My usual strings are Daddario Prosteels, I hope they are at least as good as them, they weren't insanely expensive (I have seen higher prices on online shops) so I thought I could give them a try
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Stoner/Doom Bassists Thread, Part 90: Maxed Out
- Thread starter Korladis
- Start date
Maybe hooking an ampeg preamp to the power amp could improve itI'm more and more convinced my Ideal amp and cab is something with the punch and definition of Mesa, but with the Ampeg tone
I have never been 100% happy until now.
I'm definitely a normie in this regard, past a certain volume it just becomes an indistinguishable mess and ear ache is not fun
I agree to a point. If the mix is going to sound like butt, then no. Last gig we played, we were stupid loud, but the sound guy was all for it. And we sounded great mix-wise. A lot of that though is the band knowing how to set our amps to complement each other and not compete with each other.100x easier when you play in a power trio like I do.
I find the loud-brickwall-of-death sounding live bands usually have members all clamoring for the same sonic space. Thats what inevitably leads to 'volume wars' and piss poor sound imo. Also sound guys that think all live music needs to be mixed like EDM and the bass drum eats literally everything.
Also, the normies are all squawking about bar bands playing stupid loud. My point was, for certain genres/locales/situations a certain amount of volume is expected and I'd say needed.
But if you are playing in cover band land, especially as dinner/after dinner type entertainment, then yeah, you need to get over any delusions of rockstardom and play at a reasonable level.
If you are playing a loud genre in a 'gig' situation (iow the bands are the attraction, not the sidebar entertainment) then yeah, the rules are much different.
I like it loud, I play loud and I like loud gigs, but "past certain volume" it becomes just annoying and painful.
I have attended gigs that where way too loud even for my standards, and I am not a delicate flower.
Right.
A band playing a bluegrass festival has different expectations and different audience expectations of volume then say playing in a doom band at Psycho Las Vegas
Sure, I'm thinking more about bands that are expected to be loud tho. Have you ever seen the Cherubs for example? Noise band, I want them to be loud. But they were so insanely loud (in a small venue! They are not Iron Maiden playing in stadiums) you could barely hear what they were doing and I was seriously worried for ear damage the whole time. It wasn't fun, even for me.
I agree that there are limits for sure. I saw Motorhead and they were too loud. It was a soupy mix. Made it hard to discern some songs. I saw Sleep a few years back and they were LOUD but really really well mixed.
If you guys don't already wear good ear protection, please start. Our hearing only gets worse, and as a 40-something with tinnitus and hearing damage I sure wish I'd started wearing hearing protection to shows much earlier in life. Decent hearing protection is available for as little as $20, and it's well worth it.
Totally, If I'm playing with my amp anywhere past 2 on on volume I either have earplugs or IEMS in. Even if others don't use em, I'll use them. A lifetime of working around loud AF power tools and industrial areas has given me a lot of examples of what not to do. That said, I want to feel my bass in my skull and hearing protection provides a nice way to get there 
So i tried to order that morley distortion one off reverb 2 weeks ago. I order it, the guy gives me 5 star feedback like the next day then i dont hear anything for 2 weeks. I sent two emails in that time got no reply, so i file for a refund today and he responds basically immediately and says hes been gone since before i ordered and just got back. Im like who was it that gave me 5 star feedback then. Now im sketched out on the dude and dont want the pedal anymore lol.
A new recording of my bass setup, since I changed some settings since last I posted, recorded via the line out of my amp and then into my sound interface, using the various effects I use most, in this order:
00:00 - 03:05 > Clean tone.
03:05 - 06:35 > Flanger on the bass signal, phaser on the octave up signal.
06:34 - 09:15 > Distortion, which is my Behringer GDI21 (Tech 21 GT2 clone) on the bass signal in the California setting, using the Clean mode and with the mic position set to Center, blended with some cleans via my Boss LS-2, and then combined with a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone on the octave up signal.
Link to the audio file on DropBox (if you are not logged into DropBox a box might pop up encouraging you to sign up to DropBox, blocking for the audio player, in that case just left click with your mouse somewhere in the window outside of that box and the audio player will become visible.):
Dropbox - Ibanez Mikro 5 Samples.mp3 - Simplify your life
The bass used is my 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro bass, with it's 2 J pickups wired in series directly to the output jack socket, tuned in F# standard, as in F#1 to D3, 2 half steps above standard E tuning, and I split my signal in 2 always active parallel signal paths, one carrying my bass signal, and one going through a Sub'n'Up Mini octaver set to pitch my bass signal 1 octave up, giving an effect similar to playing an octave bass, as in a bass with pairs of bass and octave strings, only I this way am able to manipulate the two signals separately.
00:00 - 03:05 > Clean tone.
03:05 - 06:35 > Flanger on the bass signal, phaser on the octave up signal.
06:34 - 09:15 > Distortion, which is my Behringer GDI21 (Tech 21 GT2 clone) on the bass signal in the California setting, using the Clean mode and with the mic position set to Center, blended with some cleans via my Boss LS-2, and then combined with a Boss MT-2 Metal Zone on the octave up signal.
Link to the audio file on DropBox (if you are not logged into DropBox a box might pop up encouraging you to sign up to DropBox, blocking for the audio player, in that case just left click with your mouse somewhere in the window outside of that box and the audio player will become visible.):
Dropbox - Ibanez Mikro 5 Samples.mp3 - Simplify your life
The bass used is my 5 string Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro bass, with it's 2 J pickups wired in series directly to the output jack socket, tuned in F# standard, as in F#1 to D3, 2 half steps above standard E tuning, and I split my signal in 2 always active parallel signal paths, one carrying my bass signal, and one going through a Sub'n'Up Mini octaver set to pitch my bass signal 1 octave up, giving an effect similar to playing an octave bass, as in a bass with pairs of bass and octave strings, only I this way am able to manipulate the two signals separately.
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Let's just buy another head to fill the void I have inside.
