stewblack

https://www.thomann.de/gb/km_14760.htm

Well there's two of my favourite things in the whole world. Great to have you, your lovely dog and your Profile in the family.

First impressions. Very nice design, metal base, plastic top. Clunky great wall wart to adapt the European style plug, but it's 9v centre neg so actually not an issue. I'm used to Zoom's multi F✖ so that's my comparison benchmark. The screen and controls are much classier than the Zoom, whose simple animations are cute but dated. I dove in without the manual (as any self respecting bloke of a certain age will do) and it is pleasantly intuitive to alter the parameters of individual effects and rename patches. All became a lot easier once I found the download link for the proprietary software. Thomann have hidden this with great and unnecessary cunning but I won in the end! The thing I always found with my zoom pedals was an inordinate great heap of reverb and delay options. Which I have little or no use for. One or two maybe, but there seems to be hundreds. Well this shiny little silver thing is like that but with guitar amps and cabs. No surprise really, it's aimed at the guitarist market. There are empty slots for 'third party IRs' which I now know how to both make and buy. A few dedicated bass speaker options and the balance shifts. They do have a bass bin, head and mic option. But d'you know what? If you forget the labels and treat everything on the pedal simply as a sound effect, and one you can alter and fine tune and just let your ears be the judge its absolutely fine. I did spend a while reducing high frequency distortion (and distortion in general in fact) from presets and produced very usable noises both through headphones and cab. The Zoom pedals allow any number of configurations - heck you can just pile up a bunch of overdrives or five different chorus pedals if that tickles your fancy. Unless I'm missing something (remember I haven't studied the manual) this is organised very differently. Each patch can feature up to 9 different programmable 'noises', they come under headings FX/COMP, DS/OD, AMP, CAB, NS GATE, EQ, MOD, DELAY, REVERB. Each of these has their own list of choices. So all the amp choices are under AMP, reverbs under REVERB etc. So far so good. However, for reasons of palpable insanity all but one of the wah effects are in the same sub section as the compressors (under FX/Comp) . This means you can choose either a compressor or a wah. But not both. Go figure. If there's one effect in need of good compression it's an auto wah, right? The rest makes sense, fuzz boxes all under one roof, as are eqs and cabs and other modulation effects, such as flangers, choruses, phasers and such. Anything missing? Synth sounds I guess. Not an issue for me but a win for the Zoom. I have much more to learn but I will never need another overdrive or valve sim if I keep this! In case you're wondering why I bought something so clearly biased towards the guitar, I thought it would sit nicely in the fx loop of the high frequency side of my Bi-amp rig. And it's Harley Benton so had to be tried. When Thomann's house brand hits the mark the quality /price equation is just plain nuts. Well worth the gamble of the odd turkey. More on this as I get to grips with it.

If all else fails....

Love the colour. Enjoy!

AY CARUMBA!!

Only played at one rehearsal and spent the evening taming the top end. But it's a versatile beast and I see no reason why not. Once I've played it a little longer I'll let you know. EDIT : @Reggaebass Spent a happy time with some reggae backing tracks this evening. Even with my best reggae amp going through a Barefaced 15 and getting the preamp just right, I wouldn't recommend this bass with these strings for really heavy dub. If you want something more pop like say Aswad, then it does a fine job. But for big warm throbbing it's just too articulate. Sure you can roll the tone off but that just chokes it. Different strings maybe, but these are flats so 🤷🏻‍♂️

Howdy! here you go (it was on the product page but not easy to find or see!) HB Multi fx.pdf

