NBD - Big Al 5SSS

[cyoungnashville]

nice one stew... looks like my big al i call Bongowood.....a custom bigal5sss made of an undisclosed type of wood.

[stu42]

Thanks Craig! I admit that the high praise you've expressed for the Big Al SSS, and your sound clips/recordings, fuelled my G.A.S. for the Big Al.

I'm curious about the difference in sound between the regular Big Al and your Bongowood. It also makes me wonder how an African Mahogany Bongo 5H would sound!! They certainly sound different acoustically. On my Big Al the Mahogany is very resonant and emphasizes the midrange a lot more compared to the acoustic sound of the Bongo.

[nurnay]

[QUOTE=stu42;854489Overall I'd say that it's a little "gentler", less aggressive (more compressed, perhaps) sounding than the Bongo - though, that said, the 4-band EQ can make it very powerful as well.

One thing I'm trying to wrap my head around is that it came with Flats (TI Flats) on it and this is my first time playing with flats. I'm really liking them but I'm not sure how much they're contributing to the tone or how exactly they affect the tone.[/QUOTE]

I'd say they're contributing quite a bit. My BA is *very* aggressive (depending on PU selection, natch), but I use rounds. I might have to try some flats someday, but I'm digging the sound I have now.

[stu42]

It's official. The Big Al sounds fantastic. I was playing it again last night and just loving the tone. So far my favourite settings are Bridge+Middle (in series) and Neck&Middle (in parallel, obviously). It sounds so different than the Bongo H but they're both great...just really different flavours.

At this point, and keeping in mind the Bongo has semi-dead rounds on it whereas the Big Al has fairly fresh TI flats, I'm finding the Bongo is much more "in-your-face", punchy, tight, focused whereas the Big Al (with Bridge+Middle) is deeper, smoother and generally has a gentler, "prettier" kind of sound. But they both have a lot of presence, detail, punch and great mids.

I'm looking forward to getting two identical sets of flats on each bass so I can compare them again for fun and to satisfy my curiosity.