Bass Player

Alasdair Mackay

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Just thought I would drop this one in and see if it generates any interest. I have spent the last 40 years playing acoustic double bass and electric bass semi pro, jazz, big band, pop etc you name it I have done it. I have never been able to acheive a pure acoustic sound from an electric bass no matter how expensive the speakers or amplification, anyway thats another story. To get to my topic, I purchased an MF Acoustics Ref 1 Mk111 and have been setting my system using Sheffield Lab CD's. I was amazed to hear a real double bass sound coming from from my sub, a full bodied round and the proper tone. Even my younger adult son who was helping to set up the system was very impressed (he, my son, use to be a judge ICE) My son as an amature won many competitions. My problem is where do you stop. My setup is now great and I am very pleased with the sound and also picture quality, but I still have this feeling I could improve things. I suppose a lot of contributers to these forums are in the same position. Anyway to conclude I am now very impressed with MJ Acoustics and would recommend to anybody and now with my Denon kit working A1 I am one happy person. One lesson I am now experiencing is that many of my old CD's sound rubbish I would say from a collection of about 200 only about 30 sound any good and most of them are jazz. Where do I get quality CD,s from, I know this may seem a stupid question but are all pop CD,s the same when played on a good system, mine will now do for playing in the car. Has anybody got a list, or can suggest any good quality CD's, or what do I look for?
I thought I would drop this positive note as getting a bit fed up with a lot of of negative comments including my own.
 
Im a bass player too!!! I specificly play a lot of trip hop (massive attack) and reggae sort of stuff. I too would love to hear my bass through a lovely sub. TO be honest all these pooey bass amps on the market hardly capture an essence of waht a bass should realy sound like. It only lets you deter which note your playing and thats it. It dosnt give you the depth and help you feel your bass as you play it! I hope pretty soon to be getting a 5th string bass for some of those extra low notes!!

I also play the keyboard (and you can get some pretty low notes out of it!) and would love to hear it through some of my upcoming dynaudio speakers!
 
Dynaudio Desire said:
Im a bass player too!!! I specificly play a lot of trip hop (massive attack) and reggae sort of stuff. I too would love to hear my bass through a lovely sub. TO be honest all these pooey bass amps on the market hardly capture an essence of waht a bass should realy sound like. It only lets you deter which note your playing and thats it. It dosnt give you the depth and help you feel your bass as you play it! I hope pretty soon to be getting a 5th string bass for some of those extra low notes!!

I also play the keyboard (and you can get some pretty low notes out of it!) and would love to hear it through some of my upcoming dynaudio speakers!

I think I may have misled you. I stopped playing about 5 years ago as my Double bass was stolen. I sold my electric bass last year. My point was it is so nice to hear through my new sub a proper bass round sound when I play my reference CD,s. I only now listen to music and relax with my new setup. Thanks for your comments.
 
Glad you're happy with your sub, is the MJ sub sealed or ported ? I've always found sealed subs to be a bit more life like, but don't have the absolute depth of ported subs.

I'm also an ex-bass player, and used to play Tuba in an orchestra, I actually only use a sub these days for films, for music I have some pretty decent full range speakers (PMC's).

Never really found too much of a problem with rock/dance music since most of it seems to be highly compressed/limited bass or synth bass (Massive Attack ?) which has very little character to my ears (still want to hear it properly though).

Hope you enjoy the 5 string Dynaudio for most of my bass playing I used a Yamaha 5 string, mainly because our singer seemed to want to sing in D a lot, an it was either a case of 1 octive up or re-tune the bottom string, so I got a 5 string instead.

Think your right about a lot of the bass amps I used a 500 Watt Laney for gigs and the best I could say about it was it went boom when I hit a string. I'm a big fan of Trace Elliot for not too much money, I borrowed a friends Fender amp a long time ago and that was pretty good, can't remeber much about it but it made me sound better.
 
Sorry forgot to add CD recs for you to enjoy, I'll give you a variety of bassy stuff I enjoy. I'm sure not all will be to you're taste, but most pop CD's are pretty rubbish

Dance type stuff - Massive Attack - Mezzanine a go for some deep bass.
Easy listening - Sara K - Hobo, lovely voice and double bass.
Dance type stuff - Faithless - Sunday 8PM.
Jazz - Jaco Pastorius I'm sure you've heard of.
Jazz - Charlie Haden/Pat Metheny - Beyond The Missouri Sky.

Hope you enjoy 1 or 2 of them.

Slingshot
 
The MJ Sub is sealed, i love mine, the neighbours dont.
 
Robin-Hood said:
I think I may have misled you. I stopped playing about 5 years ago as my Double bass was stolen. I sold my electric bass last year. My point was it is so nice to hear through my new sub a proper bass round sound when I play my reference CD,s. I only now listen to music and relax with my new setup. Thanks for your comments.
I do sincearly apologise.:oops:
 
Sy1441 said:
The MJ Sub is sealed, i love mine, the neighbours dont.
The Ref 200 is sealed, The Ref 1 however is very definitely ported.

Russell
 
Robin-Hood said:
Has anybody got a list, or can suggest any good quality CD's, or what do I look for?

Harry Connick Jr - We Are In Love. Really should be a mandatory test disc. Effortless dynamics, big band brass, top class clarity. The track, 'A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square' contains only double bass, sax and vocal. Finger movements on the strings, sax player breathing and even Harrys lips parting are all audible against an ink black backdrop of silence. Lovely.

Also - Metallica - Black Album is always a crowd pleaser.

There's two slightly differing discs for starters.

Russell
 
I enjoy good bass driven music a lot more since getting my sub, you really get the that spine tingling sense that you really miss without those deep notes.

I reccommend 'The Free Association'

http://www.tesco.com/Entertainment/product.aspx?R=503413

It was a short lived David Holmes project, kind of jazzy, funky, laid back dancey, hip hoppy stuff, all the tracks are pretty different as well.

When I saw them at the Jazz World stage at Glastonbury it was one of the only times they'd played to such a big crowd on such a big sound system as far as I know. Once the bass player (electric) realised that every time he touched the strings we were getting buffeted hard in the chest he was happy as a pig in s**t :D Really getting into it. Shame they never made any more albums.
 
I hugely recomend for sheer bass "Tipper". If you like I can upload you some of his tracks if anyone wants them just give me a shout via PM!
 
slingshot said:
Dance type stuff - Massive Attack - Mezzanine a go for some deep bass.

Slingshot

I highly recommend this too. Excellent album if you don't already own it.

Dan.
 
slingshot said:
Cheers just ordered, at only 8 quid can't go wrong really can I ?
Hope you do, but remember if you don't it was DD that recommended it, not me...
 

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