thodrik

I am a Trace Elliot fan, however to my ears the Ashdown amps are more versatile in that you can get a semi hi-fi clean tone or you can dial in a gritty, dirty overdriven sound. Trace Elliot amps are great but if you don't like the 'baked in' pre shape sound you are pretty much just left with the graphic to get your core tone (or pedals). However if you want and need 'that Trace Elliot sound' though then it has to be Trace. In general I prefer the Trace Elliot speakers (usually Celestion) to the Ashdown speakers. So I would probably pair an ABM head with a Trace Elliot 1x15 or 2x10.

Anything up to 11lbs is doable for me without issue. As said above balance is more important to me than weight. Yeah, I have a Sadowsky and it is very very light (just under 8lbs). I have an old EB3 too and it is completely unbalanced and feels like a lead weight, but at least it looks cool.

We discussed it a while ago when it was announced at NAMM. The price is pretty damn high but I suppose it is a premium price for a premium piece of gear.

Any one of the Walkabout, Big Block 750, Trace Elliot V6 or EBS Fafner. I used to have an M6 but I found it to be too ‘clean’ sounding. I already had the Fafner and V6 which also have massive clean headroom so I sold the M6 and bought the Big Block which has less clean headroom and a built in rock grunt tone. I love it and the overdrive feature is brilliant once you set the levels correctly. I have never tried the Prodigy/Strategy amps. In terms of features though they look exceptional.

Those Powerhouse cabs are brilliant but really heavy. Two 4x10s is a great idea though. I have the 6x10 which really tests my strength limitations when loading into my car.

Walkabout user here (the 15 combo rather than the 12 combo). Rather than an extension cabinet, I would just get a larger cabinet like a 4x10 or 2x12. A larger cabinet makes a big difference, so long it has a decent power rating and the speaker sensitivity is decent. It takes about two minutes to remove the head from the combo. Finding a matching 12 inch Mesa Scout Radiator cabinet can be difficult (and expensive). Finding a separate, larger cabinet will be a lot easier. I have a Mesa 6x10 which is complete overkill, however when I run that with the Walkabout I never run into problems of not being loud enough. However, an 800 watt class D amp through a Barefaced 2x12 will be 'louder' and more portable than the Walkabout plus big cab set up. So if your set up needs to be incredibly loud, have tonnes of clean headroom and be very portable then the Walkabout is maybe not the ideal amp.

I don’t watch all of his content but Nathan Navarro is a really good player in my opinion. He also does not have an overly clickbait presentation style which I appreciate. A lot of his content is just gear demos though so there really isn’t any instructional or teaching content. That said though I have definitely stolen a few of his licks as warm up exercises. Really though I just like to watch gear demos rather than technique or ‘how to play X’ videos. So for that I pretty much just watch Dood’s videos and the Basstheworld channel.

Just trying it out, I definitely believe that the blue LED really adds greater presence to the mids compared to the standard red filament bulb...

Done!

I think that the Mesa Powerhouse 1000/1200 cab had the same issue. With a proper crossover the set up would be brilliant. I just bought the Trace set up before I knew anything about phasing or crossovers (I was 21 and this was pre-Basschat for me). Trace Elliot themselves were still doing the '10s for highs and 15s for lows' stuff in the their suggested set ups in the promotional material.

Okay, I have never used this cab. However I did gig with the separate 2x10 and 1x15 cabinets from the same Peavey-era line for about 7-8 years from 2008-2015. So basically the same cab as separates. I considered this cabinet but decided on getting two different cabs so I could have a 'big' and 'small' set up as sometimes (well, a lot of times) the full stack was over the top. Pros: - the Celestion speakers are pretty damn good. In terms of sound, I would say that they are definitely 'rock' cabinets in terms of voicing. - despite the 'Trace Elliot gear is really heavy' reputation, these cabs are very easy to move around compared with older lines. Yes the 1015h will have a bit of weight, but it will be lighter than an old Ampeg 6x10 or 4x10HLF and easier to move. - it looks cool. Cons: - there isn't a cross over. So despite the old '10s for highs and 15 for lows' logic, unless you have a crossover you are actually running '10s for everything and the 15 for everything'. The resulting phasing issues sometimes meant the sound on stage would differ depending on where I stood and could sound dramatically different venue to venue. - because of the point above, at high volumes I found that the 2x10 farted out before the 15 at moderate to high volumes. So I had a 900 watt 'stack', but it really didn't cope with a high output amp (EBS Fafner or Trace V6) on very loud gigs. I found that running the big 15 on its own actually sounded better than the stack, so sold the 2x10 eventually. - I don't think that the Peavey era stuff has the same 'bullet proof' construction of the old Trace stuff. It is solid stuff, but I had a few loose screws over the years and the speaker cones were not properly installed into the baskets when I bought the 2x10 (maybe something happened in transit). Nothing major though. I still gig with the 1x15 cab, which is going on 12 years without any issues. At a bargain price, you really can't go wrong.

