Dudgeman

I did think about this as i have the preamps on the board ..what dual channel/stereo power amps do you know of? I'm not familiar with just power amps. Thanks.

Hi you beautiful people... Looking for advice/guidance on mini heads for bi amp rig. Scenario: currently I run 2 Marshall DBS 400 heads into a 4x10 and 2x15 cabs in a classic rock/metal covers band. 2 guitarists both on 100w rigs and animal on the drums These amps are power houses ...sound great but parts are getting harder to find and I need something physically smaller. Rig is way too big for the smaller venues. I had to replace the 2x15 and 410 cabs for smaller venues so .. I have made an old Ashdown 4x10 cab into a dual 2x10 cab... 400w per side neo Celestions at 4ohms. Paired with the heads it sounds killer but I need to retire the Marshall's. So I think I need 2 400w plus @4ohm mini/small ( class D???) heads to drive them. Or 200w or over but must be loud...(my long gone old trace 200 was deafening. But not all 200ws are built the same) I tried the darkglass microtubes 200w today in Andertons and it's in the ball park volume wise ( well 2 of them would be) but I don't need their drive circuit...just good clean bass and it didn't do that so well. On my board I have a Dark Glass bk7 ultra pre in one Channel (for grit and oomph) and on the other a Laney Digbeth pre to give me real old school warmth. ( Can highly recommend this pedal. Sounds lovely) So can you give your advice/guidance....max budget really is about £900 for the 2 amps.... But cheaper is always a bonus. Do you think a pair of Warwick gnome or Trace elf (elves?)would be loud enough? Anyone got thoughts on the TC stuff? Although I do need to check they can run at 4ohms.. any help would be really appreciated before we are off gigging again in March. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this far and really hope you can guide... Cheers

Couldn't agree more.... The heads have some serious fire power and headroom for days. The 2x15 are quite rare but is one of the best sounding cabs I've ever heard. I have a 1 x15 version as well but it doesn't quite carry the same amount of heft.... But sadly therein lies part of the problem...they weigh a ton! You can't quite see it but I broke my left shoulder in June and am still recovering...this was taken after 2 hours of playing and the strap took its toll on my clavical which is why I am holding the bass....without my band mates helping me , shifting them would have been nigh on impossible..... However they are an absolute bargain used.... The rig ....not my band mates...they are definitely not a bargain....😂

As I have joined a new , to me, classic rock/metal covers band and have to compete with Animal on the drums and 2 Leary 100w Marshall's I thought I would trot this set up out. Total overkill but my god it sounds good. Sadly I might have to retire the DBS heads as parts are almost impossible to find these days but I'll go down fighting..apologies for being in the photo....check out the fantastic Tee shirt my drummer made...(my name's Carl obvs) on the back it says "probably the best bass player in the band" not actually sure that's true...

I hate to be a downer but I have to agree here. I see a slight parallel with what was going on with my business back in the 90's. Off shore Companies like Thomann are going to become less competitive in the UK market (as proved by my near recent purchase) which closes the door to foreign competition (In house brands not withstanding) ..so the big guns in the UK like Andertons, PMT etc with the buying power to strike major deals with manufacturers and wholesalers are going to end up running the market, cue reduced discounts and price fixing. What our US friends refer to as Mom and pop stores, so our local independent music shops, are, in general, not going to carry the range/stock, and if they can, are unlikely to be competitive on pricing. There always used to be the pro of "I can pop down and get it now" with local stores but with lockdowns and, love it or hate it, the ability of companies like Amazon to delivery next day or in 2 days, I fear for the small high street, and in some cases, internet retailer. The only way to seem to able to survive as a ground business is if you are carrying on an established business with free premises (so massively reduced overheads), a really good reputation/customer base and you can offer a unique service. Anyone tried pulling together a business plan for a start up these days...blimey this country is expensive and on top of that customers aren't allowed out to buy stuff anyway. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. If you do run a small business in the UK I wish you all the best. It isn't easy at the best of times and with all the lockdowns it must be incredibly hard to keep motivated and to keep generating a steady income. I really hope that not too many fall by the wayside as when we finally do get back out gigging the service you offer will be sorely missed if you aren't there.

