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Double Bass MAS 16 review

#241
Don Kasper said:
Spoken like a True Certified Gear Junkie - "I don't have a problem....What problem? I could stop anytime I want."
Funniest thing seen on the Interwebz today! (so far.)
Thanks for the laff.
Click to expand...

Hi Don, re: "I could stop anytime I want." I only tell my wife that but neither she nor I believe it for a second.

In my next life (god forbid) I might be lucky enough to come back as an accomplished, talented, well educated bassist like you (no, I'm not kidding). As it is, I'm afraid I'm stuck being the disfunctional gear-junkie that I am. But at least I kind of enjoy it.
 
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#244
On a serious note - I've been following this, and other threads, re: these MAS cabinets, and here is what is puzzling to me:
Why would you buy and use a (lightweight/small diameter coned: 1-6" or 1-8") speaker cabinet that is prone to "farting out"(?) when pushed only slightly louder?
This is like an airplane pilot calculating the EXACT amount of fuel necessary to get from point A to point B under Ideal Conditions, which can change at any moment, (with apologies to pilot/singer John Denver.) Isn't having built-in "headroom", fuel/watts/dB/IQ/etc., a good concept and smart practice? (Is it, in fact, the smallish-ness of the "speaker" itself that is the root cause of this failure? I might be misunderstanding the definition of "farting out".)
I'm always reassured knowing that my rig(s), while NOT ultra-light, have plenty of deliberate headroom built-in,, watts/dB/etc., NOT that I'm right on the edge of that precipice, just praying that I don't need to step past that edge and find myself standing on "nothing" - (see Wile E. Coyote.)
(You kids get off my lawn.)
Talk to me like I'm Stupid. Please.
Thanks.
 
#246
Povl Carstensen said:
Hey Stupid. Well apparently these speakers have a very good quality of sound. And I think it is very human to want the lightest, smallest (cheapest) equipment, that can do the job satisfactory. But then ofcourse there are limits. And (some) guys just love to test the limits.
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wile-e-coyote.gif
 
#247
These enclosures and drivers are designed
To give you ALL of the available capacity of the driver, so they actually exhibit more headroom vs other designs. And as has been said, we always want more and push these designs.
 
#248
OK Don:
THe sound of the speaker is totally sick and different from others. For example when I have the Wizzy 10 and 16 plugged in and I A/B them the little 16 has a thump and punch and dispersion that compliments the sound of upright WAY BETTER then the other. My pick up thru the Wizzy sounds more electric and less acoustic, the low mids come thru clearly yet not muddy as with a big 12. YOu just gotta hear it. It only farts out when you over drive on certain low percussive notes ( for me when on a Bb chord I whack an open E) BUT I sure dont like that sound. My 46 never gets even close to that, but it is heavy and I feel like I am carrying around half of the potential that I never even use.
On another note my nephew just gave me an old Alysis micro limiter (missing the wall wart) that I want to get functioning so I can see if it will solve that problem, but I still think if 1 18 is as loud as 2 16's then having a 18 and a 16 will cover anything I need. Plus right now I have a Focus AND a Felix and that is just way too many knobs. I want the preamp with a powered speaker and then I'll be satisfied until Mike says that the new thing he has in his trunk every gig is the new MAS 7.14563 which is just the MOST KILLING.
I am not a shill for MAS products, but I do not hesitate to talk up what has made the most difference to me. I would for example eliminate the Felix (which I love dearly) and plug directly into the Focus front end way before I would give up the MAS speaker....But I dont own any Phil Jones stuff either and I'll bet I'd love that too.
 
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#249
coyoteboy said:
These enclosures and drivers are designed
To give you ALL of the available capacity of the driver, so they actually exhibit more headroom vs other designs. And as has been said, we always want more and push these designs.
Click to expand...
But, they "fart out" at normal, real-world volume levels?
None of my rigs "fart out".
Thanks for your time, interest and civility.
 
#251
Well, no not at real world volumes. I play in duos and trios where the 16 is totally sick and I NEVER fart it out. BUT I play in groups where I am way out front sometimes...the thing is the little box sounds so good that you think it can do anything but then you reach its limits. Mike A is super up front about its limitations, he calls it a practice cab (although nobody I know practices with an amp) BUT the MAS speakers sound BEST when they are driven near their limits so there is a grey area.
 
