JTUK

Have you or can you try it with another cab... Some cabs are notoriously 'inefficient' and need a lot of driving and it may be the amp hasn't the guts for it..??

I run at 12 on both and I get a pretty clean sound, certainly at practice levels. It works well at gig levels as well, so I don't think it should sound like that..

As always, it is ok assuming that a good P.A will have good fills and monitoring but unless you spec the rider, you'll likely not find this out until too late. Generally, I assume the worse unless there is a monitor engr...and the worse ranges from vox only wedges..which means your backline better support the stage sound.. or less worse, the FOH engr running the monitor mix. If he has his ears on the FOH, then the sacrifice can well be the mon mix. All these are degrees of a compromise but I'm not best pleased when I have to accept it sounded ok out front.. when I struggled to make it work on stage. How is that helping the band play well as a band..when you can't hear properly..? I try and take that 'reasoning' out of the equation and look after my job which is laying it down for the band to hear... If I have to turn down, then that is easy to do. If I have to flatten the amp to squeeze out enough to be heard, that is a pile of poo, IMO. And that is just the P.A kit side of things... then you have to deal with sound engrs. Another maxim is if you find a good one, then keep his number as they aren't as numerous as you'd hope.. All the gear and no idea applies to them as much as anyone else There are a few companies round here who supply decent spec... but sub in the sound man..?? and that can be fraught..IME..

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1426072098' post='2713966'] But not as much volume as the spec would suggest ;-) [/quote] pretty good...!! FWIW, I've played a 750 and it put the volume out there... and who can tell what such and such watts really is supposed to mean. All I ask is is it loud enough in that regard? I was less convinced with the sound when I went back to try it again, tho.. so I lost interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgO7MamJnqM The story was that Jethro Tull played this on a tour that the Eagles supported them on around '71... Tull were huge at the time, the Eagles hadn't yet written their 'masterpiece' Don't think Marvin Gaye's song is anywhere near as close to 'Blurred lines' myself... very tenuous..??

[quote name='davehux' timestamp='1426004130' post='2713310'] I recently had a brand new Chinese Ampeg V4-B that lasted less than a week before it went back for a refund. Loose preamp valves, even when fully inserted. A mis-pressed valve cover with the bayonet fitting all wrong, but just wedged on. Kept switching to half power. Would scream like a banshee when you used the Hi Boost switch Might have been a Friday afternoon job, but for an £1100 amp, it was pretty shoddy [/quote] That would make me lose quite a bit of confidence in the marque, tbh. I tend to get updates/chit chat about the way 'production' is moving from an amp tech I use as he says he sees a lot of Boogies and Ampegs. Now, he already hates them as they are so heavy to get onto the bench but I think the disproportionate amount of Boogies he gets points to a tendency/pattern, whereas Ampegs and Marshalls are much more prevalent in the local scene... Marshall get off scot-free, pretty much, Boogies and Ampegs much less so... I will ask if the Far Rim is a factor here. Personally I don't mind paying £1100 plus for a Western made amp but I would bulk at that money going straight to the shareholders for far east production models. If the amp maker is getting £25k p.a or equivalent, then fair enough or less of an argument, IMO..??

Knobs AND handles..??? oh my....!! Sorry, couldn't resist, but that speaks volumes...!!!

[quote name='3below' timestamp='1426026564' post='2713675'] For the retro sound, Marshall 4x15 ? The bass players answer to the 4x12. [/quote] I had one back in the day...woefully underpowered back then. A pre '79 type model, I believe, and I ran it with a Hiwatt.

[quote name='Drax' timestamp='1426060415' post='2713809'] You do wonder what the whole point of this whole exercise is. Feels less about protecting a legacy and more about self serving lawyers. [/quote] But there are MASSIVE career defining legacies by 2 Iconic bands who entire careers are built on a 'contested' song. Altho in the case of one... they haven't actually been anywhere near a court case, IIRC.

[quote name='machinehead' timestamp='1426032483' post='2713727'] Are you saying that these are the only decent cabs and [i]everything[/i] else is not worth considering? And this part :"A 212 will be pretty much all you need until you get into good stage monitoring anyway." I am completely at a loss to understand. There must be a whole world of gigging out there that I have yet to experience. I played the Ulster Hall in Belfast with a Peavey 15" combo at least a dozen times back in the 1980s with no problem. Frank. [/quote] I'm saying you wont get past those, IMO.. A 212 will do most of our gigs unless you play larger stages. Whether you can justify having a 810 depends on how many times a year you'll get to take it out...?? A PV 15 back then might have been what you thought you needed or the only cab you had for a stage We all used them and I recall them as being woefully underpowered for what they were asked to do. If you thought they were adequate back then, then sure, we have different opinions on that and sound. The BW was a dogged unit, sure enough but I see the same thinking now, only it is 12" combos and the like.. From my experience that is not a discerning sound in that theatre.

I can never understand why Jethro Tull never sued the Eagles..? Maybe they paid him off quietly ages ago..??

Not a fan myself of a single 210 cab but they should do a quieter gig on their own with no trouble. A 212 will be pretty much all you need until you get into good stage monitoring anyway. I'd put up Aguilar DB, Berg CN and the TKS range as the cabs I'd seek out. I'd tried them all and I think cabs stop there, pretty much.

I'd second McIntyre. He has made basses for a LOT of people and used to work with Martin Peterson. I have one and it's my go to bass.

