I've tried a Mark Bass TTE 500 Randy Jackson model today...

[Grand Wazoo]

... and I liked it a LOT.

I had to take my Little Mark Tube 500 head to the authorized service workshop Proel International in West Norwood because it needed 2 noisy posts changed under warranty, first of all what a great service! "while-u-wait"! Not many authorized repair workshops do their repair while the customer can wait and watch and they can sit you down with any MTD bass you like (yes they are also main distributors of Michael Tobias Design basses) and any Mark Bass amp you can dream of, so I politely asked if I could try their new TTE 500 Randy Jackson model and I loved it.

The first thing you'll notice is how light it is, only 6Kg it has a nice vintage leathery sort of side handle that allows it to be carried around with one hand.

I've only tried it in a 2 x 10 MBass cab i.e. only 300W power at 8ohms but even then it was scarily loud.

Now, about the sounds. I am not a good reviewer but I'll try my best. This amp is quite a departure from what you'd expect from MarkBass, the preamp is all tube powered, I could see 4 valves through the grill mesh and they look like 4 x ECC83 type, while the power amp is a solid state one, this is their new propietary "tube technology emulator" hence the name TTE which as the name suggest is none other than a tranny trying to sound like a big f*** off valve power amp of the 70's, and guess what? it does sound like a big f*** off 70's valve power amp, hearing is believing.

Now the intersting bits, THE CONTROL PANEL, only one input socket followed by a passive / active switch, nothing out of the ordinary there, first in line is the gain knob coupled with the clip light that tells you if you are overloading your input sound, the idea is that if you see the little clip light coming on it means you need to back up the gain a little until it disappear, next in line is an "always on" compressor rotary knob which means the more you dial it towards 10 the more compression you introduce into your sound, leave it at 0 and no compression takes place, oh and you'll know when you are compressing because a little blue led light comes on when the effect starts to work. So how does this compressor sound? Well it is subtle and surprisingly enough, it's quite transparent without over colouring or defeating the original clean signal sound, so it does a good job of squeezing your upper and lower spikes into your preferrable even keel, while retaining the sound as it was intended. So top Marks there - no pun intended.

The EQ layout is also different from the average Little Mark heads as instead of Low / Mid Low / Mid High and High you've only got 3 knobs Low, Mid and High and the cherry on the cake is a new sound shaper called Colour which is slightly similar to their VLE (Vintage Loudspeaker Emulator) present in all the other Mark Bass heads, which simply explained implied that the more you turn it towards the 10 mark, the darker it gets, by dimming the highs and introducing dark mids and bottomy lows into the equation. The last control knob before the ON/OFF switch is the Master Volume.

So how does it sound, well, having played mainly Mark Bass amps for the last 6 or 7 years, such as LM II / LM III and Little Mark Tube 500 my ears are well tuned to those type of heads and after trial and error I have come to learn a lot on how to get a good sound from them, by actually using all the knobs! Whereas I have noticed that the majority of the people who owns them leave everything at 12'o clock and just use the VLE/VLF filters to shape their sound, which is a bit of a waste because Mark Bass amps can be very very versatile if you know how to tweek them.

Still, the less knobs you have to shape your sound, the easier it gets, and this new TTE 500 gets you there in no time, seriously: plug in, give it a little comp, set the lows a bit over 12'o clock, stick the mids at quarter to nine, and your highs at 1 o clock, and you are left with the final shaping Colour knob to take care of your cutting through presence, the result is guaranteed to please both you and the audience. With the possibility to sound both modern and vintage, this amp is very versatile, loud and blessed with the good looks too.

I recommend you to try one and see/hear for yourself, then you tell me how right or wrong I was. However the best news is that when this amp was first rumoured to arrive on our shores it was estimated to be costing around £990+ but instead it retails a lot more reasonably at around £799 from GAK / SoundsLive and other online retailers which is very close to the retail price of a Little Mark Tube 800 head and to be honest I know which I'd choose.

but...

Would I buy one? Heck yeah!

but...

Am I going to get one? Sadly no, and that is not because I don't like it, as I've already said it, I love it but I don't need another amp certainly not that badly anyway. If I didn't have already 3 great amps, I would definately go for it.

Honestly if you get a chance give one a spin, you'll love it.

Edited September 3, 2011 by Grand Wazoo

[nottswarwick]

How's the clean tone?

[Grand Wazoo]

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='1360680' date='Sep 3 2011, 08:30 AM']How's the clean tone?[/quote]

Do you mean as opposed to distorted? You need to crank the gain up to 7 or 9 (while keeping the master pretty low or it will explode) to get it to clip first, however I haven't really explored playing it dirty because I rarely do, so overall I have only played it clean, and all I can say is that when you play it clean it can go from very funky, cristal clean to moderately vintage hot and deep.