I waited before sharing my impressions of this until the cheque had cleared, and I'd had a chance to play it in the context of a band rehearsal. Not an unfamiliar bass to many of you I'm sure, but for those who don't know it, it has a lightweight chambered body with a slim neck (jazzy at the nut), and at first glance has no pick ups. In fact it uses the AeroSilk Piezo bridge system which utilizes an active tone control and leaves the front face with a beautiful clean look. The knobs are like little wooden hats of the type favoured by Welsh women on spinning wheels. Particularly tiny Welsh women. The bass is insanely easy to play, and hangs from the strap heavy as a gossamer net of feathers. On the moon. The end of the f-hole provides a thumb anchor for those who require such things (I used it probably 50% of the time) but the real eye (ear?) opener is the sound. Supplied strung with D'Addario ECB81 Flatwounds I assumed I was buying an acoustic sounding bass with a nice percussive thump. I was so wrong. I have never known a bass strung with flats to sparkle so brightly. I reversed the onboard tone all the way and still had to knock off the treble on the amp. This thing has zing! Now, I always thought I was rubbish playing slap bass, and to be fair I am pretty awful at it. However when I took my thumb to the SRH500 I was magically transformed into the illegitimate offspring of Larry Graham and Mark King. I am quite serious here, a semi with flats and the tone rolled off slapped and popped with more zap and kapowww than the liveliest Stingray, the jazziest Jazz or the twangiest Warwick. Not that it didn't suit mellow fingerstyle too. Just ease off, play softly and the warmth is definitely there. I've said before while reviewing an instrument that my acid test is to pose this question: If this was the only bass I was left with would I be happy to go out and gig with it for the rest of my days? A resounding 'hell yes' to that. Which surprised me. I bought it because let's face it, it's a thing of beauty. I thought it might have a distinctive sound which I could use on certain recordings or in very specific, more stripped back, musical environments. Don't be fooled by it's disarming looks and gentle beguiling contours. This is a true all rounder, with a potent attack, resolute defence and very creative midfield. What's that? Shut up and put up the pictures? OK OK...

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Thank you all for this thread. I now have my first ever EUB gas!

I could not do this! Seriously - I'm impressed. You obviously have a good ear, or just really like Wal basses!

Oh my, this brings back memories. The guy who wants to discuss my equipment with me while I am actually playing 🤦🏼‍♂️

I await my delivery with excitement

Thank you. I understand now.

OK, response from Thomann : At the moment, it's really mainly designed for guitar. It has some functions for bass integrated (like an EQ for bass), but no amp or cabinet models. You can load your own IRs though, so it is possible to extend that functionality a bit. Which raises a question. For me at least. What is this IR of which they speak?

I think there is a danger here of an accepted wisdom being formed. The (frankly insulting) idea that only cloth eared, hopeless amateur musicians like a mid scooped bass sound is far from universally accepted as true. There is no one perfect sound. Only what you like.

Love the album, not studied it with my 'bass ear' yet but I think I will start with this one.

I don't actively seek out new stuff, but I check out recommendations here and elsewhere online Occasionally listen to 6 Music and if something leaps out at me I can get very excited about it. As others have said the big thing that's changed for me is I now treat any unfamiliar music as 'new' regardless of when it was recorded. Some bands or songs from 50 years ago are entirety 'new' to me. I suspect the older I get the less I'm ruled by the passionate prejudices of my youth. However great age also brings a great big record collection so I have less time to look for novelty. I simply have more 'old' music to enjoy.

I'd never seen the David Brent video, thank you so much for sharing it, absolutely brilliant.

No no, this 'MK 1' is all my own work. Obviously looks a lot tidier now. 'MK 2' recently completed its trials, and only one small modification awaits before 'MK 3' can be unleashed. Watch these spaces..

Downloaded the manual and one of the geq 's is aimed at bass guitar so guessing this us a general purpose pedal In which case shame one of the billion amp sims isn't a bass one! Oh and for those who didn't realise the unicycle comment was entirely innocent. Julia is fabulous on the bass and famous for her ability to ride a unicycle and play bass at the same time. Check out Thomann's YouTube channel.

Never considered it from this pov. I suppose it stems from playing at home and going Yay this sounds ace! Then getting to rehearsal and realising you need entirely different set up when playing with other people. Easy to see how people might assume it's the cab doesn't cut it when in reality just needs tone changes to the amp Unless it's the volume. If the cab just doesn't go loud enough and retain a good sound then it's fair comment to say it needed to be tried in a band situation I think.

Wow, that's a very light, very reasonably priced unit.

My finger hovers over the buy button..... then I think, the suffix GiT... surely denotes Guitar, does this suggest a dedicated bass model might be coming? Edit: just emailed Thomann.