thodrik

I have 4, all the same brand and type (black vaguely long Levy). Main 'gigging' bass (Sadowsky) has had a strap on semi-permanently for years thanks to my high-tech strap lock system of the rubber tip thingies you get from bottles of Grolsch. The others are swapped depending on what ones I am using as part of my rehearsal/jamming/recording routine. Basically I make sure that I have a strap for any bass I am using regularly, plus the back up to that main bass. Two bands = the need for four straps.

For me, I always equate heft to a balance of: - the ability of an amplifier and speaker set up to deliver lots of low/sub bass with tonnes of headroom without the sound farting out or without the amp requiring loads of compression to generate a loud signal; and - a half joking description of amps which are very very loud and also very very heavy (i.e. my Trace Elliot V6 is very heavy but has lots of heft). The second part of the description means that the whole description is almost garbage, but is helpful in formulating seemingly knowledgeable but almost useless tonal descriptions. 'There is so much 'heft' on tap that I am concerned that the sound is a bit 'muddy'. However, even when I run my amp 'flat' there is still an abundance of 'heft', but when I do that I need to boost the gain a bit so that I can get the 'grit' I need.

There is a lot of good stuff on Stadium Arcadium. It does get a bit samey in places but it has some of Frusciante's best playing in my opinion after he abandoned the 'less is more' approach on By The Way. It is also the album where Flea started to use a passive jazz bass for most of the album, so it is a much different tone to his previous albums. By The Way has some of my favourite RHCP tracks (This is the place, Can't Stop and Don't Forget Me, even though the latter is basically Other Side pt ii in terms of chord structure) but also most of my least favourite/meh RHCP tracks (Cabron, Universally Speaking, Throw Away Your Television, I Could Die for You, most of it actually).

I love Flea and his playing on that album is really great. He had really worked on obtained the balance between between being funky and busy and also holding down the groove of a song. It is a classic album. In my opinion some of his best ever work is on De-Loused in the Comatorium by the Mars Volta. Not so much funk but tremendous feel and grove in a prog setting. Horrible 'loudness wars' mastering aside, Californication is also good, though much more simple in terms of basslines. I have not listened to anything by RHCP since seeing them live on the Stadium Arcadium tour in about 2007. They were that bad.

Definitely the right call. I bought a used NYC that was custom made (for somebody else...) and it is exceptional. The ability to make your own individual order is pretty damn awesome. All the best with building process. I personally really like the feel of satin finished instruments. I have a satin finished Les Paul guitar and love it. A satin finished Sadowsky will be about as good as it gets.

Fantastic review. Possibly the best, in depth review of a Trace V-series amp I have read (and I have searched for a few!) I have owned a V6 since about 2013. I was intrigued at finding out that the overdrive circuit on the Mk II was diode based. I wouldn't have expected that. I presume that the case is the same for the fabled V8? That is the one feature I wished my V6 had. Also glad to hear that somebody else doesn't like the 'deep' switch. I just do not like the effect it gives to the sound. The 'bright' switch on the V6 is okay though. I find the voicing of the 'pull out' mid switch a bit strange. Why is the focal point stuck at 500HZ? I don't like being an after-timer but I think that a three way (mid voice) switch to give some ability to choose the centre point of the 'mids' (300HZ, 500HZ, 800/1k) to be controlled would have been a bit more flexible. The EBS Fafner two way mids control (identify frequency/cut and boost to taste) would have been ideal, but then it wouldn't have been a 'classic' passive EQ. Either way I can live with it. I also own an EBS Fafner (mk I) and I'm glad to hear that someone else thought that it is a better comparison to the V4/V6 than another valve amp. The V6 I have is very clean indeed. I have a Mesa Walkabout which behaves more like a 'traditional' valve amp than the V6 in terms adding traditional valve grit. The main thing that puzzles with the V6 is why it was released as running at 4 or 2 ohms, particularly when the 4x12 and 2x15 V-type cabs were 8 ohms. Were people just expected to buy two? I thought that valve amps were likely to fail if matched with the wrong impedance. There is no manual for the V6 either, and I have heard competing accounts as to whether it is safe or not!

The thought had crossed my mind as well. Though, given that nearly every post I have written over the last month has involved has mentioned a Mesa Boogie Walkabout, Mesa Boogie WD-800, Mesa Boogie M6 and Mesa Boogie, I wish to make it known that I definitely don't work for Mesa Boogie. My bank statements after buying a Big Block definitely attest to this...

No idea, any one of: 1) Hey Joe (Hendrix version); 2) Sunshine of your Love; 3) You Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC) 4) A Stevie Ray Vaughan song. Think it was Pride and Joy. 5) Purple Haze. Over 20 years playing, but I have still never learned Smoke on the Water. I have only ever bought two tab books for Californication and Blood Sugar Sex Magik. That was about two years after I started learning and about 8 years before Youtube 'How to play' videos were a thing.

