Too hard to please?

[joebeadg]

anyone know what b&c tens re that leblanc refered to?

 

[Blaze Barlow]

Going forward here, I appreciate all of your comments... I'm forever grateful for my life, as a Cancer survivor, and a guy that has had many former construction laborer back related issues- I'm a very fortunate man, to have all that I do. This post about my seemingly endless quest for the best rig, is not to sound unappreciative. I own eleven speaker cabinets, two combos, and four heads. That, along with 20 electric basses, and two German carved uprights... plus so many accessories and parts, I could have a serious garage sale.. Yup, I'm not complaining about anything.. I'm just curious if anyone else has a similar ongoing issue. My current feeling, as Jimmy M states, is to try to replicate the type of rig in those concert situations... now possible to do so with a lot less weight. I might go with some lightweight high wattage power amp, a good preamp, and keep the speaker cabs I currently own, and keep experimenting. I've yet to try a Fearless, or a MAS cab.. I hear great things. P.S., I've played through some highly touted Bergantino cabs, and did not like them.. I was surprised that I didn't, because of the love shown them here and in the bass world... yeah, to each their own. I have not tried the newer Ref cabs.

these greenboy fearless are superior quality...and you can get them handmade in just about any configuration...I am like Jimmy in that I was getting the stuff I wanted early on..played mostly early gibsons and fenders..amps were fender and sunn..playing ampeg amps now..no desire for much of anything else..but these greenboys are so sweet..powerful..and well made.............

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I'm 67, playing bass for over half- a Century now. I'm wondering if there any other bassists like me out there.. I've owned SO much bass gear over this time period, it would literally fill a couple of pages.
All the way from my several B-15N's, and Supro Thunderbolt, to my Sunn Coliseum, Pearce B2P, GK's, SVT'S, Shuttle 9.0, and high power Carvin heads... and cabs from Sunn, Ampeg, SWR, Acme, Peavey, Cerwin-Vega, to EA, Avatar, Mesa, Epifani, Schroeder, and Carvin BRX's. A lot of combo amps in the mix, too. Here's my dilemma... I've never been totally happy with any of it. All of it disappoints me..usually in the area of distortion, or excess speaker cone travel/ farting. Even with high power amps, with cabinets rated for high power, this phenomena occurs. I have yet to find a single 'stand alone' cabinet that I can use. Some have come close, but not yet. The only time I have been truly happy with my bass sound/ power/ volume and fidelity, is in concert situations, where large side fills powered by a lot of serious wattage send my signal back to me. The onstage backline bass amps, at that point sound like garbage in comparison. Figuring I needed to go power amp-preamp, I tried lugging around a Mackie M1400 and an SWR Grand Prix, a folded horn 15, and an SWR Triad on top- it was pretty good, but too big, heavy, and still not what I'm looking for. I bought a BFM 'Jack' cab, and it also disappointed me- although I'm impressed with it as a mid/ high box, it's excellent in that regard. This past weekend, I used my Carvin BX 1500, an Epifani UL-112, and a Schroeder 115L. All high quality equipment. Heavy Speakon cables, all Mogami and Monster patching cables input and output to my single effects unit- a Zoom B-3. Yeah, some of you will bash the Carvin, but it is a lot better than the amps they used to make. I was still not satisfied with this rig. I was not running it at an excessive volume, either.
Have any of you felt this way about your gear?

Frankly, i’m thrilled with my rig. (See avatar) If you paired that rack with two Eden D-410XSTs, you will not fart, it will be warm, and all the stage fill you will need.

 

[fdeck]

For better or worse, when I'm dissatisfied with my tone, I get out my soldering iron. Over the past few weeks, I've been on a mission to figure out if I need more amp power. Of course the sensible thing would be to try a more powerful amp, but you know... I made a peak level meter that's calibrated to the limiting threshold of my amp, and I've been watching it out of the corner of my eye under different playing conditions. The tentative answer is that I don't need more power.

