thodrik

I own a Walkabout and M6 Carbine. I much prefer the tone of the Walkabout. I would be tempted of getting rid of the M6 for a new higher power equivalent of the Walkabout. My concern is that part of the 'magic' of the original Walkabout that the tubes are used at the driver stage with the Mosfets. I'm interested to see how Mesa have approached this with a class D preamp. The cabs look great. A portable 2x15 would be something!

Me too thanks to this thread! Really digging their stuff.

So many great bassists are in bands that do not lend themselves to a pub rock cover set, as they are not in mainstream ‘everybody knows the songs’ type bands. The bassist in Karnivool is one of the most most talented bassists in semi-mainstream rock, but Karnivool material is not really stuff that that will fit in with a set of Foo Fighters, Oasis and Strokes songs. You could tweak a couple of Royal Blood or Death From Above 1979 songs for a full band. Some of the trippy, less heavy Deftones or Queens of the Stone Age stuff might work as well as the basslines but they are hardly new and a lot of the songs are in lower than standard tuning. Also, I might be on the verge of losing my ‘stoner/doom fan’ credibility but I absolutely love the early We Are Scientists albums. With Love and Squalir is such a cool pop/rock album. Not a great bassist but the songs are so catchy and fun to listen to, with added bonus that the album sold quite well so any of the songs would fit in with a popular modern rock/covers set. I also don’t mind some of the Kasabian basslines. The basslines in some Elbow songs are pretty cool. Not new bands, but newer than Oasis.

When I was 22 my band at the time were asked play a charity evening gig in aid of breast cancer and testicular cancer awareness at a school that was close to where our singer grew up. Sounded innocent enough. Unfortunately when we got there we discovered that the ‘breast cancer awareness’ aspect consisted of 15-17 girls wearing only their bra and pants and 15-17 year old boys in their underwear. The adult supervisors were off duty police officers and parents of the children. None of them seemed to think that any of this was remotely weird or inappropriate. I was fairly disgusted and couldn’t wait to leave.

Have owned the Duality for a few years. It is very much a 'over the top' and raw fuzz. I don't think it is great for an 'always on' overdrive or slight fuzz effect. However for bass solos or for moments you want things to go all out of control or make your bass sound like a big distorted guitar it is so much fun. If you are happy with the amount of gain on offer, the pedal is actually fairly flexible as you can tailor the tone of the fuzz to your liking. you can't get less gain, you can only get less of the fuzz in the signal via the blend control. The Alpha Omega will offer more flexibility, but I don't need it. I use my B3K more, but I have more fun with the Duality.

I think I can agree with that.

If the auditioning singers are available on the same night then that is a fairly sensible idea. if you have the flexibility I would probably go for one singer per night, to allow for (a) more time to try out the singer if you are initially impressed or (b) more time to discuss the awfulness of the singer if they are terrible. Good luck!

I am left handed but just learned to play bass right handed. I am fairly ambidextrous in that my hand writing is equally illegible with either hand and that I am crap at golf irrespective of trying to play left handed or right handed. One of my absolute favourite players, Scott Reeder, plays left handed but with right handed bass turned upside down. I suppose this approach makes it easier for him to shop for basses.

Wal bass through a Gallien Krueger heads and massive cabs. I would if I could. Add in a few effects and Martin could get himself a gig in a Tool tribute band to earn a bit more money.

The GK1001RBii is a beast of an amp. I played a few shows with one. It is strange that it is so difficult to try Mesa bass gear in Scotland, considering that their UK distributors are in Glasgow (Westside Distribution), but there you go. I have seen a couple of Big Blocks in Scotland in the classifieds over the last few months, that is the only Mesa amp I would sell my Carbine for. Edit: by 'classifieds I also include Facebook 'Buy/sell forums'.

I think that the guy I bought my Carbine from (Largo) on here, ended up with D800, so you could try him. If you have any concerns on weight and want a valvey preamp sound I would probably avoid the Carbine range. The Walkabout is only 13 lbs or so, the rest are a good bit heavier. If you want valve preamp tone in a light-ish package I would recommend that over the D800. The Walkabout has limited headroom unless you run it through a bigger, more efficient cab though. In terms of the cabs, the Powerhouse cabs are heavy beasts, so if you have any concerns of weight whatsoever, I would suggest just getting the Subway range. The tone will be great and the added benefit will be that you can actually lift them. I have a Powerhouse 6x10 which I have no doubts will deliver more heft than a couple of Subway cabs stacked, but it is equally a pain to lift and move (it weighs 110lbs or so). These days nobody should ever need a 6x10, I don’t either I just wanted to own a big cab at least once in my life.

As a Carbine and Walkabout owner, my understanding is that the preamp of the D800 series is a similar design to the Carbine series: big, clean, fast attack, easy to dial in a good tone and with tonnes of headroom. This is different from the MPulse and Walkabout range which are trying to capture the sound of an all valve amp. I would doubt that the D800 will lack anything in terms of tone, heft or volume. It just won’t sound like the MPulse or a Walkabout, most likely because it wasn’t designed to sound like them.

In terms of sound very similar. The Metro has the hum cancelling pick ups, the NYC has true single coils. In the mix there isn’t much difference (other than the NYC has a low B). To my ears Metro is a bit more aggressive and modern sounding, though this is probably because whoever originally ordered my NYC wanted a more vintage sounding bass. The NYC is a bit more ‘bling’ with more flame and figuring. In terms of general fit and finish they are the same, other than my NYC has smaller lower profile vintage frets, the Metro has fairly chunky higher profile frets. I wouldn’t sell either of them! The Metro gets played more, simply because it has been my main bass since 2009 and I only got the NYC in 2016 and haven’t used it in my bands yet.

