Carlsbro. A blast from the past.

[kodiakblair]

11 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

As I recall we used to judge the 'Carlsbro  sound' by comparing them with other amps 🙂

Elfrasho says it was his first bass amp. Perhaps he played a few amps in shop and locked the "sound" in his head ?

That's a talent beyond me. Only factors I considered was being heard and what I could afford,same criteria of everybody I knew in the early 80's.

[40hz]

My first amp back in 2003 was a Carlsbro b150 4x10 combo. 150 watts of pure 80's-ness

It was languishing in someone's garage doubling as a cave for moths when I found it (the memory of hoovering it out still sticks in my mind 🤢🤮).

My old band used to call it the 'Monolith' and it was actually a fairly nice sounding thing and was plenty loud enough. Also had an onboard compressor and a 12 band EQ if my memory serves me correct.

 

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

Perhaps he played a few amps in shop and locked the "sound" in his head ?

I don't have any trouble doing this, honestly.

[Chienmortbb]

16 hours ago, Elfrasho said:

Ahhh amazing - That brings back memories. My first bass amp. My big bro got it for me out of the local adverts in the paper. I remember it being huge, extremely ugly and sounding awful. Probably around 98/99. Would love to try one again!

 

 

 

 

 

They have one of those at one of our local rehearsal rooms. No surprise that it is the cheapest of the three local ones. 

[Elfrasho]

3 hours ago, kodiakblair said:

Elfrasho says it was his first bass amp. Perhaps he played a few amps in shop and locked the "sound" in his head ?

That's a talent beyond me. Only factors I considered was being heard and what I could afford,same criteria of everybody I knew in the early 80's.

I remember it just being an extreme dull and uninspiring sound. My 2nd amp was a beringer 120w tilt back thing.. That instantly gave me a more top end zing type sound which I preferred at the time. 

 

 

If there was nothing else to play through then it would do a job, but it's not one of those amps that has aged well. 

 

When I think back it must've been earlier than 98.. Probably 95ish. But it was already an old amp. 

[Raslee]

Someone stole my Carlsboro back in the mid 90,s ....one the nicest gestures in my whole bass career! 

[el borracho]

On 05/01/2020 at 18:20, bigthumb said:

I had this amp when I was about 18 

😪

I could only dream of owning a Trace Elliot 

 

I bought one of these new in 1984 for (I think) £195. It was my first proper bass amp - up to that point I was using a 50 watt WEM guitar amp.

I was quite happy with it and general concencus at the time was that Carlsbro was something to aspire to if you couldn't afford Peavey or Laney which were the only brands widely available in the local shops when I was looking. They were certainly recommended to me by more experienced players than myself.

After about a year I sold it and got a 150 watt Stingray head with a homebuilt (by somebody) 1x15 & a White 4x12 (the speakers of which are still going strong in a friend's Marshall cab)

I found the amp plenty loud enough for 150 watts and I don't recall being unhappy with the sound. Also, remember in those days the average pub band PA was a 150 watt mixer head with a pair of 100 watt 1x12s and nobody ever seemed to bother micing anything up so the quality of the sound was probably pretty irrelevant 😁

 

[uk_lefty]

Many years ago I was working in Leicester for a long period so the company gave us all these plush brand new flats to live in that the developer couldn't sell. It was cheaper to put us in those than to pay for hotels. Anyhow, quite a few of us ditched our London rents and lived in these for free. Which meant weekends alone in Leicester. I saw a Carlsboro amp on ebay in some remote village and drove off to buy it for bog all. Then when I saw it the thing was MASSIVE. I think it was supposed to be a 150w 15" speaker but seriously it was incredibly big. I have a photo somewhere with my 6 string bass next to it looking like a ukulele. It was insanely loud. I couldn't use it in the flat, no way, even on the lowest volume setting it was bowel shakingly loud for miles around. I sold it for a small profit to a gent who was very grateful for the help getting it in yo his car, god knows how he got it out again! 

I have no idea if it had decent tone sculpting or whatever, it was just pure ridiculous! 

[3below]

In the 70s, HH IC100 vs HH VS Bass amp vs Stingray bass amp, or my Hiwatt 200.  Happy days.   

[stewblack]

I went from HH guitar head to Cobra 90, because I could not afford a Trace Elliot and Carlsbro had a good reputation for bass gear back in the day. 

Put it through a Laney 4x10 and was very happy. 

To be honest I didn't know or care about the gearhead side of things until Basstalk or whatever this place was called then. 

Now I know exactly why the basses I like are crap, the amps and cabs I love are rubbush, the strings I prefer are garbage and my taste in effects is risible. 

Which is nice. 

Edited February 4, 2020 by stewblack

[prowla]

My first setup was a Columbus Jazz bass copy into a Carlsbro Stingray and a WEM 2x15.

I had another Stingray at some point; the one with the push-buttons for tone.

[NickA]

15 hours ago, prowla said:

My first setup was a Columbus Jazz bass copy into a Carlsbro Stingray and a WEM 2x15.

I had another Stingray at some point; the one with the push-buttons for tone.

Woo classy.  I could only run to a Grant Jazz bass copy into a Cobra.  

The bass was plywood facings over soft block wood .. as I found out when I stripped the sunburst off it to give it a natural bare wood finish. Live and learn😄

[3below]

1 hour ago, NickA said:

Woo classy.  I could only run to a Grant Jazz bass copy into a Cobra.  

The bass was plywood facings over soft block wood .. as I found out when I stripped the sunburst off it to give it a natural bare wood finish. Live and learn😄

I also did this modification with the same result :). Subsequently built my own replacement body (age 14!) using hand tools.  It wasn't too bad (even allowing for rose tinted spectacles / things were better in the old days)

[prowla]

The Columbus wasn't a bad bass, but it was quite heavy.

My next bass was a Rickenbacker 4001, which I've still got.

Amp-wise, at some point I added a shonky unbranded 4x12 and another amp (I think it was a Maine, which was quite nice, as I recall).

[Rich]

On 21/08/2007 at 22:46, Russ said:

They did a really nice upmarket range of bass amps a few years ago called Delta Bass - they weren't bad at all. Two channels, separate powered subs, quite a few bells and whistles. Good tone too. But they were pretty much commercially ignored, despite the fact that there was hardly any Carlsbro branding on them. http://john.basschat.co.uk/public/style_emoticons/%3C#EMO_DIR%23%3E/smile.png

Zombie quote  

Blimey that takes me back. I had a Delta rig for a while -- 300w head (I couldn't afford the 600) with a 1x15 cab and a 2x8 on top. Good sound but never seemed particularly loud, and oh my word that 15 was a heavy old beast. Massively deep too (dimensions, not sound). 

There's a great quote from Chris May in this thread:

 

 

 

[Russ]

3 hours ago, Rich said:

Zombie quote  

Blimey that takes me back. I had a Delta rig for a while -- 300w head (I couldn't afford the 600) with a 1x15 cab and a 2x8 on top. Good sound but never seemed particularly loud, and oh my word that 15 was a heavy old beast. Massively deep too (dimensions, not sound). 

There's a great quote from Chris May in this thread:

 

 

 

There's actually a Delta rig up on Reverb right now. Looks like the same config you had. And they're not selling it cheap!

 

https://reverb.com/item/10575908-flight-cased-rare-delta-300-pro-bass-rig

 

Not sure if it sold, it says "the seller is away". 

 

Seeing threads I wrote in 14 years ago just makes me feel old now.

[Rich]

Christ, I paid far less than that for it brand new.