I don't think that the M6 is louder than any other Mesa 600 watt amp like an MPulse 600, however with the M6 I had, the master volume didn't have much of a gradual taper. It just went from 'off' to 'loud' immediately. It was like an old Marshall guitar amp! The M6 has a different type of input gain structure than the Mpulse heads like the Walkabout, Big Block or (I assume as I have not tried it) Mpulse 600. The Mpulse heads can generally go into gentle overdrive with the gain at 12 o'clock or over. The M6 only has one pre amp valve (compared to the 3-4 in an Mpulse head) and is designed for clean power, tonnes of headroom and a very fast response. You don't get any kind of overdrive on the M6 until pushing the gain past two o'clock settings, at which point there is no way of dialling in that tone at a polite volume because of the way that the master volume is structured. It will be tremendously loud. If you want a lot of valve warmth on the M6 I would suggest using a pedal rather than increasing the gain. The M6 sounds great with pedals. The driver stage of the M6 is also Mosfet based, rather than the Simulstate of the Mpulse line which involves (to my non-engineer brain) preamp valves being used in the driver stage. So basically the master volume on the M6 is delivering massive clean power. I sold mine because I really wanted a bit of pre amp grit and I really didn't need the clean power of the M6 as great as it was, so bought a Big Block. In many ways the M6 is a much superior and flexible amp, but I much prefer the natural 'grunt' of the Big Block which is hard to dial out (good thing I like it!)

I will also apologise for my slightly passive aggressive approach in the post above. I dropped my sandwich at work. Complete disaster. Shredded lettuce everywhere.

Agreed, the idea of the unskilled, heavy handed rock player who hacks away at a badly set up bass with high action through a cheap, badly EQ'd amp where he/she has made a mistake of deciding to 'cut rather than boost mids' is a classic bass forum caricature, alongside the incredibly adapt fluent funk and jazz player who always has amazing technique, plays with a beautiful light touch with low action, who never achieves fret buzz or fret clank, and always plays through a very expensive and complicated EQ system which is always 'run flat' or 'adjusted to suit the room'. Maybe it is time to start a new thread...

I sometimes find it (mildly) amusing that the same people who claim the importance of having a quiet on stage sound are also claiming that they need an 800 watt amp, as anything less than that won't deliver the clean headroom that they desperately 'need'. I have owned a Walkabout for ten years now. The Walkabout 1x15 combo has been my main gigging rig for most of that period. It has only struggled on obscenely loud stages where there is little to no monitoring available, very loud drums and guitars and the PA is only just strong enough to carry vocals over the drums. You know, the type of gigs where everybody would say that the stage volume is too loud, but your mate at the back of the audience will tell you that it was too quiet! On those types of gigs the Walkabout could sometimes struggle. I have played many a gig with the gain at 12 o'clock (semi clean tone) and have had the master cranked at 75% or higher. With a quieter stage and better monitoring, the Walkabout 1x15 can cover just about any type of gig for my purposes. The cab makes all the difference though. I did two outdoor festivals last year, using an Ampeg 8x10 on one and my Mesa 6x10 for the other. During those gigs the master volume on the Walkabout wasn't even 40% turned up. It was bloody loud and clean and I was playing in a heavy rock band in drop C. I totally see the reason why Mesa have developed the WD 800. At very low volume levels, the Walkabout has a lovely bloomy clean tone, which disappears as the tone gets a bit more raucous and furry as you turn the master volume up. I love the slightly driven sound of the Walkabout and think that it is the true magic of the amp rather than the clean tone. However, some players want the low volume 'bloom' of the Walkabout at much higher volumes without the need to pair the Walkabout with a very large cabinet. I think that this sentiment is the reason behind the WD-800. From what I have read on the usual forums, it very difficult/not possible to 'scale up' the furry character of a 'pushed' original Walkabout to 800 watts, so the new WD-800 is not really a scaled up Walkabout, but rather using the Walkabout pre-amp as the basis for a new amp. I'll still be keeping the Walkabout.

Correct. The non-valve Trace heads are not 2 ohm stable.

I think that when people say 'I can't play with 18mm string spacing' it is just shorthand for 'I could technically play on 18mm string spacing but it isn't my preference and I would prefer to play something else'. I think that it is mostly personal preference rather than a case of bassists being fussy or not being adaptable or any idea that a bassist who doesn't like narrow string spacing is somehow a less talented bassist than someone who does. The context behind someone saying 'I can only play bass on Fender Precision basses might actually be 'I have been playing loads of types of basses for years but have finally discovered that the dimensions and sounds of a Precision are perfect for me, so why bother playing something else?'. I'm sure that if most of the players on this site swapped basses for a weekend of gigs, most of us would be able to 'make do' with someone else's bass for a weekend without the gig suffering. We probably wouldn't enjoy it as much though as playing with the instruments we are used to and have chosen through our own personal preference. It would be a fun experiment though.