 

[bbh]

I find you usually get what you pay for. Try to audition high end rigs. They aren’t usually found in your typical guitar store. I tested the Wayne Jones products at some nyc studio. Bought the stuff and can’t go back.

 

[Bassstud1]

I'm 62, use a Fender Stage 800 for most gigs sometimes with an extension speaker. But when I play festivals I like to take out my Warwick LWA 1000 and my MAS cabinet. I always get complements about the way that rig sounds. But the Stage 800 is much lighter and doesn't sound bad, just not as good as my Warwick / MAS stuff.
Good Luck to you.

 

[HolmeBass]

Old ones most definitely. But ones since about 2010 are lighter and much more middy/trebly through the woofers. They still go ridunkulous low, but if you haven't tried a newer one, especially the Heritage, I think even you would say that it doesn't suck


And yet, not altogether far off the mark if you want that kind of response in a more trad bass cab. Newer ones, at least. I think it's bigger than LH wants to tote, and while I love most Ampeg stuff I stay away from the cabs that go lower than the 810e, but it's pretty darn hi fi for a trad bass cab and has that frequency range of a PA system.

But I think LH's best bet is a properly crossed over 3-way cab with one of those LF neos, an Alpha 6a, and a tweet. A 12/6/tweet wouldn't be prohibitively heavy, I don't think. Certainly isn't going to sound like a massive side fill, but about as good as you could expect for a single cab.

I have not played through the 410 HLF for a number of years, it’s good to know they updated the design. I’ll probably stick with my fEARful 15/6 but if I ever need to get louder I’ll check out the new 410 HLF.

 

[AlexanderB]

There is to my knowledge no other suggestion that includes bi-amping, multi way speakers that are designed to reproduce ALL musical instruments PLUS vocals with minimal coloration, even response and controlled dispersion. If so, please show me!
That is also the only suggestion that will emulate the experience of a high grade side fill, hardly something an Acoustic, Ampeg, Fender or Carvin is capable of.

The above are not opinions.

I have not played through the 410 HLF for a number of years, it’s good to know they updated the design. I’ll probably stick with my fEARful 15/6 but if I ever need to get louder I’ll check out the new 410 HLF.

So you were basing your strange replies to me on unfounded/obsolete/irrelevant experiences? Hmmm....
I, on the other hand, have designed, built, measured and used various cabs myself, and a bass reflex cab with an 3015LF is TECHNICALLY NOT an FRFR cab unless actively processed, and even then, you need something with a better mid and HF unit than I typically see.

IIRC, the origin of this whole "FRFR" trend was someone realizing a certain, three way Carvin PA cab might be a good value option for playing bass through. Again, IIRC, it uses at least some of the transducers chosen for DIY designs.
(And yes, some of them can be used as a PA, if you have no other gear options, and low expectations (or demands.)

So, Carvin... Hardly the best, most accurate and well regarded brand for demanding and sound quality oriented PA applications.

The Ampeg SVT-410HLF has a max SPL in the same range as the single 3015LF designs I have seen. Though, with four voice coils and no crossover inductors in the LF path, it probably has shows thermal compression and maybe a little better tolerance for abuse.
OTOH, the 8Ohm impedance of the 3015LF might be a saving grace, as few bass rigs have an amp powerful enough at 8Ohms to damage it.
In both cases, at around 700-ish Watts, you go into dangerous grounds.

Again, my suggestion is TECHNICALLY closest to what @LHbassist refers to as "the best he has experienced", in terms of frequency range, dispersion, linearity, distortion etc. That is no opinion, as it can be measured. Have you any data confirming any of the other suggestions belivering superior results?

 

[HolmeBass]

So you were basing your strange replies to me on unfounded/obsolete/irrelevant experiences? Hmmm....
I, on the other hand, have designed, built, measured and used various cabs myself, and a bass reflex cab with an 3015LF is TECHNICALLY NOT an FRFR cab unless actively processed, and even then, you need something with a better mid and HF unit than I typically see.

