thodrik

I think it will be a classic passive tone stack, so 'flat' will bass at about 2, mid at 10, treble about 2.

I really like the 'console emulation' feature and the fact you have three 'different but similar' preamps to work with. The compressor is also really good 'ah, that will do' settings that avoid having to add another plugin to the chain.

Thanks, I hadn't found that yet! I am mainly using it to get a broad stroke mix on acoustic drums. Very nice and amazing for the price.

I actually picked this up yesterday. Despite not being very experienced at mixing, I am very much a Neve fan in terms of how the EQ plugins respond and their ease of use on a variety of source material (I find API and SSL channel strips at bit frustrating to work with at times in comparison). This one is a real cracker and an absolute bargain at the price. I have previously been using the Universal Audio Native 1073 plugin and the Softube British Class A plugin. The Console N's EQ and preamp, to my ears, is way ahead of the UAD and Softube. You can of course get them to sound similar but the Console N seems to have a warmer sound to my ears and is really easy to work with (I find the UAD finicky to work with in terms of getting the output gain set optimally). Mild Criticisms: 1. The compressor is glorious but has a fixed attack. While the old Neve consoles generally had a fixed attack I do like the variable attack settings on the Softube. 2. The GUI is huge and generally takes up the whole screen and is probably a bit too 'dark' to read in certain lighting. So not perfect, but still an absolute bargain at the price. I do still really like the Softube as an all in one channel strip (gate, EQ, compression and limiter) but the EQ on the Console N is really really nice.

I always fancied trying once of those heads but never saw them in the shops to try. Just looked like a really solid, well thought out amp. Definitely Fender's attempt at providing competition to the Ampeg SVT Pro and Mesa M-pulse lines which were doing well (at least in the USA) around about the mid/late 2000s.

I own the V1 AO pedal and I would agree that I find it harder to drive in a tone I really like just using it alone. I nearly always have to blend it with something else (usually a Sansamp BDDI and a B3K). So essentially I use it as 'Salt and Pepper' on top of my established tone. I don't actually like the tone of the pedal or drive circuit by itself. I find the mids to be very very hairy and congested, compared to the B*K circuit which has more of a clean mid scoop and high end drive/fizz. On the AO pedal I frankly find the three band EQ isn't particularly great (It needs more than a three band EQ to shape effectively) and I don't particularly like to low and high 'growl' and 'bite' switches. As a result I have...been using the pedal constantly for the last 5 years. If I was choosing between the Darkglass amps I would definitely pick the one with the B*K/VMT circuit. A B3K has been on my board since 2016 and while not perfect (a bit mid-scoopy on all settings) it does just 'work' in a live setting.

A Spector. Never tried one and never really liked the look of them despite knowing that they have 'that sound'. Suddenly wanted to try a 5 string Forte at age of 35. Hofner Beatle Bass. No interest in trying one when I started playing at 11 and no interest now at the age of 38. Headless basses: see comment above. Modulus/Status Graphite basses. I have two Vigiers, so just never investigated or felt the need to try them.

Great idea!

Loved them in my youth. Liked most of their output up to By The Way which I really tried to like but never did and still don't. Finally saw them live in 2007 (I think) and it was one of the most dull, boring, phoned in gigs I had ever seen. I think it was towards the end of the Stadium Arcadium tour and I think the band had mentally checked out. Not really listened to them since, not out of anger/disappointment of the gig, but just the fact that I generally listen to heavier, more aggressive music and/or singer/songwriter acoustic stuff these days.

For rock and metal, a used Peavey 6505 combo is actually pretty good. Lots of gain, proper all valve and generally available for about £350 used. It isn't however very versatile and the clean/crunch channel is okay at best. The drive/lead channel is utterly brilliant though. I used to have one but sold it to fund a Mesa Rectoverb 50 combo, which in itself is a great amp if you can find one for a decent price (£600-£700). Marshall combo JCM 2000/JVM combo will also do a great job and can be purchased used at decent sub £500 prices, though you will need a boost pedal to get really high gain sounds. Laney Ironheart combos cover rock/metal though I am less familiar with them. The Lionheart amps though are great. There is an Orange TH30 1x12 combo. I tried one and liked it but I didn't like the clean channel (too clean) and I didn't like the 'shape' EQ on the dirty channel (I prefer separate 3 band EQs). There is Blackstar too but I preferred the Peavey to the HT Stage series when I looking at amps 10 years ago.

As an owner of BB750 I concur that it is an absolute beast.

From my view, I think that the Luna 'Pro' paid model gets you a bunch of extra plugins, including an API 'virtual console' plugin, which enables you to use the same preamp on every track, like an old school mixing console. I think that is very much where Universal Audio aim in terms of the market for their plugins, i.e. people who are familiar with vintage gear and are willing to pay for (admittedly excellent) plugins which emulate vintage gear like Neve/SSL preamps, Fairchild limiters, 1176 compressors and the like.. With the move to 'native' plugins, Universal Audio are moving away from their Apollo DSP interfaces. From my experience non-Universal Audio plugins work fine within Luna. With that said, my main channel strip is a Softube British Class A channel strip that I bought in a bundle for about £45 which I prefer to most of the Universal Audio plugins. In terms of MIDI and virtual instruments it really is quite far behind some of the competition, so if you predominantly use MIDI I think there are better options. For basic audio editing and tracking and mixing recorded instruments it is really good and intuitive and I actually prefer it to Logic. If I was using MIDI though I would be using Logic on Mac or something like Studio One on PC (which I was using previously).