Pearl Jam Binaural 14 year old me thought 'meh' in first listen, in that 'how could the band that did Ten end up doing this?'. On reflection I actually really like it. Baroness - Blue Album I loved Red Album in that it mixed 1970s prog, some Americana folk and just straight up Neorosis sludge. The Blue album seemed to me to be a step back in creative and production terms at the time. The guitar tones seemed overly fuzzy and the drum sound just seems a bit flat. On reflection though, I really like the songs on this album and the way it flows from beginning to end. I'm also scared to say this but...Load by Metallica. This is the album where Metallica stopped being a 'metal' band, and started being an alt-rock, classic rock band. I just thought it was naff when I first bought it when I was 12-13. However, now I think that there are some really good tracks on this album and that there is a really good ten track album hidden amongst the 80 minutes of material on the CD. In terms of 'non-rock' stuff, my wife really likes Kelly Clarkson of American Idol fame. Honestly, I quite like her voice at this point. I hear her more than I would like but I have a pro quid pro agreement with my wife of 'no aggressive doom music' in the house in exchange for 'no Jessie J' in the house. Accordingly, I will continue to mildly enjoy Kelly Clarkson, Ed Sheeran and Sia and other singers she likes.

Really sad news. Never played a Lull but those T4 and T5 models were gorgeous.

I have to do that at the best of times!

I’m totally going to try this on my Trace V6!

I like Guitar Guitar, but the one time I enquired about selling some gear they basically told me I was better off selling privately, which kind of defeats the purpose of the service. The thing that annoyed me a bit was the amp I was looking to sell was a Mesa M6, and I was told that they would only offer me a couple of hundred quid on account that Mesa bass heads don't have much resale value...all while they were marketing a used Big Block head for about £1300, which incidentally was the amp I was looking to buy in p/x. I did sell privately, and then I bought a Big Block privately (for nearly half the price of the one in Guitar Guitar). I like Guitar Guitar and generally my experience with the staff there is great. For any sales of used gear though, outside of BC I would just use Bass Direct as their policies are fairly clear (20% commission).

I saw Buddy Guy when he was over 70 and he was suffering from the flu. He was utterly outstanding as were his band.

Don’t get me wrong, but I love Mastodon (well up to Crack the Skye, I only ‘like’ their stuff after that). High on Fire could sometimes be a hit or miss depending on the condition of Matt Pike on any given night. I would love to have seen Danzig back in the day, very underrated band.

Homeless busker outside Glasgow Central Station. Far more emotionally engaging and keen to perform than Van Morrison was when I went to see him an hour later. In 2008 or so, I saw Torche open for Pelican. Torche were great, Pelican less so. Taste of Chaos 2009. To my ears, Every Time I Die blew away Killswitch Engage and In Flames. Technically though it was a ‘triple headliner’ tour but whatever. In 2005 I saw Mastodon twice. However both times I preferred the support, High on Fire and Dozer. It happened again a few years ago when Red Fang supported them. I also saw Motörhead twice and both times preferred the support being Danko Jones and Clutch.

As a Trace and Mesa aficionado I think you have done a cracking job!

Any of the Mesa Boogie 'Simul State' series (Walkabout, Big Block, Titan V12, M-Pulse) have valve pre-amps which are designed to be very close to the front end of an all tube amp. Most of these Mesa amps have about 3 12AX7 pre amp valves in the preamp. Most of them also have valves in the output section as well, which is great in the sense that it reacts like a valve amp but not so great in the sense that the EQ settings at lower volume settings can sound a lot more different when playing at louder volumes. I have the Walkabout and Big Block which behave more like a classic all valve amplifiers in terms of pre amp overdrive than my Trace Elliot V6 which actually is an old valve amp. There are quite a lot of hybrid amps where the 'valve' component consists of a single preamp tube forming part of a 'drive' circuit which is separate from the pre-amp. Amps like Ashdown ABMs and EBS Fafner/TD650 have these types of designs. To my ears these amps sound less like like an all valve amp, but they sound close enough once you familiarise yourself with the amp and have the benefit of having loads of clean headroom.

It was such an awful advert for the company.Also, credit to the show makers for actually documenting that the workers were totally shafted in terms of the false promises made to them. I wonder what an undercover boss Gibson episode would have looked like?

For a 'bowed cello' type effect I like to use a delay on a very slow setting and then use the volume knob of the bass to give a 'bowing' sound. I generally use the back pickup of a Jazz bass to stop the low bass from overpowering everything. Combine this technique with some chords on the upper strings and arrange them into some kind of familiar melodic sequence, preferably in a minor key. On top of that, adding a slight fuzz like a Big Muff to increase the sustain can make the 'bowing' pattern sound interesting as well. A volume pedal would also be a great help to save faffing around with the volume control on the bass while also trying to pluck the strings. Then use your looper to record your cello-like chord pattern, then once you start looping your cello chord pattern, start playing some melodic tapping with some reverb and/or chorus over the top of the loop. Then start looping the tappy part and then start playing low single notes on your low E/B string to give added 'weight' to your cello/tappy composition. Also start using using an envelope filter effect over the top of everything, just because you can. At this point, you will release that you want to change four effects simultaneously but you only have two feet and two hands. Putting some effects on a separate loop isn't an option because there is no way of arranging the different loops in such a way as to enable you to have immediate access to all of the different effect sounds that you desperately need. Congratulations, you are now a post-rock bassist.

Just to add to the thread, Roger Sadowsky wrote a piece on the Sadowsky site to explain the licensing agreement. It is an interesting piece, particularly in terms of explaining the IP/logo issue with the Metro Express basses. It seems that it has been a long term issue but which is likely going to be coming to an end at some point shortly. https://www.sadowsky.com/warwick-gmbh-to-be-exclusive-licensee-for-sadowsky-guitars-ltd-copy/ SadowskyWarwick.final_.pdf

For classic Ampegness I would say a 4x10 hlf. However if I was renting out a studio/rehearsal place I would not be using an all valve bass head personally. Every time you have to re-tube it is going to be a very expensive job. I would also invest in a back up head.