Genz-Benz Streamliner Part 5

[Tom Howland]

Well, I recorded some clips of the Streamliner 900 thru an Avatar TB-153 Bass cab at last nights gig. Bass is a 73' Jazz with Fender Custom Shop 60's overwound pups and D'Addario flats (chromes) that are 6 months old. It is recorded with a Flip video camera and all you are hearing is the head thru the cab as there is no PA support at this venue. I think the video very accurately reproduces how it actually sounded live.

Very nice.
I digging the Jazz with flats-tone with my STL600.
This amp kills.

 

[Oldtimer]

I have no idea if this has been done correctly. I will post this with a caveat that it is in no way guaranteed to be accurate. If Andy or Roger from Genz say that this isn't accurate, I defer to them.
Using Trueaudio RTA program with both heads, Shuttle 9.0 and Streamliner, set with all controls at 12:00 o'clock and running Post EQ DI, this is what I get. The Gain & Voume are set with a clean waveform. Does this look like what is perceived?

Green is Streamliner- Purple is Shuttle 9.0

I'm sorry this is very hard to read. It is the best I could do (without my wifes help, it wouldn't even be here!)

 

[faulknersj]

Hard to read on my Blackberry..can't wait to see this when I get home.

 

[lookiel]

Interesting, Thanks!
Certainly seems to correspond to what I've heard from clips and vids so far: huge low/low mid bump, slight dip in the upper mids.
Still, the Streamliner has it's own voice and that's cool.

 

[Eublet]

I have no idea if this has been done correctly. I will post this with a caveat that it is in no way guaranteed to be accurate. If Andy or Roger from Genz say that this isn't accurate, I defer to them.
Using Trueaudio RTA program with both heads, Shuttle 9.0 and Streamliner, set with all controls at 12:00 o'clock and running Post EQ DI, this is what I get. The Gain & Voume are set with a clean waveform. Does this look like what is perceived?

Green is Streamliner- Purple is Shuttle 9.0

I'm sorry this is very hard to read. It is the best I could do (without my wifes help, it wouldn't even be here!)

That looks a bit much to me, but I can't read the numbers on the axis either. Still, that SL curve looks way too harsh to be accurate. Even the Shuttle curve seems off a bit.

 

[cripula]

I'm in. After missing buying Chef's by seconds last week, it took waiting all of 24 hours to score a 900 from Jason Brown (thanks Jason!).
The amps I use on a regular basis are vintage SVTs, Sunn 2000S, blonde Showman, 70s V4-B, Traynor YBA-1A, 60s B15-N.... and a Markbass F1. Guess which amp the GB is going to replace
(somehow I know one of you keeners is going to say "all of them" - LOL)

I haven't spent much time with the Streamliner yet. I got it home, set it up with the Berg HT/EXer stack... and found out it only takes Speakons

1/2 hour later, Speakons bought, '69 P bass finally plugged in and off we go. First impressions are: ok, it's got stones! It's big and full and it has presence. And it's loud.
Before I'd twiddled a knob I knew it was going to work better for me than the F1 (which I almost always use with a VT Bass pedal in front of it).
To shake it up I plugged in a Sadowsky J with Big Singles... took no time to find a sound I liked a lot.

The gain system is going to take some getting used to. I'm going to spend some time working with it tomorrow , then take it to a gig on Friday.

Too soon to even be considered in the honeymoon phase, so I'll just say "so far so (very) good". And I'm pretty optimistic that its going to work out great as my only sub - 60lb amp.

 

[Saluki]

I have no idea if this has been done correctly. I will post this with a caveat that it is in no way guaranteed to be accurate. If Andy or Roger from Genz say that this isn't accurate, I defer to them.
Using Trueaudio RTA program with both heads, Shuttle 9.0 and Streamliner, set with all controls at 12:00 o'clock and running Post EQ DI, this is what I get. The Gain & Voume are set with a clean waveform. Does this look like what is perceived?

Green is Streamliner- Purple is Shuttle 9.0

I'm sorry this is very hard to read. It is the best I could do (without my wifes help, it wouldn't even be here!)

Looks like what I hear and would perceive to be the relative differences. Nice job.

