stewblack

Another thing I've been telling folk, HB strings are just fine.

Everything @uk_lefty said 👆 there is an exact mirror to my pedal board experience. I once even went to the extreme of owning a board fully loaded with effects all the same (not budget) brand and just thought, meh, in the end and got rid. I blew hot, I blew cold. I spent months programming patches and then wished I could twiddle individual pedals sur le mouche. Only now has the penny dropped. It's not anything to do with getting the right sound, or even a good sound. It's all about the board itself. Building it, stripping it back, velcro versus 3M, battery versus mains, effects loops versus straight in, clean signals alongside effected/affected signals, several distortions in parallel as opposed to one in series. Geraniums or silly cones, digital or analogue, self made patch leads, shop bought patch leads, flat or round patch leads, hard case, soft case, single tier, double tier, always on, midi controlled, and a million other considerations. These are not things you plough through en-route to the ultimate board, these are actually the reasons for having a pedal board in and of themselves. Oh, and handmade British boutique pedals created from old Marconi radio parts and housed in a train set controller. Oh yes, make no mistake. It's an addiction. Another obsessive, illogical, train spotty, borderline spectrum disorder, largely male, fanatical, self feeding, collecting hobby. And that's why I love it.

nooo

I'll get to it soon, @Al Krow, I'm awaiting delivery of a special new pedal which is going to create a fascinating challenge to my board layout. B1-Four may be coming off anyway, but it will need extracting from the underground carpark!

Thanks mate, I'll give them a shout. So glad I listened to your advice this amp is just soo good

It all sounds fantastic to me. I've been banging the Benton drum so loud folk must be sick of it, so it's nice when a real quality musician showcases how great their stuff is. Listening with decent cans and man it sounds good. What strings do you have on it?

Yes it was 😂😂

I don't mind it at all. Neither do I mind that you do mind it.

Regarding the shiny (impossible to read) front. Does anyone know if the new matt finish is a straight swap for the mirrored one? If so I might see if Ashdown can supply a replacement. Using masking tape and magic marker right now. It's not the best look.

I have an RM500 and really like the dirt button. Will any generic footswitch work for this? Or does it have to be the Ashdown one?

I left a band once, amicably (or so I thought), but in a state of extreme hissy fittery the BL sacked the rest of the band! To this day I don't know what that was supposed to achieve. He's since been sniffing around the singer, but as the rest of us are now together enjoying a new project he won't get far.

I don't want to spoil the surprise...

Utterly annoying and useless answer alert! It depends. (sorry) On my old Eden amp the tone controls were so amazing that I never touched anything else. On my Trace Elliots and Ashdown RM, pre shape, boost mids, done. On my CTM100 turn everything up full, slowly increase the gain until the singers glare becomes too much to bear. Generally I don't mess much with pedals at the gig, they're too darned fiddly. Set 'em up at home and unless it sounds dreadful in the room leave well alone. If I'm lucky I have a band member I trust. They go out and signal (in broad brush strokes) more or less; top middle or bottom) Usually it's just less bottom or more mids. Anything more nuanced and subtle would be pointless naval gazing on my part, especially in a pub gig where the guitarist will inevitably turn up throughout the set and no one in the room cares about the bass sound.

I too like this combination, only thing I add is the HPF. 1 pedal instead of three, and my other MS-60B set up as a whacky phaser. The B1 Four is in use as comp, pre and HPF on my main board simply because as an 'always on' pedal it slides under the upper row. I'm now going to have to side by side it with the MS-60B.

Worked for me right through the 80s In fact if you watch the Tadeschi Trucks Rig Rundown, Susan T still has her pedals battery powered and on the floor, no board.

Yep I saw a guitarist review a 412 and the speakers were worth more than the whole thing cost him

Well watch this space. I have an interesting new overdrive /fuzz pedal on the way...

Thanks Phil. I was hoping you might chip in. I have two pretty good light speakers in poor quality chipboard cabs and have been put off building my own cabs due to having no workspace. I may consider this a decent option. Bracing through the baffle in a 15" cab is doable. I have in fact doabled it once already on the chipboard cabs. I'll try one, if it works, rehouse my 10" speakers as well.

I'm just surprised given the numbers, they haven't made a huge deal out of the weight. Maybe these days people just expect a bass cab to weigh less that a bag of chips so the marketing folk deemed it unimportant.

Any Basschatters anywhere near Bath or Swindon... El Toro Music is hosting 'live' 'gigs' in his music shop. We did it on Saturday and it was so good to be out there and playing. Virtual tip jar set up and streamed to FB. So much better than a smelly pub with drunks yelling at you for songs you don't know, standing on your pedals and asking the guitarist if they can have a go. If you're interested look him up on FB and get in touch. Here's our set, complete with lockdown rust and some laughable bass mistakes 🤦🏼‍♂️

A little while ago Thomann released a range of cabs under their house brand. I recall thinking, they'll not sell many of these in the current market. Great lumpen 4 and 8x 10s when we're all shifting them for peanuts and buying lightweight stuff. Now I'm not starting a debate on the merits of their cabs compared with others. We know from guitarists who've opened up their HB cabs that the speakers inside were excellent and would have cost more than the loaded cab if bought elsewhere. In this instance I'm only interested in the weight. There are prices in my example but that was for another comparison I'm doing for another, different reason. I simply picked a bunch of cabs either labelled as lightweight or known to be so. Look at the results. Two things struck me immediately, the 8x 10 is heavier than two 4x 10s which seems illogical, and if the specs are to be believed these are (purely in terms of weight) competitive cabs to say the least. Not talking quality. Just weight. I'm not comparing prices or quality just weight. THIS IS ONLY ABOUT THE WEIGHT. Not quality. ... I am not saying Harley Benton is as good or better than Gallien and Krueger. Or Mesa Boogie.

A Bright Onion loop switcher. Oftentimes when shoving yet another pedal board together I think how much simpler twould be were I able to turn on the volume boost simultaneously with that pedal, or a little bottom end eq with thus or dirt with that. And so forth. I love my Tri Parallel Mixer. In fact if ever I see one second hand (at those rare moments when I have money) I'll snap it up. They allow these looping shenanigans with many simple options to help such as level control on each send and return, overall level control and dry signal level, tone pots on each loop, and phase switches. Sometimes however I just want a simple loop to give me one press for multiple pedals. Hopefully this is the answer.

Sorry, misunderstood your earlier post.

I shall have a closer look - thanks both. I don't wish to cast nasturtiums on the skills of the solderer at the Ibanez factory, in fact I can guarantee that they are better at it than I am! However I can stop things touching where they shouldn't.