RandomBass

I have two Vintage V4 basses and they are both excellent instruments. One is the standard black with rosewood fretboard, the other is the Tony Butler sig version - because I wanted a black one with maple board. Both are very well made, quality hardware and feel great to play. I've been able to get a very low action on both and they just work beautifully. The TB Sig is definitely a real looker too - I just love that gloss black, black pickguard and all maple neck/board. The neck as a rather nice rich lacquer finish to it. No sharp frets on either, both stay in tune for ages and sound superb. You may have gathered I might recommend one! Cheap? No. Inexpensive? Yes! I also have a Highway One Jazz which is similarly rather delightful. Cheers Geoff

Well the LB30 had it's second outing last night. A country/blues type band - with some Eagles and Elvis thrown in for good measure. Three moderate guitarists/vocals, sensible drummer and me (rarely moderate or sensible lol). I used the high input to see how much clean the LB could give me with my passive V4. Lots, is the answer. The low input goes into grit land just about 1pm on the Volume, the high input stays clean all the way - although the bass doesnt quite have enough juice to push the needle into the red using that input. However, it's a moot point because I was easily heard in the mix, with room to spare if necessary. Thats often the case towards the end lol. So, once again, I'm very impressed with the LB. It's great for small/medium venues but larger clubs will need DI. However, more speaker cones would also answer that question to some extent - I'm beginning to wish I'd not sold one of my Compacts now! I reckon Ashdown should do a 100W version, in the same form factor. Keep it well under 20kg and £1k, and it would be a winner. However, I'm amazed how well just 30W performs - it sort of reminds me of my Electric Blue 180 combo, with a 12" extension cab. Cheers Geoff

To be honest I didn't know there was a white face plate version - I assumed they were all polished chrome like mine. I'd recommend giving it a go with your Compact, and make sure you try both the low and high inputs. The low is for passive basses and seems to go into grit-land fairly quickly after 1oclock on the volume knob, the high input stays clean all the way up (with a passive bass). I like that EQ too really, not hugely different to the OTB, but the bass shift switch had a massive effect on the sound. The middle shift didn't seem to do much at all. Early days yet though Geoff

We had an enjoyable gig last night. That's now quite a few consecutive gigs where we have played so tightly together, just a couple of bum notes in the whole set. The venue was the Hampden Arms in South Heighton, just near Newhaven. It's a great village pub and very musically oriented, and has a reputation for being welcoming with good beer and food. The LB30 performed admirably. We found a great balance sound-wise, and I wasn't struggling at all to be heard - in fact I was too loud to start with. I spent most of the evening with the EQ at noon, apart from a cut in treble to tame my bright maple board and new strings. Those EQ shift butons are curious - so far it seems the Bass Shift has the most notable effect on sound: 'down' gives a lovely creamy deep sound, 'up' gives a much more clanky middy sound which cuts through fabulously. I found myself just switching that up and down depending on the song - thats all the changes I needed all night long. I did have the volume up high, and at times the needle was pushing hard into the red, giving break-up, but in that lovely valve manner. Nothing horrid there at all. The only downsides are those valves don't half create some heat - the vent panel along the top was too hot to touch. Also, I find the EQ quite limited, but that's the nature of the beast I guess, having a passive tone stack. Very much like the OTB actually. So I'm impressed so far. I have another gig tonight (different band, more blues stuff) which will be interesting. Cheers Geoff

I also remember finding something like a fansite which had long lists of the various Ashdown models, with pictures, dates etc. Cannot for the life of me remember its name though, sorry. A bit of Googling should do the trick lol

Look up Clive Button: he designed them. He's got his own web site which gives an interesting run down of the time.

Cheers for that. I'm curious about how it performs tonight. We are a 5 piece (sensible drummer, guitarist, keyboard, singer and me) covers band - not crazy loud at all so hopefully in a smaller setting such as tonight I shouldn't be struggling with just 30W watts into a Compact. That sounds hilarious really, I'm so used to having the excess of 500W at my disposal (not that I've ever used it all)! I shall find out in about 3 hours or so lol. Cheers Geoff

The problem with working in Eastbourne is a shop called Bonners. I should either be chained to my desk at lunchtime, or tagged. I've been eyeing up an Ashdown LB30 they have had in there for a while. After much mulling I had a go with it yesterday, and another little tinkle today. Needless to say I ended up walking out with it after they worked out quite a good deal for me. I'd toyed with the idea of part exchanging either my ABM or my OTB towards it but the figures weren't really good enough - I know I can get more privately. Anyway, after an early escape from work this afternoon (you just gotta love flexitime), I've been playing it through my BF Compact. I'm pleased. Very pleased. What a delicious tone. Tonight it gets gigged at a local pub - and I'm sure it will certainly deliver. Well, it had better do lol. I shall report back tomorrow. Or very late tonight if I'm too excited to sleep lol. Cheers Geoff (poorer but happy)

Well it would appear BGM like the BG250, mind you I can't remember the last time they didn't like something lol. Has anyone here tried one of these in anger, at volume? Cheers Geoff

often my punters are drunk, thank god lol

We've played the Boot a couple of times... it's very local for me so I shall pop over on the 27th July. Looking forward to it. Cheers Geoff

We do this one. I generally stick to the root on the verse, possibly with a quick 5th now and again (depends on my mood lol), and came up with a more complex root, octave then pentatonic progression back to the root for the chorus. I'm sure it's nothing like the original but it seems to work and gives a nice groove to the song. Cheers Geoff

[quote name='incubass' timestamp='1340576556' post='1706619'] I'm sending it back to MusicStore this week, and probably will get another one... It's really frustrating [/quote] fingers crossed for you!

