Jack

Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said now? Not really, no, no.

If you ever run your passive bass straight into a passive DI, or indeed through some true bypass pedals that are not engaged, then there is a chance that the passive di box will load the pickups on the passive bass down to a point where this can be heard. If you can hear it, then there is a chance that you do not like the tonal change. The physics is a given but whether it's audible depends on the pickups and the di, and whether it's a bad change depends on the player. In those situations an active DI alleviates the issue. If you have some pedals that are NOT true bypass, or pedals that are turned on, or anything else with a buffer like a wireless unit or an active bass then a passive DI will not experience those loading issues. Actually it will, but just so much differently that you can't hear it. In short you would be fine with either. I don't think your pedal is true bypass, and it won't matter either way if it is turned on. I did a comparison of an £8 and £150 passive DI box on here a few years back if that helps you. The superficial differences in sound were not meaningful to my ears, but worth noting that the LBP certainly feels better made etc. I still have several nice DIs including the Radial Stagebug 2 that would be my recommendation for someone to buy, but I always reach for the LBP if I want passive or my 20 year old Countryman for active. The only times I really use a separate DI now is when we're working with an external sound company and I want to protect my Quad Cortex from an unknown PA system, that's nearly always the LBP's job.

Very nice to see them back. Love the slick convertible combo thing. The heads say 4ohm minimum, but they sell a pre-done stack with the 115 and 210 (4ohm each, 2ohm total). How odd.

Depends I suppose. I think I could play whatever in my hard rock band, but in my life I've been in two bands with an 'image', pop punk and indie. I guess the extreme example would be a tribute band.

Of course it's my problem, this isn't the rational prejudices thread.

Visually out of place basses and guitars. I was in a pop punk band for about 9 months and I played a sea foam green, maple necked G&L SB2 because that looked great. My replacement (who does an otherwise fantastic job) plays a sunburst jazz with a rosewood board. I wouldn't play my purple Spector in a blues band, I wouldn't play my sunburst scpb in a doom metal band (although that's not as egregious and you arguably could because p basses go with everything). If you only have one or two basses then crack on, but if you have a collection and you bring the Musicman Bongo to an indie rock gig then more fool you. And I should know, because I did and I felt silly doing it.

My hard rock band's first PA used a pair of Carlsboro speakers. At the time I really didn't like them, but in fairness to them the rest of the chain was awful, there was some ancient desk where half the channels didn't work, a rack of god knows what crossover and amps, and then some subs that had been made by some local DIY shop. They had the awful circular speaker grills. I think the tops were 15s and the subs 12s which is entirely the wrong way around. The only things in the PA were three vocals and a kick drum and yet somehow it still sounded awful. Was it the gear? Maybe. Or was it because it was my first stint as soundman and I didn't have a clue as Phil says? Yeah, that. Mea culpa. Anyway, my point is that we did several successful gigs with absolute cheapest of the cheap, bottom rung stuff and you know what? It was fine. Not the great sounding "why do people buy anything else?" experience I've had with some cheap gear like the Alto rig we upgraded to, but it was absolutely usable. I wish I could remember more about that mixer and amp rack but it's probably for the best to be honest. I know the mixer had wooden sides, a sure sign of quality. Since then I've had my grubby mitts on: Also TX10 Alto TS115A Alto TSUB118A Barefaced FR800 QSC K12.2 (still own these) RCF 705 as ii and been in bands that have used RCF 912 RCF 932 RCF 910 RCF 708 as iii For about eight years I was in both the above hard rock band and an indie rock band. The hard rock band had upgraded to the frankly brilliant Alto 15" tops and 18" subs listed above, whilst the indie rock band used the RCF 932 and the 905ii (I owned one sub, the guitarist another matching one). Both bands used my Behringer XR18 as a mixer, I'd have expected a bit of a jump between the two systems but honestly there wasn't much. Yes maybe you could do more with less of the RCF, we nearly always used just one sub with the pair of 12s, whereas the hard rock Altos always got the pairs of 18" subs and 15" tops, but maybe that's more to do with the band being louder than anything else. Certainly by the time one factors in the room, the other gear in the chain, and my deficiencies as a soundman I don't think there was much in it. The best pa I've ever owned as a band was my pop punk bands rig of a pair of RCF 910 tops and the single 15" sub. That was an awesome rig: played loud enough, sounded great and we were totally ampless. I would 100% recommend the Alto rig to anyone though. Ours must be about 15 years old now and I'm sure the newer stuff is probably even better than ours. There's a lot of posts on here about people being cautious about investing in a PA but it's not much more than a decent bass rig if you hunt for bargains, and it can certainly be a lot cheaper than two guitar rigs and a bass rig all added up. Thomann will do you this set for £1300, and whilst it may be own brand stuff, Thomann stuff is nearly always excellent and the same shop wants almost as much for a Darkglass 410 bass cab. Has anyone tried the Thomann DSP or DSX powered cabs? I'm really keen to hear hands-on reviews. Here's the Alto rig, as the Americans would say, getting it done. And doing it just as well as fancier speakers. Especially in what must have been a bad sounding room given that they're pointing at walls. Oh, bargain basement gigging...