[nottswarwick]

thanks. yes, I had kind of assumed that it was mainly a dirty sound a-la the Terror Bass, at moderate to higher volumes. But you are saying that basically it is a clean clear sound? There is a video of Peter Murray playing his MM bass through it and it seems kind of overdriven, ish?

I have to say that I like the look of it...but I like nice new shiny things...and anyway, I cannot afford it.

ABM500 for me for some time to come I think......

[Grand Wazoo]

Yes I agree it is merely a clean head unless you crank it. I assume Randy Jackson ain't exactly the sort of bloke to play Death Metal, and if this head was designed for that sort of sound I doubt he would have had his signature on it. So no, this is no Terror Bass, no Little Rocker, it's just a powerful staple sound of a head which I think would be more at home with the average session musician who plays a wide variety of styles.

[Musicman20]

Im glad they have sorted the shop price out. Mainly because, despite the fact I love Markbass, they would seriously struggle to sell any against Genz's Streamliner 900, which is aimed at a similar market.

Granted, the MB one looks superbly made, and more 'amp like', and Ive not heard it, so I can't really comment.

Overall, I still struggle to find a Markbass amp I like more than the LM3 with the tone controls at 12...and no filters. Ok, maybe a little bump on the low mids, but that sound is great.

Nice review Fran, what were those basses like?

[voxpop]

Thanks for the review, sounds like a very interesting sound... will have to try and get my hands on one.

[Musicman20]

IME, much more reasonable:

[url="http://www.soundsliveshop.com/p/Markbass_TTE_500_Bass_Amplifier_Head/MARKBASS-TTE500"]http://www.soundsliveshop.com/p/Markbass_T...MARKBASS-TTE500[/url]

[Grand Wazoo]

[quote name='Musicman20' post='1360889' date='Sep 3 2011, 12:38 PM']Nice review Fran, what were those basses like?[/quote]

They were ok for £700 a piece, these are MTD Kingston - made in China mind you, a bit of ok, aimed at the mid / high end players, well made and with nice pickups wood covers, they certainly beat the average Ibanez SR series and with nice veneer tops to boot. Oh and the necks were comfy too. I think the one I tried was called the MTD Kingston Z and looked very much like this one except that the one I tried was a 4 banger not a 6'er



[url="http://www.mtdkingston.com/MTD_Z_InfoSheet_v2.pdf"]http://www.mtdkingston.com/MTD_Z_InfoSheet_v2.pdf[/url]

Edited September 3, 2011 by Grand Wazoo

[stevie]

I wonder why anyone would buy a product named after somebody called Randy.

[WalMan]

Tried the doinked one out in GAK today - something fell on it and dinged the front grill but you'd never know without a close look and it fires up just fine so it's a fairly sturdy beast too. It was into an Ampeg 4x10 and sounded really good. I also liked it a lot & am [i][b][u]sorely[/u][/b][/i] tempted.

As mentioned sparse on the front and just as sparse on the back. two Speakons and a DI as far as I could see, but no loop. That's probably no great issue.

Edited September 4, 2011 by WalMan

[Badass]

Thanks for that review [b]Grand Wazoo[/b]

[Pete Academy]

I'm waiting to get a listen to this.

[algmusic]

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='1360743' date='Sep 3 2011, 10:20 AM']thanks. yes, I had kind of assumed that it was mainly a dirty sound a-la the Terror Bass, at moderate to higher volumes. But you are saying that basically it is a clean clear sound? There is a video of Peter Murray playing his MM bass through it and it seems kind of overdriven, ish?

I have to say that I like the look of it...but I like nice new shiny things...and anyway, I cannot afford it.

ABM500 for me for some time to come I think......[/quote]

That's my thought, it hardly sounds that clean. TBH I haven't found a tube pre amp that provide warm and gritty, but not as smooth as an all valve amp.. I love my TB, that said I did change the valves to less 'hot' ones which worked a treat. But I don't get on with other valve tubey pre amps

Great review matey

[WalMan]

[quote name='Badass' post='1362048' date='Sep 4 2011, 07:01 PM'] Thanks for that review [b]Grand Wazoo[/b]

[/quote]
Boy my ears are shot. The TTE didn't sound as good as I heard this afternoon in the clip and I heard very little difference when the controls were changed.

I'd still like to try one through my BF Super12T and A/B it with the LMT

[Mike]

I bought one a few weeks ago. Loving it - only one gig so far but it sounded great. Need to properly roadtest it but preferring the tone to my old TC Electronics RH450. Shame about lack of footswitch etc but that's Markbass for you!

