Streamliner 900 arrived in Aberdeen today
Studio tomorrow (will report on Monday)
Gig Skinz bag on back order because manufactuer can't appear to differentiate *rsehole from elbow. Bass Direct have been chasing back order for months. Looks like my bag is on a boat somewhere between China and (I'm guessing) Holland.
Two out of three ain't bad (is there nothing Meatloaf can't teach us) and I've got laptop bags that can probably tide me over until then.
Ooooooookay ... post studio report.
First thing ... the Streamliner fits perfectly in one of these
http://www.targus.com/uk/product_details.asp?sku=TSB212. When I say perfectly I mean like the bag was custom made for it. Plus I can get a 4 way plug board, a Bassbone DI, cables, pedals and all that jazz in there as well. Result!!!
I got about half an hour's goofing around time on Friday night. I have to admit that the first thing that went through my head when I fired it up was "don't let the curse of KJung strike me".
Everything flat on that amp - check
Cable into Barefaced Compact - check
Sadowsky Metro's preamp flat, pickups centered, volume on full - check
Play a few notes and ....
ok ... hang on ... make sure that everything really is set flat - check and check
Play a few more notes ... same result
Cue a little whispered muttering under the breath along the lines of "sweet zombie Jesus this thing sounds ace!!!!"
Moving on to the studio session on Saturday. I've got to put down parts on three tracks. 1 - a rock tune (think Spiritualised), 2 - a kinda folkish stomper and 3 - white boys trying to play reggae.
We're recording a post-fade DI from the head and an SM57 on the cab (rough mixes have a heavy bias to the DI)
The rock tune's getting a Sadowsky Metro with oldish D'Addario nickle roundwounds and the other two are getting a Fender Jazz with Di Marzio Ultra Js and new D'Addario Chromes. Straight off the bat the bass is sitting in the mix like a happy fat kid and that theme continued throughout. We were having to crack through stuff pretty quickly so there wasn't much knob tweaking going on but frankly there wasn't really much required.
Sitting down today (Sunday) listening back to the tracks I'm pretty pleased. Comparing them to other tracks (same set up aside from a Markbass SA450 as the head) there is a texture that is different, better IMO. This is particularly noticeable when favouring the bridge pick up. With the Markbass head some judicious knob tweaking was needed to stop the bridge pick up sounding too thin in context. The Streamliner seems to do that automatically.
Anyway ... long story short - variations on a theme of warm, fat and clear with some dirt if you feel that way inclined. If I was a proper session head I'd be keeping the SA450 as another colour to offer my employer. As it is I'm going to keep it in case some disaster strikes at a gig.
As Ed Friedland showed in his demo the Streamliner has a define personality but for me it's a personality that I like. On an side note this head has made me reconsider the pickup choices for the Sei Jazz bass I'm having made.
I've developed a big crush on Paul Turner's live tone and now I am able to get much closer (with the valve warmth and thickness). It's also more clear that there is a growl to the high(ish) mids from PT's Alleva-Coppolo that my Sadowsky lacks. I think it's partly due to the Sad's pre-amp, as in passive mode the sound is much closer but still the Sad's stacked 'buckers sound smoother.
Until now I as fairly settled on Nordstrand SEs for the extra low mids, but with the S900 I'm not sure I'll need it. Based on a good couple of hours this morning I think their standard split coils will be more what I'm looking for, in combination with this head.
One final OT ... but an interesting thing for someone out there ... according to Jimmy Coppolo, Paul Turner's bass actually has an Aguilar preamp.