That's really good to hear, thanks for sharing. The Thomann own brand stuff usually punches well above its price point, just look at the praise that Harley Benton basses get. I've got a suspicion that the dsp and dsx range from 'the box pro' are probably as good as some of the offerings from qsc and rcf but I've never chanced the £250 to find out. I do love my Thomann Mix Six though!

Plenty of photoflames still about too, although I think it's pretty rare in new guitars. Edit : me and Dad on the same page again.

I should have quoted the post, sorry all.

Quite, my first thought was a normal mixer but it doesn't really work in the requirement for one rack unit. Or if it does then it doesn't leave much room for your fingers at least.

You could use something like a Rolls PM351 or PM50 if you want wired. Rolls is nearly always the answer for this kind of audio routing thing. Otherwise I think you're looking at a mixer (either a normal one or a little line mixer like the Rolls MX54) which then runs into any normal wireless IEM system.

I think it depends how much you want to sit 'in' the mix vs being distinct. IME the pre-special Stingrays have a definite lack of subtlety, especially in what I hear as a very artificial top end. When people say "the active bass sound" I think of Rays whereas something like a Sadowsky sounds like a passive bass with more eq control.

That's a much harder question to answer I'm afraid, and it's much more dependent on other gear and members of the band as well. Are you in control of this mix? If not, who is? Do you have a spare aux mix or two on the mixer? Every mixer? How will the rest of the band hear your bass? To get you started I have a band member who uses and likes the Xvive system (which is a good budget option), I use a Sennheiser G4, something more mid-range in price.

Beat me to it.

"Tone is in the fingers" is great until you try adjusting your fingers to get the sound of an overdriven tube amp, a DOD meatbox or a reverse delay.

Then your setup sounds ideal. My backup board is kind of similar and works great.

Probably. Sorry the reason most people are either being vague or just recommending what they use is that we don't really have the information we need to properly answer your question. What's the situation? Band? Type of music? Volume requirements? Will this be going in to a pa (yours or supplied?) or backline? Do you also need some way of hearing yourself? Etc etc etc. Really the only thing you actually need is a DI box or something with an XLR output, and even that isn't actually necessary. Nothing to stop you just taking a normal guitar cable and plugging the bass straight into the mixer.

It really depends on what you need to do, specifically, do you just need to get yourself into the pa system? If so then that's comparatively easy. Or are you also responsible for hearing (monitoring) yourself?

If you care enough to have a nice suit then you should care enough to wear a belt. If it has belt loops there should be a belt in them. Debretts says so.

I quite like some of the YouTube videos so I signed up for the year. £200 for about an hour. Shame really, I need the lessons.

I thought these were all sold, or was that the carbon fibre ones? How's the neck dive if its so light? ...asking for a friend...

Normally such a boomer thing to see online but I think this thread has been thankfully free of wife jokes.

Thundercat, Tal Wilkenfeld, etc