Prime_BASS

I've had a sMB-4A in a Ray and the 3 coil version in a sterling.
I wouldn't bother with the ceramic version as its rather muddy, and lacks definition that the alnico version has.

When I had the ray it did get a few comments on great sound even compared to a pre-EB ray at a bass bash.

I'd stay away from ceramic stuff, as its a cheap magnet and to me you get a cheap sound.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XqxixMlclzs"]http://www.youtube.c...bed/XqxixMlclzs[/url]
Takeshi Ueda I would say is a lead bassist, but shares the lead role appropriatly with the guitarist.

Lead bass to me isn't necerssarily niggling and solo'ing throuigh out, it having a more prominent bass sound as the focal point. Also the bassist isnt following what the guitarist is doing, like Primus, RATM and so many others.

I alkways think of thunderstruck when AC/DC gets mentioned.

In all honestly pick sounds have always been sounds that are designed to sit back in the mix and do that low thumpy that majority of audience barely notice.

If you want a great pick player and sound, Nate Mendal live is great but for the more showy player Takeshi Ueda of Mad Capsule Markets is good example, even more so if you like bass distortion.

Honestly all these comments while helpful the only one who can tell you for sure and honestly is Alex or one of his other wizards.
Despite being busy he does answer all emails.

Personally I love my compact, the last gig I did it provided the main bass sound for a small club with pa only adding that rumble factor.

The thing on watts from my view is that the compact at least, needs a good 300watts at 8ohm, I've tried a few other heads (ampeg, eden) that have been quoted as having around 300watts and they've not had the juice to push it.

Depth?
A lot of people confuse 2x10 inability to voice the mid range correctly as depth so I think the striking clarity of the mids on any barrfaced cab is shocking, however I stand by having a gteat "flat" tone is easier to manage in loud situation and easily transfered to different genre's.

1 compact is loud. A compact and a midget will be very very very loud.

A ot of my original songs I learnt on bass I don't think ill ever forget. I don't think I've ever forgotten how to play something I've learned cuase every other week or so I try and play most of the songs I know or at least go back to ones I haven't played ina good while.

I've forgotten a fair few guitar songs I learnt in the past but who cares about that noisy thing.

At my local rehearsal space they have a peavey mk2(or3) head and a peavey 8x10 and I was very surprised by the sound very pleasant and much more usable for me compared to what ampeg has to offer.

Shout out for Mr. Bungle and deep kick.

Some personal favourites of mine are Papanegro and Maximum to the Hormone.I'd also take a look at Public Enemy.

Personaly, neither. Stingrays and sterlings hit the mark for me.

Seems simple but something many people over look is the gain on the amp.

A "hot" pickup won't necersaryly go louder than a pickup with moderate ouput as you have to set most input gains to the clip limit.

You may be after a more mid focused sound so before splashing the cash I would experiment more with all the controls you have. Also something solo'd will sound a lot different in a full band.

Money no question I would have another early 90's sterling setup the same with the same pickup.


I've yet to find myself in a situation where I needed another bass at a gig.

I'm not to familar with the sansamp which I'm guessing is the bass driver.
As far as I know presence knobs usually boost some high frequency but have a very small Q(bell shape) (I think)

Personally you I wouldn't use the bass on full and presence on full (this is what's sucking the juice out of those high end notes,)

Start with the presence on 0 and bass and treble on "flat" I,e 12 o'clock.
Use the blend to put in mids as desired. If ypu still feel you need more bass turn down the treble.

What sound are you after? Examples?

I'm not to familar with the sansamp which I'm guessing is the bass driver.
As far as I know presence knobs usually boost some high frequency but have a very small Q(bell shape) (I think)

Personally you I wouldn't use the bass on full and presence on full (this is what's sucking the juice out of those high end notes,)

Start with the presence on 0 and bass and treble on "flat" I,e 12 o'clock.
Use the blend to put in mids as desired. If ypu still feel you need more bass turn down the treble.

What sound are you after? Examples?

I used one for a good while. however I definatly prefer the loudness and sound and loud volume with the Markbass.

I would definatly try one out as its a fantastic piece of kit, a one stop shop for pretty much everything and the extra highend over the RH450 adds the option for hi-fi clean tone.
It is very loud but IMO it's a different kind of loudness. In a mix it sort of feels compressed and not any real cut (used flat eq anyway) however add a bit of drive and its a great tube sim sound.

