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Let the designer design, I say!

Haha, I had a very similar thought. My original request to Martin was a simple small footprint 100W valve head with 3 band EQ. That was it. Was content to let the finer aspects be left to the man designing and building. I do like some of the ideas floating around here and very much appreciate Martin’s input and ideas here. I’m confident we’ll end up with a pretty fine little amp but there will be a fair few people saying either “I wanted this” or “I wouldn’t have done that”. We can’t please everyone.

These monsters were collected over the weekend from a lovely chap near Southport. Barely used, I now have an SVT CL, 410HE and 115E! Really, I've bought it all for the studio but always kinda fancied an Ampeg rig and is something of a contrast to my usual Trace Elliot setup(s!). Initial impressions are very good both in terms of build quality (these are chinese examples) and performance - the biggest surprise is that EQ being very powerful and flexible - I had no issue dialling my usual noise. Whilst I've not yet used it at 'stun' or 'kill' volumes, power certainly doesn't feel like it's going to be an issue! 😀

I'm looking for the same thing that @Merton asked for in the initial talks, a small footprint simple amp with a 3 band eq, if it can have a di then that's great but for me the simpler the amp the better. @Stonehamknows what he is doing so I'm very happy to leave the finer points to his expertise. Matt

Have 4 speakon combo jack two per tap. Draw a big box around two and write “min 4 ohm total load” - big box around the other two “min 8 ohm load” - then make sure you don’t ask the singer to set your rig up.

So far I'm going with a 3 band EQ, but will be capable of boost or cut and will be flat with dials at 12 o'clock. It should have the option of some pre-amp drive so a gain switch could offer that. Yes sliders add a lot of complexity to a small production run, plus pots are so much easier to service or replace long term. Speaker outputs - jack and speakon, 8 ohm and 4 ohm outputs. I don't like impedance switches due to the high currents, it's a weak link. Transformer driven D.I output. Do you guys bother with send/return jacks? Or a pre-amp output

That clip reminds me of the best thing I've read about the Who (nicked from David Hepworth): "Lots of bands have a lead singer and a lead guitarist, but the Who had a lead singer, a lead guitarist, a lead bassist and a lead drummer..." 😁

I weighed this, it’s just over 8lbs, and my intentions were to put it up for sale. But I just can’t! Look at it! And it plays nicer than anything else too. So I thought I’d stick a picture of it on here. Anyone else got any “modern” Tokai? I’ve owned loads of the basses and guitars over the years, regret selling a few, but this one is awesome. Plus look at that burst, now I know why I stared at the pictures of it online for ages before I got it a few years back.

Hi All, Wanted to share my second bass build with you fine folk (first build here). Overall I am pretty pleased with it. It sounds great if I may say so - reminds me of a punchier P-Bass. I suspect that's down to the pickups more than my craftsmanship or choice of woods, so I'd happily use those EMGs again (if I can ever get my hands on some). I did make a few mistakes and won’t highlight them all here for fear of being too self-critical, but the main things I’d change design-wise are the headstock as the break angles for the strings aren’t great (would also match the headstock topwood a bit better to the body), and the neck profile ended up a little thin for my liking. But this is all a learning process. The next build that I've just started will go back to basics - a variation of a P/J bass, so I can focus on getting the finish perfect and not worry about cutting funky wood shapes, exotic top woods etc. Will also post that here when it’s ready! Main specs as follows: 32 inch scale Chambered mahogany body Walnut and flame maple top Walnut neck Rosewood fretboard EMG CSX pickups EMG BQS preamp ABM bridge system

As the title suggests... I've moved country and needed a bass to keep me company while the others are back waiting for me overseas. The Tokai came up for a good deal on gumtree, I went to check it out and couldn't leave without it. This thing is mad. It's hot, bling, garish and built like an anvil. Sounds ballsy and plays superbly too. It's like if Arnold Schwarzenegger were a drag queen, but it's a bass. Anyway, here's pics.