 

[Tunaman]

Welcome Cripula!

 

[12bass]

I have no idea if this has been done correctly. I will post this with a caveat that it is in no way guaranteed to be accurate. If Andy or Roger from Genz say that this isn't accurate, I defer to them.
Using Trueaudio RTA program with both heads, Shuttle 9.0 and Streamliner, set with all controls at 12:00 o'clock and running Post EQ DI, this is what I get. The Gain & Voume are set with a clean waveform. Does this look like what is perceived?

Green is Streamliner- Purple is Shuttle 9.0

I'm sorry this is very hard to read. It is the best I could do (without my wifes help, it wouldn't even be here!)

Thanks for posting your results. As is, the units are not legible, so it is difficult to decipher. Perhaps another try might produce a high resolution version?

 

[BuffaloBob4343]

I like your band Faulkners. The bass sounds great.

+10000!! I need to get me one of those flip cameras. That is some of the best sound and visual quality I've heard/seen on YOUTube for a live performance like that!

 

[RocketMusic]

FYI, Greg at RocketMusic said the Streamliner bags have shipped to him (I think yesterday), so they are now available. Excellent! I assume I will see mine sometime next week.

Yes, indeed. I should receive my first shipment of bags in a coupla/few days. I've ordered more bags than the number of heads I've sold, but I'm not sure exactly how many bags are in this first batch that's on the way. I'll find out when they land later this week or early next week.

I've got a few bags set aside for guys who said they definitely want one. I'll work my way down that list, then I'll begin contacting the other folks who bought a head from me in the order that they ordered.

Depending how that all shakes out, I may or may not have some bags left over for general consumption in the immediate future. I certainly will have the bag on hand as a general rule once this initial wave of buying crests, but we're still in the thick of the initial spurt of orders. I still can't keep the STL900 in stock (although I do actually have some STL600s at the moment).

 

[BuffaloBob4343]

Okay so we spent 3 days tracking with the Streamliner 900, and it was about the easiest time I've ever had dailing in for studio work.

I usually use a slightly more complicated setup in the studio, here's how we set up this time:

Lakland 44-02 (in passive mode, blend set 75/25 bridge / neck, coil tap in center position) to Summit Audio TD-100, balanced DI out to mixing board, 1/4 out to Streamliner, streamliner DI (post-EQ) out to mixing board.

When we first started getting sound tests, the engineer said "Holy sh** man, turn the bass down!!" .... he looked a little puzzled when he saw the bass knob was already a little left of flat!!

For my main sound, I set the amp as follows; gain switch on, gain knob at noon, bass at 11 oclock, mid at 10 oclock, mid switch at 600. treble flat. We set the gain so as to give a good amount of fur, just before it begins to actually break up. After a few tests, we decided to put a Daking FET II compressor in front of the amp to give a more even and controlled overdrive characteristic than my right hand technique normally affords me lol .

We got a nice thick tone going, and did some tests with just my signal and the drums... did some EQ'ing on the kick drum track and BAM!! We were home. Perfectly smooth, slightly gritty tone that punched straight through the guitar mix like a load of buckshot through cardboard.

For our one kinda "progressive" sounding track, I do this extended 4 measure run with just drums accompanying and I wanted a different sound for this section. I've always found that, at least for metal, what sounds great on bass solo usually sounds muffled and lost in the guitar mix... so for this section I set the bass knob back to center, switched the mid selector to 2.5 to cut out some finger noise, and cut the treble knob down to 9 oclock. I also switched the Lakland's coil tap to the far bridge position, and solo'ed the bridge pup. This gave me an AWESOME Jaco sorta tone, with a little more grit and personality. I LOVE the treble control on this amp... boosting adds nothing but that sweet shimmer that can almost be more appreciated "in the mix", and cutting it doesnt take any of the upper midrange out... as others have said this is an extremely well voiced control and it reminds me of the much more expensive EBS TD650.

Should have soundclips for you in the next few days!!

Really excited to hear how this album turns out!!

Paul

Looking forward to hearing these!

 

[BuffaloBob4343]

god help me.... this has to the the most 'Alice through the looking glass' thread I've ever experienced

I give up.... again

PS Nice clip...