I changed not because its a bad amp or a bad sound but I prefer the clean tube pre-amp in the LMTube, the second and third harmonics ring so much it makes me tingle and for me it makes the difference in a mix.


To be all scientific the sag and compression in sound in my opinion comes from how its APM proicess the signal peaks and troughs. Even when its not being pushed it increases the louder peaks to be as loud as say 600w or 700w peak. When its quiet it amplifies these waves to louder than what a standard amp would. However my point is when its quieter its supposed to be quieter i.e dynamics, but i may be simplifing.

[quote name='luckman67' timestamp='1321729585' post='1442569']
Today went into my local guitar shop,for the first time in months due to work & family.Either way they had some Warwick basses, SX J bass 75 and a host of other brands,but nothing interested me and I have never felt that way when I've gone into a guitar shop there is always something that I think I need.

Have any of you felt like this it was weird I didn't want to have a play on any of them either,there was a new brand there called Deacon not Jim Deacon, looked a lot like the SX even the head stock was the same. Of the 4 basses I have the only 2 that get playing time are my Ric 4003 & my MIJ / MIM Fender Precision.
[/quote]

When I go in I never think I need anything. Although I want it.

Recently I've been very happy with my setup so I know I dont need anything. I still would like a Wal.

While I was a child I pretended to be left handed in an effort to be more creative, god damn cartoons.

Well I made an effort to talk to him nefore he became ill and he just says its a chance for him to get out for a bit. Although he admits it is fun playing with us, he isn't interested in going furthar or really having a part in writing songs. His is very much more than happy playing his acoustic and didgerydoo alone in his bedroom.

We verry much focus on originals. I have to tell you the lack of guitar was like playing bass after you've recorvered froma cold. I use a very middy sound and a hard attack so in a lot of places the guitar is there because as we all know, guitarist just want to make a noise.

As far as covers go we do a strange redndition of bonker-dizee rascal and the singer played and song it quite well. I was very surprised.

The trouble with dumping him is that he is very close friend so we all would rather not have the awkwardness after.

I'm a hard git so it doesn't me so much but the singer even though he likes the idea of a three piece having a lead guitarist can add something.

Having just chord based guitar is easyier for me to write sonhs for as well, as songs are usually based on a riff for verses and chord work for chorus.

I'm a try record some of our older songs and re-arrange them to work better with less guitar and see how the other two feel about them.

We've got gigs that we've booked to think of too.

So frustrating.

For a while my first and main band has been in a state of disarray.

We (vocalist, myself and drummer) have all been concerned with the guitarist effort (or lack) we thought it was just a tempory thing since becoming madly in love with his latest partner, but he has even admitted to me he isnt really interested in the music we make anymore. Which is obvious in his atitude at rehearsals and his body language while playing. He barely remembers to bring picks, and we forever have to listen to his endless niggles.

Anyway, he has been ill recently and we thought instead of cancelling another rehearsal that we would make an effort to at least write a few tunes that I and the vocalist had been working on privatly.

We soon went over some other material and singer got the spare guitar out, I set him up with a sound (I prefer a guitarist to have haha) and we gave it a shot. Despite his sloppy playing and singing it went rather well, I was pleased with the guitar not being there in the mix all the time giving some tunes more downtime and space for the singing, and a lot less high pitched endless noise that gets annoying in some songs that the guitarist wants to do becuase "chords are boring".

Myself or any of the other guys would rather not loose the guy as he is a very talented player, but we cant make him want to play and write songs and bring all his gear so it helps form a definate clean/dirty sound.

The guys have even discussed getting a second guitarist to generate competion for him so he would be more interested but dispite having 2 guitars being a nig no no for me, it would proabbaly have the opposite effect.


Was I just happy to hear our songs live again after not hearing them a for a few weeks? or is a 3 piece and a lot less playing (from all parties) an improvement? A 3 piece to me as a bassist sounds great, more room for bass!!! I've also seen some truely great local 3 piece bands recently that I personally would aspire to, and have been a good eye opener for great bass playing in a simple but interesting format.

Obviously hard to judge without hearing it all. There is link to our first real recording on our bandpage in the sig (shameless plug). If we were to go down the 3 piece route there would be probably very little if any guitar during verses unless it was a basic 4 chord progression.

