Obrienp

Yes, the balanced out is transformer driven 😱. Do I dare?

That is a great idea but unfortunately neither of my Class D heads have effects send and return. Still, it might be cheaper to buy a second hand head with a send and return than a power amp.

Hi Knowledgeable Folks, Looking for some advice. I recently bought an Ashdown Little Stubby 30 watt valve head. It may be loud enough for some very small gigs but I think it will need some reinforcement for larger venues or gigs outside. Now at the moment our PA has 2 EV 12” active speakers and no sub. I wouldn’t normally plan to DI into our desk. The Little Stubby has a TRS balanced DI out. Can I feed this into my more powerful class D solid state head? Would I need some sort of TRS to mono converter? The other head only has jack input. I know I would need the Stubby to have a speaker load. Why do I want to do this rather than just use the solid state head? Because I love the tonal options of the Little Stubby and I want to use its preamp and just use the solid state head like a power amp, with all EQ flat. This is trying to avoid shelling out for a separate power amp. Supplemental question for Little Stubby owners: the manual says it will deliver 30 watts into either 8 or 4 ohms cabs; is that possible? Won’t it be 15 watts into 8 ohms and 30 into 4 ohms, or do valve amps work differently to solid state? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi Folks, it pays not to be hasty: I ordered a set of the Wilkinson tuners only to see I had been messaged with an offer of some unused, surplus ones! Rats! Then I discovered this: https://www.wdmusic.co.uk/hardware-parts-c1/tuning-machines-c28/bass-tuners-c33/wd-music-enclosed-4-in-line-bass-tuners-chrome-p4987 at WD, which look pretty much the same as the stock tuners but with proper metal buttons. Anyway now you know folks. They look as though they will drop in without any need to ream out the holes but might be a little more robust.

Thanks I’ll keep a lookout on fleaBay.

Thanks Neepheid. That is reassuring. I’ve got a set of regular vintage style machines. I thought they were going to be too big at 18mm and with big clover leaf buttons but they look fine on your headstock. I might save myself the cost of the Wilkinsons. 👍

Sorry folks, I know there are plenty of Bronco mod threads but I searched for this particular question and didn’t find it. Please point me to it, if it has been answered. Like many I want to change the machine heads on my Squier Bronco without spending too much, as this a cheap temporary bass while I wait for a luthier built custom. I like the look of the Wilkinson WJB750 lightweight tuners (look like Hipshot). From what I have read elsewhere, the standard Bronco tuner hole is 12mm and the.Wilkinsons require 14mm. This is easily accomplished with a hand reamer, or step drill bit but this is going to push the machine head slightly to the right. The string pull isn’t straight to start with, especially on the low E. is this going to cause problems? A couple of issues I envisage are: the nut getting pulled across the neck if not properly glued in place; the off centre string pull causes the strings to bind in the nut slots leading to tuning instability. What are peoples’ experiences with changing the machine heads to those with larger posts? Should I try to enlarge the holes towards the left, so that I don’t change the right hand edge of the tuner post (as you look at the headstock of my right handed bass). This won’t be as easy to do as reaming out the hole evenly. Incidentally, other mods I am going to do are: change the strat pickup for a Tonerider Precision Plus (and the pots, etc) and put on a bridge with individual string saddles. I will be sticking to 18mm spacing and I have ordered something cheap and cheerful (I hope) from China. I am thinking I can move the coils of the precision pup to align with the string spacing. If you have done this I would love to hear how it went.

I had never heard of that before. I just found it on Thomann. Incredible it only ways 10Kg. I imagine that it is not vintage voiced though with that switchable tweeter. I can’t afford to change though and break up is not too much of a problem for the music I play: I rarely get to turn up that loud anyway and both my amps have DI out. Had I known about GR before though..... life is full of missed opportunities.

I promised some pics. A couple here to try to give you an idea of scale. My studio is a bit dimly lit, so apologies for quality.

Interesting. What did you replace them with?

Yes, sorry. I’ll take a few and post them anon.

