I'm so pleased with this new speaker by Barefaced Bass, as well as the other two speakers by them that I already own, that I thought I would start a new thread to better introduce Barefaced to upright players. I have no financial interest whatsoever in this--I just love their speakers. There has been some discussion of them on the BG side of the Forum and they are well covered in Basschat.co.uk since Barefaced Bass is a British company owned by Alex Claber and based in the Brighton area of England. The following posting is an amalgamation of comments I've already posted on the BG side and Basschat. I am a jobbing bassist, primarily on upright, living in the Edinburgh area for the last eight years. Prior to that I was gigging in the Los Angeles area for over 20 years. A quick summary of Barefaced Bass speakers--very well made, light, incredibly loud, clean and clear, and remarkably (at least to me) sound equally as good on upright as bass guitar. Now for some more comments about the One10 and my other speakers.
I was lucky enough to be sitting at my computer two weeks ago when an email from Alex arrived announcing the One10 and introductory pricing of £199 for the first 10 buyers. I currently own a Big Baby 2 and a Super Midget which I use on their own and paired. These are the best speakers I have ever owned, and I jumped at the opportunity to get one of Alex's speakers designed for low-volume small group play that is very light at 16 pounds. I was lucky enough to get one at the introductory price of £199.
My speaker--serial number 002--arrived Friday 11 September. It is beautifully constructed and a step-up in quality from the already high standards of the latest generation Barefaced cabinets. I had a chance to play around with it at home on upright bass and to A-B it to one of Mike Arnopol fibreglass Crazy 8 speakers which has been my go-to box for small gigs. I thought the new One10 sounded much more solid and substantial. For swing music I was able to get the big punchy sound I look for on upright bass--think tones that are like "cubes with eased edges" rather than blobs--if that makes any sense to people. Like other BF speakers I wasn't able to get it to fart out or distort noticeably, driving it with AI Clarus SL (one of the old ones.) I found that using an FDeck HiPass filter in front of this amp (that doesn't have one built in) helped to firm up the sound and allow me to increase the volume to an even higher level.
I had an upright gig on Saturday night with a jazz quartet of bone, piano, drums and me, which I thought was going to be quiet background jazz. Off I went with the new speaker. Unfortunately when I arrived I found that I was playing more of a neo-swing dance gig in a big marquis with volumes way up, well beyond what the One10 is designed to do. If I'd had my Big Baby 2 and new Midget pairing, it would have been perfect. Fortunately there was good PA support. The One-10 did make an excellent stage monitor however, and I like the fact that it fits into a padded cajon bag along with my AI Clarus and an extension reel for easy over-the-shoulder load-in.
20 September Update: I've still not had the right gigging situation yet for the new speaker--yesterday's job was an outdoor 30's swing gig on upright without PA support. Because I was concerned about volume and overloading the One10, I took the Super Midget instead.
I spent a bunch of time today with both upright and bass guitar in my large front hall (15' X 25' with a 12' ceiling) and thought my experience with the One10 and my other speakers might be helpful. I'm not a professional equipment reviewer, just a jobbing musician, so I might not have the lingo down, but here are my thoughts in sort of random order.
Erik Hansen aka LowNote
Edinburgh, Scotland
I was lucky enough to be sitting at my computer two weeks ago when an email from Alex arrived announcing the One10 and introductory pricing of £199 for the first 10 buyers. I currently own a Big Baby 2 and a Super Midget which I use on their own and paired. These are the best speakers I have ever owned, and I jumped at the opportunity to get one of Alex's speakers designed for low-volume small group play that is very light at 16 pounds. I was lucky enough to get one at the introductory price of £199.
