M-Bass-M

Yesterday I happened to turn the input waaaay up on my compressor pedal, and I ended up with a quite pleasing overdrive effect. Is there anything wrong with using the pedal in this way - for example does it damage any of the circuitry? Cheers Mark

Ah, that looks like an excellent solution. Don't really have an issue with Behringer in this case as I only need it to do a very simple job, and so the cheaper the better! Cheers

In my home studio set-up, I'm looking to purchase a power amp that would take inputs from 3 sources: 1) Bass pre-amp (mono) 2) Audio interface output (stereo) 3) Computer soundcard output (stereo) Can anybody recommend a cheapish bit of kit that would allow me to switch seamlessly between the three inputs? Most of the mixers I can find tend to only have one stereo input and two mono inputs (i.e. channels 1, 2 and 3&4). Cheers Mark

Concur with the rest that it is a genuine MIJ 'fotoflame' finish bass. My first Fender was a MIJ blue fotoflame, and it was stunning to look at, so much so that I now regret parting with it. I can't comment much on it playing-wise, as I was but an ignorant teenager when I played it. However, the one that I had suffered from cracks to the lacquer, around the bridge and the plate at the base of the neck IIRC. Purely cosmetic, didn't affect the bass itself. if a blue fotoflame came up for £340, I'd definitely take it up.

[quote name='dlloyd' timestamp='1332334775' post='1586774'] I've been out of the loop in terms of retail prices for a while.... £1,400 for a standard US P??? [/quote] Holy c**p, £1,400 from a Fender US Standard bass? That's only £100 less than what I paid for my Status. Having said that, I shelled out £900 for my US Jazz 12 years ago. That's an average inflation rate of 3.2%, which essentially means that in real terms, the price hasn't moved. However, given that you can pick up a Classic Vibe Squier for 25% of that price, what tangible benefit do you get for paying so much more?

[sup]Thanks for both of the replies. Weight actually is an influencing factor, so it's useful to know that the newer cabinets are somewhat lighter. I used to own a 1153 and 2103h setup, and remember them both being on the heavy side. Unfortunately, I didn't know enough about sound back then to comment on whether they were good speakers![/sup] [sup]I may look more into the new 1048 then...[/sup]

I currently have some really bad GAS around getting a Trace Elliot stack. I've started wtih a pre-amp, and as old TE power amps are both hard to come by and stupidly heavy, I'll probably go with a Crown power amp. However, while there seem to be plenty of old Trace Elliot cabs up for sale, they're usually located at the other end of the country to me So, the other option is to buy a new TE cab to complete my rig. What I'd like to know is how these cabinets compare to the old pre-Gibson cabinets - any noticeable difference in quality, sound etc? Thanks Mark

A similar thing happened to the singer of a band that I was playing alongside many years ago. He stood up to the mic and got an electric shock, just as you described. Thankfully they soundchecked before we did, so it was all fixed by the time I had to sing! From what I recall, the problem was due to the extension lead we used not having a ground pin. So the simple fix was to swap the extension lead with one that did have a ground pin.

[quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1328797966' post='1532802'] The neck pickup sounds better for clean tones whereas the bridge gives you a better distortion sound I find. It's good to be able to switch between the 2 and keep your volume settings for each pickup. I don't find it confusing at all, in fact I think it's easier that way. Having said that, I am not so keen on tone controls, I never really use them. [/quote] Ah, this makes a lot of sense, but also assumes a certain style of playing - i.e. having two separate tones set for each pickup and switching between the two. What I'm finding difficult to do on the SG is to use the volume as an overdrive gain control, gets a bit confusing with two volume controls and a few tone controls in the way!

I currently have my guitarist's Epi SG on loan. It has a pick-up selector, yet also has individual volume and tone controls for each pickup. Why is this? All it does is make it damn confusing to get a tone I like from it! I mean, a Jazz has no pickup selector and only one tone control. Easy. Even a Telecaster has only a pickup switch and a master volume. Likewise for MM Sterlings I guess. So...any enlightenment from out there?