I own a non chambered Metro four string and a chambered NYC five string. The Metro is not a heavy bass by any means. I literally cannot imagine a situation where I would need a lighter four string bass. My NYC is 2009 or so and it is chambered. I think that the clambering started in the mid to late 2000s. Join Talkbass and ask a question on Sadowsky thread and you will get an answer, perhaps even from Roger Sadowsky himself. There are usually a few NYCs on the BC marketplace, so keep an eye out and you can get a used NYC at the cost of a new Metro.

I have the same head. I run the gain at about 9 o’clock and the master often less than that. I play through a Mesa 6x10 so that is why I don’t crank the volume! However it is equally loud through my old 8 ohm Trace Elliot 1x15. The gain has never been higher than 10 o’clock. It is a clean amp so you are not losing out on ‘valve warmth’ by running it on low gain settings. I would do that before looking to get attenuator. I personally think that the amp is too loud, which saying something because I own a Trace Elliot V6 and EBS Fafner. The volume taper on the Mesa M6 is like an old Marshall amp in the that the output volume goes from zero to stupidly loud with little in between. I have to run the gain ridiculously low as otherwise it is impossible to obtain a usuable output on the master volume setting. The tone of the Mesa though is brilliant why is why I have kept it.

I am about the same. I have the b3k which I really like as an alternative to the Sansamp Bass Driver on low drive settings. Higher drive settings on the pedal leave me a bit 'meh' compared to my old Aguilar Agro (R.I.P.). Not that the higher gain settings are bad, they are just not to my taste. However, I am not entirely convinced that there is that much tonal difference between the Alpha Omega series, and the b3k/b7k series to warrant another overdrive line. The Vintage series is different enough I suppose I give them a pass on that. The hpf and lpf filters are admittedly quite cool features. For my purposes though the blend on the b3k works well enough that I don't feel that I need a hpf/lpf filter. The only Darkglass pedal I would like to have an 'ultra version' of is the Duality, The Duality is definitely my favourite Darkglass pedal, as it is just a full on over the top fuzz pedal rather than a 'modern metal overdrive' pedal. I would love a separate 3 band EQ to shape the fuzz a bit more.

Yepp. I have used the Walkabout with an Ampeg 8x10 on many occasions and through the Mesa 6x10 I bought earlier this year. The Walkabout can be ridiculously loud through a bigger/more efficient cabinet. It has handled open air gigs without any issue whatsoever. Also slightly on topic, I have barely touched the parametric EQs on the amp in 9 years, other than to try and cut a bit of the sub bass that can dominate the 1x15 combo.

Looks like a great amp for the price.

Walkabout owner here since 2008. It is hard to find something that will really rival that amp in terms of old school tone but be lighter and have more power. Even the bigger Mesa amps don't capture the Walkabout tone in my opinion (I own an M6 Carbine too). You are probably going to have to consider something with a class D power section if you want more power and less weight. The Mesa D800, EBS Reidmar and Darkglass Microtubes amps get rave reviews and I am sure could do some great old school tones. For me though, I have tried some larger, louder and heavier amps (Mesa M6 Carbine, EBS Fafner and Trace Elliot V6) but nothing comes close to the Walkabout. A couple of owners here would recommend a company call Handbox, but I have no experience. If you love the sound of the Walkabout but want more volume, I would recommend getting a more efficient cabinet to obtain more volume, which will result in 'get a Barefaced cab' comments in about 5 seconds.

These days I mostly play very ‘loud’ rock music. However even bearing that in mind, with smaller venues there is always a real risk of being too loud, even in a genre where a pushed valve guitar amp through a 4x12 or 2x12 is the norm, It is context dependent though. If I am specifically going to see a doom metal band, I am going to expect a fair amount of volume. However I don’t expect to hear that levels of volume when listening to a band playing a set of covers in a pub that is open to the public or a function band. I wouldn’t want to hear Mustang Sally at a ridiculous volume when I am really trying to watch a game of football or chat to my mates while listening to a bit of music.

I got a used NYC five string for the same price as a new Metro from Bass Direct so you can get them second hand for a much more attractive price. They also crop up on the Marketplace here as well. Great basses.

Bass Direct state on their website that they can take custom orders from the US shop, so they would be my first port of call. Guitar Guitar also have a few NYC Satin basses. Every NYC I see on the Gallery site is pre-owned. Mostly they deal with the Metroline series. You might be able to put a custom order through though.

Alleva Coppola make some very nice boutique looking jazzes. For me though, if you want a great passive jazz bass, a Fender will be as good as anything. You just need to play a few until you find ‘the one’.

I'm guessing that the CD of 'Rough Mixes' in the deluxe will be far superior to the actual album. I like the compositions in the album, I just find the album mix to be unlistenable after about two tracks. It isn't just the absence of bass, it is the incredibly loud mix of the drums have no bottom end or depth whatsoever, it is complete lack of musicality or definition in the rhythm guitars. With that said, I loved the remastered versions of Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning.

I think that the chassis for the combo head was the same as the chassis used for the head only version of the amp. A cost saving measure by Trace Elliot. Some of the units shipped with the extra jack socket covered with a plug to stop you using it. Still annoying though.