Ive done it two ways and both have worked for listenable quality. After a mix down anyway.
The drums is always the hardest part, IMO.
For my main band we did a rather large and more proffessional set up. Guitarist and bassist in the same room with a miced up drum kit. the bass amp and guitar amp are in seperate rooms miced up, and the vocalist is in another seperate room. All the tracks are recorded in 1 live take, with overdubbing guitar solos, and doubled up vocals. My preferred way if you have the resources, especially for me as a I prefer the finished product to sound not very "produced"
the vocalist has headphones of everything, while bassist , guitarist and drummer have everything but drums, playing to the feel of drums is better than the sound of drums(feeling the kick drum as an example)

In my other band the drummer and rythem guitarist really know thier timing so we do a "track by track" sort of approach.
The drummer will be micced up alone with just the guitar DI'd into his headphones. Then we all over dub the drum track.
Rythem and lead will DI probably together, then the singer will do his bit, I'll get sent the tracks to record the bass how I want. I usually do this with just a single SM57 that I have about 2" from the grill just off center of the cone. I may also DI to add some better low end.

the first way I very much prefer and it sounds like a unit is playing and worth the extra time and monies of gear for a better quality track IMO. The second way is a lot easyier and rougher fine for demos to send to venues, as they all assume we have home recording studios these days. The second option does sound like the tracks have been cut and pasted together though. I would mix them with everyone present aswell as in the past the vocalist has mixed the tracks and done a crap job, adding way too much reverb and not cutting nearly enough bass on the guitars for the bass to sit in the mix with purpose.

I would say a fair few of us have a quirk or trait that makes us [i]us, [/i]in regards to bass playing or being a bass player. I would guess mine is electrical tape across my pickup.

Ive heard of some doing this but you'd be surprised at how many people believe I do it for aesthetics.
The real reason is of course do to my rather heavy technique, It helps prevent blisters from hitting the magnets too much and helps prevent the pop when the strings hit the magnets.

Just interested really if anyone else has something strange or unique they have to do or do on a ocassion.

I dont think buying gear all the time constitutes, a high percentage of us are guilty of that.

I have not checked this out yet but do recieve emails. that arnt too mobile friendly!!!

As a keen gear head(so to speak) im very much more interested in the raw facts rather than opinions that in printed media always tend to favour what ever is being reviewed. Everything cant be a great piece of gear. I know, I have had some stonkers.

Bass gear magazine (which is online) has great content and the transparency of actually doing tests that proove for or against a certain products say wattage output. Any markbass user knows that markbasses 300watts are considerable more powerful than a few other brands, through the simple fact that the power section is not outputting 300watts. Same can be said for speaker enclosures. manufacturers marketmen will spin anything to make it sound good on the face of it.

I feel as a consumer of both bass gear and bass magazines that somewhere there needs to be a transparency of what stuff is actually capable of.

[quote name='Musicman20' timestamp='1321529464' post='1440151']
I think the ability to do both is always an advantage. I was a 95% pick player for 15 years, until 2009/10 when I started to want to play fingerstyle. Then I joined a new band this year and basically forced myself to not take a pick.

I'm still MUCH faster with a pick...really fast. But I enjoy fingerstyle more.
[/quote]

Indeed its not all about the speed. Finger work is much more pleasurable bass experience,even more so when im watching some who is really good.

Played with a pick exclusivly until I wanted to really nail some Rage when I got my sub bass.
I was massive arse about it too. With comments like "bass nerds using their fingers and playing with a short strap. That's not RAWK!"

Now I play with my fingers and have a very short strap....

Personally I prefer fingers in all most everything, I find them so much more expressive. I only really use a pick on extremely fast chords work where I just want to follow the rythm guitar.

Singer left the band after booking 10 gigs for us to play. Although he didn't tell anyone until we started talking about a rehearsal.
His reason being "his heart wasn't being in a band". He was happy that we carried on though.

Although a week later after we did a gig he booked us and left 3 day prior to, he was really upset that we carried on under the same band name and played the set we had been rehearing the past 3 months.

True after a while of reheasals I tend to turn down as it can seem a lot louder than it had at the start.

please forgive lack of replies.
I only have access on my phone and for what ever reason it cant load the pm section.

Any one still interested please email.

[email="[email protected]"][email protected][/email]

Version 1. is an older version. Version 2 has a on/off toggle for the speaker emulation. and is £20 more expensive on top of the RRP.

No power supply, comes how iut does from the shops, just without the tiny manual for suggested settings.