IIRC, the origin of this whole "FRFR" trend was someone realizing a certain, three way Carvin PA cab might be a good value option for playing bass through. Again, IIRC, it uses at least some of the transducers chosen for DIY designs.
(And yes, some of them can be used as a PA, if you have no other gear options, and low expectations (or demands.)

So, Carvin... Hardly the best, most accurate and well regarded brand for demanding and sound quality oriented PA applications.

The Ampeg SVT-410HLF has a max SPL in the same range as the single 3015LF designs I have seen. Though, with four voice coils and no crossover inductors in the LF path, it probably has shows thermal compression and maybe a little better tolerance for abuse.
OTOH, the 8Ohm impedance of the 3015LF might be a saving grace, as few bass rigs have an amp powerful enough at 8Ohms to damage it.
In both cases, at around 700-ish Watts, you go into dangerous grounds.

Again, my suggestion is TECHNICALLY closest to what @LHbassist refers to as "the best he has experienced", in terms of frequency range, dispersion, linearity, distortion etc. That is no opinion, as it can be measured. Have you any data confirming any of the other suggestions belivering superior results?

No, it’s still just your opinion. Your statement that your opinion is somehow superior, and actually factually better is insufferably arrogant.

Who is to say what technical data is actually pertinent? You ran with sidefills. But if OP wanted sidefills he would have already purchased them. Even if building your own version of side fills is the best answer, you don’t know what those side fills OP originally loved were, you don’t know what the board used was, you don’t even know they may have been internally crossed over with a passive crossover (the horror!). So you are still doing exactly what we’re doing, suggesting what you think will give op what he wants. The difference is your solution is expensive, heavy, and prone to failure, while our suggestions are actually easy to gig with, even if there may be a slight improvement in linearity with an active crossover in your suggestion.

Your claim that 3015LF designs are not FRFR without an active crossover sounds like nitpicking to me of the worst kind. You’re honestly going to stake your claim that you are right and the rest of us our wrong on that? I am sorry, no matter of tech specs change your suggestion from an opinion into some kind of “obviously correct answer”. Your suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.

 

[agedhorse]

IMO, the (KL) 3025LF without additional processing is not FRFR, not in the 1kHz to 2kHz range.

This is from a pro audio perspective. By bass guitar standards it's debatable though.

 

[Passinwind]

IIRC, the origin of this whole "FRFR" trend was someone realizing a certain, three way Carvin PA cab might be a good value option for playing bass through.

Nope. The concept goes back to at least the early 80s:

 

[chris_b]

Have any of you felt this way about your gear?

Not really. I don't really get all this bass gear navel gazing.

My objective is to buy the best gear I can afford, that sounds good right out of the box and fits seamlessly into the signal chain. All I have to do is get a sound that's in the ball park, then forget all about it. I buy bass gear so I can gig. No other reason for me to own any of the stuff I do.

In 12 years my rigs have been Thunderfunk and Bergantino, then Aguilar and Barefaced. My goto basses were Lakland, Lull and now Sadowsky. If I can't sound good with that lot I should take up stamp collecting.

 

[LHbassist]

No, it’s still just your opinion. Your statement that your opinion is somehow superior, and actually factually better is insufferably arrogant.

Who is to say what technical data is actually pertinent? You ran with sidefills. But if OP wanted sidefills he would have already purchased them. Even if building your own version of side fills is the best answer, you don’t know what those side fills OP originally loved were, you don’t know what the board used was, you don’t even know they may have been internally crossed over with a passive crossover (the horror!). So you are still doing exactly what we’re doing, suggesting what you think will give op what he wants. The difference is your solution is expensive, heavy, and prone to failure, while our suggestions are actually easy to gig with, even if there may be a slight improvement in linearity with an active crossover in your suggestion.

