thumperbob 2002

You will find lots of trace elliot 300W combos on ebay- reliable- good tone- bit heavy - powerful- £250 will get you sorted. If you want something better in ayear- this amp will do as a back up or you can sell it for what you paid for it- Iv just sold one on ebay- someone got a bargain at £210. I would agree that the best thing you can do is buy sepearates- valve head and speaker (s) I have a marshall vba set up- you can get sorted for £1200- but very heavy and big. Tone to die for!! Horses for courses as usual and very opinion led. Cheers Biob

[quote name='Raggy' post='143671' date='Feb 20 2008, 01:40 PM']Could it be anything to do with ohms? I think that head is switchable between 2 and 4?[/quote] Hi The head is on 4 ohms- cab is 4 ohms I played this again fro a hour and it was great!! I am flummoxed!! Cheers Bob

Hi Ive had a marshall vba 400 valve amp for a few weeks- only used this on a couple of practices- the amp is coupled with the vbc 4 X 12 cab it was designed for. After not using this for a week or two I set it up today for a low level practice- with the cab. Played OK but after a while ( 5 minutes ) it started to really distort badly. As the amp is new I thought it might be my bass- swapped bases- still distorting. I thought I might have blown a speaker- swapped cabs- the other cab. a 2X10 was fine so I thought it must be the cab. I swapped to the marshall cab again and it sounded fine. After about 10 mins again it started to distort and then stopped and sounded fine. I then played for an hour and it was fine. I wonder if I started to play the amp when the valves were not hot enough- there might have been some condensation ( amp kept in the house but it has been cold here ) in the amp. Has anyone else experienced this- I remember in the 80s the valve amps I used were always a bit inconsistent in their workings- help much appreciated. Cheers Bob

I have a wife and two children and when they are busy- I run to the living room and try to get a good 15 minutes in- either thru a small practice amp with ipod or thru the tascam cdbass trainer- stood up looking at my aging self in the mirror- I look a lot better looking with an expensive bass!! A little and often works Cheers Bob

Funny thing this post- I have been playing bass for 30 years plus- mostly fingerstyle and for some of these years used index and middle finger- thought it sounded fine. But I had an accident when I was a baby and my middle finger was a bit disfigured so my nail was ( is ) hooked like a claw ( sounds awful writing this )but I still used these fingers for years- anyway a few years back I tought myself to use my next finger- yes the one next to the pinky- and my index to play with. It was quite difficult ( and sometimes ) painful but I`v got there- have a lovely tone and control- totally ignore my middle finger now but some of the audience ( musos ) sometimes come up to me and compliment me on my three finger style! What they dont know is that that middle finger is still there but doing nothing. As long as you groove and the tone is good who cares what you use- if you tought yourself you could use your nose!! Cheers Bob

Hi I have just had a Marshall VBA 400 head delivered to go with my 412 Marshall cab. I am so happy with this rig. I have been using Trace gear for the last 20 years and was becoming a little unhappy about my tone. I use a Warwick Thumb 5 Thru neck and though the Trace was a little cold sounding. Just plugging into the Marshall has me smiling from ear to ear. EQ totally flat sounded stupendous- with a little tweaking- mids boosted slightly- this is the best sound I have ever had. So warm and pleasant but powerful and growly at the same time. Suits my style- mostly fingerstyle funk- the Warwick is not the best slapping sound anyway but its fine for that too. A Jazz would sound great. You know the sound you would like to have in your head? Well Ive now got it. I cannot wait to try this in a band setting. Will send pics of my gear soon.