For the sake of accuracy, I have to make a couple of additions/amendments to the review: 1. The brushed aluminium outer case is actually in 2 pieces, not one. It stops at the front above and below the control knobs. 2. I forgot to mention that the front panel has a 1/4” headphone socket (far right), which apparently has speaker emulation. 3. You probably guessed but mine is the vanilla version without the USB, or Bluetooth. The top model is 300 watts, mine is 200 @ 4 ohms.

I just received my Warwick Gnome today. i bought it as a spare/rehearsal amp. My main amp is TCE BH550. The main criteria for my choice was that I wanted a small 200 watt (or thereabouts) head that could be put into the pocket of a gig bag etc, as a just in case for gigs. It also needed to be comparatively cheap. I considered the Trace Elliott Elf (too expensive and apparently has a noisy fan), the TCE BAM 200 (I already have a TCE amp) and the Gnome. I went for the Gnome because it is only £5 more than the BAM 200/and i have already given TCE a lot of my hard-earned over the years. Not the most informed decision but there was no chance of getting to do an A/B/C comparison. There are quite a few reviews online of the Elf and BAM 200 but I could only find one of the Gnome and that was released by Warwick themselves. I thought it might be useful to folks considering one to give my first impressions. The Gnome is available from the German box shifters for less than the two UK outlets I could find online: Andertons and Bass Direct but now we are out of the EU I suspect there would be duties to pay on an import. The unit I received from one of the two UK dealers turned out to be a European model and came with a two pin power cable, which was annoying. I have duly whinged to them and I hope they will be sending me a UK kettle lead. More importantly I have asked for reassurance that the manufacturer’s warranty would be honoured in the UK, should the need arise; so watch out for that one! My immediate impression on unboxing was that it had the look and feel of a high quality item. The top front and bottom of the unit seem to be made of a single folded sheet of thick brushed aluminium, with the rest of it being made of black painted steel. The controls, while dinky, appear solid and it gives the impression of something that can take punishment, and last for a good few years. Controls are limited to input gain (with a clipping LED that changes from green to red when the built in compression kicks in), bass, mids, treble, master volume and a green light to show the unit is powered up. On the back is is a pretty standard rocker on/off switch, socket for the kettle lead, jack socket for speaker cable (min 4 ohms) and a balanced DI with ground lift button. Although about the size of a thick A6 paperback, it feels reassuringly heavy for its size, despite being only a couple of kilos. I connected it up to my standard rig, which comprises two Barefaced One10 cabinets daisy-chained giving a 4 ohm load. I started off with all gain and tone controls at 12 o’clock and the master volume at about 8 o’clock. Wow! I was staggered by the volume and girth of the sound. I swear it is louder than my TCE BH550, which as the name implies is 550 watts, at the same settings. Still with gain and tone at 12 o’clock, I raised the master volume to the mid point also and it started to drive the One10s to break up! They are rated at 250 watts each but Barefaced say they will comfortably take 300 watts each. Now they are designed to break up when driven but I don’t think the BH550 drives them that much at half volume. This is certainly one loud 200 watt amp! At this point I decided to protect my hearing (enclosed test space) and not try to open the volume control anymore but I am absolutely sure it has easily enough grunt to keep up with my band’s drummer in a pub type gig. Warwick claim that the Gnome is designed to be completely transparent tone wise. It was hard for to gauge with the One10s because they are definitely vintage voiced (think Ampeg at a 10th of the size). The tone controls apparently give plus or minus 15 DB and to my ears they deliver. I would say that the mid is pitched around the low mids but that is pretty subjective and I haven’t actually looked at the frequency band but for those of you who understand that stuff, the data is freely available online. It would be nice to have low mid and high mid controls but there wouldn’t be enough room on the front panel without increasing the unit’s size. All in all I would say they were pretty good and give you a good tone pallet to experiment with. Although the fan kicks in pretty quickly in operation, you can barely hear it and it seems to be effective: the unit never got more than slightly warm to the touch. My summary (and this is pretty subjective): a very useful, tiny and surprisingly loud amp. It appears well made and solid. It feels like it will take a lot of punishment. It is a great fall back amp, in case your main amp goes fut at a gig. Perfect for practice, rehearsals and small gigs. I will continue to use my BH550 for gigs but only because it has low and high mid controls, mute, built in tuner and 2 X TCE TonePrint effect slots. I can’t say it is better, or worse than the BAM 200, or the Elf because I haven’t tried them but if you are in the market for one of these mini-amps, you should definitely have the Gnome on your short list.