Firstly, ditch the idea of a P.A sub rig for bass monitoring. A rig of that power is going to have a FOH P.A as well and you are getting into a fight with FOH which nobody will want you to do. The main point tho...can the GK combo take an ext cab? If it can, there is you cheapest 'upgrade. I'd hook it upto another GK 112... Basically this will give you a mini rig running at 4 ohms and max output. If the combo can't take an extention then get one that can and look to get 500w or thereabouts into 4 with an ext cab at some point. If it must be a combo, I'd go 102 Markbass and that can do powerful gigs on its on with sensible gtrs... i,e 30watter Valve job types. The 102 should just about...be able to keep up with that, IMO. Add another 210 and you are sorted for mini stage gigs, IMV.

Oh..and don't worry about scooping it...everybody pretty much needs to do it. There are holes..and pretty well have to be..in every sound, IMO. I find the general 'understanding' of scooping to be as wrong as 'up your mids' comments.. IMO, of course.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1425926422' post='2712373'] That sounds reasonable to me, how much for a Jazz 5 and is there an active one? [/quote] I think an active Jazz is in the pipeline according to Ed F

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1425915163' post='2712133'] I suppose it [i][b]could[/b][/i] be... I know that you are not the biggest fan of Barefaced, but please believe me when I say (again) that I am happy with my cab. Maybe part of the problem is that the Big One (which was designed - IIRC - to be similar in delivery to a good PA - i.e. very clear, uncoloured and "hi-fi") is just too honest and shows the differences between amps very clearly? I don't know. I am certainly no expert in sound. Part of my problem is that I don't have a lot of cash to spend on bass gear, so I am limited either to what is cheap (if bought new) or what is available (if bought used). After selling my Hartke, the TC RH750 became available locally at an excellent price that was too good to refuse. I had wanted to try one of the Aguilar TH heads but as my budget was limited to around £400 I thought that the 350 would be my limit. Having acquired the RH750, I was able to trade for my current TH500. So financially I am happy, and have been quite fortunate. I have moved from a very simple, no-frills amp (the LH500) to a couple of amps that have loads more features. Maybe I will just need more time to get the hang of these features - or maybe I just haven't found my ideal amp yet? [/quote] It was not quite such a silly facetious question from my point of view. I find that most people's issues with sound tends to be complicating the signal chain. I was having a conversation with a bass player friend of mine who is really REALLY old school and he said that 99% of the bassists he knew moaned about their sound. I could understand his point ..even if I doubted his stats.. as I do sometimes wonder why so and so would do what they do with the signal. And I've always thought that P.A cabs and bass are poor bed mates as the sound can be too harsh and require a lot of skill and technique to make them work..which is just making it more difficult than it should be. It is quite possible to my thinking that a cab that can produce clean is going to be a right handful if you dial in any mids ... and you'd likely have to scoop it quite a bit at some point. The good thing is that the TH has quite a lot of movement with the sweepable control so the amp should be capable of taming a cab sympathetically. In this sense a sweep or semi parametric is 'better' than an out and out graphic...especially if the bands are quite far apart.

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1425926511' post='2712376'] In theory, if one knows where the notes are, it's simply a matter of playing the new, transposed, notes. That's how pianists, horn players et al do it. In practice, however, many (most..?) bassists seem to play by memorising 'shapes' on the fingerboard. This can work, and quite well, if you're going up in pitch, but could fall apart if you need to go down beyond the nut. It's a choice, really, related to the way one has learnt the instrument. The simple way is just to go up or down a fret or two, but it won't always work out. Better to know the fingerboard in its entirety. [/quote] Bass players should always know what is underneath the starting position as well as what is on top... and then you wont have any concerns about what key you transpose to as all the notes will fall to hand either over the octave or under it. It couldn't be much easier and it will teach you your fretboard if you don't know it already.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1425900856' post='2711894'] I'm not prepared to discus it. [/quote] PM is fine

Now we know why people don't visit OT with threads like these... ...but, there is nothing else going on anywhere else either, so it's this or nothing...

[quote name='Conan' timestamp='1425887628' post='2711716'] It was very simple really - I wanted more midrange in my tone and the LH500 couldn't give it to me! Other amps I have tried since have been able to provide the mids, but due to the way the controls work, finding a sound that I like and can use in a band situation is more difficult than I had anticipated... The Aggie (which I tried last night) has lots of potential, but (as I recall reading in someone else's post a while back), the interactivity of the controls is counter-intuitive and frustrating. What it shows (quite clearly!) is that there is no one "bass tone" and that each manufacturer of bass gear has different goals in mind and different ways of achieving them! As with other things in life, sometimes the journey is more enjoyable than the destination [/quote] Could it be the cab not being able to give you want you want...??

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1425851842' post='2711537'] To you maybe but someone must have paid close on the rrp for them to become available at those prices new used mustn't they? When I look at my regular bills and car repair costs I dont worry about a few hundred quid these days, life's too short imo. The OP's bass is growing on me too [/quote] I guess someone did... but I don't see that value in them. It isn't the money so much as what you get for it and I am generally not impressed by what I see at £1500 RRP.

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1425894211' post='2711791'] There are "names" out there using class D and Neo in amongst all the other choices that are available. The differences between items of bass gear are subjective at best. [/quote] But do you see them on the 'best' gigs..?

Big compromise in tone expected but if it serves a purpose, you aren't going to blow it up at quiet volumes unless it is on its way out anyway. It will need a 12" in there.

Class D will do volume well enough and I'll use one for that lightweight gig but it wont get anywhere near the better gigs. Interesting little aside, a mate wanted to borrow a rig for a 'name' playing local and asked for favours from his bass playing mates. It was interesting what was on the desired list and what definitely wouldn't make it.. No Class D and Neo, for a start.