JapanAxe

Budget option - Alesis PercPad (about £70 new) - 4 velocity sensitive pads, can be extended with kick and hi-hat triggers/switches. MIDI out but no USB. Alesis ControlPad - 8 velocity sensitive pads, can be extended with kick and hi-hat triggers/switches. About £100 used form eBay, but tend to be bashed up with stick marks! MIDI and USB outs. I went for a Cubeat (I paid £40 used off eBay) - 6 velocity sensitive pads plus kick and hi-hat switches (not velocity sensitive). Looks like a toy but is in fact a class-compliant device. USB only. Unfortunately there is an issue with note lengths that requires a work-around when recording to a DAW.

I'm 6ft tall but a little over 18 and 23. Well ok, nearly 50% more than 18+23...

Struggling to find a direct replacement online - the cap might not be ceramic after all. I have contacted EBS to see if they can tell me what I need. The other possibility is a stray bit of something conductive bypassing the cap.

The popping pedal issue turned out to be a 330mV DC offset at the input, which was also causing crackling when I turned the volume pot on the bass. The offset has now disappeared, but I measured exactly the same voltage across the input capacitor. This suggests to me that the cap has an intermittent short - a quick google confirmed that this is the usual failure mode for multi layer ceramic caps. Although it is surface mount it is a decent size, so not too difficult (or costly) for me to replace.

Nice score! I’ve had flats (Chromes) on a Mustang and they were fine, no sign of possible breaks where they came through the body. Make sure there is enough length before the taper to accommodate the extra couple of cm required to pass through the body.

Conventional Class AB tranny amp afaik.

Class D?

Cheers! Just spent another hour or so playing with this, and I'm loving the sounds I'm getting. I've only identified two minor negatives: The fan is quite loud in a quiet room. Once I start playing I don't notice it though, and I can't see it being a problem live. If I use a true bypass tuner (Korg Pitchblack, TC Polytune) into the front end there is quite a click when I engage it. I put this down to the rather high input impedance of 2Mohm. I put the tuner in the FX loop set to 100% wet - problem solved. Can't wait to play this with my band!

...of the bass itself.

I set it to give me as much treble as I’m going to need with the bass’s tone control up full, then back it off to about 50% on the bass. From there I can adjust on the bass as needed - it gives the passive control a lot of range!

Nope.

Mrs Axe has gone to her sister's for a couple of days, so out came the toys. I played along with some of the Bowie tracks that I cover in my tribute band. I ended up knocking back the Drive a bit and adding a little more treble. I dare say it will all change again when I'm playing with the band.

I’m hoping so!

Hopefully I will have a band rehearsal soon - 80s cover project - Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Gary Numan, Human League etc.

Efficient 4ohm cab? Yep, BF Super Twin

I'll be using this amp with a BF Super Twin. Early indications are that this will be plenty loud enough!

Yes I do like the flub-free bass response! This has properly scratched my itch for a capable 'big iron' amp. Photos are now gone from the original ad so I'll take some myself when I have a minute or two.

I bought this yesterday from the gentleman known here as @lowregisterhead and I've only tried it briefly before purchase (to confirm it was as epic as the YT videos suggest) and for about half an hour last night (until Mrs Axe complained about the windows rattling). I'm therefore very much in the honeymoon period! Although there are more knobs than I'm used to dealing with, it didn't take long for me to get familiar with their operation: Character switch - too much bass boost for this to be useful to me, so I'm unlikely to be using this function. There is plenty of range on the Gain control. The Comp/Limit feature goes from just limiting peaks, right up to a pronounced sustain. My gigging amps have tended to have valve preamps with passive tone stacks, so the active Filter section is a bit of a departure for me. I quite often need to cut bass when using my BF Super Twin, but (at least in my living room) this control sounds right at about noon. I boosted some Mids at 200Hz for my favoured sweet spot. The Treble control is really effective in bringing out the clank of a Precision. At first I thought it might be adding noise, but I discovered this was coming from the bass (with hands off strings) rather than the amp. The Bright control doesn't do much for me. It is focused on 10kHz, whereas the Super Twin doesn't reproduce much above 4kHz, plus I use flats. It might be different with roundwounds. The facility to make quick comparisons between flat and EQ'd sounds using the Filter switch is handy. The Comp/Limit circuit comes after the Filter section, so with some Comp engaged, boosting the Bass can change the tonal balance without massively changing the volume, and still lets the fundamentals come through when playing up the dusty end. I set it so that it controls the transients on the one song where I (reluctantly) have to slap (Ashes to Ashes), evens out the harder attack when picking with a plectrum, but otherwise leaves my signal alone. I like it. Drive is great for adding in some 'fur', in fact at settings below noon it is not a million miles from how my Ampeg PF-50T (sold to fund this purchase) used to sound when pushed. I see it is switchable, but it does bring in a significant volume boost, so I don't know how useful that would be in a live context. I might investigate foot-switching, but I'll probably just set and forget - I am not a mid-gig amp-knob-twiddler. (If anyone knows what goes on in the RM-4 footswitch, please let me know - I expect there is just an LED and current-limiting resistor on each switch.) As I understand it, this model has the filters from the HD350 (which people seem to prefer) with the extra features of the HD360 (e.g. light-up push-switches). Although it's possible to pick up an HD350 for quite a bit less, I much prefer the look of this version's front panel, and it has a strong 'Rolls Royce' feel about it. The amp really brought out the difference between the basses I played through it, rand somehow seemed to increase the range of their passive tone controls. This may seem like an odd thing to say, but the thing I liked best about the TC Classic 450 I once owned was the ability to dial in some subtle compression and drive for a vintage-y sound, and then leave it. This amp does that too, but in a much classier package. It has also save me having to put together a pedalboard. Roll on the first post-lockdown band rehearsal. You're going to want pics, so here are a couple of photos from Dave's ad:

Happy to start a feedback thread for James, who bought an amp head from me. James paid promptly and made sure our meet-up and hand-over arrangements went smoothly. Chuffed to find we both play bass in Bowie tribute bands!

Bought a lovely EBS amp head from Dave today. We enjoyed a brief chat over coffee while our phone apps did the money stuff - always nice to meet a fellow BC-er!