Come on Ken, you know that no good DEED goes on unpunished!

Seriously though, I loved the sound of your AC jazz through the SL. I know it is not your tone goal, but I LIKE IT!

 

[Red Planet]

I am very fortunate as in the last couple years I have gravitated towards rapping the Bass tone around the Guitar and not competing for the Midrange. The Genz Benz folks have furthered me in this endeavor.

 

[mntngrown]

I'm in. After missing buying Chef's by seconds last week, it took waiting all of 24 hours to score a 900 from Jason Brown (thanks Jason!).
The amps I use on a regular basis are vintage SVTs, Sunn 2000S, blonde Showman, 70s V4-B, Traynor YBA-1A, 60s B15-N.... and a Markbass F1. Guess which amp the GB is going to replace
(somehow I know one of you keeners is going to say "all of them" - LOL)

I haven't spent much time with the Streamliner yet. I got it home, set it up with the Berg HT/EXer stack... and found out it only takes Speakons

1/2 hour later, Speakons bought, '69 P bass finally plugged in and off we go. First impressions are: ok, it's got stones! It's big and full and it has presence. And it's loud.
Before I'd twiddled a knob I knew it was going to work better for me than the F1 (which I almost always use with a VT Bass pedal in front of it).
To shake it up I plugged in a Sadowsky J with Big Singles... took no time to find a sound I liked a lot.

The gain system is going to take some getting used to. I'm going to spend some time working with it tomorrow , then take it to a gig on Friday.

Too soon to even be considered in the honeymoon phase, so I'll just say "so far so (very) good". And I'm pretty optimistic that its going to work out great as my only sub - 60lb amp.

I think if your initial impressions grow into willingness to alternate this head with those classic tube heads it will support the perception of this amp as a fuller tube type tone than most micro heads.
I started my progression through micro heads with the early shuttle 6.0, but it lacked fullness for me. Got a markbass LMII and liked it right away for it's girth.
Had to move up in watts and started usin 2 cabs and really liked the GB shuttlemax12. Decided to get a 1515/66 and went with the shuttle 9.0. Nice depth and punch.
Now with one rehearsal usin the stm-900 I am sure this old guy who loves blues and 60's rock will stay with the stm-900 as I love it's "beef" and using the 600 mid setting, boosted to 2-3 o'clock get all the mids I need.
Notice I went without the tweeter on my custom cab. YMMV
In fact I kinda feel a G string is a necessary but skanky sounding evil, but this head rounded it out and gave it girth.
I like hearing people play P-bass w/flats through SVT's so again YMMV.

 

[faulknersj]

Thank you BuffaloBob4343. The Flip Camera is awesome from that distance. The limitations are when you need to get in close or back out far away.

 

[nostatic]

Come on Ken, you know that no good dead goes on unpunished!

how about the un-dead?

Nice typo - wonder what Freud would say about that one

 

[Smallequestrian]

So, didn't get a chance to AB with the Mesa tonight, but wow this was tricky to dial in. Once I found "my" setting though it was on though...I'm not sure if I actually have a specific tonal goal, its more of a "I know it when I hear it" type of thing.

This is what I came up with while hooked up to my Berg HS210. I can't believe how much bass there is when its set flat! You can't tell with the lighting, but the gain button is pushed:

 

[BuffaloBob4343]

how about the un-dead?

Nice typo - wonder what Freud would say about that one

Oh crap! I'm tired. Well, that's not what our Judeo-Christian heritage would have us believe, right?

 

[HvyMtlThunder]

Well, I recorded some clips of the Streamliner 900 thru an Avatar TB-153 Bass cab at last nights gig. Bass is a 73' Jazz with Fender Custom Shop 60's overwound pups and D'Addario flats (chromes) that are 6 months old. It is recorded with a Flip video camera and all you are hearing is the head thru the cab as there is no PA support at this venue. I think the video very accurately reproduces how it actually sounded live.

Very nice.
I digging the Jazz with flats-tone with my STL600.
This amp kills.

Nice playing. Your Rig punches through/sits in the mix great!