NancyJohnson

Is building a custom amp actually a thing? Ooh. My head is racing a bit now. I have heard it said that the amp modules are all pretty similar (or only supplied by a couple of different manufacturers.

I want a one box that does that. I don't want a rack or multiple units.

My signal path was predominantly BDDi/RBI > Poweramp for years.

Bees (Are Better Than Wasps) DEMO2.mp3 Here you go pop-pickers. Recorded about two hours ago. Mike Lull into BDDI. This is what I want from a one box head, in a nutshell!

It's my intention to pick up and XB at some point, however it'll be off the back of my brother in law doing a US business trip.

While I'm certainly not in the market for any more basses, if I had a shortlist, the Bongo 5HH would be on it. £3.2k (Thomann)... it's a lot of swag, but not horrific. I'm surprised it wasn't more. I concur that something would need to be done with the preamp though; I did post here years ago about converting it to passive, but sold the bass on as stock.

The OP's RBI is three years old. The Tech21 limited warranty is 12 months. Nothing to reject. My GED was just out of warranty.

The UK distribution company I dealt with (Rocky Road) were useless. All they were doing was moving boxes and had no idea what was actually in them. If it's them you're dealing with, it's no wonder you haven't had a toot out of them. When my GED rack unit lost its clank (see elsewhere here), I sent it to them for service/repair and they pretty much said that it's working because it's making noise. They didn't have a clue what the unit was actually supposed to be emulating. I think Andy @Wolverinebass also had issues with Rocky Road as well.

On the OP, if you want to split your signal and recombine, you could do this with a pair of ABY boxes (they work both ways). The Great Eastern XO will allow you to split, loop effects and recombine in one box.

Had a Bongo 5HH...while it played like a dream, the preamp was ridiculously hot and overwhelming. You'd start a rehearsal with everything at noon and just tweak continually; by the end of the session tonally things would just be mush. Never actually went under the hood to see whether there was any way to roll things off, in hindsight, perhaps I should have.

I've got a pair of M-Audio speakers that run off a Focusrite Scarlet. They're delightfully loud. You could easily find a pair close to your budget. Going back in time somewhat, about 20 years ago, I bought a Dell PC from the Dell Outlet store. Back then, Dell would make hundreds of PCs for deals in computing magazines; once the promotion was over, they'd discount the remainder and allow you to customise things when shipping. The PC came with a frankly fantastic 2.1 set up...powered sub and two satellite speakers. It sounded awesome, loud, totally great. Stupidly dumped the whole setup when I bought our current computer as the connections were incompatible. In hindsight, I'm certain I could have hotwired it somehow to work with our TV in the extension.

While I can understand the appeal of one of these (powered) cabinets, the overriding things would be chucking money at something I neither want or feel I need and the hassle of actually freeing up funds to purchase, so read that as flogging all my gear! In truth, I don't like the look of stuff like the Headrush/Alto style of cabinet; frankly would prefer to simply stick with what I have enclosure-wise, unload my Darkglass and purchase something that better suits from an amp perspective.

As I've posted elsewhere, after years of playing clean, my first bit of outboard (and tone heaven) was a BassPOD, shortly after it was a BDDI (and all the other Tech21 stuff). I honestly thought the AO900 was going to be an ideal solution; I'd used a Alpha pedal and didn't really have an issue, but the head itself is pretty gnarly. By way of observation (with this head), if you want consistency you need to concentrate on just using a single bass, or set up your basses so they all produce identical tonal characteristics to each other. The amp is undeniably a great bit of kit, but it's stopping me from using anything aside from my Spector, which it's set up to use. Emulation of valve overdrive/distortion is an odd one. I used an Ashdown ABM for a while and the valve gain stage just added this nasty crackle (like a loose connection) rather than a bit of creamy/cranky, so I just stuck a BDDI into the effects return. At present, I just need to move the AO900 and I'll throw the swag from that towards something else. Like I said, it's difficult to go somewhere and just try out a load of stuff...Bass Direct, maybe, but not before the head is sold.

I've got a Barefaced Big One, a pair of Darkglass 1x12s, and currently, an intact pair of testicles. Give my wife's propensity of asking when I'm going 'to get rid of some of the speaker cabinets' I don't need/want a powered cabinet I'm afraid. And I'd prefer not to be wearing my balls as earrings as well! 🤣

I owned a Landmark head - the 300. I'll admit I liked it a lot (here's the but), but when you're playing these little venues where you have to park miles away or even go up on the train, carrying a 4U/5U rack and a bass is nutso; this is where the appeal of a lightweight head is; sometimes it's necessity over choice. A lot of UK venues offer tired/worn out backline - I'm sure this is the same in the US - or you have headliners that won't let you anywhere near their stuff, so at least with a small head (that you're happy with) you're kind of assured that at least a decent tone off an XLR will go to FoH. @Tech21NYC You do make some outstanding kit and I've haemorrhaged enough £££ on it over the years. I've gigged with enough bassists over the years that love the BDDI (I recorded this afternoon - engineer insisted on me using one!); many have expressed pity that there's not a class-D amp with one in the pre-amp.

Drive over to Julian Mullen in Reading.

I had a VTBass rack unit AND a VTBASS DI. Didn't mind them, but the BDDI/RBI was superior, or more to the point, it suited me better. If @Tech21NYC had made a head with the RBI then it would be my #1 choice.

I'm not so familiar with the DG pedals; the backbone of my tone was Sansamp BDDI for years. When the AO was announced I ordered thinking it was going to be a one box solution to satisfy my needs. I remember @Wolverinebass saying that the Alpha suited me more than the Omega, which is largely correct. Anyhow, I've decided to relist the AO900 and will do so this weekend. Replacement, well, I just don't know.

I posted a while back about simply going the stomp/small (class D) Poweramp route. I could live with that. I saw a review of the Boss Katana bass head a few hours ago, but a peak rate of 500w isn't going to be enough. Suppose the thing is - and while I live a few miles from Andertons - actually trying stuff out is nightmarishly difficult.

It's an odd one, but a case of wrong type of distortion. The AO is somewhat middy; the videos where you see these metal guys going nuts with Dingwalls, not once have I ever been able to emulate anything close to that. I was never happier than when I got my first Sansamp BDDI and then migrated to an RBI/Poweramp setup. I've gone through a lot of kit since then, chasing tone. There has to be something.

I have a few basses (all good), several cabs (all good), some Sansamps (all good) and a Darkglass AO900 head. I've posted previously about how I haven't really bonded with the AO900; it's a tad too aggressive/gnarly for my liking. I adore the power and that I can jack a stomp into the effects return, but ideally I'd like to be able to have a small/loud one box solution to give me a bit of Geddy Lee style clank and Jean Jacques dirt, so I'm looking for recommendations. I guess the amp will return £650/700 which I can throw at something else. Help!

After an abortive three days trying to install this, it went off to Julian Mullen to do the work. It went in as a replacement for a John East Uni-3 that just stopped working. Got the bass back home about an hour ago. I'm of the mindset that if you invest in a suite of products, they should all kind of work with each other; so the Tone Capsule into an AO900 should be peachy, eh? Well, happy to report the bass sounds fantastic in isolation. The cap has three boost/cut options bass, low-mid and hi-mid. There's no real sweepable mid thing going on but there does appear to be an element of treble passthrough, but man alive, it's just glorious to my ears.