thodrik

In terms of bass amps which go utterly filthy in terms on board dirt, The Mesa Big Block 750 is probably the dirtiest amp I have ever tried. I wanted one for a decade before I finally got one and it is definitely a 'never sell' item. Ampeg SVTs are great for overdrive too. My nephew as an SVT 3 Pro and you can actually drive it to pretty good overdrive at useable volume levels, which isn't so much the case with the Big Block.

Agreed. If you watch any demo video he does about the Attitude basses or the EBS pedals, you really get the impression that he was heavily involved in the development process and he isn't just sticking his name on something for the sake of it.

Billy Sheehan comes to mind. Basses, preamps, pedals, strings. The guy likes to put his name on stuff that he believes in.

The new V2 Bass DI has a dedicated mids knob with switchable frequencies and the bass control can be switched from 40Hz to 80Hz. I had the V1 Bass DI for years, but I think that the V2 is a significant improvement in terms of tone shaping. The programmable has no mids control, but the programmable channels means you can easily switch from clean, light overdrive, heavy overdrive or different settings for different basses in a set. You really can't go too far wrong. If you just want an 'Ampeg in a box' then the VT Bass DI is worth considering too.

Stunning bass that. A custom Warwick is on my wish-list, love the red finish.

I bought a whole bunch of XLR cables for a recording project back in May. It took about a week and a half which I thought was reasonable. Customs checks took an age but that isn't Thomann's problem. If I need something really quickly, I go for a UK supplier. I generally go for Thomann for buying their in-house cables/accessories which I think are really good value for money.

I own an Arpege and actually really recommend the Vigier Excess model as well which I also own. Roger Glover from Deep Purple switched to them and he was a previous Rick user. All the Vigier instruments are a fairly comfortable weight. Neck profile on the Excess is a bit more substantial than an Arpege, with a 42mm nut, but the neck is very comfortable.

This is great news for me. Now when I really want to get a custom Spector or Warwick I can justify the price on the basis that it will be about 1/4 the price of an Alembic.

Softube are doing a sale of their Eden WT 800 plugin. 39 euros so about 33 quid or so. The sale runs through the weekend. It is a very good plugin. Not worth the normal 100 euro price but worth the sale price in my opinion.

I thought that the American Elite models were really excellent basses. Had they been out in 2009 I would probably have got one of them rather than a Sadowsky Metro. Not tried the Ultra ones, but frankly I prefer the design and look of the prior Elite models, though I haven't tried one myself. I always wanted to try the Victor Bailey model though. It just always looked really cool. The Japanese Marcus Miller models were about as good as any active Jazz Fender produced in my opinion.

Thanks, I will check that out. I have the Softube bass amp sim and I just use the Ampeg sim on that. I prefer it to ones I have tried on AmpliTube, Brainworx or Bias FX. I am a sucker for new and cheap plugins though. Honestly most bass amp sims to me involve faffing around with numerous settings and half the time I feel I would get better options by plugging into a Sanamp and running a Di straight into the interface. I used to have a Bass Pod and ditched it for a Sansamp for that reason.

I love EBS and Mesa amps (I have a Fafner, Walkabout and Big Block 750). You can't really go wrong with either brand. I did have an M6 Carbine for a while, which was a much more 'modern, clean, aggressive' tone which I understand is not a million miles away from the sounds that can be had with the Subway channel on the TT800. I did end up selling the Carbine because it was actually 'too clean' for me and I needed to sell the M6 to get the Big Block, which had been my dream amp for about a decade. The two channel flexibility of the TT800 would be deciding point for me, though I would probably be on the Boogie channel 90% of the time. If going the Mesa route I would certainly consider the WD800 as well.

I am intrigued by the 'Bassment' plugin. Not sure I need it, given that my general set up involves plugging a P-bass into a Softube SVT amp sim and then running it through a Neve EQ and compressor. Essentially my tonal goals are for everything is for it to sound like it was recorded in a very expensive studio by a very incompetent engineer (me). Also heard good things about the FrontDAW. Might have to try that.

It is a bit of a sham sales practice. UAD in particular runs sales through the year, so the full price for most of their plugins are never really charged. Plugin Alliance do the same. Frankly everyone does. For amp sims I just bought Softube’s Amp Room and I just made the decision not use anything else for amp sims. It is a slippery slope to spending unnecessary money.

Same plugin by the same company (Brainworx). The difference is that the UAD version can be used as a Unison preamp with UAD Apollo and works on the digital signal processing in the UAD hardware rather than your computer. Brainwork did the UAD version for the UAD hardware but UAD control the pricing. If you don’t have UAD hardware and just want a B15 plugin just get the Plugin Alliance version.