At Ziggies Blues Jam last night I was getting some ugly tones out of the Bassman when hitting a big 2-draw bend. I switched to the Mission amp (with no pedals) to finish out the jam. BTW, the jam was freaking great. It was one of those rare times when there were lots of jammers, everything went smoothly and everybody sounded great.
Anyway, today I futzed with the rig to see what the problem was. I was worried it might be tubes. But I found the Calibration knob on the Kinder pedal was too high, and the other two knobs were too high as well.
The new 1959 Shure 440SL mic with 99B86 element is really hot and it was apparently overwhelming the AFB. So it was getting some ugly distortion from the pedal AND feeding back at the same time. I was able to recreate it at home, and it was pretty nasty.
The knobs on the amp and the pedals get moved around from handling, moving, and being exposed to jammers. So today I started from scratch at home and re-set everything.
The settings on the MXR Carbon Copy Delay pedal are all on 9 o'clock or less. Just a tiny bit of delay effect.
The settings on the amp are as in this photo. It sounds good and it is easy to tell at a glance if everything is right:
So, I have less AFB and less delay than before. I'll have to thrash it out back in the club to see how it really sounds. Things change over time with amps and gear (and with your ears and preferences), and adjustments have to be changed.
We've been talking a lot lately about Fender Bassman RI amps. What settings do you use on the mic, amp, and pedals (if any)?
Very important to dial in that center knob so it just comes on then the other two as needed. The right knob gets horrid past 3 or so IMO
Also when kinder batteries get ready to die it can misbehave and sound pretty bad.
As for bassman settings. Treble and mids I run 4.5 bass on 8-9. I bridge bright one to normal 2 and play through normal one. Depending on stage I run it at 5 on the normal channel and 4 on the bright. Rarely more sometimes less. Presence I set to 10.
I sometimes do the reverse and play from bright one depending on mic.
Kinder varies based on mic. a keeley compressor barely on. Harp tone with the bass rolled off and treble cranked Harp octave effect 12 o'clock vol neutral Harp break gain 1oclock bass at 9oclock volume 1 o'clock Carbon copy /slap back barely on. Titan delay/ long parallel delay. Rarely run as series. Moon phaser in the effects loop on the Titan delay. Sonic stomp 9oclock lo contour. 2 o'clock process.
Using an re10 at the moment but my other 3 Mics I like alot are a 533sa a black label cr in the larger shell and a 440sl cr.
As for tubes nos a good but meh I like repro tungsol and jjs. I run 12ay7/5751/ecc83
Last Edited by on Dec 03, 2012 5:44 PM
You can run it off two isolated supplies using 9v battery leads pretty easily. Works best if you notch the enclosure and feed wire in. I used one setup like that. If you don't have two isolated power sources it won't work.
I find batteries last for a long time in it so meh to each their own. I use a power supply for everything else.
On the effects.
The compressor and sonic stomp are on all the time. The idea of using both directly came from Jason. I think the lonewolf compressor is likely better than the keeley for harp but I have been conservative with money since just before it came out due to changing jobs.
Kinder does what it does.
The rest I use as colors so they are not on all the time or in most cases even together.
The harp tone is just being used as a treble vol boost. Not using it for the amp fixer it usually is used for. Bassman a are already fat.
The break is used for help with breakup if I can't drive the amp hard enough so it is off most of the time.
The octave I like alot as a amp voicing as it really gives a bassman a harpking ish tone. Makes things sound huge due to the midrange bump.
The carbon copy is my main delay for for general play
The Titan delay is a special beast being that it is 3 800ms delays in one stomp with the ability to run it parallel or in a series. It has an internal effects loop which only effects the wet signal of the first delay. So I am running tremolo and phase with the moon phaser on that repeat. By running that delay parallel with a longer decay it is an interesting voice for delay. So really those two stomps are just being used for one effect.
Last Edited by on Dec 04, 2012 6:53 AM
As Willspear said, make sure you have good batteries in the AFB+. I left the output line plugged in and one of the batteries went low...there were some strange howling noises coming out. Put in new batteries, had everything set the same, and all was good.
