Jack

Up until the Evo IV models I completely agreed with you but the new models are so much tighter and less woolly. I always thought the MAGs were great amps for the price. I had one and loved it, and I get them as backline all the time. I never quite thought the ABMs were in that top-flight category with GK, Mesa, Aguilar etc but this new Evo IV generation really are among the best IME.

I keep tropical fish, in the hobby most species are known by a common name but many are only really known by their latin name. Barbus Nigrofasciatus has adopted the new common name of 'Black Ruby Fish' as 'Nigger Barb' started to fall out of favour. I even have a proper text book that lists the old common name, it seems odd to me that it used to be a word with insulting characteristics, before it was specifically an insult. I'm a youth worker and adult teacher. A big part of my work is politics and citizenship, thanks for the material in this thread!

You have no idea. I'm ampless but Ive had a few lol. They're ALL great, but the RBs are in another league.

I'm totally onboard with the above suggestions, a smaller, higher quality rig will undoubtedly be louder (when required), easier to move, etc etc. But... The Ampeg combo has an extension speaker out. If you really just want more volume, and a very swanky looking stand to get your combo up higher then why not look at an 8R extension cab to sit under the combo? You like the combo, it's familiar, and it works. It occurs to me that you could get an older, heavier extension cab now for very cheap and under your combo that would be a very formidable rig. Then, when and if you feel like it, you can get a discreet head and build a 'proper' rig piecemeal and as budget allows. I'd go for an Ashdown 4x10" if I was you. It's perhaps not ideal to go under your combo this second (although it'll work just fine) but you seem to like Ashdown, and you can buy a matching head when you want to. They're also SUPER cheap.

You could use either the effects send or the line out. The advantage of putting the tuner in front is that it will mute whilst tuning.

And yet that's the same kind of price as AER, Schertler and GSS.

Hello all, In an effort to curb my gear addiction I recently sold a few things off. (The clearout is ongoing if anyone fancies a couple of guitars or a White of Sunderland 4x12”!!) Anyway, one of the things that got the chop was my Triton Audio BigAmp. It was a great DI, small enough to keep around at all times, great sound, etc etc. The problem was, I find phantom power quite hard to come by in some situations. It’s no problem when it’s our PA system but sometimes other engineers get weird about it. The two most common excuses are that the desk is all or nothing with phantom power and that other devices won’t like it, or that the snake from FOH won’t pass it. Both strike me as various degrees of excuse, but the fact remains that passive DIs seem to suit my situation better. Besides, I have a Countryman Type 85 so other active DIs are sort of unnecessary anyway. This leads me on to our subject. Whilst browsing Thomann for new cables I stumbled across the Cordial CIW1. Like the BigAmp it’s a DI in something not much bigger than a jack to XLR adaptor. Unlike the BigAmp it’s passive, so it should suit me better. I was (and still am) very sceptical about the quality of the transformer that you can fit into a device this size, but I couldn’t not buy one for less than £50. The unit is TINY. TINY. Like, really small. In terms of features: none. There’s an input, a transformer and an output. No pad, no through jack, no nothing. It's good to know that the jacks that are there are Neitrik and locking. It's a solid little thing. Input impedance is roughly 50kR so it’s really not designed for passive instruments but it should work great with pretty much any buffered or active source. It works well with my Stingrays and after me pedal boards, but it does round off the top end of the passive P-bass quite noticeably. It’s a difficult thing to test objectively and properly. I tried just playing into it (with a Stingray) but then any kind of comparison has to deal with the vagaries of my playing. In the end I came up with quite a good test platform. I played a bassline into my Helix and set that on an indefinite loop using the looper. I then fed one 1/4" output into the Cordial and the other to either my Countryman or my Radial SB-2. I could then use my XR18 mixer to match levels and solo/mute channels to hear the difference between boxes. Please note, this setup obviously has 2 AD/DA stages (helix and mixer) and a few too many cables to be a perfect testing platform. I don’t have the technical nouse to properly scope it out, Cordial say it’s flat across its frequency range and I believe them. I’d be interested (if anyone was more technical than me) to compare its distortion and clipping characteristics compared to something more industry standard. My brain tells me that a transformer that small has to have limits. In terms of sounds, it sounds fine. I mean, actually it sounds really good. You do have to be careful not to clip the input as it doesn’t like really hot signals (and there’s no pad) but other than that it’s pretty honest representation of what the bass sounds like. Sometimes, I think the lower frequencies are ever so slightly blurred or smeared compared to the Countryman but I wonder if it’s psychosomatic because I know that the Cordial is less 25% of the size and price of the other box. It’s also quite a lot quieter than the (active) Countryman, and ever so slightly quieter than the (passive) Radial. I still believe that if you can only have one DI box it has to be 1. Able to handle any input, which really means an active box 2. Not reliant on phantom power, so it has to have the option of being ran from a battery or external PSU 3. As ‘clear’ and flat as possible. There are so many ‘character’ DI boxes, but you don’t always want the same character all of the time. In short, you really have to have something like the Countryman as your only DI box. Or the nicer, active Radials. Or even the Orchid DI box if you’re on a budget. But realistically the Cordial won’t be your only DI box, it won’t be an integral part of your main gig rig and you won’t take it into the studio to record with. You’ll buy it to chuck in the bottom of your gig bag and have it there to save your behind when something else breaks. And for that it’s absolutely perfect.

