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I like markbass and used them for years before I switched to Ampeg, I do think they have a certain sound and the VLE and VPF controls I really liked, if you don’t want to buy another amp I believe they do a few preamp/ pedals, but I’ve never tried them

They are definitely my favourite bass amp. I moved away from them a few years ago and went through loads of different heads and cabs from a variety of makes at modest and stupid price points but then came back and it felt like home. I've used them in big band jazz and in power trios. 99% of the time I just want a touch of compression, an MB head and cab and I'm happy. I find they take pedals well when I need a bit of grit. MB heads work well with a variety of cabs but I'm not as convinced about MB cabs with other heads. That way round seems to miss something to my ears. All the heads have the MB sound, some with some valve flavouring, and others with a different EQ set up with different number of bands and centre points of the bands. Most of the time I leave them all at noon or reduce the bass a little to stop any booming if the room is a bit crap. I am not that precious about "tone" - as long as I've got a good compressor then I'll plug into pretty much everything, but MB kit makes me smile.

Misson control has allowed me to put the speaker on the dining room table to glue the front and rear panels in. It is basically freezing up here. Doing the rear panel first. The front panel is on the right hand side of the picture. Next jobs: Glue front panel in tonight. Route the edges so there's a nice curve Solder speaker wire to the speaker <-- What size wire is OK for 250W? I definitely have AWG16 and might have some thicker in a box somewhere in my basement. I've heard AWG should be used Fill and sand any problems. Paint front baffle matt black. Take off side handles and rear speakon panel, and paint the wood black. I'll mask this area off before the Armacab goes on. Assemble, check all OK Check it all works. Wait for warm weather to do the Armacab. - July 2027?

Oh-Ar? In all of these years being on BassWorld and BassChat, I've never seen that! 🤣 Blimey! I'm losing my edge! I shall seek out this public messaging function! Thank you!

Put some real lubricant grease, the Chapstick is maybe good for lips, but will become dry very soon on a bass... You could have tried butter instead for the same (non) effect. Putting some good ol' vaseline will work better and remain lubricant for years. So you're good to start again.

@LawrenceH, @Rexel Matador, @Merton - exciting stuff gents! Could you share a bit more about your bands (I think Rexel has provided quite a bit of this already) in terms of: - band line up (e.g. 4 piece, instrumentation etc), when you guys formed, and whereabouts you're based? - plans for 2026 in terms of gigs & material?

Yeah, it would be great to try them out side by side. Andertons are the nearest shop to me (about 1hr away) that sell the Nord and Numa so I might go on a road trip. As far as I can tell there is only a single Viscont Legend One for sale in the UK (Gear4Music have one in stock, but their shop in York with is a >12hr round trip from Chichester) so I think it'll need to be an online purchase (in which case Thomann are cheaper) if that's what I go for and prepare to use the return policy. I tried the MIDI thing via an M-Audio keyboard (which I've since sold) but it turned into a bit of a liability live. There was latency but odly it was only occasional, I'd optimise everything on the Laptop, ASIO , Airplane mode, close all other programmes etc. and use it exclusively for music but it still seemed to have a mind of it's own at the most crucial moments (perhaps due to the keyboard, interface, software plugins, DAW, Laptop processing power or RAM....I dunno what the cause was - a lot of variables and potential points of failure felt part of the issue. I then got a good gaming Laptop (still Windows not Mac) and UA Volt interface and that seemed to work well at home, but almost every time I turn it on some sort of software needs updating and that makes me nervous, and things like Organ drawbars and effect knobs being mapped differently to different presets with nothing on the Keyboard clearly indicating what's happening seems potentially confusing without looking at the Laptop screen which I'd rather not do live, and just the live practicalities of where to put the Laptop and interface and relying on USB cables etc just seems a bit of a faff and liability. But yeah, in theory I can see that a decent MIDI keyboard and Laptop gives almost unlimited sound options and upgrades and I am sure it works well for lots of people and probably is the future, perhaps I should give it another chance, I think having a good dedicated Macbook would probably be needed to be more certain of reliability and low latency.

Me too. It's a never-ending journey! My first bass was a new short-scale Watkins Rapier in pale blue like the one pictured below. At the time I didn't even know there were different scale lengths available. Just got it because it was the only thing in our local guitar shop that I could afford. Paid £31 IIRC. If a used one of these came up I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Watkins Rapier bass 1965.avif

Markbass are good sounding amps, in a mix they fit very nicely.

Who knows! I have wondered what happened to it though... It was my entry to the world of bass and I'm still trying to master it some 40 years later!!

Great pic!! Wonder if the bass has survived as you obviously have.

No T-rex tooth nut?

Someone, don't remember who, explained this a few weeks ago: on people's profile page, there's a field for sending them a public message. I gather people have no idea whatsoever that this means the message becomes a status update (it doesn't say that it does), and that they also do not contemplate the meaning of the word "public".

I haven't tried the Spectracomp but I've used the Hypergravity, and assuming it's similar you ought to be able to achieve all that with a 2- or 3- band preset, especially if they have gain on each of the bands. Tbh a good 1176-esque preset ought to get you most of the way there without even needing multiband. In general I find: - fast attack/fast release will even out the note attack and sustain, which helps with upper-mid clarity but can choke the bass end a bit hard which is where sidechain HPF comes in handy. - slow attack/slow release will emphasise picking attack over a controlled deep note to give you that soft-picked soul sound. - you can adust ratio and threshold together in a compensatory fashion so that you achieve similar amount of overall gain reduction with either high threshold, high ratio, or low threshold, low ratio. However you do it I find aiming for 3-6dB average reduction is about right for really filling out the sound. For fast settings this'll mean very briefly hitting quite hard (9dB plus) on peaks especially if you dig in or slap. - if you're multibanding, the switch frequency from low to mid-band takes a bit of fiddling to suit pickups and your taste in the low mids, which is quite critical to the body of the sound IME. My own general-purpose pop/rock/funk preference is chaining a slower compressor into a faster compressor, with a ratio no more than 4:1 on each, each taking off the aforementioned 3-6dB. A lot of people will do it the other way round (1176 into LA2/3A is conventional wisdom) but this way worked much better for me.

Excellent, thanks for that @Hellzero.