Your claim that 3015LF designs are not FRFR without an active crossover sounds like nitpicking to me of the worst kind. You’re honestly going to stake your claim that you are right and the rest of us our wrong on that? I am sorry, no matter of tech specs change your suggestion from an opinion into some kind of “obviously correct answer”. Your suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.

My most remembered gig with side fills just killin' for bass, was a long time ago, and those cabs were sound company units, the ones that are totally custom built, have large casters on the back, so that two roadies can load them into lift gate trucks, as they're far too bulky, and heavy to use in any other application. I'm sure that there were huge racks of power amps on that gig, who knows how many watts were being used to power them. There were a few guys working the stage and handling the monitors. Extremely capable, and experienced people. I do not know the make or size of the drivers for sure, but I believe they were 15's. I've also had some excellent foldback monitors sound great with the bass fed through them. But these situations are rare. So much so, that it's been 25 years ago now, that those sidefills impressed me enough to desire Hi-fi gear. The fact that I was at that time traveling, playing bass with a rock guitar legend, we took pot luck in all gig situations- some were poopy backline bass amps, others were amazingly well selected amp heads and cabinets, other times, just typical rented GK/ Hartke/ SWR stuff... and occasionally, these amazing monster PA's with everything you could possibly want. So, the time period, the blur of life on the road, have clouded my memory of just what the gear was, and where it was. But it sure sounded great. THAT, is what I remember quite well.

 

[willsellout]

Perhaps you have unrealistic expectations?

Sometimes, what you hear in your head simply takes a lot of power, a lot of speaker, AND a large acoustic space to reinforce with acoustic boundaries that are far enough away to contribute in a way that reinforces that feeling.

I was gonna say the only time I’ve ever felt the way the OP does is when my expectations weren’t properly set. After having had so much gear in the past I now realize that the majority of the time I wasn’t happy with my gear it was either placebo or I wasn’t doing it right.

 

[agedhorse]

You might have noticed that the side fill boxes were pretty large (and deep) compared with a typical or even atypical bass cabinet. That's because the side fills often need to reproduce some kick, bass and keys (depending on the situation), so they have more internal volume and use different drivers that have greater low frequency extension at higher power levels. They also don't need to worry about the LF driver's mid voicing because that's handled by a dedicated mid or large format HF driver. They are typically used in large acoustic spaces (especially outdoors) to create an artificial acoustic boundary where none exist. My side fill boxes were triamped, an 18" LF driver, a dedicated mid driver and a medium format HF driver/horn in a box where the LF internal volume was probably 8CF. the boxes were 2' deep x 42" high x ~22" wide (trapazoidal), they made a nice mid sized all in one box type scalable PA rig, I had 8 of these which I pretty much wore out. I believe they were JBL 2241's, E110's and 2425's, all pro gear, and the boxes cost about $3k each. The downside is that they were expensive and weighed about 175 pounds each.

This is why I mentioned that what you might be hoping for is likely not practical in reality.

 

[Jim Carr]

Going forward here, I appreciate all of your comments... I'm forever grateful for my life, as a Cancer survivor, and a guy that has had many former construction laborer back related issues- I'm a very fortunate man, to have all that I do. This post about my seemingly endless quest for the best rig, is not to sound unappreciative. I own eleven speaker cabinets, two combos, and four heads. That, along with 20 electric basses, and two German carved uprights... plus so many accessories and parts, I could have a serious garage sale...

We have much in common—gratitude being uppermost among them—but also age (I'm 70 in 2020), health challenges, and lots of cabs, basses, and two carved uprights—though one of mine is a Tyrollean (Austria), and the other an Upton (USA, but styled after gamba-cornered bohemians).

I've yet to try a Fearless, or a MAS cab.. I hear great things...

Ever consider fEARful cabs? The cabinet plans are free, very much Fearless-like, designed by Greenboy. IME, fEARful cabs are bargains if build DIY or bought used.

