MrDinsdale

We i was originally gonna get a backup head, a gss baby sumo then one thing led to another and ended up with the Hand Box. It's 25kg lighter than the Marshall which is a huge difference and it's incredibly hefty. The Capo > Model FeT > Hand Box WB-100 setup sounded awesome though. I was playing through a Barefaced cab last night, 15". I loved my old bf two10 and supertwin i used to borrow occasionally. Awesome cabs. The four10/six10 is on my purchase list although its gonna have to wait a while after recent purchases!

Enjoy!!! Sound man just congratulated me on my bass tone, thanks a bit to the Capo and a bit the my new Hand Box head. It's gonna be a pretty gnarly gig 😂

She asked if I liked the amp after practice and instantly started rolling her eyes. That's even before I proceeded to talk about girthy drive tones and pillowy lows at her for 10 mins.

Haha na my partner would kill me if i even suggested it, this is the rehearsal room we use at Prospect Studio near Bradford. We do also have a very similar collection of monsteras in our living room though.

New Hand Box WB-100 at practice, will be using this for our gig on Thursday albeit with an Ampeg 6x10. Absolutely cracking bit of kit, sounds so good it distracts from my sloppy playing 🙌

Hefty! It sounds perfect, lots of grit and handles extra drive pedals perfectly. Everyone had a little raised eyebrow when I booted it up followed by an appreciative stank face. I wasn't sure how it would hold up for getting some more aggressive tones as most of the demos I've heard have been more funk, blues and rock but it doesn't disappoint in the slightest. It's a perfect replacement for the Marshall 40kg monster. It works beautifully with the Jad Freer Capo preamp upfront. The Model Fet and Longsword pedals give some fantastic clank where needed, they sounded great already but the WB-100 really brings them to life. Completely anecdotal but I don't remember grinning this much while playing my old GK 700rb or Fusion S 800. The Marshall VBA400 is the only other amp I've tried and immediately thought I couldn't imagine using anything else.

It's a keeper!

Haha I like your style 😂

I really wish I'd spend more time playing with the echo and reverb effects. I was looking at the Mastro Valvola LEM and just thinking how close you could get with the Core. Lots of reverse echoes and doing all the weird stuff with LPF bitcrushers and stuff like that. You could get some incredible effects, especially combined with the OFF1.

Yeah the more I've read the more i think I'm happy to just keep to the Jad Freer Capo for recording and home practice, it sounds incredible. I always take a clean DI when recording so i can always reamp with the WB100 at a later date if I feel it's missing some valve goodness. Even if I got a 1x10 or something again for home I'd still be limited by only really getting to practice when the child was asleep.

There was a cool video that helped me get my head around it, Jared Gunston i think and he was using the assigns to create a more reactive noise gate. Basically as you play, the threshold reduces on the gate. It resulted in a much smoother, more natural noise suppression from what I remember but it really blew my mind.

Yeah it's really cool, you can use it to throw in a bit more grit when you dig in or get some really cool effects. What gets really cool is you have access in assigns to use that same sensitivity to effect parameters of fx blocks. So for example you could have the Feedback control of a Flanger driven by how aggressively you play.

Yeah I have the Scarlett too, great and cost effective but lack of pad is annoying. With my old GK it was really hot on the DI, used to have to put a separate DI in the FX loop with a pad to get a usable signal. I was originally talking about a load box for using to record at home etc without a cab. Having an attenuator to control the DI signal to hand at gigs definitely wouldn't hurt though!

Well I'm officially on the Handbox train after picking up a WB-100 tonight, very excited to give it a proper play at practice tomorrow. I'm completely blown away by how compact it is in real life, the build quality is incredible. Might have to look at the Two Notes Captor style attenuators for home practice/recording.

How are you finding the Capo @Ander87?

Might help if you could record a clip of the hiss along with some playing to compare. Maybe people will be in a better position to help assess if it's to be expected.

Hahaha it's ok now, I've set my sights on a Handbox head 🔥Sorry again for dragging you back in 😂

I unintentionally went ampless for a gig last Tuesday when our VBA400 blew in soundcheck, maybe a valve got knocked in transit or something. I decided to just go through the PA rather than asking to borrow the headliners amp. This sounded absolutely awesome, think the sound guy was pretty blown away with it. The Capo has a really well tuned LPF rather than and cab simulation/IRs etc which helped a lot take some of the fizz out of the really gnarly tones. As great as it sounded, it would be super hard to hear over both the guitarist's Marshall stacks and loud drummer. I also really missed having that wall of sound behind me but I very much enjoyed being an ampless setup tourist, I can definitely see the appeal. For other less loud punky bands I'd happily turn up with my Capo and a tuner in future though!

Yeah i get bored of fine tuning the same settings every time i move my board or the child stands on it. I think I'll probably just tape all mine, doesn't look great but it's effective!

Duplicate post

Nice! That low profile one looks perfect 👌Already got the patchbay on the Rockboard, just need to get the DI with minimal wasted space. I was actually considering moving the capo up to the top edge of the board if I couldn't get a neat xlr solution as I only used it as an always on anyways. Not sure what I'd put in it's place.

Been experimenting with layouts to make it a little better for gigging, much more space now and less chance of accidental presses. Currently the Ditto isn't hooked up because I was missing 1 more long cable to reach all the way back to the capo. Really milking this Cioks 4 😬 Sounding great, thinking about wiring up an FX loop with the mod patch bay so when I'm at home experimenting or playing guitar i can hook up some extra reverbs/echos without messing around with the board. The last thing that I really want to sort though is hooking up the main XLR out: Any thoughts on a lower profile XLR connector I can pop in? That way I could squeeze in another pedal 🤘🤘🤘

Get a few Y dividers and take them all 👌

@Ander87 It'll sound awesome 🙌

All i have in front of the OFF1 is the compressor and a HPF so it's the most firstest in the chain it can be. TBF i do like having compression at the end of the chain too, gives a little more control of dynamics with very touch sensitive drives. I find, especially live, it's better up front for a slightly more consistent tone. Haven't tried in a band setting yet but don't see it being much of an issue tbh, not wildly different from the Longsword with boost and that cuts through great. Best advice I have is to get all your pedals off the board and experiment with different combinations, ideally record some samples with each so you can directly compare. Once you're happy then get them back on the board and wired up. The decision to put the OFF1 up front is less about the fuzz and more about the octave, i find tracking is sketchy at time with bright strings never mind any other effects.