thodrik

V2 worth the upgrade with the mids? I have had the V1 for over ten years.

Tech 21 Sansamp Bass Driver/Para Driver is about as simple as gets in terms of operation for an ‘amp in a box’ sound. if you want more flexibility and have a bigger budget there is Darkglass with the B7K or Vintage Deluxe/Ultra. Aguilar Tone Hammer as well. EBS Microbass too. Very much personal taste though. If you have literally just got the Spectradrive I would maybe try some different settings. Also consider that a different pedal stacked in front or behind the Spectradrive might bring your sound to life.

Nice! My rules are that I 'need' two straps (one for my main gigging bass, one for my guitar/backup bass) but that any more than that is a luxury item. The two extra ones were bought as a 'treat yourself (responsibly)' moment in lockdown after I realised I had been using the same black cotton Levy straps for 15 years and I was getting fed up of having to remove and reset the same strap when I wanted to play another bass. My new straps are also plain black no frills cotton Levys.

Compared to previous years I'm not doing bad. - Two straps (I only had 2 between 6 basses); - Schaller straplocks (technically not bass gear as I fitted them to my Les Paul) - GCI Bass Brutalist overdrive - my guitar tech bought the kit and wanted to know if I wanted it. It isn't built yet. - new zero fret and nut for my Vigier Excess Other than strings, that is it.

Yes, I have an S9 Precision, which could have been made/thrown together with random parts found on the factory floor at any point between late 1978 and 1980. I decided long ago that there was no point trying to narrow down the exact date when it was made, as I am never going to sell it and it is never going to be particularly valuable irrespective of the actual date it was made.

Thanks for sharing. I’ve seen a lot worse!

This would be a fun thread on another bass forum... Seriously, I have used both US and non-US Ampegs and not really noticed much difference between the US and non-US cabs. I haven't tried the new US made 'Heritage' series of cabs though. Bear in mind if you are buying used cabinets then 'how good' the cabinets are could depend a lot on who owned the cabinets and how hard they were gigged. The 4x10HLF is a pretty dark and subby cab to me. It delivers absolutely loads of deep low bass owing to the massive bass ports in the cab. To me I always had trouble taming the low end and getting a lot of definition. It is also a really heavy and bulky cabinet and is much deeper than most standard 4x10 cabinets. I actually found it easier to move an Ampeg 6x10 which I think is a really underrated cabinet. For the right price I would still consider the 4x10HLF though as it is a good workhorse cab.

As someone who has played a lot of double bass and loves single cut guitars, I don't know why I just dislike the look of all single cut basses. With that said in terms of general design and concept I really like how they have actually tried to make the single cut feature resemble the body of a double bass. However, it really should have been fretless to add to the double bass concept.

This is pretty much my view. It makes a difference but that much and not in any predictable way. Though I have seen some classic 'comparison' videos between maple and rosewood boards where the treble control has clearly been turned way up in order to demonstrate the 'natural' extra attack and treble response a maple board gives compared to a rosewood board.

My response to a 'will you play for free?' is always taken on a show to show basis. That was the case pre-pandemic and will continue to be the case post pandemic. In previous experience I find once you show that you are willing to play for free, then the promoter involved can generally 'expect' you to play for free, which in turn makes any 'future work' not being economically viable. I understand that live venues are going through hell at the minute. However if the only in which live music venues can survive to is to not pay the musicians providing the live music, then it doesn't exactly help musicians. In terms of this gig. It involves a good bit of travel and requires at least 3 members of the band to take time off work (provided that they are all still in work). We don't have a long term relationship with the venue or promoter. Additionally the venue is subject to a planning permission application to be turned into a hotel that was lodged before the pandemic even started, so paying my band a fee or not is not going to determine whether the venue is going to continue to operate in the long term. So in terms of playing for free, I would probably vote 'no' in this case.

This caught my eye as well. I am due to play a venue of a similar capacity in November as part of a 2 night rock festival with 5 bands per night. There is just no way that is going to be economically viable in the current climate. I suspect the organiser is preparing 'will you pay for free?' emails to the bands as I type.

It kicks out serious power through a big cab/efficient 4 ohm cab as well. I had the joy of trying a HD350 through an EBS Proline 8x10, there was more volume than I would ever need.