I don't have any inside knowledge at all, so please don't let this start any rumours or anything but it occurs to me that if a manufacturer HAD to change a bridge for some reason (the old one is no longer made, cut costs, aesthetic reasons, supplier problems, import restrictions, a million other reasons) then a press release that says " we have new bridges because they sound better than the old ones!" is a lot more marketable than "Stephen from accounts forgot to pay our old supplier so we had to get different bridges. Don't worry, they sound fine!".

I'd love to see that on a scope. 🙄

I've had the 2x12" (and 1x12") Neo, that's definitely the way I'd go over the RBH. The RBH sounds monstrous too, so either way!

Which cabs are they specifically? I'd pick any Neo or RBX over a Goldline for instance, regardless of speaker choice.

More importantly, he's changed to nitro lip gloss. The poly was so thick and it didn't really wear right. Poly looks much more authentic and it wears in nicely.

Here I was making an effort to debate, refute, be cogent and explain when in truth says it so much better.

You can't take anything they say in interviews seriously because they're a parody band. They are playing the characters of entitled white guys that think it's cool to make racist and sexist jokes with no consequence because it's a parody. I really have to contest the assertion that lots of audience members aren't in the joke. I have never, until now, met anyone who didn't get that someone so blatantly offensive could possible exist in the real world. Steel Panther take the worst bits of hair metal such as sexism, being too image-focused, having too-long guitar solos, being famous for looking right rather than being talented etc etc and they turn it all 'up to 11' as Spinal Tap once said. No-one believes this is real. On the off chance that someone out there does then they'd have to be only peripherally aware of Steel Panther, certainly not an audience member. Have you ever been to a show? Everybody there is standing, jumping, dancing, laughing, playing air guitar. Not one of them is taking it seriously. You may well be the only person I've ever known who doesn't get the joke if you believe them when they say they'd have played the inauguration. Please, be very offended by 3 Doors Down, who actually are serious musicians, who take themselves seriously, who expect to be taken seriously, and still played the inauguration. Please, please, please don't take this man seriously.

All irony aside, I actually find that a little offensive. I've seen Steel Panther twice, once at Download and once by themselves. They're great, they're funny, they can actually play, their shows have a really cool atmosphere about them and they take the mick out of the ridiculous bits of a genre of music I actually quite like. On a broader note, there's a long history of comedy bands and satire comedy in general. They help to keep the serious people in check. An actual, real, Motley Crue these days would be a little out of touch and certainly sexist by today's standards. Comedians remind us of things like that. Don't insult me because you don't agree. Steel Panther have probably sold more records than 99% of the people on this board, they're doing something right.

Hi guys, I know the old Hardpunchers (anyone know what years they were made between?) are quite well-regarded, what are people's opinions on the modern reissues that are on Ebay? There appear to be 2 models, the TBP (around £300) and the TPB55 (around £850). I'm interested in the sunburst and maple TBP for a new band that is starting to play out, but for the same price as a new Tokai you can get a second-hand MIM Fender. Thanks Jack

I bought a 3 pack of Prodipe TT1 Pros for £67 on Amazon and they're brilliant. I first got wind of them on PSW where all of the soundguys were raving about them. Brilliant choices.

I can confirm that Steel Panther have many female fans. Fiancée was on their, erm, 'breast camera' last time we went. This is not necessarily relevant to the discussion, I just enjoy mentioning that and bragging whenever I can.

Ok, that makes sense. It does seem as though many of the mods being talked about here are permanent or at least very involved to put back. Gutting the old amp seems like a viable choice, or even making a fake one from scratch. But rather than ruining a perfectly nice micro amp by modding it into an old shell, I'd still be tempted to hide the new amp behind the cab and just set the old one up on top. That way the new head at least remains unmolested and re-sellable. Left field. Make a 4U rack from wood and cover it in tolex to match your cab. Get preamp , tuner and poweramp of choice*. Rather than a front rack door, use grille cloth with the same logo as your cab. *GED2112, Korg Pichblack, QSC Powerlight. 🙂

I think the issue with putting a class D amp in a bog wooden box is that, whilst lots of the weight in a head is the transformer, the psu, etc etc, LOTS of the weight is actually the wooden shell. I wonder if all the effort would be worth it. Do you reckon that just a (period-correct) cab would look ok for backline? Like, do you need a head? I bet most people couldn't tell. What about like hiding a modern head behind the cab where no one could see it and then using something like a sansamp? For that matter, how feasible is adding a plate amp to your current cab? That way you can just use a pedal preamp and no one would be any the wiser IMO. EDIT - Or this.

Venue booked us for a Saturday night show. We're a slightly-harder-than-average pub rock band, think Queen and Greenday through to RATM, Sabbath, ACDC, that kind of thing. We show up and it's clearly a proper night club in a very wannabe geordie shore area. The 4 bouncers on the door are very courteous and nice, until I hear them telling a couple at the door that "it's ok until 9pm, then the bands are always stinky poo, but come back for 11:30 and it's always great". As we're setting up it's pop and chart music, everyone's dancing. We play the first set to silence and ambivalence, then the set break DJ has everyone up dancing again, followed by a second set of us being actively heckled, followed by the DJ and a dancefloor so full of people we have trouble loading the cars. The bar owner said we were great, paid us £20 extra and tried to book us again. Miraculously, we couldn't agree and future dates. A mate of mine who works the doors around here says that apparently the owner is just insistent that he'll have the bands HE wants to hear regardless of the clientele.

I was waiting for the picture to load for ages.

I put (ha, no. The bass doc put) one of those in an old Hohner Jack when the original died. With the caveat that it wasn't a Stingray it sounded great.