DocTrucker

@Mornats They have responded. Said they haven't had any issues reported and then encouraged me to speak to my retailer. That said I've recently aquired an RB9 full stack which is needing some repairs, and was impressed how easy it was to find the wiring diagrams. 30/12/23 Edit: Issue appears to be a PSU dropping out. Likely nothing wrong with the Digbeth Pre.

The wide range of comments has been helpful, and pointed out a few boo-boos of my own. I'm likely to go down the route of a second hand rig (with a fairly neutral sound) for the time being and I'm tempted to break out the scope and see what I can learn from that before looking to do something more bespoke. Thanks for the comments though, really spiked the interest.

With the growing capability and popularity of the digital effects processors and class D amps it seems like we're in need of a standard digital streaming format. Analogue from bass To digital for effects processor in To analogue for effects out To digital for class d in To analogue for class d output stage. That's without a wireless bass setup and there's potential to loose detail and gain artefacts on each of those changes. Sure analogue gear has loss of tone issues too, especially at the cheap end but it would seem advantageous to have the option of doing the analogue to digital once and visa versa at the power amp stage. This would obviously be knackered if uou have a favourite analogue pedal.

@Paul S I think what he is getting at is that progressive hearing loss is likely to occur at the same noise levels as normal folk despite us finding it more comfortable by switching aids off. The open hearing aids like you describe don't do much to attenuate noise levels, they are intended to compliment the hearing levels you have left. I run on the molded type in my right ear and it is nice to have the mute function for noisey enviroments but I know from trying to stream audio to them the sound quality just isn't there to be of much use in my case. Being a-symetric it just tends to give a slight echo on everything which largely reduces clarity for me. Everyone is unique though, and I do still find them useful. Especially so for spacial awareness when out and about.

One idea I was thinking about was a standard bass cabinet with a reasonably plain amp then integrating that into a PA system to it at a later date using a digital cross over to make best use of stereo effects pedals. Looks like that may not be entirely effective.

That's a great idea thanks!

Can this be done on the cheap with an analogue mixer, room mic, and drum isolation headphones? In ears are no good for me. Guessing it really needs to be seperate headphone amps for each member?

With my doggy hearing I'm all for a quiet stage for sure! I'd gig with my drum isolation headphones if I could easily mic the room and sort levels to the headphones! Reading around on amps and stacks it appears the Ashdown systems impart quite a warm tone. Perhaps I'm just seeing a stark contrast between my little 60W Laney RB3 practice combo and the rehersal room's MAG300ish 4x10 combo.

Apologies, I think I wasn't clear on my original objective. Probably confused things with thinking about overlap with the PA. I have originally purchased a Digbeth pre amp to help me get most of my tone nailed beford it left my board. I've noticed that running through my Laney RB3 and the old Ashdown 4 x 10 combo at rehersal sound completely different. I struggle to get tone sorted in noisey/rushed environments, in part due to severe hearing loss in one ear. While I am likely to be using the wrong terminology the bass end was great no the Ashdown, but I struggled to get any clarity out of it. The attack on the notes seemed dulled. I was hoping to set myself up with a practice rig whose amplifier wouldn't manipulate the tone, just as close as possible to pure amplify. This would only need to cover me opto small pub gigs. Is a traditional bass rig with a decent quality Class D amp fed signal from a balanced out from my preamp/effects processor (with EQ & amp emulation if required) the answer here? Even if a typical bass cabinet maybe be capable of shaking the optics if I'm running a solid state rather than valve amp I'm free to wind it back right? From what people have been saying the drums largely set the volume requirements. My initial guess is a 200W RMS capable amp would be enough?

Yeah, started to scout. Early days though. I've been putting it off as I recently had to stop drinking. There's only so much lemonade (1 is more than enough!) you can take! I will search for a partner in crime for scouting. With two kids under 6 alas my wife isn't the ideal answer. To be honest I think the amount of work needed to do a decent job on this is quite a bit larger than I thought. Interesting, but will need a fair bit morw time and cash to sort properly. By which point I guess it maybe getting close to the band needing a PA, at which point it may as well be specced to be bass capable.

I heard a long time ago that stereo hearing doesn't work too well woth bass frequencies. Hence home cinemas tending to have one sub. Is that still the current understanding? As folk have already said not many subs are rated down to the ~30Hz needed for low B on a 5 or 6 string.

@tauzero I know the rehersal studio doesn't like the Idea of me plugging into their PA, it's intended for vocals only. Hadn't really considered that the open mics maybe the same. That would dictate minimum spend as the practice rig would need to be big enough for the open mic too rather than simply being tone neutral.