I own and have used a lot the 3-way 115 (aka 15/6/1), the 3-way 112 (12/6/1), two 15/6/1's stacked, a 15/6/1 with a fEARful 15sub, and a 212 3-way (1212/6/1).

Previously, I used Epifani cabs, and because I started playing bass in 1963, I'm comfortable claiming that I've used just about all the major bass rigs of the last 50 years built in the US and the UK, though notably missing were Bergantino cabs. They were never in my arsenal, though I think the HT-322 was a great sounding cabinet and I almost pulled the trigger on one about 15 years ago.

The fEARfuls outperform all the conventional cabinets I have owned and used. I want clean, loud, flexible, and the ability to handle lots of lows when needed, as Reggae and Gospel are often my gigs, but I also do a lot of Blues and upright work. Said upright work these days is mostly Rockabilly and Psychobilly. The full range fEARful is pretty ideal for all those genres.

A single fEARful 12/12/6/1 (two 12's plus 6" mid and 1" hf drivers with crossovers) cabinet driven by either a Mesa D800 or a Crest Pro-lite 3.0 (non-dsp) is usually all I need for large venues. If I need (or want more), a pair of 15/6/1 cabs is huge.

The 12/12/6/1 has "tilt-back wheels," so it is a breeze to move. I can fit it next to my upright in my Hyundai elantra touring (a mid-sized wagon) along with all the other gear I need for any given gig.

 

[Jim Carr]

...was also going direct, and there were subs. I really dislike FOH subwoofers. Part of the reasons for that, are that the sound people today, seem to believe that the kick drum should be louder, and deeper than any other low frequency instrument onstage. After some sorting out, the mix was pretty good...

I've learned that most drummers hate it, too. If we confer with the sound tech, it is usually possible to get them to clear out all that low frequency swimmy boom. Improper kick drum eq (is there any other kind these days, lol?) fed in the side-fill and under the stage subs makes any gig a mess on stage, IMHO.

 

[HolmeBass]

My most remembered gig with side fills just killin' for bass, was a long time ago, and those cabs were sound company units, the ones that are totally custom built, have large casters on the back, so that two roadies can load them into lift gate trucks, as they're far too bulky, and heavy to use in any other application. I'm sure that there were huge racks of power amps on that gig, who knows how many watts were being used to power them. There were a few guys working the stage and handling the monitors. Extremely capable, and experienced people. I do not know the make or size of the drivers for sure, but I believe they were 15's. I've also had some excellent foldback monitors sound great with the bass fed through them. But these situations are rare. So much so, that it's been 25 years ago now, that those sidefills impressed me enough to desire Hi-fi gear. The fact that I was at that time traveling, playing bass with a rock guitar legend, we took pot luck in all gig situations- some were poopy backline bass amps, others were amazingly well selected amp heads and cabinets, other times, just typical rented GK/ Hartke/ SWR stuff... and occasionally, these amazing monster PA's with everything you could possibly want. So, the time period, the blur of life on the road, have clouded my memory of just what the gear was, and where it was. But it sure sounded great. THAT, is what I remember quite well.

So do you want that sound at any cost, any weight? Are you sure only a fully modular, active crossover kind of system will satisfy?

Because today you could easily build such a thing and I bet it would be less costly and lighter than ever before; but not really inexpensive or light. You do already have the power amps, and maybe the cross-overs?

But my point is some of these new FRFR bass cabinets, although now I know that they are not TECHNICALLY FRFR without an active cross-over (oy vey!), might be “good enough” at a fraction of the cost and weight. It’s a trade off of sorts. My fEARful has spoiled me for other conventional bass cabinets, so calling it a trade off seems crazy to me.

The cabinets I am thinking of - fEARful/fearless, Barefaced, MAS, Audiokenesis - are by and large 3-way cabinets, many using the Eminence Kappalite 3015LF or 3012LF driver as the woofer, and they range in weight from 28 through about 56 lbs. Then there is the Ampeg SVT 410HLF, which has been updated to have a flat response, although I have not tried it myself. It weighs in at 85 lbs but probably gets a bit louder than the 3012LF / 3015LF loaded 3-way cabinets.

