eude

Yup. I'm basically looking for a some decent effects for occasional use. A few reasonable amp and cab sims Distortion - good drive through to all out dirt Octaver Chorus Reverb AutoWah, although the ability to have regular Wah with an expression pedal is very desirable A Whammy type effect with an expression pedal would rock Aux in - Headphone out A DI would be nice but not a deal breaker I'm not massive concerned about insanely crystal clear reproductions of exisiting pedals, it just needs to work well with active bass and not be too fiddly. My main concerns with the Ampero is the price compared to the B3n, I could pick up a new B3n and an expression for less than 50% of the cost, and the fact that the Ampero is designed with Guitarists in mind first, with a smattering of bass specific content, is this similar to the Helix? I'm only really going to be using this for home use for a while, but I know from previous experience, Zoom stuff is extremely hard to kill even when gigged a lot... Eude

Still very much on the fence here, splash £350 on this, or just go for the Zoom B3n?...

Black!

It does a bit, and they've really gone all out with great product design too. That Downtown thing needs a headphone jack and an aux in though 😉 Eude

I'll second that! I've been playing ACG's for a very long time now, 4s, 5s and 6s and I've never had them any longer than 33", and now all my ACGs are 31.5" scale, including 3 6s. I've played many 34", 35" basses and even a 36" bass that all had crappy B strings. The scale length is only a part of the equation, and if you over compensate for the other bits you can achieve a great low B at a shorter scale. Don't let anyone tell you that you have to have a 35" scale bass to have a good B, play the bass first, then make up your mind 😎 Eude

Fingers crossed!

Well Si very kindly went and had a look. He says the patch setup is pretty easy, the touch screen isn't as sensitive as hoped (perhaps its and old school capacitive one) but works well enough. His only concern is that you can't run parallel signals across the whole thing, so you're relying on the patches to have wet/dry control, which not all of them do. The only that would really be an issue is when using drive modes I expect, however there are two bass specific drives, both with wet/dry. There's loads of other guitar ones though, which have the ability to EQ, but it's not quite the same. Fear not though, I expect there will be more options with this stuff if you're plugged into a computer, and there's bound to be updates, patches, new effects etcs. Si also confirmed that you can order the effects as you wish, as you just assign them to "FX Bays". If you check the manual out >> http://www.hotoneaudio.com/downloads/manual/Ampero/MP-100(Ampero)_Online Manual_EN_V01_190119.pdf You can see the extent of the patches and sims, and what they're based on, it looks pretty good, better for guitarists obviously, but we don't have equality yet Looks to me that, much like everyone else doing similar things, you can set up sound patches, with everything you want and then recall them as you need them, or just use it more like a set of stomp boxes. I'm extremely close to pulling the trigger on one. They're up for preorder all over now, but I expect they will sell out fast... Eude

Shame, I don't really do breakfast. Would it do brunch?

And a headphone out and aux in!

If I had the money, I'd just buy a Helix, but I've gone from selling all my pedals, bar one, to buy a wee Zoom thing to stretching my budget a little in the hope of getting something with a little bit more for less than a real Helix... If it can match Zoom for sound quality I'll be delighted, and if it has solid build quality even better! I'm going to hold fire till all the NAMM announcements have been made, but I'm getting pretty close to pulling the trigger now. Eude

I've just received a response from HoTone about just how bass friendly the Ampero is, they said it has a dedicated library of effects and sims just for bass!!!

No bother mate. I'm very much in the market for something like this. I've been on the fence for ages, but I sat down with a bunch of my pedals yesterday for the first time in a VERY long time and ended up just getting frustrated with it how fiddly it all was. I don't use effects a lot, but I used to, so to have options on tap on something compact, user friendly, and well made would be ideal. I'm keeping Zoom's B3n as a back up plan, but I'm going to hang on and see how these, and potentially others pan out from NAMM. Our very own @Sibob is over there now, I've rather cheekily asked him to check out the HoTone if he gets time... Eude

Well, the HoTon Ampero has been officially announced and it's only £350 on Thomann! https://www.thomann.de/gb/hotone_ampero.htm?offid=1&affid=84 Bass is featured in the marketing info, which is a nice change >> http://www.hotoneaudio.com/products/Ampero/Ampero/2019/0123/307.html I like the way it looks like a mix of the full sized Helix and the Helix Stomp. Wonder if it's any good?.. Eude

Might be the GE200? I have heard from a couple of guitards I know through forums that the GE200 works surprisingly well, and they both know their gear, especially pedals! I wonder how the GE300 will compare... Eude

