Fox is a working bassist in Great Britain and a regular member of our on-line forum. After reading numerous posts about his satisfaction with his new Thunder Rig - a WT800 mono bridged into a D410XLT (8 ohm) cabinet - we asked him to gather his thoughts into a review. We were pleasantly surprised to see that he instead gave an honest appraisal of how the Thunder Rig performed over one particular week-end.

It's 10am on Friday March 11th [2005] and I'm checking my email. To my surprise there is one from Lane Baldwin [Eden's Special Projects Coordinator & Forum Moderator] asking if I would care to write a review of my Thunder Rig. I am flattered that he clearly does not mind that I have 'borrowed' his name for a rig which is essentially the same as his, namely, a WT800 teamed with a 410XLT. This has become something of a classic to cover almost all occasions and when powered up in bridged mode, the WT800 punches plenty of clean power through the four Eden made drivers. My Thunder Rig varies from Lane's only in the accessories I use. I am not really a gadget freak and like to keep things simple. The WT800 lives in a sturdy rack case with a Korg DTR2 tuner. For some reason, on Thursday evening, I decided to drag an old friend out the cupboard and add it to the line-up. A Presonus Blue Max smart compressor. A lot of guys on the Eden forum have mentioned that they like to add proprietary units, so for this review I decided it would be interesting to compare it with the onboard unit. As luck would have it, I had only just loaded the rig into my car for a two-day tour that would take me on a 650 mile round trip and involve two very different bands with completely different sounds. The first gig would be with my new outfit, Funkydory, playing a mix of jazz/funk/rock covers and our own material. The stage picture is of this band playing my local pub. We are already adding more original stuff as it is going down way better than we'd ever hoped. The second gig would be on Saturday with the Rockettes, a strictly 50's/60's R&R show band that tours the clubs and holiday venues across England. They have been going for some 27 years and this is my fourth with them.

My set up takes only minutes, even adding in my Samson Airline wireless unit and a Digitech effects module, which I only use for one number as an octaver. The amp settings were classic. Everything at 12 o'clock with the master brought up to simmer at 11 o'clock. It is essentially at the scratch-plate where I dial in my tone. The Stingray 5 gives me what I need to cut through. The 410XLT horn lives in the mid position. For this gig I left the outboard compressor in circuit and on a preset, and bypassed the WT800's own. Again, for one number only, Ain't No Sunshine, I also brought out my Levinson Blade fretless as it doesn't see much air nowadays.

During the first couple of tunes I was very happy with my sound (as ever, lately!) but decided to check things out once we were warmed up. Being wireless, I was able to stroll round the room in the middle of a song to check for room anomalies. To my surprise, the bass rolled off only yards from the FOH. I cranked the master level to 1 o'clock. Better. Except that now my maxim for stage level mixing was proving correct again. That is: If a bass player thinks he is just a tad too loud on stage, then he is not quite loud enough. If a guitarist thinks he is loud enough on stage then he is almost always too loud. It seems rare that this does not apply (unless the whole outfit is going through a decent PA) and has often caused comment since the arrival of the Thunder Rig.

That 410XLT really penetrates. The first time I got it, I was still running a GK head, but I was amazed at the almost tactile feel of the sound. Suddenly the natural sound of my guitar was singing through. It felt alive in my hands. Hooking up the new WT800 when it arrived though, was a revelation. More akin to that "Woohoo!" moment when you first borrow your Dad's car to take your new girl out! I made no further tweaks for the rest of the gig.

Another 250 mile hike brought me to gig two, a trades club with a venue for about 400. Here I decided to do some more hard-core testing. I usually use a small desk to mix my instruments together allowing for quick changes as we never work to a set list, but this time I decided they would have to share the same tone set-up and transmitter. No twiddling allowed.

The R&R gig makes heavy use of my Ned Steinberger EUB 5. It's a beauty but a real test of amp and cab, with a ferocious output that needs careful taming. It has a circuit that winds out the sustain to mimic the plucked thud of a real acoustic. This baby moves cones!

For set one I used the Blue Max in manual mode and set it as per guidelines in the book, though I have to say I made no noticeable improvement over its preset. The amp settings differed little but I rolled off the high EQ to 11 o'clock at 1.3K. I also applied some bass cut on the instrument and put 2 bass clicks up on the amp. I should add that I also apply the pad for both instruments as my '90 Stingray has higher than normal output too.

I thumped away happily for a while then glanced round to see the set light blinking with every note! I immediately backed the bass 2 clicks, lowered the enhance to 11, input to 11 and tweaked up the master. Cool. The sound had not given me any clues, I just turned round by chance and thought it best to make changes. At times I feel like a chef 'cooking' up the right mix and tone! A tweak here, a nudge there and just a pinch of enhance.

For set two, I would be using the EUB and Stingray by turns, so as I was now happy with the sound, I could play around with the compression some. I started out with the Blue Max in preset, which for the technically minded is:

Threshold @ -4.4dB, Ratio @ 2.6:1, Attack @ 45.7ms and Release @ 189ms.

I later tried it with a manual setting which was:

Threshold (set internally at -10dB), Ratio @ 4:1, Attack and Release both shorter just to tame that string transient.

Now I am no expert on compression and generally leave this sort of thing to an engineer, but I think I will be playing with this feature some more. Again, I had trouble detecting noticeable differences until I switched over to the WT800's onboard circuit. I found the sound developed a harder edge and because I am not used to live compression, it sounded very slightly more punchy. In short, the WT's circuit seems to do a fine job, though it would be nice to see some parameters on the spec sheet to allow for greater understanding of what is happening.

Regular forum readers will know that my journey to ownership of a truly pro-level pile of toys has had a steep learning curve, but I applaud the help I have received from the forum community in general and Lane in particular for deepening my knowledge. I have now recorded twice with the WT800 feeding the desk direct. Each time it has been well received for both its tone and low noise. I always take it to rehearsal rooms now and hook it up to whatever cab they have. It makes a huge difference to how I feel for the session.

I have also noticed the respect ups a notch when players see me setting up. I get many more compliments now on my sound as well as my efforts and this has done my reputation no harm. A Danish session drummer was even moved to whistle his approval of the Baby Thunder Rig recently. It seems he's been impressed before!

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