It’s a neat trick to get a 2-way box to have as flat, or even flatter, frequency response than a 3-way box. So neat that I am personally as yet unconvinced until I hear it for myself in each case.

 

[Pat C.]

Might want to take a look at the Backbeat. It's a vibrating transducer that clips to your strap or belt. Provides the lows that you may be missing when using an in ear setup or when using a small on stage amp. Link to TB discussion.

I will say the ability to have individual control over each channel in my monitor is pretty important to me, and that means individual drum channels that I can manipulate at my stage position for best sound in my ears. Not always feasible depending on the gig, I realize.

Several times you mention 'distortion' and I wonder where and how that's manifesting with so many different basses and amps in use. Is it just a 'speaker farting' issue, or is there some other distortion happening? There may be a gain structure issue in your setup from bass to amp to cab that is consistent from bass to bass and rig to rig that's contributing to your dissatisfaction. Or maybe with just some basses or amps. I'd be good to track down the specifics with that issue. (Ex. Bass A with Amp C and Cab B is not good, etc.)

Not sure if you mentioned exactly what type of bass tone you prefer. Sounds like you want a very clean tone without any distortion. Perhaps you like a lot of low end in your sound (I do too). Have you tried a clean instrument preamp (Grace Designs, Summit, Avalon, SSL, etc.) directly into a powered PA setup with sub and top? That would probably you closest to the "sidefill" sound you mentioned. Even the 'better' MI grade PA gear can sound pretty good if run within it's capabilities - JBL SRX, Yamaha DZR/DXS, EV ETX, QSC KW, etc.

I always carry an in-ear setup with me, for the possibility of encountering that situation. I'm totally o.k. with it- but the Avioms commonly used- do not have individual channel EQ, which forces me to keep the typical two assigned drum channels at a stupid low volume..because of the ridiculously over amped kick drum. I've also used bass shaker platforms. I even made one. The funny thing, after standing on one all night, it actually feels like you ran a couple of miles- it'll make your feet tired! In the situation last weekend, I'm sure I could have brought less, and a personal mixer- and just blended the in-ear, and live ambient sound. I might try that soon. I still want a light power amp... AH THE QUEST, perhaps, that is part of all of this- in search of the lost chord, the Holy Grail...

 

[Al Kraft]

You might have noticed that the side fill boxes were pretty large (and deep) compared with a typical or even atypical bass cabinet. That's because the side fills often need to reproduce some kick, bass and keys (depending on the situation), so they have more internal volume and use different drivers that have greater low frequency extension at higher power levels. They also don't need to worry about the LF driver's mid voicing because that's handled by a dedicated mid or large format HF driver. They are typically used in large acoustic spaces (especially outdoors) to create an artificial acoustic boundary where none exist. My side fill boxes were triamped, an 18" LF driver, a dedicated mid driver and a medium format HF driver/horn in a box where the LF internal volume was probably 8CF. the boxes were 2' deep x 42" high x ~22" wide (trapazoidal), they made a nice mid sized all in one box type scalable PA rig, I had 8 of these which I pretty much wore out. I believe they were JBL 2241's, E110's and 2425's, all pro gear, and the boxes cost about $3k each. The downside is that they were expensive and weighed about 175 pounds each.

This is why I mentioned that what you might be hoping for is likely not practical in reality.

I want to add that equipment is only one part of the equation...professional sound techs who know how to work with the musicians/FOH and make that fancy gear literally sing in any venue are equally important IME. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone pick up an instrument and impress everyone in the room only to have all the rest of us in the room pick it up and we sounded like we were palying a cardboard box with a 2X4 for a neck and shoe-strings to top it off. How an expert leverages the gear using their experience is as easily important as the gear itself IMO.