bassman7755

Have enjoyed in the past playing in a commitments type soul covers band and a blues covers band even though I don't especially care for either type of music (being more of a rock/metal guy). Thing is you get gems in every genre that make it worthwhile - I enjoy playing Tears of a Clown as much as I enjoy playing Enter Sandman. RE the original post, would jump at the change to play Dancing Queen for example - what a fantastic bass line.

18 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

I think that this is very key. I liken it to my interest in film, which I come to as a complete layman. There are no doubt countless details and techniques employed at every moment of a good film, from the writing to the cinematography, to the lighting and dubbing. I only really notice those things if they aren't quite up to scratch, however! Moreover, I don't really care about those details- as a viewer I just want to experience a good film. However, someone needs to consider those things so that I don't notice them

This is kind of where I am, people definitely enjoy a band that has a good balanced sound with good sounding instruments more even if they don't consciously know why. However in this day and age theres really no reason to have to "tap dance" - just get a decent processor board and change the patch. 

The money-no-object option:  https://www.thomann.de/gb/eich_amplification_t900_black_edition.htm

I have its predecessor the techamp puma 900, absolute beast of an amp, ideal as a small super powerful small/light power amp. I believe these amps are also design to be flat response with all the controls at 12 so you could just centre everything and plug in the front as usual.

Which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a class D vs other sound test at gigging volume, see if people can tell which is which.

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

RCF 745 FRFR. That's what I use.

 

No conventional bass amp and cab is remotely flat despite what the marketing department might want you to believe. That all have their own unique baked-in sound. That's why you choose one brand over another - it's has a baked-in sound that you find pleasing.

For a solid state amp the baked in tone is in the preamp though, so if hes going into the effects return or line in its just getting the power amp section which is usually some off the shelf module or follows a standard design.  

On 01/04/2020 at 14:19, NickD said:

A big +1 for this.

I don't often watch anything more than once but this set on Youtube with his Dad, and Gene Coye on drums is beautiful His tone and taste, with a foot in the traditional and a foot in the modern day, is brilliant.

 

Massive fan of Larry and Travis.

55 minutes ago, ubit said:

 

 

I found boiling got more crud out than meths but to be fair I didn't leave them soaking for days. Ive heard people saying that boiling rusts the core but I never noticed any difference in sound plus I didn't boil them more than twice. Second time never had as good results.

Yeah I tried boiling and it works but it stresses and corrodes the strings, only time Ive ever had a bass string breakage was with strings boiled multiple times.

I have two bases I for which I keep 4 sets of strings in rotation - 2 on the basses and 2 soaking in a methylated spirit bath. Swap out a set with the freshly cleaned set about once every 2 weeks, the 4 sets last almost indefinitely and I get a very consistent bright sound, the meths doesn't bring them back to absolute new but its good enough. Using headless bases with double ball end strings makes the constant swapping very easy and doesn't stress the strings.

So I decided to the try to get a sound on the zoom as close as possible to my sansamp VT Bass. Of course the zoom sound is based on the BDDI model so not the same pedal, still an interesting comparison though. Both were played the same input using the zoom looper function.

bassexample1.mp3

bassexample2.mp3

17 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

The cheaper (and apparently easier to use) Zoom B1 Four has the same compressors on it.  At around £60 it’s got to be worth a try, and given it’s a multi fx pedal as well as tuner could make life easier too.

Just bought a B1 four myself, fantastic bit of kit, cant understand why every bass player on earth doesn't own one really, at change from £70 delivered its a no brainer, even if you use to just audition various types of compressor then buy the dedicated pedal (although I recon the models are as good as the real thing in most cases ...) .

26 minutes ago, thodrik said:

True. 

For my own current situation (live band, heavy rock loud drummer, two guitarists with valve amps, often minimal on stage monitoring) having an amp and cab (or just a combo) on stage at least gives me a chance of enabling the rest of the band on stage to hear what I am playing even if the onstage monitoring is non-existent and/or useless. 

I still use my amp/cab on stage for that same reason (among others) , its just that I dont hear it (much) as I'm using my own IEM feed.

5 hours ago, thodrik said:

I like to have an amp and cab so that I can at least be sure that I will be able to hear myself. 

You can also do that providing your own IEM feed via a small mixer with inputs for your own di/line and house mix and/or an ambient mike. It may sound like a faff but I keep it all packed away pre-wired. 

.

2 hours ago, Jamescullum said:

So do you see an amp as a way for you to hear yourself or a way for the audience to hear the bass? 
 

Every gig I do the bass is going through the PA system so in theory the amp is there only for my listening pleasure. So in reality any amp will do. 
 

Do you see the value in a nice amp or is it a vanity thing? 

I use IEMs on stage, the stack is there for 1) aesthetics/vanity 2) the rest of the band to hear 3) the audience to hear if they are right in front of the stage. Even wearing the IEMs I do like feeling the rumble of it though so I guess thats 4).

I take an IEM feed from my own amp and get FOH to give me an everything-except-bass feed and I then balance the two myself. If playing without FOH or at rehearsal I use a reference mic to give me some ambient. Could never go back to trying hear myself at high volume through ear plugs, IEMs are such massive improvement.

Previously a big fan but the Cory Wong collaborations do nothing for me, distinctly average guitar playing, dumbed down chord progressions (compared to previous stuff). Seems to be just fairly bland funk now.   

