- May 6, 2003
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- Proprietor Fifth Avenue Fret Shop. Technical Editor Bass Gear Magazine
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Double Bass Who wants a VL208?
- Thread starter anonymous02282011
- Start date
- Apr 3, 2003
- 35,518
- 19,954
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- Editor-in-Chief, Bass Gear Magazine
As I said, YMMV.
Personally, I do dig them. They are not hard to handle, one at a time, and they don't seem heavy at all if you used to gig with VL-210B's!
I will concede, though, that we have some really great options on the electric bass front right now, and there are many cabs that are lighter, more easy to find, and less expensive which will do a darned fine job for slab bass. My comments were mainly aimed at noting that the VL-208 (in quantities of two or more) has worked well for me on electric bass.
Now, getting back to upright amplification, I still maintain that the VL-208 (generally used solo or in pairs) is still one of the benchmark cabs out there, even today.
Peter,
Right you are, if you are talking about a single VL 208, which is all I've ever cared to lug around. Also, in my case the Walter Woods Ultra is a bright amplifier, so using it with the dark VL 208 seems to work very well. It kind of depends on how much you are willing to lug around to the gig, doesn't it? No one but me seems to like using the VL 108's, so I think that's the Woods EA combination agian, and they are not electric cabs either. There's always the weight vs sound compromise, that's why I liked the Thunderchild. Just my opinion though.
Ric
Sounds like news to me, the general concensus for DB is the VL208. I'd need a lot of convincing to the contrary especially being that you don't play DB.
If you dig it, you dig it. Just reporting what I heard with Ric's DB
Since these have been discontinued for so long, it is a moot point for most. Lots of advances since these were introduced all those years ago. Of course, they still sound good in an absolute sense, but surely are not anywhere 'at the top' for anything at this point IMO and IME. Given the advances in drivers, etc. over the past 15 years, it would be pretty pathetic for all of us if they were.This would be ESPECIALLY true for doublers, who want a single box that is lightweight, performs well (i.e., transparantly) with their DB, but that also can wump with an EB when needed. IMO and recent direct IME!
Again, given that these are no longer available, my only point is that 'all is not lost'... there are a number of new, amazing boxes that IMO are superior in almost every measure (weight, SPL, transparent tone, max SPL, etc.). It is a good time to be a bassist (DB or otherwise!).
I feel the same way about the Walter Woods amps versus the batch of amazing new SMPS products out there now.... but of course, that would be touching on another sacred cow!
For those of us who play DB jazz gigs and dont use public transportation, weight and max spl mean very little. You soon forget ken that we have to carry around a massively large instrument a second trip to the car is unavoidable. Being able to get really loud is also not necessary.
I dont see the VL 208 as a sacred cow and if i could find a smaller lighter and louder cabinet that sounds as good or better then the VL208 with my DB i certainly would. As you know i am not shy about dropping a few bucks to try something new and have. I agree in that there are some other very good options available but few have reported tonal superiority.
I dont see the VL 208 as a sacred cow and if i could find a smaller lighter and louder cabinet that sounds as good or better then the VL208 with my DB i certainly would. As you know i am not shy about dropping a few bucks to try something new and have. I agree in that there are some other very good options available but few have reported tonal superiority.
Actually, I've found most of the DB players I know just as sensitive (or moreso) to weight as EB players (of course, some aren't). And, max SPL can be very important if you are doubling on a casual. SPL (volume per watt) in general can also be very important in that a higher SPL cab allows you to use a wider variety of lower wattage heads and still generate a full tone.
Again, since the VL208 has been long discontinued, it is a relatively moot point. The only reason I posted up is that I recently was able to hear the VL208 with DB and EB and compare to one of the newer, lighter, cabs, and was surprised at how 'voiced' the VL208 was (i.e., how much tone it imparted versus the 'acoustic' tone of the bass versus the other cab we were using, which is more representative of some of the newer designs out today).
Again, having a less transparent voicing is surely not a bad thing in absolute terms IMO (an attenuated deep low end and goosed mids can actually be a good thing if your particular DB is a bit dark and boomy), but it was suprising to me (well, not to me, since I was an early and longtime VL user). given how some describe the VL208 as 'transparent and flat' and being a 'gold standard'.
