thodrik

Well, we have had Professional, Performer and Player basses from Fender. What we need now is: Fender Session: A new chambered ash body designed to give a lightweight and resonant bass, perfect for long SESSIONS where playability and comfort are required; and Fender Sustain: A environmentally conscious design where all metals and plastics on the instrument are made from recycled materials and a body made from recycled composite wood and a gig bag made entirely from organic hemp. Made in Mexico from parts shipped from China by diesel fuelled container ships.

Prices of basses have been going up for years, even before the large inflation jumps. I have had a Sadowsky NYC bass which probably has grown in value by about £1000 in seven years and my s9 Fender Precision is probably worth about £1,300-£1,500 quid now and I bought it for £400 in 1999. It is bit crazy but frankly to be expected in current economic circumstances. The only part of the bass market where used prices are not rising relate to the older Mosfet/hybrid amps because there is no demand for them. Also, the newer class D 'flagship' amps for companies like Mesa Boogie, Gallien Krueger, Aguilar etc, are generally cheaper than the old 'flagship' mosfet amps so I would argue that there actually hasn't been escalating prices to the same degree in the amp market compared to basses. However, if you can handle the weight there are a lot of brilliant amps available for the fraction of the RRP at the time. Frankly, I am less worried by the escalating prices of bass guitars than I am by the escalating prices of Weetabix, milk and those boxes instant Cappacino sachets thingys Nestle make.

Heard the song a thousand times but never really heard the bassline? Absolutely, I own several Metallica albums.

Used to use the 110-50 set and loved them for tuning to drop C and playing fuzzed out stoner rock and retro Sabbathy classic rock. Really liked them.

Band 3 is now my favourite band name I have heard this year.

Love my Big Block. Though as I have owned a V6 for ten years I love the supposed specs of the Purple Chili amp!

Generally just my normal pedals with my Trace Elliot V6. It is very much a clean machine and doesn't really do furry preamp drive and owing to the power of the amp the power amp saturation only kicks in at a volume level more suited to use as a form of torture. So usually I use a couple of drive pedals, a compressor and a delay which I never use but is still on my board because I used it a lot in a previous band a decade ago and have never taken it off my board.

Just got a reply from someone who said they would look into it. It hopefully won't be up long and hopefully nobody buys it in the interim.

I have just messaged them on the instant livechat. Just wondering how long it stays live.

impulse response, the new 21st century fancy way of saying 'speaker/cabinet simulator'. Edit: there is actually quite a lot of science and tech in IRs compared to the 'cut a few high frequencies' old style cab sims. For the record, I'm still rocking the old Tech 21 Samsamp which does the latter.

If using the line out/slave was the best way of delivering the sound of an amplifier to the PA then lots of guitarists would use it both live and in the studio. They generally don't and even when they do, they use the slave/line in conjunction with a cabinet simulation/IR. Most sound engineers in a venue (unless you have your own dedicated sound engineer) will not be able to add an cabinet simulation/IR at the desk from a line out, so you need to bear this in mind if you insist on using the slave/line out directly to the PA. I have heard a generic 'line out' of a guitar straight into an interface for recording. Frankly, it wasn't great and generally only became useable once used in conjunction with an cabinet sim/IR and judicious use of additional EQ. Some modern amps come loaded with IRs which enable them to be used without a speaker load (like the Mesa Badlander). The Dual Rectifier is based on an initial amp design that is about thirty years old. It isn't a truly 'modern amp' in terms of design and was not really designed to be used without a cabinet in the way that more modern amps with inbuilt IRs are. The slave feature on the Dual Rectifier was designed so that the preamp signal could be fed into a different power amp and then to another speaker cabinet rather than as a DI to be fed directly to the PA without any kind of speaker simulation. If the slave/line out direct to the PA was the best option then Mesa wouldn't have released the Cabclone. Yes, you could theoretically run the slave out straight to the board, but it really isn't the best option available.