Ah cool so they have a proper UK presence then.... Anyone know if there is import Duty from Germany on electrical products as well as the VAT? Back in the early 90's I used to run an online photographic store with a business partner. We used to work closely with our wholesalers and had a system where we would carry a lot of low priced and smaller stock ready for immediate dispatch and we worked agreements where the wholesalers would send high level items direct to customer and invoice to us. This allowed us to offer a huge range of cameras that could be dispatched within a day and customers usually had the item within 2 working days maximum it also meant we lost at least one P and P cost and meant we could keep turn over high and profit margins low thus passing on the benefit to the customer. In order to make bigger profits one really needed to specialise in small but expensive markets like medium and large format photography rather than the mainstream.

So on their site it says available in Romford (obviously I cant get there at the moment) so do you know if it is available there it will be all paid up with nothing owing if they ship? Sorry I should ask them..its just your notification popped up..

Happy new year all...I was about to post a new thread when I saw this one...I did read the first 12 pages and then skim so apologies if this has been covered..the thread seemed to start wandering... So for my B/day/Christmas I decided I wanted a NI S88 MK2 keyboard...struggling to find one in the UK so popped off to Thomann and they have stock at £715 ....It didn't even cross my mind that leaving the EU would incur Duty and VAT at our border... I really am not that into politics and frankly I had enough to deal with coming up to the new year and completely forgot about Brexit... In my Cart it says nothing about incurred charges and the shipping is free due to ticket price..thing is if I get charged in the UK at 20% that makes the item £850 ish plus a handling fee (which seems to out of my control) which is no where near competitive with UK prices so how on earth are Thomann going to be competitive? Fortunately I didn't order it. Purely by chance something crept into my head about import as around here (Swindon) they are red hot on collecting all duty/VAT and post office handling fees...In fact it works out to be so expensive I have completely stopped ordering from China and the US..it just isn't economical to do so unless the item price is tiny.. So is there import duty as well as VAT on stuff from Germany?? Which companies are worth buying from..I see DV247 are matching Andertons price at £799...anyone had any dealings with them? Are they UK based? I used BAX once and it was a terrible shopping experience so not going back there....Happy to buy in the UK although I liked the non VAT price of Thomann better than the UK prices.. 😂

Isn't the Behringer super octaver supposed to be a direct clone of the OC2...doesnt get much cheaper than that...check out JHS on youtube...josh did a whole vid on Behringer pedals and their ...ahem....'tribute' to Boss pedals...

Any ABY pedal..I use the LS 2 and a lehle Dual (awesome) and I am waiting for a donner pathfinder as this has phase reversal ( i run 2 amps) and also has volume to both outputs...also if it doesnt give ground loops it will be a bargain at £35.00.... thought I would give it a go......Gigrig abybaby also very good but expensive..... there are quite a few on the market just make sure they are ABY and not A/B pedals.

I use everything with a clean blend...it opens up so many options...but recently I bought a Sheehan deluxe drive and if I was only allowed one pedal thats it. Parallel clean with great od to almost distortion...built in compressor...with a boost function (with internal dip switch for gain level) 2 loops one on the clean side and one on the dirty side allows you to add pedals..(i use an OC2 in the clean loop) changeable opamps and its phase reversible... I mean thats some serious bang for your buck....oh and it sounds fantastic in a band setting as well...really cuts through...

