aniki

Can confirm that different tubes make no difference whatsoever.

Hey Folks, After a bit of direction here. I use two identical amps (Solid State pre amps / Tube Outputs) Running either one at 8ohms produces identical results. Running them at 4ohms, one is clear and as expected, the other distorts; even at low volume. The one that distorts has had the most use but at 8ohms, still runs happily for several hours at a time at a volume loud enough to knock down houses! Before I start throwing money at valves or transformers, can anyone suggest what might be the issue? Many thanks

What a fantastic bargain for someone! Always had a soft spot for the Lexus amps and cabs. - I can honestly say that pretty much every band I've seen this year (roughly around 40 gigs, mostly in the UK) have used 'big rigs', regardless of venue size. Most being small to medium. None of them have used IEMs. National bands have all had roadies. I use a 'big rig' (well 2 at a time if I'm honest, 2x amps and 4x 15's) for one of my bands regardless of venue size. They are alway mic'd as the amps don't have DI outs. The FOH sound is always near identical to the sound coming from my cabs. To summarise, in my experience, big rigs are most certainly not out of date...

I wouldn't mind betting that either one or both of the guitarists have WAY too much bass on their eq. Sure, it sounds nice and heavy in isolation but totally inappropriate in a band situation and sadly very common! Start with just drums. Then add bass; can you get loud enough to comfortably match the drum volume? If so, your equipment is fine. The guitarists should then turn up enough to form that cohesive blend where you all sound like 'a band' rather than several people playing their instruments in the same room if you get my meaning...

Ultimate fuzz for bass IMO is the Blackarts toneworks Pharaoh. Massive range of tones and maintains tight low end.

Seems a slightly odd choice but whatever works... I've heard that some of the Finnish metal bands would use some ridiculous techniques with guitar tones. One was recording a guitar track with a tea-towel wrapped around the strumming hand. They would typically record as many different ways they could think of and mix and match to achieve the ultimate desired result.

Here’s a little of what I was alluding to in my previous post: https://www.vice.com/en/article/people-booking-pirate-recording-studios-for-parties/

My experience of Pirate echoes many of those already stated. Was a user from the beginning and rarely had a single booking without some kind of issue. To be fair to Pirate, the vast majority of problems were just down to people being tw@s! Unfortunately Pirate didn't account for this in their business model. Problems I experienced: Other bands not finishing soon enough to be out of the room at the end of their session (me paying for their time to pack their sh!t up) Other bands leaving trash randomly lying around the room Other users blatantly smoking cigarettes or vapes or dope inside the building (probably the cause of multiple fire alarms) Multiple fire alarms disrupting sessions with similar lack of protocol for investigation as above Arriving at a session to find all the equipment stacked up in a corner of the room Arriving at a session to find some of the equipment broken, missing or not as expected (paid for when booking) Difficulty trying to talk to a human when something goes wrong People and their mates gathering outside studios making lots of noise and generally being antisocial Problems I 'had heard' about which may or may not be true: People renting large rooms and holding all night parties for their mates People renting rooms to play music and take drugs People renting rooms to take hookers to People renting rooms to take hookers to AND take drugs AND leave dead hooker in room A couple of years ago Pirate contacted all registered users asking for them to upload scans of their passports. At this point the party was over for me. They didn't get my details and I started using another studio. No regrets to be honest. Like a lot of things; it was great while it was, then people came along and screwed it up for everyone...

I really expected more from the Venture range. The PFs had nice tone but for me still lacked that mystery special sauce that I only get with heavy amps. My old SVT200 absolutely decimated the PF800 I owned briefly for volume! As such, won’t be throwing any more money at this tech until there’s a fundamental change.

I don't have a thread for the board I'm afraid. It's evolved a bit since that photo: It probably looks way more complicated than it is; considering most of the time I'm just playing clean bass! Basically all the pedals at the back stay on. Everything is controlled via the six switches at the front. - The clean signal enters via a patch bay into the tuner and then compressor (always on). The clean signal then goes through a looper with which I can add 'phaser / reverb' and / or delay. This signal then goes to the ABYbaby which splits the signal into two. The switches select either output or both. Output B goes straight to another patchbay through to my clean amp. Output A goes to another looper. This has distortion / noise gate on the first loop and flanger on the second. Again, I can combine dirty with clean, dirty and flanger with clean etc. The output from the looper then goes to another patchbay output to my dirty amp. - A lot of the time I'm playing guitar type parts with the clean channel and the phaser. When things get heavy, I use unaffected clean channel combined with distorted dirty channel for ultimate planetary destruction...

Different tools for different jobs to be honest. I rely on my bass for the majority of my tone. However, the orange has a smoother, warmer sound as it has a tube preamp. Although I brighten it up a bit with different preamp tubes and using full-range drivers in my cabs. The hd150 has an ultra clean solid state preamp so naturally sounds brighter. Depending on which band I’m playing with and where, will determine which amp I use. If I’m using both, the MM does the clean channel and Orange does the dirty.

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Yup. Either the Orange AD200 or Musicman HD150. As 'backups' I have an Orange OB1 and Ampeg SVT200. Why? Never played a class D amp that didn't sound like dog poo...