Baer Amplification Megathread!

[Chef]

Or would it...........

 

[Chef]

My two are #'s 17 and 68.
They came at the same time and everything.

Fraternal, rather than identical, I guess.

 

[Mystic Michael]

Hey! It's the stage gear for Bela Fleck & The Flecktones!

MM

 

[Michael Vee]

This band (nostatic) is about trying different approaches and space. Bit of an uneven night, but we're figuring it out. Baer was crankin'

I, too, am enjoying your music. You were having a lot of fun with those tunes! Nice playing. Your singer is eminently listenable on those standards.

Nostatic should record a CD's worth of live tunes. I'd buy it.

Love the Baer. The bass tone is very clear, with a very natural top.

 

[Not yet]

I, too, am enjoying your music. You were having a lot of fun with those tunes! Nice playing. Your singer is eminently listenable on those standards.

Nostatic should record a CD's worth of live tunes. I'd buy it.

Love the Baer. The bass tone is very clear, with a very natural top.

Sure does

He does have some great singers and song choices....nothing like what I play but gets ya thinkin.... I'd buy it too

 

[Eublet]

My ML112 arrived today though I wasn't expecting it until Tuesday. Not a bad surprise!

The box looked huge when the FedEx guy dropped it off. I've been using micro cabs for quite a while now (like the Shuttle 112). I knew this would be bigger, but even taking it out of the box I was a bit surprised. I like that it is very light for it's size though, and handles well with the sturdy handle. The cabinet construction is top notch in every way. Perfect symmetry, very thick covering, corner protection, etc. It looks fantastic in person...much better than any pictures have made it appear.


I've hooked it up only to my Tone Hammer 500 so far, and with everything flat, I hear the upper mid brightness and clarity. It's a bit much at first...no doubt about it. It doesn't sound bad though, rather just that all that upper mid presence is there. This is what I wanted (or think I wanted at least), so we'll see how I acclimate to it. Every cab that sounds "perfect" to me at home always feels lost at the gig, so for right now this presence is a good thing.

I use in-ears almost all the time these days, combined with my Tone Hammer DI for tone shaping. I almost always have to boost both lows and low mids @180hz to about 1 o'clock to get the IEM's sounding right. Treble is left flat. To my pleasure, doing that same boost on the amp through the ML112 gave the same satisfying result. Warm and full, with the same amount of upper mid grind I'm used to having with the IEM's. VERY cool there. Usually boosting lows and low-mids like that on a regular cab results in a muddy mess that doesn't speak very well because the upper mids aren't there to even things out. So even with the small amount of playing I've done on this cab today, this seems like a huge PLUS already in the Baer's favor. I also had to roll my passive tone back about 25% to get the tone where I like it, which again is pretty much what I have to do every time with my IEM's also.

This cab is stupid loud for a 112. No joke, it definitely feels like a 210 at least in terms of volume, but the low end has the authority of a much larger cabinet like a 410. The bottom doesn't diminish through it's usable frequency range like most 112's where you get some pretty extreme compression in the lows when you start pushing it. Not wanting to push this one too hard until it's had a chance to break in, I backed off pretty soon. If the low end opens up more then it's going to be even more impressive.

So far I really like this cab! It's definitely pulling off that IEM-tone that I mentioned I was wanting out of it without any of the sparkly top end I don't want. It's not dark sounding at all though. I see why so many people call this a bright cab. If I had tried this cabinet 5 years ago, it probably would have turned me off immediately because I was used to getting a totally different sound then. I was running 212's with the tweeter's at 9 o'clock back then, so there was very little going on above 4khz, and the low mids were more forceful. What I found then was that my EQ settings didn't really jive with a PA if I was sending a post-EQ signal from my head. But that was the only way to get the overdrive and warmth from the preamp. Since I've been using my Tone Hammer pedal and IEM's, I've found that the settings I use work much better with the PA and at the same time sound great in my ears. So this could be a god-send with the Baer if it lets me do that same thing through a cabinet.

I'm very excited at this point. Can't wait to get it out and crank it up a little. Two of these would just be deadly. I bet two of these or the ML212 would easily bury any 410 I've ever heard.

 

[Eublet]

Oh, and nostatic...upper register chording through the ML112 is beautiful sounding. Since you were doing some of that on one of your clips, I spent some time playing around myself. It sounds absolutely wonderful through the Baer. Very round still, not muddy from having to boost lows too much, but also not thin and fragile from the lack of mids.