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#253
All speakers have dynamic limits. Here is one problem with my speakers. Most speakers give you a lot of notice before they hit the wall. Mine tend to sound the same as they get louder---until they hit the wall. You need to know the dynamic capabilities of your speakers and respect them. Like everyone, I often tend to neglect that advice. nWith some speakers they will get boomy, fuzzy, grindy and distorted way before they hit that wall. So---you know way beforehand because they sound crappy and you don't want to sound crappy. So you don't come close enough to that wall before you back off. This is not a criticism---just how speakers work. The MVW alignment exerts a lot of control on the speaker. So when you come close to that wall it's still sounding fine. Then you do a "spickity-boom" and whack the open E string. Splatt!!! I've experienced this before. Three ways to fix it
1. you can't play that cab at that volume. You can't get pissed off at your 10" cab because it doesn't go as loud as your 12" cab. Physics are physics. The 16 is a cab that will compete dynamically with something like a Wizzy 10. I was an endorser for EA. The Wizzy 10 was cool but if I played with a louder drummer---it would hit that wall. The 16 is good for drummerless stuff and quieter trios with drummers. Just like it wasn't a problem with the Wizzy 10---same with the 16. A great bassist and educator Hans Sturm has a 16. He brought it to his first gig to try it with--a big band. He said it worked perfectly. I kindof cringed.
2.Use a HPF. This will alleviate a lot of it.
3. Use a limiter. I'm going to work on getting a pedal made that will do this without degradation of the signal.

You see---piezos are weird. Some have absurd dynamic range. Dynamic range that is actually detrimental. Mark A was over and we were playing electric. We were trying a few amps. One didn't have any HPF. Man--the cone was flying around on that one. Then we switched over to another that did have a HPF. It went much louder before fartout. At the level that the first amp was farting out with the second amp the speaker was barely moving. At a HPF setting of around 33hz. And--on amp 1 we noticed that the cone was jumping more on the G string than the E string! That's because the notes have a pitch component and a component of the finger "thumping" the string. More of a mechanical function than musical. This non-pitch thump---which we actually want in our sound--it's an important component of pizz DB. But the piezo (well--some piezos) reproduce that thump in an exaggerated way. The Yamahiko sure does. So does the FC. So---we need a way to limit this exaggerated component. One way is a HPF. But---sometimes the exaggerated attack is part of the G string. The piezo is giving you more thump than you need, but that thump may be in the 35hz range. So--the HPF does no good.

That's where a limiter comes in. Problem is that it needs to be really high quality. It will limit but will also degrade the fidelity of the signal. All DB players should either size their speaker for the loudest possible moment---or get a limiter.

I've seen that with the advent of smaller cabs that go louder than one would expect--guys tend to push them to their limit way too much. Whether it's my speaker or someone else's---it ain't the speaker's fault if pushed past it's limits .I try to be conservative with this. Some other speaker manufacturers don't do this. I saw an amp rated at 900 watts using a power module that is 1% distortion at 700 watts. I'm wondering how they are doing this. I looked a bit deeper into the specs. It's 900 watts at 20% distortion. It's like some speakers I've seen where the manufacturer states a "usable" extension to 30hz. It's usable as long as you consider a usable output that is 20db down at that frequency.

So--use the 16 within it's limits--which as stated above are very surprising for it's size. For me--I keep an 18 in the car--actually two. I haven't played a gig where I got the 18 to hit the wall. It has around twicw the air moving capacity of the 16 but it goes 10hz lower so it's still coasting at frequencies that would freak out the 16. And two of them are fine for loud EB stuff.
 
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#254
Coming back to that compression/limiting:
A compressor with a high threshold and high compression works like a limiter.
But often compressors that are not too simple have an additional limiting.
I use a DBX 166XL (this is a 19" stereo studio processor) for soft limiting of live digital processing of acoustic instruments. Digital compressors are mostly useless for this, because the input should never exceed the maximum level that could be correctly represented digitally. It also has a soft knee characteristic (like some others too), that gradually changes the compression factor around the threshold.
Since the initial impulse of the plucked string has a higher amplitude than the rest of the note, a compressor with a controllable attack time (and release time) is important. Simpler compressors have a fixed one that may or may not fit your needs.
I would look out for an analog/optical (not digital) 9.5" mono unit that has a control for attack, release, compression factor, threshold, level and if possible limit.
Best put it in front of the power amplifier or at the end of the effect loop if you use a combined pre and power amp or combo. That way you can leave the knobs in their position as long as you don't change power amp and cab.

