maximum output. Somewhere on YouTube is a test showing the AC30 is actually the more powerful amp. Rehearsal on monday one guitarist was using a 5W valve amp.

Blimey. So sad so many Basschatters don't get to share their passion. I suppose I'm lucky - my partner knows loads of people on the local music scene. But I'm not shy and chat to any and everyone about music - I met a guy who was looking at the same guitar as me in crack converters and ended up gigging with him. My advice is just start conversations. It can be as anodyne as vanilla, people are usually grateful to talk something interesting. Went to a celebration of a lost friend tonight. Chap I jammed with at Monday's open mike was there, we spent a good hour chinwagging. music is an icebreaker. Please don't be shy of talking to people, especially bands. 98.7% of bass players appreciate being approached by another bassist!

Be careful what you wish for. People demanded control of their Ezoics settings. They got a permanent orange tab so they can easily adjust them whenever they want.

I run Farcebook in a Firefox container, and have a few things to limit tracking. But I quite like cookies; am I the only person in the world who prefers targeted adverts?

I for one welcome our Ezoic Overlords. TBH, I've really given up worrying about this sort of thing. The only problem here is an above-normal level of transparency. I bet many of the folks up in arms put up with far worse from Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. because they don't realise how much they are being cookied.

There's a tiny pocketbook by Paul White called Basic Live Sound - get a copy. It feels like a compilation of magazine articles, and some of it is VERY basic but it covers what you need. The best bit of advice (missed by most people) set the faders at the 0dB level, and set the gain for each channel with the loudest likely signal going into them to give 0dB (or even easier, use a PFL (pre-fade listen) button to do this if your mixer has one. This will give you the best signal-to-noise ratio and make sure you have plenty of headroom. The other best bit of advice is to set all the EQ at 12 o'clock unless you are really sure something needs something else. I once transformed a band's sound simply by getting rid of the absurd EQ settings the usual guy had got to by tweaking everything a bit at each rehearsal.

If you need playability and decent sound at the lowest price a Hardly-Bent-One is the only option. I have a bass that cost fifteen times as much as my HB five-string, and I gig them both. My brother has a 1962 SG Junior, and gigs it along with an HB that is worth about 1/50th as much.

It depends on the venues you expect to play. If you are genuinely backline only and expect to play medium to large pubs or clubs you'll probably need more than 100W unless it's a very gentle band. That said, investing in efficient, quality speakers (whether in a combo or separates) can make as much of a difference as multiplying your amp power by ten. My backup TE Elf at 250W is more than loud enough through my 4-ohm GR Bass AT212, but struggles to keep up with a drumkit through my teeny 8-ohm Phil Jones C2.

All the time, always have and hopefully always will. <Edit> and my 'first date' with my current partner was taking her to one of my gigs 🙂

That's great. You can the overlap between punk and Hawkwind.

So that's all settled. What about tribute bands?

It's unfortunate that the PRS site doesn't explain thing with that level of succinctness. I'm still trying to get my head around teh busking thing. Do buskers get a fee for playing their own songs, or does submitting a setlist just trigger a payment of £1.47?

If I am able to come I will find summat for the raffle, even if it's only a roll of gaffa tape!

Last night's amp setup. Note master volume... not through the pa either.

Gigged the MB5 again yesterday. Sounded great with the warman pup although only one song. Did have to up the gain a bit.

No, there are hints such as basing the playing of covers on a 'sample basis' of setlists but without clear details for how this works. The website also seems to suggest that they make small payments to buskers, however the writing is so confusing I may be wrong on that.

I tried to work out what they actually do, but their whole website seems to be written on the basis of providing partial information, so you have to contact them to find out what is actually needed...