Hi all First off I hope everyone is well and keeping safe. I am not looking for a George L vs all other cable debates..god knows there's enough of those on the net. My question is 2 fold really 1. On grabbing my George ls out to complete and overhaul of my (BIg) board I noticed that the chrome plating had come off some of them..no idea where it has gone...lol...check checked in the pedals not there......anyway...Does anyone know if this would have any effect on the connectivity of these jacks? It doesn't show any issues on my multimeter..they are showing continuity and resistance is around 0 -0.3 OHMS 2. Does anyone know what I should see resistance wise if checking the patch leads tip to tip and sleeve to sleeve? I have had issues with a few of the cables and although they are showing continuity one of the cables was running 3 OHMs tip to tip...I swapped this cable out and I managed to test the cable and the centre wire was running 0.3 ohms which is the reading I was getting if I touch the multimeter leads together...I am not an electrician and wonder if this correct, so I am assuming this is what I should see....but no matter how I put the lead together I can not get it to drop to below 3ohm...Does this make a difference with the sound transfer and should I just be looking for continuity or is this resistance part of the issue with dodgy connection? Any help...and just to stop the influx of "buy soldered cables" I am using George L's at the moment because it is what I have and I am constantly changing my board but I am close to finalising my layout and when I do I will probably go to a full soldered system. I am currently running 17 pedals including lehle ABY boxes and a Free the tone Arc 3 looper so that is a lot of cables to change if I am not happy with my board and so being able to change the positioning around using the George L's is where I need to be at the moment. Thanks for any help you guys can offer..

That's really cool if it works for you. I haven't come across many guitar amps with a DI out but then I'm not a guitarist so maybe tech has moved on and it is a more common feature on modern amps.( oops just read that it was from the 90s haha) If I was running clean bass amps I would have no issue with DI. I am simply not a fan of only using IEM.. I have pro quality Sennheiser Iems available but live I don't like them....I sweat a lot..they slip (even my moulded ones) ..it blocks out the crowd noise, i have never had a decent mix from the board and the end for me was when one SE decided to start talking to me mid song.. it was funny..but irritating in equal measure...lol... I like an onstage cab I prefer the sound vibe it gives me. It's the same at home..If running through a DAW for practice I always use room monitor's..don't like wearing headphones unless I am recording and I am forced to. I would like to clarify that I am not in the camp of agreeing with JB. Running 50w /100w Valve amps flat out is pretty daft and totally unecessary.....

That is absolutely not the way to go, it simply doesnt work.like that...That is exactly what Wheatus did when they played with us in Wales.. they flatly refused to let the sound guys do FOH mixing and it was positively the worst sound I have ever heard from a band... The venue had a way of massively amplifying the low end ...Sound guys were helpless to do anything apart from volume. We let them do our sound...definitely one of the pro set ups I had the pleasure to deal with and really good engineers.

pre Kemper I would say, absolutely, Chris' Muse tones needed his 2x15s which is why they were always under the stage... That's why I used them and they definitely influence his sound. I don't do the Muse stuff anymore but if I did I would like to know who would pay the £2k plus for the Kempers you would have me buy..I love tech but don't have the money to invest in that sort or gear anymore so I use amps live. It's the way it is.. and it's the way I prefer to play..I do have iems but have never received a quality mix from a desk to them yet that would persuade me to go all in. I am back gigging in July so may well give them another go to see if my local venues have got on top of iems as I like my hearing as much as I like to play live.

I used to run 2 Marshall 7400s one through a 4x10 one through a 2x15. Multiple effects through both in order to replicate Muse bass tones when doing out tribute. The sounds out of the speakers were about 90% dead on but every gig would be the same..Sound engineer...."Chuck this in your DI bud" Me.." Sorry DI's don't work you need to Mic the cabs" Sound engineer " I only DI bass" Me " Its no good using DI the sounds I have spent hours setting up include the Speakers" and so the ever repetitive stand off would ensue... In the end I gave up arguing with SEs ..and if you look at our YouTube footage you can see that hardly one of them ever got my sound right...In fact I can't watch our YouTube footage it annoys me that much. We used IEs but in the end only for the click...I found them too sterile which is probably my bad but our on stage volume was only ever as loud as the drummer... but I totally agree ..Why do sound Engineers think that DIs are perfectly acceptable for bass sounds? Pretty sure you would never DI a guitar amp... Hmmmmmmm x2!