I use the compressor at roughly 80% with about 2:1 compression and the soft knee characteristic and the limiter kicks in at about 100%, maybe a bit lower. And I try to keep the input signal below that 80%. That is a soft way to limiting that still gets you some (reduced) dynamic response before the hard limiter kicks in.
The compressor/limiter should only save from unexpected peaks, not to avoid fiddling with the gain and volume knobs. So just use it for some safety, optimally it should not be needed.

But setting up a compressor needs some experience and time. It helps to first try it at home with a short dynamically played loop and checking how all these knobs influence the playing.
 
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#256
First....Gotta say the 46 just killed it tonight...loud bar, loud horn trio , playing furiously, it cuts, sounds fantastic, has wide depth and projects an effortlessness that is dope. (studio sound) Makes it possible to step far forward dynamically and in the ... sonic mix, and then step back and occupy the big bottom end but clearly and wide. The 16 does that same thing in it's zone even better to me, because it projects a bass size sound, literally the envelope of sound that surrounds you sounds right somehow, the right size and projection ....The 46 sounds like a hi end stereo.
But Double Midi: thanks for the advice, can you name a brand that would be good to look at? I am really curious what Mike would come up with, I have great faith in his sensitivity to shaping a great double bass sound (although I dont think Mike plugs a mic into his rig very often) these cabs sound totally sic with a mic.
 
#257
flatback said:
But Double Midi: thanks for the advice, can you name a brand that would be good to look at? I am really curious what Mike would come up with, I have great faith in his sensitivity to shaping a great double bass sound (although I dont think Mike plugs a mic into his rig very often) these cabs sound totally sic with a mic.
Click to expand...
No, I have no idea what is on the market today. I just think that I have seen 9.5" devices years ago at a shop. Therefor I gave you the information which controls the device should have and why.

In the university studio where I worked a bit during my studies we had a Drawmer stereo compressor. High quality, but out of my price range. Also a 19" unit. I have seen a DBX from a friend who knows a bit more about the market than me and got the successor of that device after informing me about that particular device. Sounds good enough for me, but I mostly used it with flute yet, never with double bass.

I might be wrong but I think I have seen a 9.5" unit from Joemeek (years ago). But I cannot remember which controls it has and which might be missing. But even then I have no idea if and how much it colours the sound.

Mike may come up with a simpler compressor where he sets the attack and release fixed but working well for double bass, maybe even the compression factor and threshold. That would make it easier, and maybe just switching on or off. But a general purpose device might not have the attack and release times set to a useful value for double bass.
 
#258
Mike Arnopol said:
...Mark A was over and we were playing electric. We were trying a few amps. One didn't have any HPF. Man--the cone was flying around on that one. Then we switched over to another that did have a HPF. It went much louder before fartout. At the level that the first amp was farting out with the second amp the speaker was barely moving. At a HPF setting of around 33hz. And--on amp 1 we noticed that the cone was jumping more on the G string than the E string! That's because the notes have a pitch component and a component of the finger "thumping" the string. More of a mechanical function than musical. This non-pitch thump---which we actually want in our sound--it's an important component of pizz DB. But the piezo (well--some piezos) reproduce that thump in an exaggerated way. The Yamahiko sure does. So does the FC. So---we need a way to limit this exaggerated component. One way is a HPF. But---sometimes the exaggerated attack is part of the G string. The piezo is giving you more thump than you need, but that thump may be in the 35hz range. So--the HPF does no good...
Click to expand...

This was a big part of why I suggested trying the HPF some posts up. I know what an HPF does, of course, but this experience drove it home. As Mike said, the difference in cone movement was substantial and readily visible. During slap playing, the cone did move more popping the G than thumbing the E. If unfettered sub-lows are causing you to hit the wall, then an HPF would help. If it's something else, maybe not so much.
 
#260
here's the thing about the HPF and the MAS16: if you turn up the HPF to lose the excursion you also lose the bass. THe 16 has this great relationship with the floor ...it depends on the coupling to get its bass happening, so if you mess up that ratio (cutting out the lower frequencies) it sounds aenimic. WHat Mike said earlier about the cab sounding good up until it farts is true, I like the sound of it when it is all fired up, better then the sound of the 46 under it's volume ideal ....last night having that beast fired up was badass.
 

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