Cracking amps. I have the old Fafner which has a not dissimilar EQ stack which is still kicking on after 11 years. I love the 350 as well. I did think that those 30th Anniversary 360 models were really terrific bits of kit when I saw them. Really great look and having a limited edition amp is always cool. One thing I love about the EBS amps is how they always cut though a live mix and how much definition there is to the sound. There is never too much wooly sub bass under 100HZ that muddies things up on stage. Enjoy!

Also how is the Stingray HH in comparison? I always thought that they looked really cool.

Most likely true!

Oh yes, still in love. I have had a four string Excess since 2004 but the Arpege is very much a different type of bass. The three band EQ for each pick is really great once I got hang of it after five years or so!

This is literally massive news. I applaud Mesa for taking this step which is long overdue, as the high prices were putting the amps out of reach for many players. The mark ups have become utterly unacceptable over the years. This is great news. Edit: The Subway 4x10 has come down from over £2k to £1,639 on Andertons. Still expensive but not completely unreasonable for a premium 4x10. The WD800 is up on Andertons for £1,039 which I would say is pretty damn good for the quality about the same with the Darkglass 900 series.

I am also interested. I play guitar and bass and having a decent little practice amp in the house that would cover both in a small footprint would be great. I quite like the actual BIAS FX and AMP FX products, though the amp sounds to me are not as nice as the Amplitube equivalents. I find the BIAS software decent and very user friendly though and frankly it is more fun to use than Amplitube in my opinion. Ultimately though, it seems to me that Positive Grid focus so much on marketing and cleverly tiered pricing and separation of certain product features into different packages. As a result, I can't say that I am a massive fan of how they do business. However, irrespective of that if the product works I will consider buying it

My guess would be that the more expensive one is 'new' new stock and the less expensive one is 'old' new stock. Or the less expensive one is a shop floor 'demo' model with some superficial signs of use.

I must admit, the thought ‘this is a really bad idea’ did run through my head before I posted!

I am lucky enough own a Sadowsky NYC, a Sadowsky Metro and a Vigier Arpege. I think they there are really great and they have resulted in me being generally GAS free for basses over the last 5 years. However when cleaning them today I started to wonder whether my basses would pass the QC standards of some of the more discerning members on here if they had received my basses from new. In functional terms all three basses are pretty much perfect (for me). However, I have taken a photo of a cosmetic construction/finishing ‘issue’ from each bass. Sadowsky NYC: imperfection in quilted maple top which you can only spot if you look at it really close up from less than a foot away. Sadowsky Metro: strange irregular wood grain pattern or tooling mark (which I personally think looks cool but it could really bother someone else): Vigier Arpege: if you look really closely, you can see that a bit of the finish seems to have bled into the fret marker. This occurs on the third, ninth and a little bit on one of the twelfth fret markers: Obviously the issues are purely cosmetic and have never bothered me. To me they are not so much flaws as much as they are unique identification markers to enable me to pick out ‘my’ bass from identically finished Sadowskys or Vigiers. However, I’m conscious that to others these issues would be seen as flaws which should not appear on such ‘high end’ instruments which should be ‘perfect’. I don’t want this to come across as a thread to insult people who have had serious faults and problems with high end instruments which is obviously a horrible situation to go through. Nor do I want this thread to be a ‘bash [insert company]’ type thread. However, I was wondering if anyone else felt like sharing any interesting finishing quirks/cosmetic issues on their own basses which do not bother them but may bother someone else? Thanks in advance.

That plus the PSA-1 would be quite the rackmount rig!

There is also the Sansamp RPM which is a general instrument pre-amp but it works great on bass. This is because the RPM has a parametric mids control which is always a great feature to when sculpting a tone. I think I would actually personally go for the RPM over the RBI but really both would be great units. There is also a PSA-1 in the classifieds here which has loads of programmable presets for different guitar and bass tones.

From using the old Bass Driver for years from which the RBI is based, you get a much more transparent sound by reducing the 'Gain' and 'Blend' controls. When you reduce the Blend I think you also reduce the speaker simulation which always adds an inherent 'thick' coloured tone that you might not want when doing slap or back pickup Jaco stuff. However Tech 21 demos nearly always seem to have the blend set at 100% on so you generally can only access these tones when trying the unit out. If you have a nice bass you get far better sounds with the Blend control at under 50% in my opinion. The bass and treble controls still work even when the blend is reduced so that would be my starting point when looking for a transparent tone, particularly if was also using a pedal preamp. If you want a more transparent preamp there will be other options. The Tech 21 stuff is really good stuff though.

Awesome, I wanted to see them for a while but I always seemed to have a gig on the same night.