squeezer

Bass Direct have Kala California solids in stock if you can afford one. I got a fretless 4-string a couple of years back, just fitted Galli flatwounds (Pyramid roundwounds were chewing my fingers up) and it sounds and plays great. Didn't intend to buy it but made the mistake of having a go while they fixed a duff preamp on my ubass, and couldn't go home without it...

They may have a stupid name but the Behringer iNuke amps are dirt cheap, light, reliable, have a 3 year guarantee, and work well on bass (I use mine for PA subs) so long as you don't believe the quoted power ratings -- but they may be a bit too powerful for a CN212 if used bridged except for the NU1000, which is only about £120...

[quote name='Torben Hedstrøm' timestamp='1392472327' post='2369132'] I am on the prowl for a new amp setup, and I have considered a pre/power solution with a class D powerunit. One thing that bothers me a little, looking at those figures is... For instance: Power output in ??? Ohm : 2x2000 Watts. Ok... Here normal wall outlets are app. 230 Volts. Normal household fuses are app. 10 Ampere. Now that makes the maximum powerdraw from one wall outlet 230x10 = app. 230 Watts. If (Theoretically) the amp had no heat dissapation = 100% efficiency (unlikely, even for class D), and there was nothing in the amp at all consuming any power... The maximum 'real world' power the amplifier could deliver, would be 2300 Watts. Or ??? [/quote] For starters, you can draw a lot more than 3kW from a 13A mains socket In the UK) so long as you don't do it for too long. A "13A" fuse won't blow at 2x the current rating (6kW) for a minimum of 10 seconds (maximum is it will never blow), at 3x current rating (9kW) blow time is between 0.3 seconds and 2 minutes -- yes, there's a pretty big tolerance here. http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/sites/default/files/Circuit_Protection_Characteristic_Curves.png And most bass players don't play continuous sinewaves -- even for heavily compressed/limited bass the average power is less than a quarter of the maximum. Put these together and you can safely use an 8kW class-D amp (playing bass guitar, not sinewaves) on a single 13A mains socket, and 6kW on a 10A socket.

[quote name='LukeFRC' timestamp='1391868926' post='2362147'] 15,000w watts into 4 ohms.... I think if you tried that you would get punchy sound..... one punch and your speaker cabs would disintegrate! [/quote] Probably wouldn't matter -- if you can afford this amp you can treat cabs as disposable :-) If you want to hear what this would sound like you could just plug your cab into the the mains -- it won't be as loud as the bridged PKN (only 240V rms instead of 360V so about half the power) and it would only play a low G (for a very short time!), but it would be a lot cheaper way to explode your cab than buying the amp. There are drivers that will handle these kind of power levels but they're not exactly small or cheap and you might need rather big boxes [url="http://www.bcspeakers.com/products/lf-driver-neo/21-0/21ipal"]http://www.bcspeaker...neo/21-0/21ipal[/url] 3 series drivers in a 20 cubic feet ported box tuned to 33Hz will handle the full output of a bridged PKN20K, but I'm not sure even the most insane metal-head bassist would want to stand in front of a cab putting out 146dB SPL -- or 152dB if you had 2 of these cabs on a PKN40K...

As Bill F. said you can make a good or bad amp (with a good or bad power supply) of any class. Designing good class-D amps is more difficult but can be done, the other side of this is that because it's "easy" to do "high-power" class-D amps with SMPS (small, light) lots of manufacturers cut corners and make bad ones with insufficient energy storage or power reserve, and this applies just as much to bass amps (maybe more) as PA power amps. But some do it properly -- if you want *really* loud punchy bass but think class D amps can't deliver it, you could try connecting one of these up to your pre-amp and cabinet(s)... ;-) [url="http://www.pknc.com/3phase_eng.html"]http://www.pknc.com/3phase_eng.html[/url]

[quote name='jonunders' timestamp='1391652690' post='2359852'] Hi, I have been looking to possibly move over to a fretless 5 string bass and I have been looking at the MTD Kingston KZ5 fretless on the Bass Direct website. Has anyone got any comments on these basses or other suggestions for basses in this price range. Jon [/quote] Go down to Bass Direct in Warwick, talk to Mark about fretless basses and the sound you're looking for, and play some. Make sure you have a go on a Lightwave; you might love it (like I did) or hate it, but you won't mistake it for anything else.