My speaker--serial number 002--arrived Friday 11 September. It is beautifully constructed and a step-up in quality from the already high standards of the latest generation Barefaced cabinets. I had a chance to play around with it at home on upright bass and to A-B it to one of Mike Arnopol fibreglass Crazy 8 speakers which has been my go-to box for small gigs. I thought the new One10 sounded much more solid and substantial. For swing music I was able to get the big punchy sound I look for on upright bass--think tones that are like "cubes with eased edges" rather than blobs--if that makes any sense to people. Like other BF speakers I wasn't able to get it to fart out or distort noticeably, driving it with AI Clarus SL (one of the old ones.) I found that using an FDeck HiPass filter in front of this amp (that doesn't have one built in) helped to firm up the sound and allow me to increase the volume to an even higher level.
I had an upright gig on Saturday night with a jazz quartet of bone, piano, drums and me, which I thought was going to be quiet background jazz. Off I went with the new speaker. Unfortunately when I arrived I found that I was playing more of a neo-swing dance gig in a big marquis with volumes way up, well beyond what the One10 is designed to do. If I'd had my Big Baby 2 and new Midget pairing, it would have been perfect. Fortunately there was good PA support. The One-10 did make an excellent stage monitor however, and I like the fact that it fits into a padded cajon bag along with my AI Clarus and an extension reel for easy over-the-shoulder load-in.
20 September Update: I've still not had the right gigging situation yet for the new speaker--yesterday's job was an outdoor 30's swing gig on upright without PA support. Because I was concerned about volume and overloading the One10, I took the Super Midget instead.
I spent a bunch of time today with both upright and bass guitar in my large front hall (15' X 25' with a 12' ceiling) and thought my experience with the One10 and my other speakers might be helpful. I'm not a professional equipment reviewer, just a jobbing musician, so I might not have the lingo down, but here are my thoughts in sort of random order.
- The One10 alone gets incredibly loud with no farting out at all on the E string with either upright or BG. I was driving the speaker(s) with an Acoustic Image Focus Series III so there was gobs of clean power. My upright is a LaScala Hybrid with a Revolution Solo bridge wing pickup. To make the double bass sound "right," I set the high pass filter to about 85 hz, and for BG, I rolled it all the way down to the lowest setting of 35 hz. On upright I get a very punchy and yet fat and rich sound that is clean as a whistle, mirrors the sound of my bass but projects like crazy. The One10 is much fatter when sitting on the floor and I put it down on the long side so that the cylindrical port was pointing out the side and not down to the bottom. When I put a speaker on the floor, I like to slip a foam wedge under the speaker so that I can hear it better and this would cover up the port if it was sitting with the narrow end down. The One10 also sounded good when played alone while sitting on top of another speaker--boomy rooms may well call for the speaker to be up off the floor.
- This was the first time I played a BG (Status Graphite 4-string Streamliner) through the speaker and was bowled over by what a fat funky sound it produced with just the One10 on its own. For smaller pub gigs where there is no drummer or the drummer isn't super loud, I think you could get by just fine with this speaker alone. Certainly for a drummer-less duo or trio playing background jazz in almost any size room, or any kind of folky or bluegrass gig, the One10 will do the job on either/both upright and BG.
- Somewhat surprisingly I didn't like the sound of the One10 with the Big Baby 2 although I love the sound of the SuperMidget paired with the BB2. The BB2 alone has been a wonderful speaker, particularly as a stage monitor with a loud 5-horn band in a touring Rat Pack theatre show that I play with. It is a bit hard to describe why I didn't like the One10/BB2 pairing but the sonic palette just didn't seem to mesh that well. It helped when I turned the crossover on the BB2 almost all the way to the side that favours the woofer and not the horn.
- However, the pairing of the SuperMidget and the One10 is absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend this pairing for both upright and BG. Loud, rich, clean, punchy and well disbursed are descriptors that come to mind. This will be a rig that I'll go out with often especially since the One10 fits in a Cajon bag and the SuperMidget fits in a Bass Cajon bag, making transport safe and relatively easy. I didn't want to stop playing this combination.
Erik Hansen aka LowNote
Edinburgh, Scotland
