Help! Settings for a Little Mark II + Stingray

[dobs1981]

Wow I've got it purring now.

What a great response to what i thought might have been a prettly anoying question.

I really appriciate everyones input, made me feel very welcome as a newbie

Cheers!!!

 

[oli@bass]

Because it sounds good.

I played around with the VLE and VPF knobs yesterday.
There are some great sounds in this box!!!

Thanks for the hint!

 

[Zippydog]

Hey Guys,

I play a Stingray 5 HH (love this bass!). I just picked up a used Little Mark II to replace separate preamp and amp rig. Suffice it to say that I won't miss any of the old rig - the LM II sounds just fantastic with my 210+tweeter cab! Just love it.

That said, I was listening to/practicing with the LM II's D.I. out tonight through my Mackie 12 ch. and into headphones. Sounded far less rich than through the cabinet and far brighter than the bass was when sent direct into the mixer. I had all of the tone controls on the bass and LM II at or very near 12:00, so I'm confuzzled about why the sound would be that different?? (BTW, I don't think its the headphones, I'm using $300+ Sennheisers).

Anybody else tried this and have you heard similar? (Great live sound, cool/cold and high end heavy through the D.I.?) I'm going to take the LM II to my church gig tomorrow morning and will try the D.I. out to the house system to see if its any different there.

What have you heard?

BTW - on a related note, I A/B'd between the "direct out" and "tuner out" through two equally set channels on my mixer tonight. It appears that the "tuner" is a straight pass-through from the input, while the "direct out" is post-front panel adjustments to the LM II. You might have already known that, but...in the spirit of sharing.

Would be interested in other headphone practicing experiences....

Thanks all!

-Paul

 

[Baird]

I have everything set at 12 o'clock with the exception of a bass boost.

+1.

VLE and VPF are never on in my case.

I am using a Mark Bass F1 (same controls as your head) and Ampeg cabs.

Depending on what kind of music I am playing my Stingray is set like this:

Vol - 10 always
Treble - 1-2 for older rock and reggae and up to 4 or 5 if I need a bit of high end for slap or harder rock
Mid - 4-5
Bass 10 always

 

[smallequestrian]

I have everything set at 12 o'clock with the exception of a bass boost. Yes, the VLE and VPF are at 12 o'clock too.

I honestly can't imagine running either of those past 10 o'clock, those little controls have a lot of adjustment within the first couple of positions.

 

[Zippydog]

Guys, I think I may have solved my issues here!!

I did some more reading on this last night and found that impedance mis-matching was usually the cause of this thin sound "symptom". I also read that the DI out of the LM II needed to be at line level.

I did two things, both worked. First, let me be clear that all tone settings on the LM II were 12:00 and filters were totally off when all this got started. Here's what worked:

1. I checked the back of my Mackie and the phantom power for the mic inputs had somehow been turned on. Not sure how or why, I only use the board for line-level use. Turning off the phantom power fixed the tone problem. As soon as I turned it off, you could hear the tone fade back in. Turning on the phantom power got the reverse effect...tone just sliced in two and became brittle and thin.

2. I took the DI XLR output and converted to 1/4" in on the Mackie and trimmed back the gain on the mixer. Same result - excellent tone. To my ears, however, the XLR input sounded a bit more clear and full.

You will notice that both options above had EVERYTHING to do with the Mackie and NOTHIHG to do with the LM II. In either setup above, tone and filters both work great and my bass sounds fantastic in the cans.

Sorry if this may have been a bit of a fire drill, but hopefully others will learn from my experiences here.

 

[oli@bass]

Thanks for the report! I was already mentally preparing for a couple of discussion with sound engineers when they use the DI from the MarkBass head...

 

[kirkm24]

I was wondering about that. I use my DI out on my LMII all the time and it always sounds nice through the house mix. The default setting is post EQ. You have to open the box up and change a jumper pin to make it pre EQ.

 

[mynan]

One thing I've noticed on mine (this may be a quirk specific to my amp) is that the input gain will clip the DI out before the light comes on. EQ completely flat, VLE at 10:00, VPF at 12:00, no clip light, but I was getting all kinds of crackles and farts in the house mix and in my Aviom...and it wasn't that the input on the board was clipping. Finally turned the input gain on my amp down a notch and cleared it right up.