If you want to go fretless and want something that sounds closer to an acoustic bass, go down to Bass Direct and try out a Lightwave. They don't sound like anything else, you'll either love it (like I did with my fretless SL5) or hate it ;-)

[quote name='Annoying Twit' timestamp='1388050817' post='2318035'] Thanks. I fully believe you all that it's a flat neck, but my eyes are still telling my brain that it's twisted. It really is a convincing optical illusion [/quote] This will really do your head in than -- a Torzal twist neck with fanned frets... http://littleguitarworks.com/2012/06/torzal-fanned-fret-yes/

[quote name='JapanAxe' timestamp='1387044347' post='2307760'] Wow! How have I missed these? [/quote] I guess because there are not many on the UK?

Picked this black ex-demo one up from Bass Direct last week as an early Xmas present, cost a grand with Thomastik Jazz Flats fitted: [url="http://www.bassdirect.co.uk/bass_guitar_specialists/Lightwave_SL5_FL.html"]http://www.bassdirec...ave_SL5_FL.html[/url] Now I've spent most of today setting it up to my taste (nut height, neck relief, intonation, string heights, optical pickup heights, string volumes) it plays like a dream, and sounds *fantastic*... :-) Sustain is incredibly long, and you can get a massive range of sounds out of it -- including one more like a super-clean acoustic bass (but with no body resonance boom!) than anything electric I've ever heard. I wasn't intending to buy a fretless since I've only ever played fretted, I went there to try a fretted one but fell in love with the fretless sound, and it really isn't so difficult to play in tune. Setting up the optical pickups is not difficult at all, and it's got things that a conventional bass hasn't got like individual volume adjustments on each string which makes it easy to get perfect balance between them. There's both more fundamental (especially on the low strings, the B is excellent) and more top end than magnetic pickups, a lovely clean sound with that gorgeous fretless "mwah" on top when you want it. Another plus point is it's very quiet and almost totally immune to noise pickup -- I'm sitting at my PC and if I'm playing my Ibanez SR505 I have to be very careful where to sit or it picks up buzzes and whistles from the PC (even with humbucking pickups), I can put the Lightwave right next to the PC with no noise at all. Being rather different to a conventional bass I guess it's a "Marmite" instrument, so I guess it's a good job I'm a Marmite fan :-) And it and the Phil Jones Flightcase could have been made for each other...

I got a stereo condenser MXL USB.007 for less than £100 and it makes fantastic recordings, but the cheapest I can find it now is £129 :-(

[quote name='otis_b_flywheel' timestamp='1360866346' post='1977680'] Thanks folks, I don't really like the sound of my current round-wounds so the flats are definitely worth a try. Tim [/quote] If you're feeling flush and want to try something very different I can recommend Thomastik Jazz Flats. They're expensive but last pretty much forever. But be warned, they're like Marmite -- you'll either really love them (I do!) or hate them...

[quote name='squeezer' timestamp='1318544419' post='1403694'] I've contacted the UK distributors and they've agreed to repair it FOC :-) [/quote] Got it back today, dead quiet now with no whistle -- Synergy replaced the SMPS board with the new design. Great service, great sounding amp :-) (even better now I've switched to TI Jazz Flat strings, fantastic to play and luscious sound!)

[quote name='Beedster' timestamp='1318283852' post='1400176'] Yep, poor QC means that some are lucky and others not so [/quote] I've contacted the UK distributors and they've agreed to repair it FOC :-)

Hmm, just had another listen tonight and the whistle *is* there but very quiet, irrespective of all volume settings -- but I know it wasn't there at the weekend when I found the pickup problem... There was a quote from SIr Funkalot (of Phil Jones) on the talkbass forum in January this year saying: "We did have a slight noise problem when the AC voltage was above 220V. We have extensivly redesigned the main power supply board and now there is no longer a noise issue even at 240V." I wonder if I get in touch they'll fix mine? Trouble is it's over a year since I bought it... :-(