Then he could eat his hat!

This thread is becoming a text book example of design by committee.

For years I had my action higher than Fender standard settings as I was rather heavy handed, which was what I needed at the time, however I`ve found that having the action a fair bit lower than Fender standard makes me play with a more measured approach, so horses for courses, have the action that suits your current style of playing.

This always stays with me as utterly beautiful. Wistful vocals and Danny Thompson as super DB support. And if you don't like it, each to their own!

Let's not forget Danny's mastery of the 'bass face' - check the end if his solo at 4:10...

On the basis of them being potentially unreliable and difficult to get hold of, I’d say not..

I'm always impressed by this kind of playing, and this crew are as tight as a gnats chuff, but I can't listen to more than a minute at a time, which is better than Jazz, which gets around 15 seconds... Excellent work. Also, as posting 2 now has a precedent, Mr. Karn, one of the most innovative bass players around, still holds up 35 years later, no-one sounds like Japan.

From a separate thread where the OP stated that he bought this amplifier second-hand I get the impression it may be as much as 10 years old. I'm not saying that the previous owner knew of a problem but failure after only two gigs is quite "unlucky". Any Markbass LM sized head (LM2,3, 250, Tube, etc) will slot into this combo. The OP might find a newish second-hand one for less than a repair. I'm also not so sure the authorised repair shop will supply this assembly without performing the repair itself.

To be fair to Bass Direct, building an ecommmerce site with stock management and all the other stuff they need will cost tens of thousand of pounds, and it’s a lot of money to drop when inflation is biting. So they’re not as slick as Thomson or Amazon, but the cash is going to bass players not bald weird billionaires.

When an amp is not designed to be repaired at the component level, you generally get the benefit of a more inexpensive purchase price but then suffer the consequences of needing to replace assemblies rather than component level repair. This is not a big deal where the designs have a history of long, reliable life, but can be very costly (for both the manufacturer and end user) if the failure rate is high and the failures affect amps less than say 10-15 years. At this point, doing the "true cost of ownership" calculations shows that the cheaper amp built this way may in fact be more expensive than the more expensive amp that has a longer, more trouble-free life. As a society, we have become more accepting of "disposable" consumer goods, and there are companies within our industry that specialize in this model. Ultimately, when these products are manufactured "off shore", not only is there the loss due to the cost of a product that is considered disposable, but there is also the loss of income to those within your region who would have built the product "in region" or "in country" that affect the local health of the economy. This is something that we began studying in engineering economics back when I was in university (a very long time ago, I assure you), I assume that it has taken on added importance in recent years.

There are a couple of things going on here that the marketing departments jumped on like rabid dogs... First, there is the obvious limitation of the high frequency driver which is no more than about 35-40 watts RMS above 800hz. There is dynamic mechanical power handling above this, but in practice, due to the sensitivity difference between the HF and LF sections, this doesn't even come into play. Typically the HF section is at least 10dB more sensitive than the LF section on a cabinet like this. So, even if the amp is nominally capable of delivering "1000 watts" (or whatever number), the internal processing limits this back to no more than 100 watts for "survive-ability" reasons. Second, looking at the LF section, the driver is not going to be capable of more than 400 watts RMS at low frequencies, therefore in the processing, the limiting and HPF algorithms are often dynamic and increase the amount of limiting as level gets higher and frequency gets lower. This too improves "survive-ability". Since this is a biamped speaker, the easiest and most common solution is to use the same power amp design for both channels, and use the driver's impedance plus processing to manage the real world power levels delivered to the speaker. For example, the amp might be rated at 1000 watts RMS at 4 ohms, but if the drivers are 8 ohms (or even 16 ohms in the case of the HF driver), the unprocessed power available would be 500 watts RMS to the LF and 250 - 500 watts to the HF. There's nothing wrong (and a LOT right) with managing power this way but IMO the real issue is with the way the numbers are manipulated by the marketing folks in a way that appears deceptive even if that's not the intent. Incidentally, this is a major conflict at many companies, between the design/engineering departments and marketing departments.