IMO and again, recent IME! Obviously, with EB and especally DB, the pickup, mic, amp, cab and instrument all interact and it is hard to make an absolute comparsion of one part of the signal chain to another in a vacuum... so again, IMO and IME based on a recent 'point in time' comparison.
- May 6, 2003
- 5,272
- 160
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- Disclosures
- Proprietor Fifth Avenue Fret Shop. Technical Editor Bass Gear Magazine
"transparent" and "flat" are BS terms that tell very little about gear these days. They certainly don't apply to the VL208. I have no use for either of those things in amplifiers of anything. I like the amp to participate in what I sound like as everything else does. It always does, transparent and flat are a myth.
I haven't found any cabinet I like on my DB better than the VL208 yet. It was a remarkable design and extremely unusual in an otherwise cluttered landscape of the same in speaker cabinets. EA should be proud of it.
If someone has something new they want to send me to try I'm all for moving to something else. At some point I'm going to run out of extra drivers for the things. I know Chris Fitz has long since moved on. Smart move I suppose. He's been urging me to do so as well.
Then again, given the choice I'd use an old square back SVT 810 for all my slab gigs given the choice of about anything else so perhaps I'm to old and curmudgeonly to have an opinion of use anymore.
I haven't found any cabinet I like on my DB better than the VL208 yet. It was a remarkable design and extremely unusual in an otherwise cluttered landscape of the same in speaker cabinets. EA should be proud of it.
If someone has something new they want to send me to try I'm all for moving to something else. At some point I'm going to run out of extra drivers for the things. I know Chris Fitz has long since moved on. Smart move I suppose. He's been urging me to do so as well.
Then again, given the choice I'd use an old square back SVT 810 for all my slab gigs given the choice of about anything else so perhaps I'm to old and curmudgeonly to have an opinion of use anymore.
+1 all the way. These cabs were ahead of their day way back when, and the voicing/tonal footprint seems to work with DB quite well, obviously. On the other had, I think a reasonable part of a DB amplification 'test' is to listen to the acoustic sound of the instrument and then the amplified tone with the same player in the same room back and forth. That is a good data point, and there are some rigs that really do seem to transmit the true sound of various DB's. Whether that is good or not is of course a personal choice. I agree that the VL2-8 is NOT one of those cabs though.
And +1 in that every rig has its 'tonal footprint' that can work very well with some instruments and not so well with others. It is all about the mix and match. The most glorious DB tone I ever heard live was Gary Peacock playing out of a GK800RB and a Goliath II cab... go figure!
That being said, cabs have come a LONG way in 15 years or so
Age and practicality has a lot to do with that. It's hard to justify lugging what is essentially a 50lb cab out to a lot of the gigs I play, especially when I liked the VL208 best up on a stand with a mic blended in. So the comparison came down to:
50lb speaker
Pole mount stand
AI head + speakon connection
Mic on the bass (meaning extra cable)
vs.
Single 30lb combo (PJB) and one cable
I love the sound of the PJB, but I have a student who still says the best amplified DB sound he's ever heard live was that old rig with the mic/pickup and pole-mounted VL208.
It just kind of got to the point where all of the futzing to find the perfect sound by schlepping the perfect gear and tweaking all the time was getting in the way of the music making, and with the schedule being so much tighter these days and my *** getting older year by year, the choice seemed a no-brainer. I have been thinking about trying a pole-mounted powered PA speaker for review at some point, so this may all be just another pendulum swing in the end. We'll see...
In regards to ken and phils thoughts on transparent /flat. That is a tough one since the piezo itself does not always represent the tone of our instrument. If what comes out of the bass is what we want to hear and a true representation of that does not come through the piezo there needs to be additional adjustments to that signal to get what we want.
With that being said taking into account the bass, strings, pickup and head it is tough to generalize about a single cabinet that is going to work for everyone. Throw a realist on my bass and the VL208 may not be the best choice.
Ive heard many a great bass player sound incredible with gear that just doesnt work for me, such is life. I am all for a lighter louder smaller DB cabinet and have no historical connection with the VL208 When i find that cabinet i will gladly retire the Vl208.
With that being said taking into account the bass, strings, pickup and head it is tough to generalize about a single cabinet that is going to work for everyone. Throw a realist on my bass and the VL208 may not be the best choice.