I've got a Flightcase BG150 and I've had the background whistle problem on several occasions -- and I've finally tracked down what the problem is... It's not the amp itself, this is extremely quiet as has been said. What I have found is that the amp (or the power supply, or both) radiates electrical noise which is picked up by a bass anywhere within a couple of feet of the cabinet, the pickups are obviously sensitive to magnetic fields (or they wouldn't work) and this is what the transformers and/or inductors in the amp are radiating. If you stand up in front of the amp playing it's silent, if you're sitting down right next to it you start to hear some noise, and if you put the bass down on a stand next to it while not playing you'd better turn the amp right down. This is also why the whistle comes out of the DI output if you're using it, because it's being picked up by the bass not generated inside the amp itself. So it's difficult to say how much blame should be attached to Phil Jones, or the shops that say "We tried it and it's perfectly quiet" -- they're right so long as you don't put the bass too close to the amp, so if you don't try this accidentally you'd never spot the problem. Of course you could also say that amps shouldn't radiate noise like this which is true, but only once you've figured out what's wrong -- and none of the references I've seen to this problem have tracked this down. If you keep your bass away from the amp it's a terrific piece of kit.

[quote name='Born 2B Mild' post='653657' date='Nov 13 2009, 02:55 PM']I don't know the actual weight, but my Ibanez SR505 is my lightest fiver. Using it for tonight's gig above my other (bigger budget) basses for no other reason than I really like it! Should be relatively easy to find one to try out too. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110455194969&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]This one's like mine[/url][/quote] My SR505 is 7lb 6oz.

Apologies for asking what seems like the same question yet again. but having read through all the forum posts on the subject it's obvious that the answer depends heavily on who's asking the question and what they're looking for -- so here goes... Triggered by a major band reorganisation I'm switching to bass from acoustic guitar and squeezebox, and having borrowed an old 5-string Maison (45mm nut, 18mm spacing) from our ex-bass player it's becoming obvious that I'll need to replace it soon -- apart from anything else I know it's prone to noise pickup which has proved impossible to fix. We play for dances (ceilidhs in the English sense of the word), and I'm looking for a bass to give a solid foundation to the sound, especially on the B string which I use quite a lot -- I'm a bit of a bass-head and built our PA to be flat down to low B. I play using fingers (not slap), mostly fairly straight walking bass lines rather than anything funky 'cos the bass needs to set a solid rhythm for dancing. The sound I'm looking for is a solid bottom end with plenty of fundamental, but without the boomy sound in the 80-100Hz region that you often get just by using bass boost to obtain this. I think this means an active bass, maybe with 3-band EQ instead of just bass and treble, so I can bring the bottom end up and then cut the mid-bass to remove the boominess? I'm not sure I need 2 pickups, I never use the bridge one on the Maison 'cos it sounds too thin. From reading the forums I'm expecting to pay something in the £300-£500 region (I'm in the UK) to get something rather better than a beginners instrument, and I'd prefer to buy new rather than second-hand, if only so I can guarantee that I can get the instrument I want when I want it. I don't mind a wide neck (long thin fingers) but I'd prefer a fairly thin one -- our bass player replaced the Maison with an Ibanez SR305 which feels nice to play to me -- which isn't too heavy, but I'd prefer wider string spacing rather than narrow, and would like a bass which is not too heavy (some I've tried have been like having a millstone round your neck). Long scale is fine, especially if this helps the B string sound. Basses I've been looking at so far are as follows, but I'd value any comments you have on them and any suggestions for better alternatives -- I'm based in London, once I've got a list I'll find a shop and go and try them out, but I need to narrow down the choice first. 1. Washburn Force 5 (£300) -- not so popular and very little info, but some people think it's an excellent bass for the money. Through neck is a plus point, but only has 2 band EQ 2. Ibanez SR305 (£260) -- played this and quite liked the feel and weight but not sure about the EQ, also only 16.5mm spacing 3. Ibanez SR505 (£470) -- bigger brother with better pickups and 3-band EQ, is it worth the extra money? Any other ideas? Any London shop suggestions (for trying and buying) would be helpful too :-) Cheers Ian