I could certainly try off board controls but I don’t think there is enough clearance between the top and strings to slide a P pickup underneath. That is why I was thinking of the Lace. I am open to any suggestions of (cheaper) alternative slim mag pickups.

Reviving this topic in the hope that I might get some views and advice this time. I have since obtained an Affirma, which is a great bass but does not really replace the Aerium as an acoustic sounding instrument. I was hoping it would provide me with a one-stop bass for gigs but it is not quite there. Also arthritis in my left thumb is making it difficult to play a long scale, although I seem to be able to manage the SRH 500 (Aerium). I feel the Aerium with the addition of a magnetic pickup, either with a separate jack socket, or wired into the original would be my ultimate Swiss Army knife bass for the kind of music my band plays; at least until the arthritis forces me to play short scale only. I am thinking of a P Bass pickup, like a Seymour Duncan quarter pounder, with its own passive volume and tone controls. Some questions to you knowledgeable folks are: 1. If I fit a split P Bass pickup with vol and tone controls, it will be non-reversable, will this reduce the resale value of the Aerium dramatically? 2. Can anybody foresee any technical issues with doing this modification? 3. Would I be better off looking at fitting something like the Lace Ultra Slim (if I can find one), which would not require routing holes in the top? Would the Lace give me the kind of proper electric bass sound, or is it designed to sound acoustic? what does the panel think?

I love the look of that Sentinel. Reverend have really come up with a great headstock shape as well. Familiar but different.

Yes. I’ll try to remember to ask him. Not sure when the build is going to begin yet. He has a 3 month backlog at the moment.

Hi Folks, Well, I thought I would post the conclusion to my debates and thank everybody for their suggestions, information, etc. After chatting to my friendly local luthier, I have ordered a custom build. It’s going to be a scaled down ‘54 P Bass shape (i.e. a 51 with some contouring), 30” scale with a very shallow D profile maple neck, 12” radius fretboard and 40 MM nut width. Lightweight body with through mounted controls. My Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder Jazz at the bridge and a custom wound reverse split P middle pickup. Pickup blender and push/pull parallel/series switch, passive tone, and a Babicz bridge. All sustainable woods in vintage sunburst with some ageing/road worn finish effects. All of the above with case should come in at less than the street price of an American Performer Mustang. I am hoping it is going to be a good replacement for my Aerodyne Jazz but in my preferred 51/54 shape. I will have little and large 51s! If I had known he could do this for what seems a very reasonable price, I would have gone straight to him. It also means I am supporting a local business, which I think is important in these troubled times.

Now that is a thought but I guess the bridge would have to move as well. I might talk to my friendly local luthier.

My head is spinning with choices and cost! To illustrate why I am a bit fixated on weight: I built a full scale ‘51 Precision bass. It’s shocking to look at but that way nobody will pinch it if I leave it unattended at a gig. It weighs 5.5 lbs. it’s much lighter than my Aerodyne Jazz (about 9lbs), the Gretsch Junior Jet is 7.8 lbs. The precision has a full vintage club like neck (Allparts fender licensed) but the body was made from Obeche. It has a mudbucker in the neck position and a SD Quarter pounder middle pickup. Despite all this it is amazingly light and if I wasn’t having hand problems, I could play it all night.

Thanks for the comments folks. I am seriously tempted by the Sire U5 but I think I would end up spending at least £200 on upgrading components, like I did with the Gretsch and that is money you won’t get back if you have to sell. I had never heard of Maruszczych before. I had a quick look at the Bass Direct website and they do look amazing. They have a 32” Elwood 4p for about the same money as the Reverend Wattpower 2 but it is almost 9lb in weight, which is getting towards the weight of the Aerodyne Jazz. If they had a 30” and a bit lighter it would be right at the top of the list. A trip to Bass Direct might be required but I think it would be a bit more than 2 hours each way. Mind you, I am going to have to sell something else as well as the Aerodyne to fund either the Maruszczych, or the Reverend. Anyone interested in a J45 Standard😏? I think it does have to be a short scale now☹️. I still have a big boy bass and a 5 string but I can’t play them for long without discomfort and doing a 2 hour set with 6-8 rock and roll numbers in a row is too much now. I can manage it just about on the Gretsch.