Then definitely get a load box with IRs. The core tone of a traditional guitar rig (valve amp and cabinet) includes the power amp tubes being driven and the sound of the speakers. The preamp itself is only part of the signal chain. A load box with IRs will achieve the sound of a full rig running into a PA, running from the line out/slave will not. A well mic'd guitar cab will generally sound better than than running directly from the line out to the PA, that is why sound engineers will generally look to mic up a guitar cab rather than run a line out. It isn't really the same as running a line out/DI of a bass amp where generally a cleaner sound is generally used than on a guitar. I would presume that your guitarist has spent a considerable amount of money on a Dual Rectifier, so I would recommend that he/she invests in a solution that will get the most out of the amp. Just running a signal from the line out directly to the PA really isn't the best solution.

A Dual Rec is a big amp to carry around if you are not wanting to use a cabinet. Something like a Helix would be more portable and useable for DI purposes at a gig. A load box with IRs would be the way to go. Mesa even had a CabClone product for the purpose of using the amp without a cabinet when recording or gigging. Insisting on trying to find another way to just go straight from the slave out/line out doesn’t seem like the best strategy when there is another strategy that would most likely achieve better results.

Local venues, other bands in your area that are of similar style or vaguely complimentary, local rock/metal Facebook groups etc, friends/former band mates. Everything helps. If you think that you could pull a crowd for your first gig then you can even try putting on a gig yourself and just find some support bands yourself. Good luck!

Park by Marshall 35 watt combo (1998 to now) Trace Elliot SM300 1x15 combo (1999-2017) EBS Fafner (2009 to now) Mesa Walkabout 15 combo (2009 to now) Trace Elliot GP12 300 SMX (2009-2016) Trace Elliot V6 (2012 to now) Mesa M6 Carbine (2016-2019) Mesa Big Block 750 (2019 to now). I don’t really change amps very often. Strange the amp I owned the shortest was a Mesa M6 but it wasn’t really the Mesa I really wanted, so I sold it to get the one I did really want instead.

I quite like the video. I generally won't purchase a signature model ('Les Paul' guitars being the exception), however this model feels fairly well thought out. Would be interesting to hear what the electronics and pickups are like compared to other active fender offerings.

I think that the cabs were discussed in passing along with the thread for the new amp I have linked below. However, I think that a new thread for just the cabs is fine considered this is Basschat and not a forum which requires all posters to do a detailed search before posting but then accuse posters of thread necromancy if the poster actually does that. Anyhoo, I haven't seen any of the cabs or the amp in person. I really wanted the 4x10 to be four ohms so I could use it with my old V6 which has a 2 or 4 ohm tap. They look cool, but they are pretty heavy for modern cabs and very expensive for a made in China product. Generally they up there with Mesa Boogie/Bergantino premium pricing in US and goodness knows what the eventual price will be in the UK.

Yes, I hear it too. I don't get it on mine either. If I did then I wouldn't be happy and would have done the same. Hopefully you get it sorted.

Sounds like it. That is rotten luck. I once got a faulty Trace Elliot combo. Completely died under warranty. Sent it to TE for repair. Got sent a brand new unit with a repair slip for old one containing four words ‘Cause of fault: death’. Hopefully you get it sorted or a refund.

Could it perhaps be a signal chain buffering issue? I sometimes had bother with other non true bypass pedals and faulty patch cables having an effect on the sound. Though I appreciate that if the pedal is the only thing in the chain then the fault is likely with the pedal.

Yepp, totally silent. I’m very picky about artefacts in the sound signal so if there was any kind of noise then I would have got rid of the pedal.

Just tried mine. Pretty much silent. Might just be a defective unit which is annoying.

I would say, I would pay £1000 plus for the huge Strategy valve amp. The one at Bass Bros has been calling me for a while and I have been really hoping someone buys it just to put me out of my misery.

Yepp, I paid £600 for an M6 in 2016 (which I sold for a bit less) and £750 for a Big Block with footswitch and matching headcase in about 2019. I think anything in the £600-£800 region is fair for the M-Pulse or Carbine range depending on condition. Personally I wouldn’t pay more than that as I would probably buy a new WD800 or TT800 instead (when it is possible to do so in the UK). I would probably wouldn’t pay much more than £600 for an M-2000 but that is just my preference for amps with fewer controls.

Saw one for sale for £1500 recently but I think that is a bit steep. However they are pretty rare. However I think there is more demand for stuff like the all valve 400+ amps. I am a big Mesa fan but there are far too many knobs on it for me. However I think that they were the flagship bass amps for Mesa at the time. If you can handle all of the features then it would be a great buy.