TRBboy

Get a GR Bass One 800 instead and don't look back! 🤣

I'm getting a bit frustrated now.... As some of you will know, my Markbass Stu Amp developed a fault in early May, so I sent it off to the UK authorised repairer under warranty. They've been pretty good, diagnosed the fault and have ordered parts from Markbass. After 6 weeks or so, they still haven't received the parts, and are struggling to even get any response from Markbass! I'm fortunate to have a spare amp that's getting me through gigs at the moment, but it's a pretty poor effort on Markbass' part. 😖 Although I'm having this issue, I do honestly think that Markbass reliability issues get over-egged, I've had various amps from them since 2006, and never a problem till now. N.B. I posted this on the Markbass group on FB over the weekend, and blow me down Stu Hamm actually reached out and offered to help! (He hasn't replied to my PM however 😅). Marco DeVigilis then also commented and asked me to email Markbass with all the details, I'm starting to get the impression from various comments that it might actually be the UK Authorised Repairer that are giving me the runaround... Oh, and Ed Friedland commented too! 😅

Thanks for that, is it a basswood body like the Pirhana too? A guy on FB said his J5 in the same series is mega light 😅 I guess that's part of the gamble with super cheapo instruments 🤷

Hey folks! I'm looking at this Sunset Series Pirhana P5 to use as a modding platform. They seem very similar to some of the Harley Benton instruments.... I just wondered in general if anyone here has any experience of these Fazley basses? From what I can glean online, the very basic models are not great, but these 'higher end' models (if you can call them that), seem to get more favourable reviews. The main thing for me is the neck I guess, the rest of it is fairly inconsequential (aside from overall weight). Anyway, if you have any feedback on them, let me know! 😊👌 Thanks, Oli

Hey guys, does anyone here have one of the Sunset Series Pirhana 5's, and could tell me what the string spacing measurement is please? I've emailed BAX, but they don't know 😅 I'm sorely tempted to buy one of these to mod, especially if the necks are we good as people say, but I need to know the string spacing to see if I can get a MM pickup that will work. I want to mount it with the neck coil where the bridge side coil on the P would be. Thanks

Ah damn, that's a shame! Thanks though Bill🙏 I love the Jensen/Sica drivers in my GR Bass cab, so was very hopeful

Hi guys, sorry to resurrect this one again. Alas, life got in the way before, and I missed out on the speakers I was looking at.... 🤦 I have now seen the following for sale for a good price, would any of you kind people with the tech know-how be able to tell me if it'd be suitable for my cab? https://www.jensentone.com/bass-speakers/punch-bp-15250

Funny you say that, I had actually thought about changing the speaker on the Ashdown cab at some point too, it's not the original one in there, and whilst it sounds okay I did get to wondering.... 😅

Ah okay, makes sense! Where are you?

It's a good suggestion, but for that money I think I'd rather buy a new speaker for piece of mind, rather than another used one of unknown quality. Plus, the one I bought was £20, I wouldn't entertain buying one for £150.

I'm sure Peach guitars had good reason. There's very little markup on musical instruments compared to other retail products (typically 35% from trade price to full RRP inc. VAT). Having worked in MI Retail for years, the top two reasons that spring to my mind are: 1) They were offered a discounted price from the Distributor, possibly for buying a certain quantity, and have then passed that on to the customer to have the lowest price around and win sales above their competitors. 2) They've sold for the cheapest price around BECAUSE of the popularity. Knowing that it's a hot item and having the lowest price increases traffic to their website, and even if prospective customers don't buy it, they're 'in the door' as it were and may buy something else. It's a very common tactic in retail generally, supermarkets do it a lot. It's known as a 'loss-leader': you take a hit on a popular product to get customers there and buying other stuff too, which you WILL make profit on.

Thanks, yeah I did that. The grille was a bit deformed when I got it, and although I straightened it out it was still bowing in too much for my liking. I added a rubber spacer between the grille and the baffle to combat this.

Yes tried different amp, basses, cables etc.

Obviously I recently had this cab completely stripped down to refurbish, so should be all good, but I've checked everything's tight anyway. Always try to check the easy things first 😅

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this, that's super useful! 🙏 To my uneducated eye, they do look VERY similar! So much so that the £50 cheaper LaVoce is probably more appealing, although the Faital is Neo so would be a weight saving.... Not that it's an especially heavy cab anyway. Would still love to find the source of this noise first, just to make sure it is the speaker and not something weird with the enclosure 😅

No idea tbh, but 5 is plenty for me 😅

I like the fact that with the B2 Four, having 5 slots on each patch and the three footswitches, I can get everything I want on one patch! 😅

I have to say, the Djent preamp is SICK! I'm still playing with it to see if I can get the settings right for it to be useable for me in the band, but it's an incredible distortion! The ZNR is really useful in conjunction with any of the drives too, I've just left it at default settings but works really well as a noise gate.

Exactly, I mainly wanted it for the Darkglass emulators, so it's cost effective anyway and has a bunch of other cool stuff. Still haven't got my sounds quite how I want, but getting there. I had ditched my drive pedals off my board, but may yet reintroduce one or both.

Awesome! Hope you like it. I had a wobble last week, but it is a really good unit TBF. A good middle ground between quality of sounds, flexibility and ease of operation I think. 👌

Okay folks, so internal dimensions are H574 x W434 x D267mm. Ports are 102 ID x 152mm long. Just been looking at it again, and the 'ambient' noise seems to have gone....? There is still a buzzing when played, most noticeable at low volume. Doesn't seem to happen on higher notes, or not as noticeably, worst on anything below open E string. I've checked for anything loose but can't find anything. It does seem like it could be something loose, but definitely seems to be the actual speaker. Can't find any damage to the cone or suspension... Puzzling. It sounds really good apart from this infernal noise! 🤬

Sorry Bill, I will try to measure it later. Just having a quick Google, it seems to be pretty hard to get hold of the LaVoce in the UK...

Hi folks, bit of an update: I've noticed that 'noise' is coming from the speaker all the time, any vibration/air movement in the house is causing the sound, it's a bit like putting your ear by a chimney. I'm assuming then that something is wrong with it, maybe the voice coil I guess? The guy selling the Faital has stopped responding to messages, but I was starting to have second thoughts about buying a second hand speaker anyway. In the meantime, I've emailed Dave Green at Ashdown, and he's recommended a Celestion Pulse 15 as being a great replacement for this cab. Anyone here got any experience with them/thoughts on this? Thanks, Oli

I asked Zoom EU the other day if there are plans to update Guitar Lib for B2 Four compatability, and also whether an Android version of the app would be coming soon, and this was the reply: As we know Guitar Lab will not be opened for the B2. Only Handy Guitar Lab for B2 can handle this at the moment, unfortunately we are not informed if an Android version is planned. We currently don´t have any information about the plans for updates and follow ups. I'd say it sounds like they're ditching the whole thing, as someone else said, it hasn't been updated for a few years, and none of the newer models can interface with it. Whether this means they're working on something else better is anybody's guess (reviews for the iOS app are pretty poor).

Many thanks for all the help guys! 🙏