Ive heard many a great bass player sound incredible with gear that just doesnt work for me, such is life. I am all for a lighter louder smaller DB cabinet and have no historical connection with the VL208 When i find that cabinet i will gladly retire the Vl208.
- May 6, 2003
- 5,272
- 160
- 64
- Disclosures
- Proprietor Fifth Avenue Fret Shop. Technical Editor Bass Gear Magazine
I've been leaning away from this concept as of late. If I want the true acoustic sound from my bass on the gig then I play without amps and use a mic/pickup mix through a PA if I have to make it louder. It has the added benefit of walking into the gig with the bass on my back and nothing else.
As soon as I plug in the bass to an amp it becomes an electric bass. As such I abandon an "authentic" tone and become an electric DB player. Certainly more woody than an EUB but electric nonetheless.
When I do plug in I really like my DB to sound huge before it feeds back. Like a DB plus a few stones. The VL208 is the best cab I've found yet to do that. I haven't tried everything but Tom Bowlus keeps me apprised of new stuff enough that if some real competition shows up I'll play with it soon enough.
+1 In my experience a mic sounds the best and for the present the DPA 4099B gets the job done, but it's always tricky to use a microphone by itself. So having the pickup for your onstage sound and sending a mic to the house probably works the best. Since you can't always do that, blending the two signals can work, but as Chris says it's more stuff to schlep for a small gig and it dosen't always work. My sound is definitely not all that transparent, it's colored just enough for me to be able to hear the bass and enjoy playing it. As Phil says if you wan't it to sound just like your instrument then you don't use an amplifier at all.
In my particular case with the Walter Woods a VL 208 and the Realist work pretty darn well. So go figure, cause for most players it would not be the pickup of choice.
As will I
- May 6, 2003
- 5,272
- 160
- 64
- Disclosures
- Proprietor Fifth Avenue Fret Shop. Technical Editor Bass Gear Magazine
I started using my Realist again. Since I changed the setup on the queen moving away from higher volume gigs the Realist has been giving me a smoother tone. Currently I have both that and the Full Circle on the bass with the Sennheiser Mic, giving me plenty of choices wherever I find myself.
I'll slink out of here and go back to where I belong after this post
(and another +1 to almost everything that has been posted over the last page or three). I just wanted to say that whatever the little 'clip on' mic Ric Vice was using during our recent cab 'test/demo' was absolutely magnificent sounding!!!!!
I love this, Phil-
"As soon as I plug in the bass to an amp it becomes an electric bass. As such I abandon an "authentic" tone and become an electric DB player. Certainly more woody than an EUB but electric nonetheless."
I remember when the 208 came out, and was an EA user for years (VL110, CXL110, CXL 112). Now I'm just running everything through the TC stuff. I should probably get a mic and PA cab for the upright, but when it comes down to it, anything I have to plug in is such a HUGE compromise that I'm starting to not care.
Drummers that play soft, small rooms with good acoustics, quiet audiences. . .. These are a few of my favourite things.
"As soon as I plug in the bass to an amp it becomes an electric bass. As such I abandon an "authentic" tone and become an electric DB player. Certainly more woody than an EUB but electric nonetheless."
I remember when the 208 came out, and was an EA user for years (VL110, CXL110, CXL 112). Now I'm just running everything through the TC stuff. I should probably get a mic and PA cab for the upright, but when it comes down to it, anything I have to plug in is such a HUGE compromise that I'm starting to not care.
Drummers that play soft, small rooms with good acoustics, quiet audiences. . .. These are a few of my favourite things.
I'll slink out of here and go back to where I belong after this post
I just wanted to say that whatever the little 'clip on' mic Ric Vice was using during our recent cab 'test/demo' was absolutely magnificent sounding!!!!!
Ken,
That's the DPA 4099 and it's one of the best new developments in live sound for Double Bass. It's not fool proof but it works very well most of the time.
Ric
Interesting post. I guess it really does not matter whether your tone is "authentic" so much as long as your tone is YOURS.
Mike
Mike,
Yep, I guess you could say that. I'm pretty sure that the sound I want to hear from the amp isn't really the way my bass acoustically, but it's a nice warm sound with good definition and compliments the other musicans in the band.
Ric
I would love to own a VL208 reissue.. so count me in if this is still up in the air for happening