19 hours ago, WinterMute said:

Depends if you go series or parallel of course, in series it's 16 ohms, in parallel 4 ohms.

Dual connectors on the amp or speaker are pretty much universally parallel connections though.

53 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

And while you're at it, drop anything else by Status Quo. 

I'm happy to play absolutely any song except ...

Dirging (Rocking) in the Free World, and anything by Oasis.

On 29/09/2021 at 07:43, Phil Starr said:

Welcome to Basschat

 

This is my practice set up too, I use a Zoom B1ON which has been updated and is now the B1-Four Zoom B1 FOUR Bass Multi-Effects Pedal at Gear4music 

 

It has many amp emulations and bass effects, metronome and drum machine, an input for audio devices so you can play along and a decent headphone amp all for £65. A lot of people here use the same set up of Zoom+Headphones. I find the drum machine particularly useful for tightening up my playing and learning tricky pieces. You can play it slowly and speed it up gradually but mainly it sounds great and that makes me want to practice. Some things are just 'right' and this is one of them.

 

I'm not a big fan of practice amps, it's quite hard to make a tiny speaker sound really good for bass and 'proper' bass amps can always be turned down. There are things like the Phil Jones amps but they are really proper gear miniaturised and are really quite pricey. If you want to save space and money and also have a great sound go for the Zoom.

For practice I put my bass and guitar through my computer into either headphones or a pair of fairly hefty floor standers. Theres a really nifty prog called Cantible https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/ which is basically just a pure VST host without all the usually DAW guff so with one click I can get a VST effects and modelling chain loaded and running.

You do need a decent low latency audio interface to do this though, I use a zoom UAC-2.  VST effects wise for bass I normally just run the free sansamp clone https://masters-of-music.com/tse-bod-v3-0-released-free-sansamp-bass-plugin/.

On 27/09/2021 at 21:19, paddy109 said:

I think your hearing the effects as less prominent through the amp/speaker because your losing some highs compared to with headphones. Also I don't know if the paradriver has that baked in speaker sim like a lot of tech21 stuff so that might be losing more highs still.

24 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

Ashdown RM800 EVO II

Orange Little Bass Thing 

Both look decent amps, I would get cranking the low end up and see what happens.

19 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

I do wonder if a larger cab with 12” drivers would have more thump and depth if that makes sense 

It might, but for any pub/club gig band situation I can imagine you are likely well inside the performance envelope of your current cabs is what I'm saying - you could almost certainly just EQ the difference so long you have ample headroom in the amp. Be interesting to know what amp you have actually.

BTW I assumed you already had 2 ashdown cabs. If you only have one and the choice is between another ashdown and going to BF then thats a more nuanced choice. The general rule of thumb still applies though - if you like the basic sound of the cab you already have and just want more volume then just a second one ...

3 minutes ago, BassAdder27 said:

Thanks that makes sense .. the two Ashdown cabs are loud enough for what I need right now. Probably equivalent to running a 4x10 so two cabs should be ample really.

 

I don’t need higher volume so maybe it’s not a necessity to upgrade at all !

It seems I always seem to end up asking people the same question - what problem are you trying to solve ? (other than satisfying your desire to buy a shiny new toy that is).

1 hour ago, BassAdder27 said:

Question .. would a BF SuperTwin blow my new Ashdown ABM 210 Pro Neo cabs x 2 away ?

 

Just curious if the BF is a fuller deeper sounding cab that would handle a 500w or larger amp and better suited to rock ?

 

Huge price ticket so interested to know if really that much better than say £350 each Ashdown cabs ? 

In my view if you have got 2 half decent 2x10 cabs (you've got grands worth of cabs there after all) and you cant get the volume and / or depth you want then the problem is probably not the speakers, and I say that as a BF user and fan.

3 hours ago, Waddycall said:

I’m in the market for a new cab. I play in a newly formed covers band doing some of the usual pub covers. We’ve two guitarists. I’ve been using a rumble 115 cab in previous bands that rehearsed in decent studios with good acoustics and always DI’d or mic’d at gigs. It always seemed fine. The hall this band rehearses in sounds horrible and I’m having problems hearing myself.

No speaker is going to fix the awful acoustics of your average wooden floored village hall. That said I wouldnt want to discourage what looks like a significant upgrade to an ST which certainly isn't going to hurt. A more radical solution would be to consider taking the DI out of your amp into IEMs (might need a mixed to buffer it) which will solve the problem of you hearing yourself at least, in a noisy hall youl also probably get enough bleed through of the rest of the band.

On 26/09/2021 at 11:19, stewblack said:

Just started doing this.

I am spectacularly bad at it.

Look at it this way - worse you are at it the more beneficial it will be.

What material are you studying ?. 

Back in the day I did part one of David Burges relative pitch course which was hard work but very beneficial. If I was doing something now I would probably go for Rick Beato's ear training course https://beatoeartraining.com/

I also highly recommend studying some so-called "functional" (or sometimes "contextual") ear training which focusses on relating everything you hear to a tonal centre.

To explain the difference: classic ear training teaches to hear the sequence C - A - G as a 6th up followed by a 2nd down whereas functional training teaches you to hear it as a tonic then 6th followed by a 5th (relative to the the assumed tonic C). Bruce Arnold has lots of good material in this vein  https://muse-eek.com/category/ear-training/

EDIT: I wrote this assuming you are taking about actual ear training and not transcription (learning or analysing a song by listening to it) which is a completely different thing.