I love my LS2. Toured with it for years in Muse tribute. Used it to split and already split signal. I use a lehle dual to split first signal as it is simply the best ABY pedal out there imo. The LS 2 allowed me to combine fuzzes for songs like Hysteria. Loop A would have Animato loop B would have big muff and channel 2 out of the lehle would be clean with another big muff if needed. Animato and Big muff in different loops sounds totally different to being in series...I loved the dual volume controls on the LS2. very useful. I have now retired (tempoariliy) the pedal as my new project only needs the one signal split but I won't be selling it any time soon. Quick unwrap yours before it's too late...;-)

I have all manner of drives and the BS deluxe is easily my favourite. I am doing a lot of Billy stuff at the moment and the loops are great... I don't find it too fizzy...I hate fizzy drives... I find that I had to work a lot with the phase section with the tone to get where I want it to be...but then if you are not happy with the sound there is always the options to change the op amp... a lot of features in this pedal especiallt for the average second hand price... Personally I would get another one in favour of the Darkglass stuff...just on price alone. Not too sure what the new update adds to the package...I am happy with the second generation one...keeps me grinning....

I looked and looked and couldn't find the simplest of all pedals.. a simple in out mono switch to turn the distortion on/ off on my Billy Sheehan drive so that I could still use the clean channel loop. So despite being a cack handed fool with electrics there was no way I was shelling out £40 for a cheap drive pedal when less than £10 got me the components for this and I could run the in and out where I wanted. A quick Vicar and tart logo (vicar= clean in.. tart = dirty out...obviously) and it works a treat. More importantly it takes up little space on my board.

It seems with the trace rig I was using that if I pull down the input gain to a point where the feedback isn't an issue I had to basically run the amp flat out to get any volume to match the level of the 2nd amp and even then it was struggling...not enough headroom I guess ( not sure what the power output is) I will try that using my Marshalls as they are wahay louder...then I might be able to balance it. I am thinking about dropping the drive on the pedal and running a second drive in the clean loop on the pedal to try and get the sound that way...

Hi at home I use logic pro with yamaha Hs7s well cranked as I also have one channel octaved up distorted running into a Peavey 20w valve amp to replicate guitar and that runs fairly hot...essentially very different from rehearsal ... feedback is very high pitched ..bloody annoying. The gain thing is wierd. I have the drive at around 12 on the pedal..if I drop the drive below 12 I lose all the sound I am after... I can get shot of the feedback by slamming the input gain down on the amp but then I struggle when the pedal is off to get the required volume out of that channel. I 've seen Billy running something very similar where he is stood riggt in front of the amps with the pedal dimed, hitting ridiculous levels of harmonics with a major mid hump eq with not even a flicker of it feeding back. on both Rigs ( trace and hartke) at the practise room the cabs are stacked...maybe I should park them side by side...see if that helps..

I took a really good look at the video.. It looked like there was a massive full length neck shim when it came in and no shim when finished. I thought at the time the neck looked a little thin at the body end. Maybe that's why the action looked high at the end as well.

Yes but not by much...lol... just wondered if there was a known issue with this pedal live or a simple way round it.....

Great to hear it is still going. You still playing in a Madness trib?

pick ups are new..dimarzio will powers...so fairly sure they are ok..not microphonic at all. The gain on the pedal is around 12 o'clock...which is about where it needs to be with my set up to get the sound I am after... if i drop the mid hump in the EQ it reduces it but then I lose all the articulation and it starts to get wolly sounding. It was a lot better this last rehearsal and will be fine on a bigger stage where I can get away from the amps but in a small rehearsal room it is an issue...bizarre it doesn't happen at home at all. Thanks for your help so far.