I'd agree with you up to a point about the Apple comparison, however I don't consider DG to be "evil" and they seem to be building stuff people want instead of telling people this is what they need and removing things that people really want/need. Price wise too, DG are expensive, but, not a patch on Apple's pricing strategies! In saying all that, I still use an Apple for work, I tried desperately to use Windows when I was freelance, but after 1.5 years, sitting back down in front of an iMac, I felt immediately at home again. I guess as long as someone else is paying for the Mac it doesn't matter. I still use Windows at home but slowly... The UV is nice, but yeah, it's too big to be useful in a pedal format, the whole classic look works really well on the amps, but not so much elsewhere. I think these pedal are about the size of the old Korg DT-10, which never struck me as being too big >> If they're any bigger, I think they might be in trouble... Eude

I feel sorry for Nokia, the Windows phones they produced before Microsoft bought them were wonderful, fantastic product design, great specs, up there with the best Android phones. If only they'd ditched Windows and jumped on the Android band wagon, I expect their story would've been very different...

I think the only way to break into pedals now is to make something completely new or do whatever you're doing way way better than anyone else. I'm not a huge fan of the DarkGlass sound, certainly not for my own playing, but man alive they got everything right, and nobody seems to mind that the pedals cost a lot either. Eude

Given that they'll be made in small batches, I expect they could discontinue them pretty damned quick if necessary.

There's another one on the block too. The Hotone Ampero >> http://www.hotoneaudio.com/news/297.html I'm moving on my pedals with a view to getting a good, but affordable multi-effects. Some kind of Helix would be lovely, but there's no chance I'd find one for under £300, which is my ceiling for this. Both of these "tributes" to the Helix have got my attention, I appreciate you don't need bass specific effects, but some bass amp sims would be nice. No mention that I can see of them anywhere... I agree with @BigRedX though, an external PSU makes them a bit less pro, more bedroom use. I won't be using mine live for some time, but a bit of future proofing can't hurt. What out there has an internal PSU? Eude

Wow, I didn't realise that! I thought at the end of the day, they can charge what they want, kind of similar business model to Fodera given the interest that's crept up, however if they're being made "overseas" and probably quite cheaply, I feel that the price tag is a bit nuts! On a side note, I'm not really convinced their guitar design translates well to a bigger instrument, looks a little off to me, and its a shame they didn't come up with something unique for their bass especially given how long this was in development. Personal taste of course, so please take it as such. Those out there who were mad keen on getting one, is that still the case now it's over £3k and made in Indonesia? I appreciate they're offering something pretty special if that's the flavour of special you like. Eude

I think that's a little unfair dude. Their RM range, the class D stuff replacing the old MAG stuff has been really well received, plenty of happy users out there and their valve stuff seems to get a lot of love too. They do bring out a lot of new gear, but frankly, I much prefer that, as even if a product doesn't stick, aspects of product development, manufacturing etcs, will always appear in other bits of gear here and there. Were they not they the first to commercially release a class D head in the Superfly many many moons ago? The head itself didn't stick, but class D certainly has, for better or worse. I appreciate these pedals are unlikely to sell that all well, but like I mentioned before, they've got very little to lose making them in small batches in here in the UK. They'll be high quality and I'm sure they'll tick the box for some out there. Eude

Another vote for ACG here 😎

If it comes to modding the neck, I guess anything you do could rather be conveniently hidden in the single cut neck neck joint

Things come full circle a lot quicker thanks to the internet. There's still not a lot of bolt-on single cut basses out there, compared the the more usual set-neck or neck-through anyway, and I believe that Shuker was the first Jon had made, and certainly one of the earliest ones here in the UK, so it's probably engrained into the search engines now. Eude

Well hello there! That bass used to be mine, and that's my photo! Small world @Andyjr1515! It's a Shuker Single Cut 6er, my first foray into the world of custom basses. I sold it, about 8 years ago I think to another member on here who doesn't seem to be around any more. It was a lovely lovely bass, but I hadn't quite figured out what I needed in a custom bass at that point, and things like nut width aren't exactly easy to change. Anyway, that would be a fine way to put together a bolt-on single cut, but I can appreciate how tricksy it will be to have the body follow the taper of the neck beyond the fender block. You could however try something like this super sexy ACG >> Just use the neck bolt pattern as it is, and then the rest of the single cut shape beyond that point is purely visual, rather than part of the joint itself? Just throwing it in there If anyone can figure this out it's you thought mate! Eude