Mission Accomplished

I came to this board a couple of weeks ago intent on building a new bass rig on the cheap. Last week I bought a Markbass LMII from the TB classifieds. Tonight I ventured to Brooklyn to buy a GK Neo 115.

I bought the entire rig for $500. Guy I bought the cab from even gave me the GK Speakon cable.

nevermind the guitar amps.

 

Yeah, the head only uses two connections and the cab is set to full range. So no issues.

I do find it interesting that speakon connectors are completely absent from guitar equipment. You would think that it would be an industry wide change.

 

I don't think so. but then, I'm just a noob.

Finally plugged it in tonight. After a few weird minutes where the dust in both the amp and cab got to settle, it sounds good. Mind you, I only have what i like as reference for what "sounds good" means. Tone controls are at noon, VLE and VPF are off, gain and master at at 9 o'clock. Bass volume and tone both at 7. Crossover on the cab is at noon too.

The high and low don't seem to do much. The mid controls are really where it's at. I turned the master up to noon briefly and then reconsidered my relationship with my downstairs neighbors. I probably won't be doing that again for a while. This thing is loud.

 

11 months after buying this, I finally got it up to rehearsal volume.

The great thing about rehearsing in NYC is that you can go to a space with your instrument and a couple of pedals, plug into their equipment, and rock out. No need to haul a ton of gear with you. And with the right gig bag, you can bring everything you need on the subway without hassle.

The crappy thing about rehearsing in NYC is that sometimes the amps are wonky, the PAs aren't grounded correctly, and the rooms smell like stink weed, piss, and BO. And you never actually get to hear what you sound like through your amp.

So today, on a rare weekend rehearsal, the Stand-Ins went to a space on Long Island where we could bring all of our own equipment and not be under any time constraint. I finally got to hear what my rig sounds like above apartment levels.

The entire rig was: Reverend Mike Watt Prototype -> Eventide Pitchfactor -> Way Huge Angry Troll -> MI Audio Tube Zone -> Z-Vex Super Duper -> Markbass LMII -> GK NEO 115 III.

This is a loud setup. It's loud, it's clean, it sounds great, and will peel the paint off the walls if you want it to. I barely got the gain and master to 10 o'clock on their respective dials and had to back off of the instrument volume control because I was drowning out the drummer. It's nice to have that kinda power in reserve. Especially as the guitarist is running an Axe-Fx and two powered monitors. He's going to have to learn to dial in his setup (I'm holding my breath over here, really). But it's also good to know that if I were in a larger group maybe with a second guitarist or keyboardist, that I'll have no problem holding my own.

 

SIX YEARS LATER

I've learned a few things about this amp live and in rehearsals for the past 6 months or so. In rehearsal, everything is pretty straight up at noon, with the VLE and VPF below 11 o'clock, and the gain and master around 10 o'clock. At last night's gig that all went out the window. Volume controls were still the same, but I bumped the mids and highs and turned off the filters. Most importantly, I keep the cab tweeter on, something I was adamantly against when I bought it. Rig sounds killer, it's just ugly.