alexclaber

[quote name='tayste_2000' post='13133' date='Jun 6 2007, 04:48 PM']I agree with all these points but it was the only way I could justify more lights in my rack [/quote]

I got a tuner for that!

There's nothing truly wrong with using a power conditioner UNLESS you have a powerful amp. Few power conditioners can supply enough current to feed 1000W+ amps, and once you get into rackmount power amps that's most of them.

If you already own a power conditioner and have a high power amp, do not connect the power amp through it.

Alex

[quote name='Aussiephoenix' post='9214' date='May 30 2007, 02:12 PM']the Voltage Regulator, is a really important part of my setup.
I REALLY recomend people with expensive equipment to go and buy one.

Basically, it does 3 things...
1) it regulates the voltage that it supplies to the head, tuner and anything else I want to connect to it to an EXACT 230v. no fluctuations, so my equipment can run at the perfect conditions it was meant for.
2) It protects my equipment from surges
3) regarding point 1, this means less or no static noise. sometimes the only clue that the amp is turned on is hearing the fan/seeing the lights[/quote]

Regarding the three points:

1. Does it actually regulate the voltage or does it just tell you if the voltage is not optimal? If it does regulate the voltage how much current can it deliver?

2. A simple surge protected power strip can do this at far less cost and weight.

3. Any half-decent rack gear should not need A/C filtering.

Alex

[quote name='parker_muse' post='13101' date='Jun 6 2007, 04:07 PM']Im going to use ply or pine... something strong and light. The idea is to have 1x12' speaker set-up in a very strong case, just big enough for it, its bulk really where im cutting down on weight.[/quote]

Bear in mind that most bass cabs are made from decent quality ply and still weigh a lot. If you go down to 1/2" from 3/4" you can save 30% of the weight (but remember to add bracing). Using a neo driver like a DeltaLite II 2512 will save you some more.

For my lightweight design I'll be making the cab from a ply/foam/ply composite, using 3mm ply and 12mm expanded polystyrene. I may even epoxy a layer of glassfibre in between the ply and foam. Something worth considering if you have the time as you can expect to more than halve the weight of the cab compared to a 3/4" ply ferrite magnet design.

Alex

I'm currently in the midst of a personal biamping debate. Do I use an active crossover (24dB @ ~1kHz) and get 550W into one 15" (or 900W into two) on the lows and 300W into the mid/high horn on the highs, or do I build a passive crossover and then bridge my amp for 2000W shared between single 15" and mid/high horn (or 3000W into two 15"s and mid/high horn)?

Hmmm...

I would not recommend biamping with standard bass cabs, they simply aren't designed right for it. Fullrange on one cab and lows only on another could work well though.

Alex

So how are you going to make it light?

I'm doing the same myself, though not for GSCE...

Alex

I have an Avalon U5 enroute at the moment. It'll be here in about 10 days, will update once I've given it a whirl.

Alex

It's all too exciting!!! Headstock is looking good.

Regarding switching, on my current bass I just use a 3-way neck/both/bridge switch. However based on listening to various Dingwall clips and knowing how running pickups in series gives a gain boost, reduced highs and thicker mids, having a series option is a nice fourth basic tonal colour. I also have a strong suspicion that it'll be most useful when I'm having reggae moments, due to the gain allowing a lighter touch and the tonal shift suiting the vibe.

Alex

[quote name='pete.young' post='12164' date='Jun 4 2007, 11:10 PM']So in order to get the optimum bass response, you need a cabinet volume equivalent to the VAS ? It
can't be that simple, surely.[/quote]

I'm still getting my head around the inner workings of speakers but that's certainly the gist of it. I haven't dealt with any sealed cab designs because they don't work well for bass unless they're huge or for very low volume use (Ampeg 810 and AI Contra respectively).

What size cab are we specifically dealing with, is it ported or not, how much power do you have to play with and do you need it to be a standalone or just to add bottom?

Alex

I think one of the best things about music as a pasttime it isn't competitive and furthermore competiveness rarely benefits it - it's all about working in 'harmony' with other musicians.

The strange thing about bass technique is it isn't at all obvious to the average listener which bassists have excellent technique and which don't. You may say, "pah, it's obvious that so-and-so who can two handed tap and slap like a maniac has better technique than that bloke in AC/DC" but actually the converse is often true. Yes there are 'advanced' (read: flash) techniques that can be used on the bass (and sometimes they're even used well!) but they are rarely as effective as techniques like excellent muting, control of note length, ability to play around the beat.

That's not to say that those with all the flash (Mr Wooten for one) can't do that other subtler 'deeper' stuff because many of them can. But you do get the bedroom bassists that miss the point because they haven't got sufficiently involved in an ensemble.

Then there's stuff like your ear - how quickly you can pick things up, how you can identify harmony, how you can decipher intricate grooves, etc. I know I'm not good enough at some of that to play jazz well (if at all!) but in genres in which I'm more comfortable I'm not bad - but I've still a long way to go.

Returning to the technique thing, I have an excess of technique for most of the stuff I want to play yet I still don't have enough 'technique headroom' to always be within my abilities once the chaos of the live environment is thrown in. I can't tap and my slapping is pretty rudimentary but my fingers are fairly fast and I do have a whole pile of chordal strumming, thumb plucking and other esoteric techniques which are an important part of my playing, my writing and thus the sound of my band.

I don't actually practise in a remotely organised manner - instead I spend my time writing new material or going through current material, some of which is quite stretching especially that which requires running bass and chords simultaneously and playing independant rhythms with them and then singing on top.

I suppose "when is good, good enough" for me will be when my music earns me a living - and that requires me to become a great songwriter and I have a very long way to go to get there, if I ever do! The bass playing is subservient to that but as I write on bass my technique has to be good enough to not get in the way even when I'm doing relatively weird things.

Alex

Having tried both extensively, I'd recommend avoiding compression live except as a specific effect. It's all too easy to end up beating your bass to death because it isn't getting louder like it ought to. Conversely if you're in a very guitar-centric band then it may help the overall mix because guitar, especially when distorted, has much more limited dynamic range than other instruments so it keeps the two instruments more in step. My band is very dynamic and thus the guitarist is having to work on opening up his dynamic range by judicious effects choices and minimising the use of compressed multi-FX patches, in the hope of keeping up with the rest of us when we're playing loud without being too loud when we're playing quietly.

I wish I could go without compression for recordings but it's impossible to make a radio-friendly mix without a lot of compression on the band, and that's best achieved by multiple stages of slight compression rather than squishing the final mix heavily. I won't be tracking with compression though, it'll be applied in the mix and then I expect to use multiband compression on the master.

Alex

[quote name='pete.young' post='11903' date='Jun 4 2007, 04:08 PM']I'd like to ask what the significance of the Vas is, but I'm not sure I'd understand the answer![/quote]

Vas represents the equivalent volume of air to have the same spring compliance as the woofer. Basically the higher the Vas, the larger the cab needs to be to get full bass response (i.e. resonant frequency of speaker in cabinet equal to resonant frequency of speaker in free air).

The reason that few bass cabs have the lows they claim is that the speakers have too high Vas for the cab they're in. To get a lower Vas without giving up sensitivity is difficult, hence the "loud, low, small, pick any two" law of speaker design.

Alex

4/4 with kick on 3 and skank on 2 and 4. Counting it in half time with kick on 2 and 4 makes it much harder to feel the bubbling forward motion.

It sounds like your musical director is treating it too much like a polka!

Alex

Donny Hathaway - Live

and on bass "the baddest bass player in the country - Willie Weeks y'all!"

Alex