Darn autocorrect: of course you meant Fedora

Gold Mk3 Capri Duh-duh-duh! (For those of a certain age)

If you decide to gig this, stack the 115 in the top position so you can hear it's cries of pain. Really a 115 is a terrible match for a 410. Otherwise enjoy!!

That recommended setting has had me ruching off to measure mine and, wouldn't you know it, 2.5mm at the 12th. You'd think I'd know my set up, but I measure at the 17th fret for reasons that pass understanding, or are lost in the mists of time.

That was part of the design intent of the pedal. You can either run the parallel or 1/4" out to your amp and send the XLR output to the mixer.

Nice These are the sets we'll be playing on Saturday night, after a shorter one at the Cider, Rum & Reggae festival at Trowbridge in the afternoon.

As a rule of thumb add 25% onto the combined cost of the item and the shipping price and add an additional £15.00 to cover customs clearance fees and you won't have any unpleasant surprises.

I was able to get a fairly decent loud response from the 110 with my little bastard , excuse the awkward looking overhang . It would still do a small acoustic type gig

Chris Squire: With a nod to Enwistle as well, and Leigh Gorman of Bow Wow Wow: There are loads of others of course, and I’ll always have a soft spot for this bloke 😉:

While we're at it, a tip of the hat to Jansen, what drummer he is.

It's not an easy rout and back-fill at all - but, in terms of neck depth, you do have enough wood for a standard modern 2-way rod...especially in that you could also rout a couple of mm into the back of the fretboard too. My rule of thumb in terms of ensuring I never get a trussrod bursting out of the back of the neck is to retain at least 4mm of wood underneath the rod channel at the nut end. A typical Andyjr1515 calc would be: Total depth at nut= 21mm Fretboard thickness = 7mm, leaves 14mm Rod channel = 9mm, leaves 5mm = happy bunny So, even if you don't rout into the back of the fretboard, you still appear to have enough room: Neck thickness, excluding fretboard=15mm Rod channel =9mm Leaves =6mm of packer under the rod end =plenty This does assume the simple two way like they sell in Tonetech, not the ones with the enlarged, enclosed, adjuster end that are sometimes sold elsewhere Tricky rout, mind...

Just been given the updated set for my dep gig this Saturday. All the usually suspects are present, but the there have been some additions that require my attention. Great to see Poison Ivy back in, but that means my back up bass will be tuned down a half step. They play it in the key as recorded and their regular bass player plays the low E high, which to my ear sounds odd. The set seems to be getting longer every time I play with these guys, but it makes a nice change compared to the material I usually play.

I have tried all of them and now use KICAD. They all have a learning curve though.

Yeah, naming conventions of footprints and symbols is a biggie. Several times I've had to start from scratch as I've forgotten what I've called things

There's an "expand" or "explode" function that'll more or less take care of that for you. While drawing a schematic is pretty simple, there are some less than obvious things needed to make it all work properly. You need power ports connected to various supply voltages, for starters. Be sure to run the design rules checker, it will generally catch that sort of stuff. 😉 And as with many of these tools, library management makes a big difference in ease of use. I do many component footprints myself and a logical set of naming conventions when I started out would have saved a lot of later grief.

Stealing from Mr Hill again. Not a fan of his band but the man had great taste when it came to basses and beards 😃 Think that plan is on the back burner 🤣

Installed some of the hardware. I hate wrestling with bear-trap retainers but not as much as I would hate the sound of a broken KT66 rattling around inside the enclosure. I haven't fitted screening cans for the preamp valves as this is a fairly low-gain design and the enclosure is one big Faraday cage. Also wired up the circuit board. Some of the eyelets are as yet unsoldered as they will take leads from the transformer.