I really enjoy using Luna on my Macbook pro. The layout is very familiar to me in that is laid out like an old school mixing console when you go to the mixer window. Very limited virtual instruments compared to Logic though, however for tracking live drums/bands etc it is really good. However, to really get the full use out of Luna you need to buy a UAD Apollo and a bunch of expensive plugins so I can't really consider it 'good value' compared to something like Reaper.

There has! Also, EBS Fafner and Mesa Walkabout. Or anything that works and doesn't go on fire.

I just picked up the Softubes Essentials Collection for about £43 or so ($49).It includes their British Class A (Neve) channel strip, and the Softube 1176 compressor and tape emulation. The deal is running on the Softube website until 16 May or so Given that I have a Universal Audio Interface with a couple of Neve Preamps (not full channel strips) and about 3-4 UAD 1176 compressor plug-ins, I thought initially that the Softube offering was superfluous. However after trialling them I frankly prefer the Softube plugins to the Unison Neve 1073 plugin and 1176 plugins on my UAD Apollo. I have not explored however the cumulative effect on my laptop’s CPU of running about 10-12 tracks of the same channel strip when tracking drums.

The guy in Mudvayne generally plays a five string Warwick. Some of the basslines are technically exceptional however you have to listen to Mudvayne songs in order to hear them. The current bassist in Baroness uses a five string, though I'm not sure I would call them 'metal' at this point as much as I like them.

I love me some Skynyrd. I went off them for a while in about 2008-2015 when I watched UFC as nearly every other fighter seemed to enter the Octagon to Simple Man (I kinda stopped watching the sport so assume that many still do this) I do like really like Tuesday's Gone as well, even the Metallica version.

Add a Trace Elliot Bright Box and you have a ‘portable full-range gigging solution’. i have read too many old Trace Elliot manuals…

Of course the opposite is when I am told that there is 'world class' backline which ends up being a mid 1990s Laney Richter 50 watt 1x12 combo!

I played a punch of gigs at Drummonds from 2008-2011. We generally parked at the rear of the building located off Denburn Road. At my first time playing I then had lug my Trace Elliot 1x15 combo up three flights of stairs only to find that the house bass amp was a...4x10 Trace Elliot combo with the same amp! I think that we had to shift the van after loading. It was fine but this was 2008 so that traffic issues wouldn't have been as bad as they are now.

During my time in Glasgow, I once had an initial audition with the guitarist who was so high that he brought an old Boss 8 track recorder as his 'pedal board' and proceeded to try and run the 8 track recorder through a Marshall AVT head and cab so he could access the onboard effects on the recorder. He assured us that he knew what he was doing and that these effects were 'the bees knees man'. He gave up after 20 minutes then just plugged in his guitar in to the amp only to notice that it only had four strings, which was unfortunate as 'those two strings were the ones I really needed.' Another session involved a guitarist who hailed from Yemen, who was actually technically pretty competent. However we really couldn't play in a band with him out of the awkwardness of him insisting to check that none of the other band members were Jewish before we started playing, although in his defence he did also state 'I have no issues with Protestants or Catholics, so I am still more tolerant than many Glaswegians', which admittedly did get a laugh. I mean, when you try to start a stoner rock band, it comes with the territory that sometimes people will turn up entirely stoned or slightly unhinged. It is only now, about 15 years later that I realise just how weird some of those sessions were.

I have had a Vigier Excess for twenty years. I always knew it was a great bass, but coming from a passive Fender Precision (which I have owned for 25 years), I struggled with just how 'active' and powerful the pickups were on the Vigier as they generally overpowered the inputs of most amps I had. I also wasn't convinced that the action wasn't as nice as it should be for a bass of that price (it was about £1,200 back in 2004...). I used it on and off for gigs and tours etc but it was replaced as my main gigging bass in 2009 when I got my first Sadowsky Metro and didn't really get used after that. I then took it to a tech in 2015 who noticed that the neck was slightly misaligned. The tech thought that the neck was either not put on correctly in the factory, had been taken off and then not put back on properly or had maybe received a knock in transit. Anyway the tech sorted it out and it played like an entirely different bass. I then 'discovered' in Covid lockdown that most of the best tones involved cutting rather than boosting the active EQs in order to tame the pickups. Now instead of starting with the EQ in the 'centre' (no cut/boost) position, I treat the EQ as a boost only EQ from 'fully cut'. It makes the bass so much more useable. I actually hate myself for not noticing this trick about 15 years earlier! It became my main bass again in 2022...

I have had NYXLs on my Sadowsky NYC 5 string for about 8 months. Owing to home renovations/studio construction I haven't really been playing as much, but the strings have actually held up pretty well. I think that I will stick with Elixirs however as they last as long as 18 months with semi-regular playing.