la bam

Got this beauty today. I dont know if people know much about them, I cant remember how I came across them. It literally a drum machine in a tiny pedal format (spectracomp size). Lots of drumming patterns and styles, but the beauty of this pedal is the fact you have 3 great extra dials. Volume - sounds obvious but it's nice to have on an fx pedal. Speed - allows you to speed up or slow down the pattern, which is brilliant for practice and a feature a lot forget. And finally a tone dial. This is a superb feature as you can make the drums sound great with little or no effort and you're not stuck with a tinny or boomy drum track. Really is a nice cheap, but well featured pedal, and all for £65 too !

If it's a combo, beware of dodgy terms and conditions re cover for breakage etc. A lot of couriers will only insure amps for a max of £200 (regardless of what theyll let you purchase). I'm not sure which category a combo would fall into, but worth checking. How about sending on a pallet? Youd need a pallet, padding, box etc and shrink wrap, but may be better looked after in transit?

I used a helix (svt setting) to a power amp (quilted bb800). Worked very well, and had a tiny footprint. Also using the helix you can split paths so have eq for your stage sound without having to alter you di sound. And if anything happened to the helix you've still got a bass amp head there.

I have the same condition, plus I cant feel my little finger due to a rugby injury. You just learn to adapt. I only play with 3 fingers on the fretting hand. Never hindered me. Yes, it's probably more difficult, but it eont stop you from playing anything.

I knew they were expensive in relation to a young aspiring bassists wages! People forget, or have never known, how far out of reach good gear could be years ago. I was thinking yesterday, I had a trace commando 12. Looking back, probably not good at all (and flippin heavy!), but it did the job. However, I cant for the life of me remember how I sold it to buy my ashdown mag rig??!! It was only around 2003ish, but there was no real internet trading place, no ebay, and i didnt trade it in.......

Just seen a trace pa up for sale. X2 speakers with 4 speakers in each (I think x2 5" and x2 10"?), a sub, and the mixer. Never seen one before, imagine they're quite rare now?

The Quilters are great and dont colour too much. I always find DI's very bright and punchy compared to an amp. Maybe play with the mids on the eq and back the bass off a bit, that may get you there.

Its 3U high, but it feels good at that height, doesnt feel as if it should be smaller. It also balances out, as gk do 1u amps too, so you still get 2 amps in a 4u case.

Youd love it!

I got chance to open this up this afternoon. Firstly, it very very very loud!! Very loud. I didn't get anywhere near half volume. Now, what I really liked was the difference between the tone at volume. Immediately the valve response is there anywhere over 9oclock. What's great though, is if you dont want the valve response, you can just turn the gain down to 9 o'clock or under, turn the volume up and it's super clean. This amp really is musical. The strings pretty much sing, rather than just give off bass notes. It's very valve like in tone. I dont mean dirty tones, but that lovely bright warm sound. It's also very fast. I know it sounds daft, but it's super instant response which takes some getting used to. I had a good 3 hours play with this, both on it's own and with backing tracks, and its lovely. Really warm and musical. Theres also limitless tone shaping possibilities. From solid slap funk, to warm 60s tones and everything inbetween. Even full on drive. The power delivery is solid and authoritative. The big thing I can say about this amp is that every amp ive ever had, every one, made me sound the same. Quite dullish and warm. I could never ever get any warm bright mids in no matter what. Well, this amp gives that in heaps. Loads of it. The fact its 2 channel as well, means I've set up a great sound and can have it with the tone uber clean and punchy, then with the valves breaking up on the other channel. Great day testing this.

The same tour, but at Maine road, manchester. You could hear it in Oldham.