Need a new cab, what's about?

[Finbar]

Not really had my eye on what gear is about recently - been out of bands for around a year or so now. Just starting again, and I sold all my stuff a while back. I used to have a Matamp GT200 and 6x10 as well as a Schroeder 1212L for the smaller occasions. It's all change now though and I have a POD HD500 pushing a Powersoft poweramp in a rack. Trying out modelling

I want to make live sound easier, and not fanny about with microphones and stuff. So if I can send a DI signal from the Pod fully noise gated, compressed, high and low passed just right with cab sims on and stuff, that seems to make a lot of sense. Also makes recording a good deal easier.

My only issue past that is monitoring. I'm not relying on venues for monitoring. Hell, some venues don't even have monitors. How many times have you turned up somewhere and asked about the monitors, only to get "Oh, those? Yeah we don't plug them in, they don't really work properly..". There are also going to be those gigs with no PA support, or where it is totally inappropriate/the PA is only a vocal one etc, so I still need a cab.

I still want something loud for rehearsals and non-PA gigs (the Powersoft amp is in the kW territory, so I'm fine with that), but it needs to be a cab that is capable of taking some gritty gnarled up bass tone with some big bottom end and also not fighting against the cab sims that I'll be running. You hear FRFR/flat response banded around a lot, but what is there really out there in terms of bass? I don't feel like PA cabs are the best thing to be going for but I'm not really sure. Just want something to put out what it gets in, and sound like what I'm giving the sound engineer on the night.

Being compact and/or light is a bonus I guess.

So what's actually out there?

[WinterMute]

I run a Pod XT pro into a Crown XTi1000, and I'm hopefully picking up my Barefaced Big Twin T next week, it's nearly finished...!

I'm doing pretty much what you are doing and I chose the Big Twin T because its effectively designed to act as a large bass orientated monitor speaker, the Pods are then driving the whole sound and the cab simply amplifies the signal to gig levels, the Barefaced cabs are light, very loud but they certainly ain't cheap. The fEARful designs are working on a similar idea, but Barefaced are in Brighton.

Do yourself a favour and discuss your needs with Alex on [email protected] and check out their line at http://www.barefacedbass.com.

[Finbar]

Firstly, you aren't Wintermute from MX are you?

Barefaced stuff is potentially on the agenda. I used to own a Vintage, which didn't sound too bad. It had a lot of clarity, but I wouldn't say it was thunderous or anything compared to other cabs I've owned. So yeah, I'd be interested in the Big Twin T or maybe the Super Twelve. The claim that a Big Twin will sound like a good hifi with recorded music playing through it is certainly something I'm interested in with regards to using modelling and cab sims.

Just looking to see what other options are around basically

[WinterMute]

Not sure what MX might be, I've been using the tag for years, mainly on Apple forums though...

I looked at a whole bunch of stuff before going with Barefaced, the combination of size, weight, pure output and tonality looks very hard to beat if you can afford the price. I'll let you know once I've had a chance to fire the cab up. Alex puts his money where his mouth is with the one month money back deal, he's absolutely certain they can build you a cab that does what you want.

The Fearful designs look good, but you'd need to find a builder you trust.