I also cranked some overdrive a bit, and as promised, it doesn't sound harsh like a tweeter. The Tone Hammer sounds great, but the Catlinbread SFT with the P Bass was OMG kind of moment. Wow. Armadillos indeed.

 

[Chef]

Yessir, you have to give your ears some time to adjust to "paper horns," which is about what that faital mid is, IMO; which, to me, is a very good thing.

I giged two, vertical, last night in a big club.
no foh, two bose stick/subs.
there were several other bassists/band members from competing bands there, and three of them came up and said
"your bass totally fills the room, your sound runs that band. it was dominating, and full and driving, in a way that didn't overpower the band...what the heck kinda rig do you have?"

So, I showed them

I started the night with a Walkabout head, which sounds great thru those ML's; they do wonderful things to that "tube amp pushed" feel.
However, I'm about done with that head. It compresses the low end too much.
I switched to the MBFusion after first set, and had My Hammer back.

 

[nostatic]

Thanks for the props. Our vocalist is crazy good and she's starting to explore the space this lineup provides (which was a big part of my impetus for doing it). I'm cutting the live tracks into an epk for booking, and will likely do a live ep for gigs, but also we're starting a studio album with this lineup as well.

The MGS does sound really good with this rig, and frankly I wasn't happy with the tone previously. I just picked up a Lull JJ bass and it sounds amazing through the ML112. I previously have hated JJ basses (this is my last experiment with JJ). Ash/maple, and sounds incredibly smooth. I'll gig it next week and have more reference points.

 

[R Baer]

I've hooked it up only to my Tone Hammer 500 so far, and with everything flat, I hear the upper mid brightness and clarity. It's a bit much at first...no doubt about it. It doesn't sound bad though, rather just that all that upper mid presence is there. This is what I wanted (or think I wanted at least), so we'll see how I acclimate to it. Every cab that sounds "perfect" to me at home always feels lost at the gig, so for right now this presence is a good thing.

This all goes back to the design philosophy behind the ML cabs. It always frustrates me to see a band live and while I can certainly hear a lot of bass in the mix, I can't really hear any note definition. We have a lot of things going against us as bass players when we are up on stage. Rooms with bad acoustics, booming kick drums, keyboardist playing in our register, Marshall stacks and FOH people that like to pound our instrument through the subs, means that we need a little different tone from our rigs to deal everything we have going against us when we are on stage. The ML's may not have the prettiest living room tone out there, but they were meant to present a live tone that has a well defined low end with a strong upper mid presence that will let your audience actually hear what you are playing. Remember that those upper mids really get eaten up in a mix full of other instruments and club full of people. What can sound a little in your face at home, doesn't necessarily sound that way on the gig. In my experience, they also do a pretty good job of presenting a good 3D tone that sounds fairly consistent throughout the room.

I also had to roll my passive tone back about 25% to get the tone where I like it, which again is pretty much what I have to do every time with my IEM's also.

My Nordy VJ5 is the first bass I've ever owned with a passive tone control on it. I will never buy another bass without this control. I think I could put just volume/blend/passive tone on all of my basses and be happy!

 

[gillento]

Need some help eqing my ML112, please!
I am used to a Aguilar db212 and/or a 2x SL112 setup.

Now, the ML is taking care of the low end and volume beautifully. But my band mates complain it sounds boomy. Are they missing the Aguilar low mids?
What eq frequencies should I start messing with?

Head is an Ashdown ABM500, lows are neutral, mids /high mids a bit pushed....Bass is a passive Nordy PJ5 string, played pick style

 

[R Baer]

I used an ABM500 for years, so I'm very familiar with that head. Great sounding head, but certainly not the most user friendly EQ I've ever used. If you let me know how you have it set, I can probably help you out.

 

[Eublet]

Need some help eqing my ML112, please!
I am used to a Aguilar db212 and/or a 2x SL112 setup.

Now, the ML is taking care of the low end and volume beautifully. But my band mates complain it sounds boomy. Are they missing the Aguilar low mids?
What eq frequencies should I start messing with?

Head is an Ashdown ABM500, lows are neutral, mids /high mids a bit pushed....Bass is a passive Nordy PJ5 string, played pick style

My guess is everyone is used to the Mid-mid nature of the DB212 cabinet (which I LOVE though it doesn't have a lot of upper-mid grind). I'm not familiar with the ABM500, but my guess is that instead of pushing the upper mids through the ML112 (can't imagine needing to boost that area with this cab) you should try boosting more around 200-600 hz until you find what you are looking for. My short time with this cab seems to tell me that though it is tight sounding, it definitely has a bit of that "sub woofer" kind of content there, or at least enough of it to give you a big bottom if you want it. I'd think a head that doesn't have any kind of attenuation or HPF in it could exploit that a bit too much. With my Tone Hammer I've found so far that I like it with the drive up a bit so that it rolls off those subsonic lows a good bit, allowing the bast knob to work more in the 100hz region which gives some roundness. Then I have boosted low-mids to fill out the 200hz area where the bass really speaks (to me). Of course, this in only with a couple of hours of use at my house!