[Grand Wazoo]

[quote name='Mike' post='1362385' date='Sep 4 2011, 10:51 PM']I bought one a few weeks ago. Loving it - only one gig so far but it sounded great. Need to properly roadtest it but preferring the tone to my old TC Electronics RH450. Shame about lack of footswitch etc but that's Markbass for you![/quote]

So Mike would you say this amp more of clean amp as opposed to one that distorts easily, I know the video shown above from Pete Murray sounds like it's quite dirty and have no idea why Pete would demo it like that, but I couldn't get it to clip unless I'd turn the gain from 7/9 onwards. What are your views on the main use of this amp, dirty or clean?

[Mike]

[quote name='Grand Wazoo' post='1362540' date='Sep 5 2011, 07:08 AM']So Mike would you say this amp more of clean amp as opposed to one that distorts easily, I know the video shown above from Pete Murray sounds like it's quite dirty and have no idea why Pete would demo it like that, but I couldn't get it to clip unless I'd turn the gain from 7/9 onwards. What are your views on the main use of this amp, dirty or clean?[/quote]


Certainly for me, clean! I have no need nor interest in a dirty sound and haven't even experimented with that. When I was looking for a new amp to replace my TC, I pretty much just relied on flat amp settings and using my ears - to my ears this was the cleanest, most snappy, responsive amp I played - with no hint of the "processed" hifi sound that I felt the TC had.

Maybe for fun I will experiment tonight with a dirty sound. I'm really not sure what market it's aimed at - they are only preamp tubes rather than "actual" tubes as far as I'm aware so if anyone's looking for a valve amp this might not be it. I think RJ is right, and that you can get a modern and old sound out of this (whatever an old school sound actually is!). I'm using Sadowsky, Warwick and Fender with it and they all sound lovely.

If anyone wants to play on one, I'm in Chelmsford, Essex - they'd be welcome to pop over.

[fender73]

i was in GAK a few weeks ago when a dude was returning one of these heads as it wasn't loud enough....remind me never to go and see his band.

[Grand Wazoo]

[quote name='Mike' timestamp='1315210193' post='1362600']
If anyone wants to play on one, I'm in Chelmsford, Essex - they'd be welcome to pop over.
[/quote]


Oooooo!!! I'd love to fire a Dingwall through that head...

[molan]

I spent about an hour with one of these and pair of different MB cabs today & was seriously impressed

I mostly used the matching Randy J 1x10 cab but also had a blast through an MB 4x10 as well.

First thing to say, partially in response to the comment above, it was damn loud for a 300w head into an 8 ohm cab. With the 1x15 it was easily loud enough for any gig I might want to use it on, with the 4x10 it was making the walls & ceiling shake and I was only half way up on both pre & master gain!

Very clean sounding but with a great growl when used with the right bass. I was lucky enough to be using a Fodera Monarch Deluxe with Seymour Duncan dual coils which has a great growly sound down around first 3-5 frets anyway.

Played through the RJ & the 1x15 I could get virtually my 'perfect' rock bass tone with a little bass bass boost, a touch of compression and the 'colour' control at about 9 o'clock. The colour control was much nicer to use than my previous experience with MB contour controls but I didn't have time to A/B with another MB head to see if this was just a bit of bias as I was enjoying the RJ so much, lol.

The passive tone controls were great as well - damn near impossible to get a bad sound from them, just nice gentle variations which sounded very 'musical'.

Definitely want to try this baby rig up against my current 'reference' Aguilar rig & with some of my own basses

[krispn]

Looking forward to reading more about this head.

[RichT1969]

I bought a mark bass TTE 500 with a mark bass 6 x 10 cab. I love the look of it and it sounded great in a small room in the shop. However, on stage or at a practice I can never get enough bottom end bass. I've tried all control positions and all my bass guitars through it, from fender deluxe, musicman stingray and a GB custom 5 string but still the same. Has anyone else had this problem?

Rich

[Lozz196]

I`m assuming all those basses are active (as don`t know about the GB Custom)? If so, set all the eq on the bass flat, then on the amp, add some bass. Leave the filters fully off. Then stand some 20 feet away from the amp. If you need any highs, add high-mids, not treble. I`ve found with my Markbass gear that although up close it can sound twangy, out front where the audience are is a different matter.

[molan]

I think most MarkBass heads are 6ohm so I guess it's possible the TTE500 may not be chucking out enough watts to really get it moving air if you're up against a loud drummer and some 4x12 guitar stacks.

However, it should be pretty loud if you've got your gain stage set ok.

I'd think it's the issue (as outlined above) that you're not hearing what it really sounds like out front when you're right on top of it.

I've definitely had this with 4x10's so maybe a 6x10 is 50% worse