No problem, I’m not one for ‘OMG this is the best thing EVER!’ reviews. I could give a detailed breakdown of the ‘negatives’ of all of my favourite bits of gear. It doesn’t make me like them any less, it just means I have played with them for a prolonged period of time and have discovered some things it can’t do or something I would personally change. I’m very happy anyway!

Well, I couldn't wait any longer. That Big Block 750 that was on sale with the matching case? Yeah bought that for a great deal, for not much more than what I sold my M6 Carbine for. I have wanted a Big Block for about ten years so I really couldn't pass it up. From initial comparisons with my Walkabout and old M6. The Big Block has a much more limited EQ than the Walkabout and has much less clean headroom, sub lows and cutting highs than the M6. There is a bit of built in 'grunt' to the sound as well which might not be to everyone's tastes. To my ears it is very much Mesa's approach to an Ampeg SVT pro series amp and is very much a 'rock' amp rather than the M6, Walkabout and WD-800 which could nail any number of different styles. This means that the Big Block will not be everybody's favourite amp. To my ears though it is one of the best amps I have ever played through and it absolutely delivers exactly what I want out of a bass amp, which is basically something like the V6 I have above, but with a slightly more aggressive, in your face, voice, and less likelihood of breaking down and costing me hundreds of pounds to replace 6 power tubes... The Big Block absolutely delivers this in spades. The overdrive is also probably the best high gain bass overdrive I have ever heard, which is saying something considering I have been running the Darkglass Duality for years and it just doesn't get anywhere close to the high gain tones from the overdrive on the Big Block. If Mesa delivered a WD-800 with a version of the Big Block overdrive circuit as a footswitchable drive, then I would be all over that.

I used to have a fairly big TE collection consisting of two cabs (1028H and 1518), a GP7 SM300 1x15 combo, a SMX300 head and the mighty V6. I am down to just the V6 now. Heavy yes, but not as heavy as the Ampeg equivalent. It is about 25Kg and there is only one handle at the top so it technically 'is' a one handed lift. In terms of weight my considerations are usually on the basis of 'can I lift it and walk it 100 yards from the car to the venue and up a flight of stairs without dropping it?'. The V6 is close to the limit as a one handed lift, but the tone is worth it. Once I am over 40 or suffer from back problems I will perhaps reconsider. At the moment though I am enjoying the benefits of owning an old Volvo that can fit all kinds of cool, old and heavy bass gear.

Used to get quite a lot of these back in the days of being in a 'signed' band. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the genuine offers of rip off 'buy on' tours from the fraudulent offers of rip off 'buy on' tours.

I always thought that Ampeg were the bass equivalent of Marshall in the guitar world. Ever present, industry standard gear that some people love, many people like and some people who just don't like them. I wouldn't say no to an Ampeg head. Would I trade my Trace Elliot V6 for an SVT though? Not a chance.

Me too!

At £3k I tried a really nice Fender Custom Shop jazz for about that in Guitar Guitar Glasgow today. Though I played an even nicer original 1970s Jazz for around half that price. Ended up buying a new Boss TU-3 after my TU-2 died after 17 years of use...

I only became a fan in the six months before the split. I stupidly did not go to the Isis Aereogramme tour when they played Glasgow which is one of the few gigs I really regret not going to. In the Absence of Truth is my personal favourite album even though I will accept that it is generally seen as one of the weaker albums, even by members of the band. Yes it is in the arty-farty period, but I absolutely love the drum sound on that the album. Oceanic and Panopticon are classics. Celestial is great. Wavering Radiant is a bit tame but has a couple of great tracks.

Played that set up for a radio session circa 2010. I was absolutely impressed with the amp and cab.

Both, always both.

Sometimes it is actually pretty impressive how large a gauge of strings you can install on a bass without having to recut the nut. I managed to install a D’Addario set of 120-50 strings and the DR DDT 115-55 set without having to recut the nut of my Sadowsky from stock. That is my absolute limit though on a four string. I would never tune a four string BEAD for example. I used to have a designated ‘drop tuning’ bass, but after a certain point, more and more of my projects were in alternate tunings. After a while I just thought that I might as well use my best bass for all this stuff, otherwise it would my ‘standard tuning’ bass that would never be used! if I was doing a set of standard tuning songs though and just one song needed to be in E flat or d standard, then I would definitely consider a pedal.