Paddy Morris

That IS the sound.  Amazing.  Compression sounds about right too.

Thanks for all the info @stevie  I'll keep an eye out for someone using a Monza, and maybe go to a gig.

Thanks for sharing that. It's good to know what the issue was.  Glad it's sorted.

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but couldn't you just turn down the volume on your instrument a tad?

7 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

As with @Phil Starr, I hope to be considered a friend of @stevie and although that might seem to suggest a bias, it also means that both Phil and I have a lot of insight into the cabinets that @steviedesigns. 
 

The controlled low end on his cabinets come from careful design and the use of expensive, high quality drivers. Many bass cabinets are designed to be “voiced”, that is have a dialed in response, often with a peak were a DB is itself resonant. 
 

You only have to pay some music through the cabs to hear that there are no nasty peaks or troughs and I would gladly use two Monza or Monaco cabs for HiFi. Of course, being a perfectionist,  @steviewould say they are not designed for that…

 

It is a shame that you are so far away as you could have borrowed mine. I am not gigging for a while as my guitarist had a heart attack last week. 
 

I should also add that I had a Monaco before but as I am having years and loosing muscle quit rapidly, I traded my Monaco with another basschatter for the Monza. 

Thanks for the response.  Very sorry to hear about your guitarist.

Has anyone tried one with a double bass?  They are fussy instruments to amplify.  Any peaks or resonances from reflex tubes and ports, tend to case feedback issues.

Barefaced Big Baby 3 seems to work well.  Was wondering if the Monaco might actually beat it?

I had a pretty good scour of the Internet last year and no one could beat Thomann on Spiros.  As an experiment I had a look on the internet whilst in Austria in February, and they were actually slightly more expensive in the country of manufacture than Thomann UK, for some bizarre reason.

I have this config.  You do really notice the smaller cabinet on the Super Mini.  I tend to use mine for practice on it's own.  Then in parallel with the BB for bigger gigs.  Also sometimes the BB for main backing, with the SM pointing up like a floor wedge, so I can hear my intonation, where the missing bottom octave makes it easier to hear the notes.

https://reverb.com/item/81433078

Believe the hype.

I actually think this is pretty interesting.  The previous Magellans were super-clean, super-accurate, high slew rate racing cars.  People would complain that they didn't 'add' a sound, and I think that's probably fair.  That's the reason I like them.  But if you're an Ampeg or ABM user, I could see how you'd be disappointed.

I'm not sure what an ultra modern, super-clean amp with a 3-stage tube front will sound like.  But I really want to try one and find out.

It's a shame that the curve control and the sweepable mid has gone.

It's also a shame that it's priced for lottery winners only.

We used to have big issues with vocal mics howling at mid/high frequencies.  It never occurred to me that my bass might be involved.  But after taking advice from you guys on Bass Chat, I did all the bass feedback prevention measures: LPF, f-hole blockers, amp off the floor, etc.  And as soon as I damped my instrument down, all the vocal mic feedback disappeared.

48 minutes ago, pete.young said:

 

 I have been given to understand that the phase switch is used when you have two forms of input, such as a microphone and a piezo, and you want to adjust the phase between the two signals. What effect does it have on a single input?

it inverts the absolute polarity of that single input.  Makes very little difference at mid and high frequencies.  But at low frequencies where the wavelength is very long, inverting the waveform can alter the speaker to instrument feedback path quite significantly.  Might make it less feedback prone, but also might make it worse. Definitely worth a shot.

I've got a Gnome and have tried an Elf also, into a Super Midget.  Then I got the little 350 watt Magellan, and I'm never using another amp.  Yes, it's twice the price of most of the micro amp heads, but it's also 10 times better.

I'm a bit late to this one.  I got a gnome to use with 2 Barefaced cabs.  Super Mini T and Big Baby 3.

It's very good, very clean, plenty loud enough.   But the EQ frequencies don't really suit the cabs, and at low a volume practice the fan is a bit noisy.   I also ordered an Elf on that basis that I would keep the amp I preferred and sell the other.  But when, after 4 months it was still on back order with BAX, I cancelled.

I just took delivery today, of a Genzler Magellan 350, and it's absolutely awesome.  Just immediately clean and musical.  The tone shaping is incredibly flexible, and I now think my entire pedalboard is going to be redundant.

That's interesting.  I plain plain gut on D, G and I had expected those to go before the wrapped synthetics.  But seemingly not. They're still actually improving after 4 years.

Well, in the meantime I put an Oliv A on, that I bought cheap and haven't managed to sell on.  I'm liking it.  I'll bet I don't get 4 years out of that!!

I know a few people on here are fans of Evah Pirazzi Slaps, as am I.   I was wondering how often people change them?

My E and A strings have started to sound a bit lifeless.  Well, to be honest, the E string always did, but the A has really dropped off recently.  Mine have been on since about 2019.  They get a fair bit of hammer under normal circumstances, but due to the pandemic, they had a pretty substantial holiday on 2020.

I was hoping to get a bit longer out of them to be fair, as they don't come cheap.

Was wondering how long other users would expect them to last?

Another vote for the Stanley Clarke preamp.  It sounds exactly like what you need.

Nice.  What a great thread.

Unfortunately, yours sounds exactly like the one I had that was broken.  Sorry to say it.

After a lot of disappointing and expensive experimentation I settled on a yamahiko (Japanese Fishman-type) and an Ischell C3 contact mic.  Between the 2 of them you get the character of the instrument.

If I were going for just one then I'd recommend the Ischell for you, because one of the mounting options gives you a 'realist' sort of less bright sound.  

Or just get another Realist, with a view to renewing it every so often.

These sound like we electro-mechanical noises to me.  If they were to do with clipping at the front end of a preamp, they would have more pronounced HF component.

The piezo sensors on Realists don't last forever, because over time the massive pressure of the bridge foot down onto the pickup crushes them.  Someone gave me one to fix a few months ago and, after trying all the things you are trying now, I gave up and he had a fishman fitted.

I hope I'm wrong and you get it working.  By the way, that's a lovely arco tone on your Røde recording.  I think you deserve a better pickup.

You won't regret it.  And actually used is slightly better because they seem to like a bit of 'running-in'

Don't be afraid to show it some bass EQ either.

Unfortunately the accuracy of my Super Mini showed up a whole load of other flaws with my bass / pickup / preamp, which I had previously been able to ignore.  Hopefully with your Clarus you won't have that issue.

Consensus elsewhere seems to be Innovation Orchestral.

Can anyone identify these strings?

I had a look on the Golihur chart and nothing obviously sprang out.