Use the VU meter just like you would an amp with a single peak LED. Once the needle gets into the red zone, that's when a traditional peak LED will be lighting up. Peaking now and again is fine. And the beauty of the ABM is that even when it does head into the red heavily, the overload is handled very nicely and doesn't go into horrible transistory distortion - especially if you are using the valve side of the input stage. Its a nice place to be. I've seen several comments on here and TB about insufficient volume from Ashdown amps (MAG and ABM). Invariably the answer is getting that input meter needle moving to give the strongest signal feeding the power amp stage. In my experience these amps are quite heavily over engineered and will take a lot of abuse, so never worry about driving them hard or properly. Cheers Geoff

As for balancing the output across the strings using the VU meter, the percieved loudness across the frequency spectrum requires much less energy (and hence output voltage) as you move up the frequency range. Lower frequencies like our beloved bass ones require much more energy to be heard at the same level. This means more voltage, and the VU meter needle responds to the varying voltage. So the low frequencies will always cause more needle swing than higher ones. If you had the same amount of needle swing across all 4 strings, the D and G would actually sound much louder than the E and A, which would be very unbalanced. Alex 'Barefaced' Claber* covered this in one of his excellent BGM columns a while back, showing the amount of power required to reproduce various frequencies at a specific loudness - the variation is huge, and explains why we need lots of watts to compete with guitarists and their low output amps. Im convinced we are moving forward with your original 'quiet' issue. Cheers Geoff * Alex, if you are following this - apologies, but I just couldn't resist

Kodak valves??? You see, things are never that black and white. Interesting to see how this develops, it's all positive though with very few negatives. I thank you..... Cheers Geoff

Oops posted my last reply about a nano second after your reply re the output volume lol. Look forward to your feedback on this... Cheers Geoff

Just concentrating on the original 'quiet' issue, with the needle moving up near, or into, the red zone - are you getting a lot more volume output through your cab? If you are, then it sounds like we are on the right track here. In my experience, Ashdown build a lot of headroom into their preamp stages (except the MiBass which needs some redesign in my view), meaning it takes a lot to get into the red. You will find that boosting EQ will help with the input a lot, notably the Bass knob and the first 2 sliders. If you don't want to do this, and stay flat, then by all means use as much of the gain as you need. Yes, it does feel a little odd that having to use 95% of the input to get a strong output - but that's their design. And yes, the E and A strings will push the needle much more than the D and G. There's more energy there and its just physics, or something mystical like that. So, are you now getting a decent output with the needle moving much more? Geoff

Thanks for this. One thing - it says 300w into 8 ohms and 600w into 4 ohms on the back? Does it possibly say 300W RMS, 600W Peak? I'm not doubting you, but based on my experience of owning several Ashdown amps this is what they normally have printed near the speaker outputs. If it is 300W RMS and 600W peak, then into an 8 Ohm cab you are probably getting just less than 200W max. These things don't actually halve their output into 8 Ohms, but that's a design thing. I consider it to be a flaw: if it's designed properly, it should double the output power as the load impedance halves, but limits on current supply and the associated PSU design affect this. Sorry, that's off topic and no help whatsoever. My ABM500 says 500W RMS, 1000W Peak on the back. Even though Ashdown state it has a 575W output stage - they've always been a bit random with their specs in my view. My MAG600 said 600W RMS, 1200W peak, even though it had the same 575W output stage. Have I confused things? Probably. Sorry. Just curious about the power ratings you mentioned. Cheers Geoff

[quote name='incubass' timestamp='1340295623' post='1702499'] People, I need some serious help I came home so I could finally play my OBT for more than 10 minutes straight, and after 30 seconds it just died. The light was gone and the amp shut himself down... When I try to put it on, I hear really tiny and periodic snaps, as if it's trying to come alive. Has this happened to you before? Grrr, I don't believe this happened in less than 24hours, the amp hasn't been touched since yesterday... [/quote] How is this panning out - still problems? Cheers Geoff

Nice job you've done there, Sir. And love that grill... Cheers Geoff

Silly me, its an earlier EVO, and doesnt have a Active pad switch. Try both inputs - use whichever gives the most level. It should be the High input (Ashdown mean this as High gain, not high level output from bass, which always seems a bit arse about face to me) Cheers Geoff