The Low End of a Cactus

September 30, 2009 - The Low End of a Cactus

I had a fabulous weekend! It started off with Fifth World doing a post Mike Gordon show at the Kinetic Playground in Chicago. We had a nice crowd. But the great part was that many of the folks had seen us there the previous week when we opened for Chris Berry & Panjea. The kids where up front, dancing and cheering. We even sold some shirts and the email list grew quite heftily as well.

Sat. I drove to Madison Wi. for a 3pm appointment with Eden artist and Phish bassist Mike Gordon. Mike was performing at the Barrymore Theater with his solo group. The purpose of our meeting was for Mike to AB various Eden cabs against his Myer cabs. Mike had called me Friday at about 4:35 pm so it was too late to get any cabs released for the weekend, so I brought my rig up (D210XST8, D212XLT8, D210XLT8, and a D115XLT8). Mike was running a WT800 into 2 powered Myer 112 cabs sitting on top of two 2x18 Myer powered cabs. He had an Eden rig set up next to his Myer rig when I arrived. It consisted of a WT800 two D410XLT8'S, and a D118XL. The first piece I added to the Eden side was a D115xlt8. We ran the 410s on the top of the 18 and 15. Mike had two ¼" cables running to his bass one for the Myer side the other from the Eden side. What a nice thunderous rig.

The second Eden combination we ran was a D118XL8 with a D212XLT8, AND a D210XLT8, stacked as a giant tower (tower of power, if you will). We then added a D210xlt to the Myer rig side and this really filled in the mids and added some punch to Mike's tone. The Myer cabs are very clean and precise sounding. I felt they where a bit sterile and lacked some of the aggressiveness I like to hear and feel with bass. This is similar to the rig Mike ran with Phish for the last 5 dates of their summer tour. The difference was that I had given him a D210XST8 in August. He had been curious to hear how the XLT would sound vs. the XST.

We then put together my favorite sounding cab selection of the evening. It consisted of a D118XL8, a D212XLT8, and a D410XLT8. This set up was full, punchy, and aggressive and smooth sounding all at once. Mike's sound guy approached the stage at this point and said "Mike these Eden cabs sound, so good in the room." I asked Mike to try slapping when he compared the Eden vs. Myer. He said "the Eden will sound better with the 10s". Then he laid down some funk. He was right.

The final set up, which I think Mike was digging the most, was a D118XL8, D410XLT8, and a D210XLT8. This was fairly similar to the rig I preferred (18,212,410). Mike really wanted to try a second D118XL8 with his 18, unfortunately we no longer make that model so we couldn't run a 2x 410xlt8 sitting on top of 2X D118xl8 set up. I'm sure this set up would be something to remember though!!!

Through out the course of the three hours of speaker experiments, Mike had his band playing while we swapped cabs and he went back and fourth between the Myer and Eden cabs. At the end he stated he didn't want to switch in the middle of the tour but would contact me after the tour to let me know which way he wants to go.

After Mike's sound check Eden artist and Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey bassist Matt Hayes arrived for sound check.

JFJO is opening for Mike Gordon for seven dates of the tour. Matt plays upright and recently purchase a WT800, D212XLT8, and a D210XLT8. Matt told me a few days ago that his bass has never sounded so good. Mike asked Matt if he'd like to play through his rig on the tour to save time. Matt said "let's try it out". So Matt was playing and Mike started tap dancing on his effect board sending Matt's tone into envelope filters, and synth pedals. After running clean for a few moments Matt decided he wanted to play through his Eden rig for the show. Since mine was on stage already I saved him the trouble of unloading and he used my rig. JFJO sounded amazing that evening as did the Mike Gordon Band.

I ended up crashing with JFJO that evening at a local hotel. JFJO drummer Josh Rammer thanked me for changing the sound of their band. It was a great compliment.

I made the 2 hr drive back home Sunday and chilled with my wife and son, it was truly a wonderful weekend.

My only regret was that I forgot to run a comparison between the D118XL and the D210XST8 cabs. I guess there's always next time.

Talk to you next week,
We will our reality
Timothy "Smu" McCarthy III