LukeFRC

I think he was selling that very amp off recently...

So an update... I played this a bit, it needed a bit more of a set up and I wasn't sure about the sound, nothing sounded good! Then in an unrelated incident my amp blew up and I was without it for two months... Got it fixed and first thing I wanted to do is finally finish this bass... Switched the pickups around. The "Classic bass" in the neck position gives more high end and slightly hollow mids which does kinda P bass type sound. The "Original bass" in the bridge gives me the tone that I enjoyed in the pink bass, more of the punchy low mids with a bit of fatness to them... sounds good. The "jazz setting" needs the preamp set up differently but gets a kinda jazz bass like single coil tone thing going on. So the thing that I've learned is I think I've over build the bass - the super tight neck joint and and good bridge and thru body make it all feel very solid. It is quite bright resonant accoustically and it sounds quite clean and controlled. The 'warmth' of the wood isn't there as much! What's been really nice is since I got my amp back is that it's the "go to" bass. It's fun to play

it's the cut only mids that catch folk out I think

Interestingly you currently use old vintage trace elliot stuff. Which is great gear but almost the opposite to Mesa! I do the same with Trace, spend ages trying to convince myself I like the tone... Mind you as much as I love it, I'm not tied to this amp for life and could see myself having to explain to the wife why the pretty green loud box had turned into a ugly black hairy one!

1. I tried lots of amps, and had a sound in my head. When I tried out the Walkabout I ended up buying, it was just a really nice sound. It's good quality, there is support (not cheap) and availability is in my case not important as I only need one of them! 2. I tried a Mpulse 600 and the walkabout at the same time before I asked the fella if he wanted to sell me his amp (I was supposed to be selling him one!), the Mpulse was more spiky and 'rock' to the warmer and more rounded walkabout tone. The 3 band parametric also had wider Q which I found more musical than the 5 band on the Mpulse.... It has a big punchy sound with a lot of warmth to it. It's a bit like a cross between a B15 and a bigger valve amp. A lot of the amps I had had before were more hi-fi and clean and sound less musical. Good DI tone 3. erm no idea! I have the walkabout with the scout combo, @wateroftyne had a nice setup with a pair of 1x12 from TKS 4. big warm sounding amp that softens the fact I hit the strings hard... 5. G&L L1000, Warwick thumb and Warwick SS1 with ACG preamp. I especially like it with the warwicks. 6. Walkabout combo. The cabs that WoT will recommend if you need bigger? You're welcome to come try mine if you're in the vicinity. Oh and it looks nice enough that shethatmustbeobeyed doesn't mind it in the front room it fits easily in half the the boot of a Mk7 golf without removing the parcel shelf. Some things like that matter! Having just paid for a new transformer on a Mesa walkabout.... parts aren't cheap on them either.

Go on, let's see a photo of a Gus

I think, especially with Fender, they went from being a small company making basses and stuff to a big company/corporation making basses and stuff. I guess the question is, did the quality change - or more importantly, did the quality control change, and what effect would that have? Similar with Warwick, started out as a tiny company, grew, then in 1992 moved to a bigger plant and stopped using solid brass hardware, then late '90's early 2000's on the back of the nu-metal phase started making lots and lots more instruments a month... then later by 2012 or so scaled back to making less again... ask yourself did the quality change - and why, and I don't think the link is exactly to 'vintage'. I would rather have a custom shop Jazz made in 2017 than a vintage Jazz from 1978... The other aspect is desirability. If there are limited numbers of it then it stands to reason that it will be desirable to some folk. An example is my old JV precision. It was a really nice instrument. But because it said "Fender, squier series" rather than "Squier" it was one of only a few hundred, and because of that worth more than the later ones. Much different to a later one? Probably not! That said sometimes construction tequniques change, nitro sounding "better" for example but not safe to apply. The slab and laminate fretboards Fender used, Musicman changing their preamp, Or my current G&L only having the pickups it does for a couple of years....

Neon...

I dunno, sounds like an unlicensed fake copy to me...

nothing. really nothing.

There's a moral in there for you!

only one of those pickups could be in the correct position!

Again a note of caution - if the PA speker is designed to cross over to a sub then the bottom end might be compromised compared to what we would expect of a bass cab - they will have made different compromises when designing the bass cab

Secondhand Warwick corvette $$ fit the bill or does it need to look more traditional?

Update: over two months without an amp - it's been painful But it's fixed, primary winding on the transformer has gone, new replacement sent from the USA and fitted - price for transformer is not cheap - £250-300 ish But it works

I think the example of Roger Glover and Vigier I like. It feels like there's a relationship there that both benefit from, Roger gets the bass he wants, and helps a smaller company get a bit more publicity. I bet people have ordered Overwaters based on Scott from Scot's bass lessons using them on his online thingys - things like that that move sales from massive corps to smaller builders I like. I still wish I had bought the copy of Herbie flowers jazz that Wes Steed built - it was up for sale here a couple of times, most recently by @molan To be honest I have no idea who Herbie Flowers is, and typically don't get on with Jazz basses, but Wes built an amazing looking bass and.... GAS! This is why, even though we moan about it, they really should stick to Precison and Jazz basses... If you can't actually get hold of the video anymore... how unethical is it to share it with someone in your community.....

So while I completely agree with you and are tempted to go buy a good PA speaker I think it's worth pointing out that it has to be a specific set of speakers on the market that will go low enough and probably have DSP and some thing protecting the speakers excursion in the lows. If you read this thread and picked up any PA can it might not be designed to excel at the job you are asking it to do like the RCF you own are able too

Here's a question: When I was looking a few years back at using a PA speaker as a bass amp and cab there was only one downside at the time... In PA world the bottom end would normally be crossed over to a sub, so they weren't designed to have as much lows as a more specialist bass cab does. This matters very little if you've got PA support (actually a good thing) but meant that the way they were designed wasn't nesserally a direct like for like substitution for a bass cab.... Is this still the case with the RCF and QSC speakers you're talking about, and which ones, (I guess the bigger ones are fine.)

cheers for the first reply, and you could' help yourself with the second could you?! :)

Out of interest.... what modelling amp/pedal/preamps would you recommend? Both the mega buck end right down to cheapies....