Beedster

Most Ampeg heads would not fall into that category unless paired with the wrong cab or the tone simply wasn't to your taste. My rig set up to play in a band doesn't sound good soloed by any means, very middy and lo-fi. Comes alive once the drummist and guitarer get started though.

Great question. If the classic Ampeg sound you're referring to is the SVT on a fridge, then arguably, both head and cab sound like Ampeg individually, and more so if you use them together. But there's more than one Ampeg classic sound as per the above, the B-15 and SVT/Fridge are both classics but both different.

Do we have an 'Unsee thread' option?

I'll put my neck on the line (geddit?) and say that the Fender MIJ '62 RI Precisions necks are THE BEST factory production necks out there. Wide but shallow, beautiful boards and fretwork, and I don't recall ever having to adjust the truss rod, they're very stable. The only thing that can improve them - assuming it hasn't happened through natural wear - is a slight thinning of the finish on the back to speed things up a little.

Agreed, it feels like the BBC Perfect Day thing from about 20 years ago, only without any redeeming musical qualities. Or any redeeming qualities of any sort. I watched it for about 40 seconds yesterday and had a nightmare that I was part of it last night. My therapist is seeing me at 9.15.

Anyone got any ideas about diffusers and absorbers positioned adjacent to each other? It's odd because the manual for the units themselves appears pretty clear on it but I can't find anything on, for example, Gearslutz or similar about it. So, I'm going to assume that, as common sense suggests, it's probably not standard practice. Would like to have the thoughts of anyone who's done it however.

No, that is utterly awful, the fact that there is worse to be found doesn’t excuse it for a second

Gentlemen, many of the usual suspects are here, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that Bobkat gets the best possible bass at lowest cost and risk

That’s singing from the heart

Welcome Andy Only thing that matters with bass amplification is the size of the boxes, the bigger the better, it's all about stage presence, making the guitarist's rig look pathetically small, and whenever possible, completely obscuring the drummist. Don't listen to anyone here who starts talking about 'tone' or 'frequency response' or 'dispersion' or any similar nonsense; only thing that matters biggest box that will fit in the van. If you find a box that's too big, get a bigger van

Absolutely, I've bought several basses from Mark over the years and they have all been 100% as advertised, delivered quickly, and really competitively priced, by which I mean Bass Direct often sell instruments at prices that aren't much higher than you'd find in a private sale, but of course you have a whole lot more peace of mind and protection

Assuming you're in London, I don't understand why you want to buy from Japan, it's expensive, very slow at the moment (Covid has slowed international deliveries to a snail's pace), and if there's an issue with the bass you will not be able to recover any of the VAT/import duty, at least not without a huge amount of hassle (and the fact that some of those sellers indicate no returns would make buying a complete no-no for me, plus the frets at 60-70% given seller hyperbole......?). There are always good Precisions for sale on this site, and none would - or at least should - come with any of those problems.

Agreed, plaiting fog indeed The best test for me at present is simply comparing a voice track recorded in the booth to that recorded at the desk using the same mic and placement. The ambience in the editing space is quite noticeable, despite the fact that acoustically the absorber panels I've installed already dampen the room considerably to the naked ear.

Thanks mate, I think like most aspects of gear there are opinions, general principles and experience, the latter is what I’m after, there’s plenty of the former two on the web already. As with all such things it’s going to need a trial and error approach to a degree, but it would be good to minimise the error as much as possible early on

Nice bass but courier and import duties/VAT will make it expensive

Folks I have a decent booth for recording voice and instruments, but I'd like to get my mixing/editing room slightly better sorted. It's a 3m x 5m space. I've used foam tiles on the walls until recently which frankly were pretty good. I have however got an old set of MSR Acoustics Absorber, diffusor and cloud panels that I'd like to use as I'm confident they'll do a better job. I've used the absorbers recently and they'r e step up on the tiles. I have 5 absorbers, 5 diffusors and 2 clouds as per here http://www.msr-inc.com/studio/project/project_modules.html This is the room layout suggested by the manufacturer for the tiles I have The picture appears to suggest that I mount the absorbers and diffusors in pairs of one absorber and one diffusor each. My understanding of acoustics suggests that this is not the best way, but then I've consistently found throughout life that my understanding of many things is not necessarily the understanding shared by experts, so I thought I'd get some thoughts from you good folks. Unlike the layout above I have a 2.5m, wide desk at at one of the narrow ends of my 3x5m room that faces into the room so that I can make eye contact with whoever is in the booth. If I was to do a lot of mixing I would almost certainly hang the the necessary number of panels c thereby creating a virtual wall between myself and the rest of the room. One of the reasons I want good acoustics around the desk, apart from a decent listening environment, is that in voiceover work that I do I occasionally have to drop a few words or, more usually sentences in to the track during the edit, and to have to go back into the booth to do so is a PITA, so assuming there's no noise coming from the outside I prefer to do that at the editing desk. The problem at present however is that with the current setup there's a noticeable difference in ambience if I have to do more than a few words. My main question however relates to the advisability or otherwise of the pairs of absorbers/diffusors. Any advice/suggestions most welcome Chris

Can someone explain single versus dual action?

I agree with a lot of that, but not re fretless and sustain, all my FLs sustain way better than my fretted even without vibrato, which as you rightly say should perhaps not be in the equation really? Anyone got any data re frets versus wood in the context of sustain and tone?

I’m a real sucker for 2 or three part harmonies, but if we’re talking solo voice, I’ll take this guy

Because my other Wal fretless sustained very well, and it didn't have frets (and of course, relevant to this thread, both had the same very robust bridge) So, from this there are two conclusions 1. That the absence of sustain had nothing to do with the absence of frets 2. The absence of sustain on that bass but only that bass was the result of not having frets Having played a lot of basses, I know it's answer 1, simply because some basses do resonate and sustain well, others don't, and this was the latter. I can nearly always get more sustain of of a fretless because my left hand is able to put energy back into the string to a greater degree than if there was a fret between it and the bridge, in many respects you're massaging the note on a fretless, so I'm pretty good at identifying a bass that will or will not ring out in that context. But of course we can't discount answer 2 because we don't know what would have happened had we fretted the bass, and so it remains a possibility But either way, both options to a degree highlight that every bass is different, largely because of differences in wood (even within the same species of course), sometimes in engineering, but always because the wood, the engineering, and other factors form a unique enclosed system, one in which marginal gains such as changing the bridge might be made, and in which just occasionally such a change proves to be more than marginal. But I can think of only one or two basses I've owned in 30 years on which changing the bridge did anything more than make it easier to set up or play, only very rarely has the suggested change in tone or sustain materialised, and even then it was sufficiently small to be measurable but not really important. I've often changed necks - I play Fender bitsas mostly - and that can really change the substance and sustain of a note*. But I've owned basses with cheap BBOT that rang out for hours and produced beautiful piano-like tones, and basses with Badass or similar that didn't ring out and which produced less clear notes, notes that appeared to contain mechanical artefacts before they even reach the PUPs In short, I just don't buy the idea that changing bridge will de facto change one or more parameters on all, even most basses. It'll do so if the existing bridge is somehow the rate limiter of that parameter, which in my experience is a lot less often the case that we might believe. * And of course, swapping items such as PUPs and circuit lead to significant changes, but these are signal path not mechanical changes affecting the note itself

There is wisdom there, but I suspect many would argue it works both ways

My Wal was the unusual exception, which is why I mentioned it. You said above that it didn't sustain because it didn't have frets. No the case at all.

That's a great lesson in how to reply to a question on the internet, lovely response Bill

So fretless basses don’t sustain?

You need to get out more mate. Oh......