 

[nostatic]

The cab breaks in and the upper mids relax a bit (I'm starting to hear that). With the abm500 maybe cut the ultra lows/sub?

 

[Eublet]

Yessir, you have to give your ears some time to adjust to "paper horns," which is about what that faital mid is, IMO; which, to me, is a very good thing.

You know, Chef, I've been piddling around outside the house with honey-do's all day today, being Saturday and all, but I keep coming back inside for a quick break to make sure the cab still works. It just sounds great.

Acclimation complete.

 

[Eublet]

The cab breaks in and the upper mids relax a bit (I'm starting to hear that). With the abm500 maybe cut the ultra lows/sub?

Maybe that's what I'm getting after a few hours total of banging on it. Monday, I plan to hook a looper up to it on a one of those timer thingamajigs that'll pound it for a few hours while no one is home. Then test it again that evening. Life is good!

 

[kringle77]

I've actually always thought the ABM had a very useable and good sounding eq. Bump up the 180hz slider and turn down the bass control. Bump up the volume a bit and you should be good to go.

About the Ml212, I know that there are more than once person out there worried about eminences's neo future and are moving on to faital drivers or ceramics. Are you using the same drivers in both the ml112 and ml212? What are your plans moving forward. That 212 looks very good.

 

[R Baer]

I've actually always thought the ABM had a very useable and good sounding eq. Bump up the 180hz slider and turn down the bass control. Bump up the volume a bit and you should be good to go.

About the Ml212, I know that there are more than once person out there worried about eminences's neo future and are moving on to faital drivers or ceramics. Are you using the same drivers in both the ml112 and ml212? What are your plans moving forward. That 212 looks very good.

We continue to stick with Eminence for the neo woofer in the ML112 and ML212. It is the result of a lot of work between Eminence and ourselves and we think it is just a fantastic driver. The Faital's are nice, but they don't have the upper mid rise typical of the Eminence neo's that is a big part of the ML112's unique sound. Back when neo was going through the roof, we spent about 6 months working with Eminence on a custom ceramic driver, that sounds fantastic and can literally hang with the Kappalite OEM we use now. Should neo's become to unstable again, we are ready to go with that driver.


For the ML115, we are using a Faital, as we didn't want that prominent upper mid rise from this cab. Faital has some great products, but we still like to work with Eminence when possible. Using them supports US jobs and no other company can touch their ability to work with small guys like us in developing custom OEM products. Every other company has 5 times the minimum order quantities for OEM drivers. On top of that, the engineering team at Eminence is just amazing and they take customer service to a level you just can't get with any other company. Our engineer, Jerry McNutt, probably made 10 different samples to get the OEM we ended up with and he was a pleasure to work with the whole time.

 

[nostatic]

For those of you who are younger or relatively new to the scene, you should realize how incredibly lucky we are in this day and age. Between the interwebs and guys like Roger, the amount of information we have on our gear is phenomenal. Back in the day you were lucky if the local store carried decent gear, let alone have a salesguy who knew any details. You might get a brochure, and if you were real lucky, you had a connection to attend NAMM and then you *might* get to talk to the manufacturers.

So thanks Roger for not only making great stuff, but being here to give us the real scoop on the gear and what's behind it.

 

[Eublet]

For those of you who are younger or relatively new to the scene, you should realize how incredibly lucky we are in this day and age. Between the interwebs and guys like Roger, the amount of information we have on our gear is phenomenal. Back in the day you were lucky if the local store carried decent gear, let alone have a salesguy who knew any details. You might get a brochure, and if you were real lucky, you had a connection to attend NAMM and then you *might* get to talk to the manufacturers.

So thanks Roger for not only making great stuff, but being here to give us the real scoop on the gear and what's behind it.

+1. I think TB helps also. Even your typical Guitar Center doesn't really present you with the options that are out there these days. It was only 15 years ago that I was living in Florida, driving to Tampa to go to Thoroughbred Music, and the choices then were very slim even for a large music store. The stuff these days is truly amazing.