@Jack cheers. I'll focus efforts on a generic power amp (with good Hz range) and passive PA cabinets.

Apollogies missed the obvious. I have a Laney RB3 practice combo amp. With the dials all neutral is this as colour free as you would get from a typical PA? Not sure if this would cope in rehersal, but can always try.

What options would be recommended for a practice & rehersal (guitarist has loud but physically small marshall valve amp) amp/speaker setup that adds minimal tonal change to what comes off my preamped pedal board? I would like to get to the point where I have my tones sorted as far as possible in a quiet environment before plugging a balanced feed from my pedal board into a PA. This would best be portable as our common rehersal space uses an ashdown 4x10 combo, which I'm assuming colours the tone as I was struggling to make it sound brighter on last rehersal. I am playing covers with a guitarist and drummer with an aim to hit band open mic nights later next year. Plenty of growing left to do in my playing but I really struggle with my hearing (a-symetric loss on right with aid - off for rehersal!) in a noisey environment, and in such a situation the subtlies of my tone are lost on me. I am not likely to be capable to tweak for tone in a live environment. Edit: Budget is key here and I'm researching at the moment before spending later next year. Don't mind having a period of waiting for the right second hand deal on specific components.

Good spot! The Boss GT 1000 there looks great too, but that is a tad out of range!

@dudewheresmybass certinally no harm in trying! Only recently nailed the issue down to to the preamp. 30/12/23 Edit: Issue appears to be a PSU dropping out. Likely nothing wrong with the Digbeth Pre.

Pretty sure my Digbeth has developed a fault that makes it into something I can't rely on. 😞 Never knowingly pushed it hard but now the output occasionally drops to next to nothing. I did at first think it was the active electronics in my Harley 6 string, but it also happened with my Squire Vintage Modified Jazz 4 string. Alas well past warranty period. Used the same combo amp without the digbeth at rehersal direct from the squire with no issues last week. It's a frustating occasional drop, perhaps something isn't cooling right. 30/12/23 Edit: Issue appears to be a PSU dropping out. Likely nothing wrong with the Digbeth Pre.

Not that it changes this much but I mainly focus on plucking and have recently added a couple of pick tracks to the rehersal list. I don't slap at the moment. My equipment is a daily 4 string Squire Vintage Modefied and a Harley fretted Six string which is in the process of being having its electronics swapped at the moment.

Morning all. I'm a notch or two up from beginner on the bass and reherse monthly with a guitarist and drummer in a local studio. I like blues rock through to heavy metal with a few outliers like Vangellis and Zimmer sound tracks. The musical tastes of the others is wider still. I've been looking at multi effects units as both a similification (aside from the learning curve!) and cost perspective. My ears aren't what they used to be. I have Meniere's disease which comes hand in hand with a-symetric hearing loss which is profound at high pitch and severe throughout the rest of the spectrum on my right side and normal ish for a ~40 year old on my left! With that in mind the highest details of digital vs analogue are likely to be lost on me and it makes setting tones on the fly in a noisey environment very difficult. So for a broad spectrum unit that does well from bypass (/tuner) out towards more synthy blade runner sound track like stuff what are the community favorites without loosing £300+? Would these allow me to set up a play list and increment through them quickly at a poor light (had thoughts about adding a light to the pedal board!) gig? I wouldn't mind a balanced out (stereo as going to PA) but could easily add that separately. Zoom B9? Boss GT-10b? Something else? I was thinking whether this should be my next investment or a rig, but the more I think about it working towards getting a PA ready output seems more sensible, but stand to be corrected!

Yup, that's the way it's going. I have two DPDT pickup tap switchs on order so I can do single/parallel/series changes on the coils, making sure I keep the current flow in the right direction for the humbucking. It won't be pretty but it will give the pickups a fair chance before looking at routing out for Warman MM6s.

Looking at other 6 string bass pickups on ebay that resistance (when wired in series) is about half that you'd expect for a 6 string pickup. So perhaps the fix would ideally include pickups too?

Just stripped it back a bit to see what I have got. Neck pick up looks to have nicely matched coils, one of the coils on the bridge is a bit mismatched, but at only 2.2% higher resistance than the other of the pair I'm assuming this is within the relms of matched? Neck (Ohms) 7160 black green (white red joined - serial) 3580 white black 3580 green red Bridge (Ohms) 7210 black green (white red joined - serial) (+0.7% over Neck) 3570 white black 3650 green red (+2.2% over first coil) Edit: Having written that I guess coil matching has to consider inductance too, so DC resistance only part of the story?