dave_bass5

I had this Sire PJ for a few weeks. It had a faulty bridge pups I had to send it back. But other than that I was over the moon with it it also had a more traditional P tone than my much more expensive Yamaha BBP34.

Ive never brought from a us store, but I thought they get local TAX added to the listed price at checkout?

Same in the camera world.

Just sold Simon my BH800. All went very smoothly, it was a pleasure dealing with him. Cheers mate.

As i posted earlier, Sweetwater have pre orders up for $299

Ive have both the Xvive and WL-20L. I like the Xvive for its on/off button, but much prefer the Boss overall, especially as the Boss has a more standard jack plug. The Xvive seems to have issues with some basses, my Yamaha BB425 being one of them. Heres a strange thing. When I got my new Fearless F122 I was trying it out at home, and noticed a buzzing (thought at first it was the cab grill) when I played the low F#-G lightly. It was coming in as the notes were dying off. Plucking louder and it disappeared. I swapped over the Boss and couldn’t replicate it. Back to the Xvive and there it was again. Now I’ve heard that I can just about hear it in headphones as well. My guitarist uses the Xvive and it seems to work ok for him, so I don’t think there is too much in it.

Well curiosity got the better of me, and I found a good deal for a B-stock BB800 on Thomanns so have got that coming next week. Hopefully before the next rehearsal. As I don’t really need EQ on the amp it seemed more sensible to spend as little as possible. I’ll be using a Stomp, or I can hook up my Q/strip if I need more EQ than the head can give me. My GK head gives out 540watts at 8ohms, and the BB800 only 450, but I’m guessing that’s not going to be an issue. I can’t see I’d ever really need to max a head out at that volume. Thanks for all the advice and help.

Thanks for the clarification. One thing im still not clear on. In the manual it states 'This input allows the signal from outboard effects devices to be inserted before the boost section.'

It wasn't until this morning when i looked at the diagram that i saw the level 2 control in the signal path. Im sure its not that but ill investigate tonight or over the weekend. I can get more than enough signal out of the amp using the front input, but i was sort of hoping to get a less coloured tone by just using the power stage. I see so many posts about people just using the power stage that i was surprised it didnt work last night for me. Must admit it did cross my mind to change the output of the Helix but it was just as quick to change inputs, and i also gained the EQ section. Id prefer to use it like this anyway. Might be getting a Quilter BB800 soon anyway.

Yeah but to my untrained eyes it looks like there is a level knob between the Return jack and the master in the diagram above, and i know this is always set very low as its my gain channel . Ill have a play tonight and see if that makes a difference. Its just something id like to understand more.

Thanks, and this is my question. Is the GK head different to other heads? Are send/return chains normally like this? According to the manual the Return impedance is 50k. Obviously i can check specs if i buy another head, but was wondering if this is the norm.

Thanks but my question isnt really about the Helix, its about why the drop in power and is it normal. if i was using normal floor effects the result would be the same. Im wondering if i needed to have Gain 2 level up (its always kept low). Im not good at reading diagrams but the one in the GK manual looks to me like the signal comes in before level 2.

Last night i had a rehearsal with the above amp and my new F112 cab. I was running my Helix Stomp in to the return of the amp. Tone wise it was a bit lacking but volume wise it was very quiet. I had the master very high and was still struggling to keep up with the drummer. I ended up plugging in to the front input and had the full volume back. Lowered the master from 1 'o clock to around 9, and the same setting no the input. Please ignore the settings here, im just explaining how the volume jumped and not questioning where the knobs were set. My question is, is this a GK thing or should i expect this with any amp? What am i missing here? It seemed to me the power stage needs a lot of power to drive it. EQ was all at 12 (im not saying neutral). I know GK suggest turning the master right up and adjusting the volume with the input stage, but it just seemed strange that i was hardly getting any power out of it. Helix was set to instrument out and the volume level was pretty much what ive been getting when not using it

I do agree with all this. My comment about the tone was really more about the character of the tone, rather than the end result sounding the same if that makes more sense. I like that the SH is not based on an Ampeg tone, which I’m personally getting bored with hearing in my preamps Should add, my BDDIv2 is my all time fav pedal and it’s not going anywhere, it’s just that at the moment I’m bored with it.

Yep, totally agree, but I do find the SH tone much nicer than the Geddy pedal demo.

What I mean is the artist has already got the tone, therefore they get the tone using existing equipment rather than the new box.

This is the thing with these boxes. Obviously the artist doesn’t use one, the tone, although maybe close to the finished tone the artist already has, can obviously be achieved using other means, quite often off the shelf items. Saying that, I can see the attraction of having something like this for recoding at home etc.

Totally agree. It’s Just not,worth that sort of money. I did notice over on TB someone posted a pre order link on Sweetwater for $299. Maybe the original figure is a mistake.

Ive got a few Zoom pedals (B3n, B1-on, B1 Four) and yes, the Helix stuff is step up. They seem to have more depth and life compared to the Zoom stuff. Just wanted to point out that with the Stomp and a cheap 3rd part duel foot switch (about £11 on amazon) you actually have 5 foot switches available, and these can be used to turn on and off 5 effects'. Still not a match for the HX Effects, but might be worth thinking about it if you want to save some money and space.

This is exactly what ill be doing, although i may well end up taking the Preamp out of the Helix presets and just using it as a multi stomp box. I still need to figure out how easy it will be to adjust EQ on the Stomp over doing it using the amps knobs.

Also adjusting the microphone section of the cabs seems to make a nice difference. Although i have no idea what each mic is supposed to sound like, i can definitly hear a difference when going through them

Cheers. ive seem those IR's mentioned quite a lot, along with the Ownhammer ones. Still cant quite get my head around if its worth paying for them, as im only using one IR at home. My backline will also supply the out front sound at my gigs, as they are only small clubs and pubs, so ill need to see how well my new F112 cab works with and without an IR.

Think that’s the one. It comes up when I scroll though a lot of Ampeg ones. Seems cleaner and less muddy.