[quote name='BassBod' timestamp='1328002480' post='1520013'] Don't forget that you can also use most modern amp heads as power amps too, if you plug the Trace into the effects return socket...sometimes the levels don't match too well, but the Trace has an output level control. [/quote] I had wondered about that. In the first instance I could route my preamp through my Shuttle 6.0, but I'm unsure as to whether I could guarantee that I wasn't adding any colour to the sound - even if you did run it through the fx loop, you'd still have the signal flowing through the gain stage of the Shuttle.

[quote name='Ed_S' timestamp='1327926529' post='1518789'] I should be getting a very lightweight new 2U power amp that was bought for bass use tomorrow, though; a Crown XLS1500 Drivecore which goes down to 4ohms bridged and should knock out 1500W doing it. [/quote] Hmmm, liking the look of that a lot. Variable crossover too, allowing for some mental Entwistle-esque frequency manipulation. I'd be very interested to hear how it works out for you.

I guess most of the power amps available will be of the heavy kind, but are there any lightweight power amps on the market, and are they any good?

Hmmm, may pop to B&Q on the way home tonight then as that sounds like a good solution. Thanks!

Thanks, 1U too! Gives me another 1U for another piece of gratuitous bass hardware! Happy 5,000th post, btw

Annoyingly, the bottom of the Octamizer isn't flat, meaning that I can't stick a piece of velcro on the bottom so that I can attach it to my pedal board. I was wondering if anybody else had experienced this same problem and had come up with a sensible solution? Cheers Mark

I've just acquired an old-school Trace Elliot pre-amp, which I'll need to hook up with a power amp if I'm to get any use from it. Years ago, you used to be able to get TE power amps, and Ashdown also used to make some. These days, however, it seems that none of the amp makers do a dedicated power amp. So, other than watching eBay for an old PPA-300 to come up, does anybody have any suggestions as other non-bass specific power amps I could use instead? Cheers Mark

*sigh* I used to own one of those in black. My first and only fretless, couldn't tell you what it sounded like or how it played because back then I knew nothing about good basses. Seem to recall it cost about £350-£400 new, so that's not a bad price at all.

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1324645799' post='1476607'] He also seems to have Vox cabs up there as well...which is probably a nod to his historical image. I doubt they have much use though.[/quote] I thought the Vox set up was for when he was playing guitar, again more in line with the Vox / 60's British music image. [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1324645799' post='1476607'] Of course, he is going to have bass sound all over the stage from various monitors/fills but maybe he likes the initial source sound the Boogies give him so he would be Di'd to the PA and monitor mixes and he would get take a bleed to his own amp set-up. [/quote] So if you liked that sound for your own set-up, wouldn't you also want to have that sound coming out the PA for the audience to hear? Otherwise why bother!

I had the joy of being at Paul McCartney's gig at the MEN Arena. However one of the things that puzzled me was his choice of speaker cabinets. From what I could see, he had two stacks of Mesa Boogie cabinets, the right stack was 2 1x12" and left stack was a 1x12" on the bottom and a 2x10" on top. Now the thing that puzzles me is that as far as I could tell, the amps were DI'd to the desk, there were no mic's picking up sounds from either the 1x12" or 2x10". So in that kind of big arena sound set-up, the only sound that the audience will hear is the DI'd sound. So my question is: why not just have 4 1x12"? (The other bass rig was just 2 8x10" Ashdown cabinets).

Thanks for the advice, I'll have a look at that and see if something's funny.

Hi, At home, I play through an old Trace Elliot Boxer 30 practice amp. I guess it must be at least 13 years old. However, on some occasions when I've been playing, the volume has all of a sudden progressively reduced to zero. If I then turn it off and back on again, then it seems to be ok. This happens to both the basses that I own - a Status and a Stingray, both of which are active. So I was wondering if perhaps the active signal from either bass may be overloading the input circuits of the practice amp, causing it to temporarily cut out? I'm sure that turning up the volume on the bass increases the occurance of this fault. So does anybody have a better view on what the likely diagnosis is? Thanks in advance, Mark