Good point but the Gretsch also has a P width nut but the neck profile is shallow, so it seems to be OK for me. It’s really the depth and profile of the neck that is the issue for me. If it feels a handful for people with normal to large hands, then it is going to be too big for me. It’s certainly worth considering in the equation though.

Apologies, I know there are similar threads around but my enquiry is slightly different to what I have read so far. I am in my 60s, developing arthritis in my left thumb, have short fingers and I am generally struggling with speed and accuracy on big boy basses, not to mention wanting something lighter on my shoulder. This is leading me to sell my beloved Aerodyne Jazz, so I want something that fits into that slot; I.e. more than one pickup but it can’t have a chunky neck (I’ve got a ‘51 P copy for that) and I prefer a flatter fretboard radius than vintage Fenders. I am also drawn to through body stringing. I already have a Gretsch Junior Jet and I like the neck on that, so that is a guide but it has a unique sound and I want something closer to my P/J. I should say that I live in North Norfolk, so there is nowhere that I can get to easily to try my options, so I will have to buy untested online. That’s the background. I came up with the selection because I’ve read good things about the Sire but as I am parting with my real Fender I kind of want to replace it with something else a bit premium. I know vain or what but I also don’t want to be spending a chunk of cash on replacing budget components (pickups, bridge, machine heads, etc). The American Performer Mustang seems to fit the mould and has some quality parts that I am unlikely to want to change but I am sure I read somewhere that the neck is a bit chunky. Anybody with one care to pass a view on that? Last on the list and the most expensive is the Reverend Wattpower. I have read it is very light and has a fast neck. It also has a pickup combo that fits the kind of 50s-80s stuff I am playing in my current band. I know old fart’s music but there it is. I don’t like: the price for a Far Eastern made instrument and the colour. I do like weight, fast neck, quality of components, through body stringing, etc. I just can’t find any objective reviews or sound tests for it online. Anybody able to shed any light on it: got one, or tried it? I left out the JMJ Mustang because i think the price is over the top for a Mex Fender. The Ventura looks as though it has a vintage fretboard radius a bit like a broom handle. The Mex made Mustang P/Js don’t have through body stringing. The Chowny SWB-1 looked interesting but I read they are heavier than a standard P or J bass, so that rules it out. Also I think I read the neck is a bit chunky? So there we are. What does the panel think? I would love to hear from owners of these basses about versatility and neck size in particular.

Fortunately the phasing seems alright in my DiMarzio/SD combination. I am thinking about a blend control rather than a switch but it would be a shame to mess up the very neat wiring harness from Craig: my soldering is pretty rubbish, especially doing earthing to the back of pots!

Just thought I should complete the thread with the result of doing the modification. I won’t bore you with a photo: it just looks like a MIJ Aerodyne Jazz with a chunkier (Gotoh) bridge. I didn’t do the wiring mod myself in the end. Craig from My Humble Workshop was selling a complete harness on fleaBay for just under £20 with PIO capacitor. It has mini pots which fit easily into the very small routing for the through mounted controls on my 2014 model: more recent ones seem to have gone for traditional Jazz metal plate mounted controls. To my ears the mini-pots don’t sound any worse than the CTS pots I would normally use and Craig’s harnesses don’t require any soldering. Anyway, sound wise the DiMarzio P Bass pup and SD 1/4 pounder Jazz go very well together. A quick check on my multi-meter shows them to be very close: about 11 k ohms from the DiMarzio and about 10.5 from the SD. The SD is meant to be 13.5 k according to the website but in this case I am quite pleased it is lower. They work well together with very little difference in output between them solo and I prefer the SD tone to the DiMarzio Jazz. There is a small drop in output when used together in parallel but in series: Wow! Big and clear! Overall, I am very pleased with the combination and the series/parallel wiring option.