Wolverinebass

I was toying with a retroglide. Is it really 800W or are the specs rubbish?

Funnily enough, that's pretty much my spec were I to ever get one. I'd go chrome and get the B2 circuit as I prefer the 2 band eq and Mids in my Buzzard rather than the 303 board. I'd never seen a stealth with roman numerals before though. Top work squire!!

Honestly, if anyone wants a shot on mine, once all this lock down crap is over you're welcome to pop over to mine and try it out. It truly is the best pre-amp ever.

What mod is that? Just curious.

I run my own recording studio in South East London. Anybody need anything recorded or mixed and mastered? Prior to this, I was a civil servant for 17 years. I'm a pharmacologist by degree, but I haven't used that professionally for over 15 years.

Whilst Gibson has been going downhill for some years it's really become quite noticeable the effects of the "Mickey Rooney's crazy pills," which the board members have been taking. Crushing instruments, sueing every smaller builder with a zeal that has to be seen to be believed. It's just monumental hubris. They deserve to fail and go bust.

I hasten to say my comment was based on people not having the patience to sit down and fiddle. It takes a bit of time, but you can get some great sounds out of it. As a pedal it's great and I have used it to record on a few clients songs to great effect. The point I was making was that the Dug (to me at least) is more intuitive to use, but the Darkglass has a bigger feature set. As it should really as its about £150 dearer. I like to fiddle about with pedals so none of this bothers me. Some don't and they'd be frustrated.

That was my point. Obviously the facetiousness didn't fully come over. It's not a big deal. Like, you've chosen a relic bass. This stuff can be easily fixed. Let's not start stocking up on Gaviscon as the solution has been clearly stated by Limelight and seems reasonable. Much like the barefaced handles nonsense a few years ago, now for 2020 we'll have #rustedlimelight as Basschat's new customer service issue.

I got one for my studio. In direct comparison to the Tech21 Dug Pinnick I'm going to do a comparison because only by doing that will it make the review seem fair. The Dug has a fixed crossover so it should be the inferior pedal. It isn't. The Darkglass by having an adjustable low and high pass makes everything too fiddly. You'll get a wider variety of sounds, but it'll take you longer to find them. In itself it's a great pedal, but not the most intuitive thing. The EQ is great as is the adjustable cab sim. It honestly depends on how many sounds you need to get out of it as it does take a while.

Just drama queens my dear boy. I welcome tips on my prose style from such practiced scholars such as yourself. In truth, I find it sad that someone's got a really nice instrument that can't be adjusted. It just seems like a bit too far down the line of relicing to me.

In some ways, I can't decide if this is awful or utterly hilarious. Sure, getting a bass that you can't intonate properly is awful. That shouldn't happen. Then again, paying good money for a bass that has been reliced so much that the hardware was probably pulled out of a skip in 1981 and doesn't work because it's nothing more than a cube of iron oxide is hilarious. I guess that's what you get for an "authentic" relic job? Loads of rust, ulcers and tears.

Yeah. The joys of auto correct.

As a lifelong chili peppers fan absolutely nothing grabbed me. They're bland, crap albums. To me at least. Some might argue that their whole back catalogue is like that. However I digress. If you're outside Kiedis or Flea's house waving a placard saying "Bring Back Klinghoffer!" I wish you all the best of luck with that. You'll be the only one. My point is that kind of like how you can listen to 10 seconds of any recent Dream Theatre album or song and know it's all crap.

Quite. The "Josh" of auto correct.... I skimmed both those albums and they're pants.

I don't think his tone matters. The albums with Justin Klinghoffer are crap. The fact that they've been badly produced is only one more nail in the coffin.

I made a joke at the time that not only had they copied TC Electronics styling, they'd even copied their falsification of their power output ratings.

They've totally messed up Dood. The class D offerings Hartke have now are crap. They're underpowered. Laughably so. Plus, they juked the specs as someone on Talkbass took them to bits and sadly the power module labels don't lie. They're stuffed.

Exactly. The HA series is great. Just put a 1000w class D in it. Job done. But no. Let's discontinue the 5500 which is well beyond its alleged 500w output. It's just devastating. Total morons.

Just to add to this total debacle. I had a look at Hartke's website today. In an unrelated note, the drummer from one of my bands his studio bass amp (some kickback combo) had died and asked my advice. I went to look for the model and noticed some rather unamusing stuff. The Kilo isn't made any more. Flagship amp binned. HA5500 is also discontinued. The best thing they've ever done is binned too. That's madness, but it's heavy. Unlike Ashdown who remain immune to lightweight amp trends, Hartke don't have the profile to carry this off. That is in itself why nobody should buy Hartke. The pooch has well and truly been screwed.

Fair play. I forgot those 2. My point is speaking towards the companys ambition. Think about it. Darkglass have went out and got virtually every major player in the metal/djent field. Ashdown still have some very high profile people as well. Tech 21 went and got Steve Harris, Dug and Geddy and a whole slew of others. Hartke have been overtaken and are still sitting about doing not very much either interesting or more importantly, good. Which is a shame. That's why their distributor network is crap.

He hasn't used the HA5500 for years and I'm pretty sure he went Helix a few years ago as well so he might not even use the LH series anymore either. Or maybe just as a power amp.

That was about 10 years ago Si. Frankly, I think the company is doomed. Larry can post as many photos on Facebook of "Look over here! It's Jaco's aluminium coned 8x10!" or "Here's Jack Bruce's Warwick Thumb!" but it doesn't disguise the fact that both of those thoroughly excellent bass player's are dead and if you exclude Victor Wooten as an endorser they don't have any high profile ones. I'm sure if he were offered a skip of cash he'd play anything. Probably why Stu Hamm left to go to Markbass. They haven't had a well known modern age bass player on their books of endorsements for a very, very long time. I think that in itself speaks volumes about the company's standing. I'm bummed though. The HA5500 is just brilliant, but by modern standards it's just too heavy. Most of the stuff I use are companies that don't pay you to use their stuff so if I ever was better known for anything other than sideburns, claws and sarcasm it would all be for nothing.

Hartke went crap about 2007. After sitting with the thoroughly excellent HA series for probably a touch too long they then shot themselves repeatedly in the head. The LH series regardless how powerful they were they had a woeful eq. Plus, they were heavy at a time where companies were starting to go light as a matter of course. The Kilo was delayed for 3 years after being announced and has been plagued with reliability issues. Finally, with the lightweight amp head market fully standard, they put out the woefully underpowered TX series. A friend had one and I literally laughed at how pitiful it was. Then it came out that they'd juiced the power ratings as a few people on talkbass had taken photos of the guts and showed the power module wasn't quite what it claimed to be. They can pay Victor Wooten all the money in the world, but their current products are crap. Wooten will always sound good as he's a very talented player. He just uses Harkte to pay the bills. Fair play. Hartke haven't done anything better than the HA5500 and that amp is 20 years old. They're a dead company walking.

My response other than "just say no," which has never worked for anyone under any circumstance would be to ask if he has dental insurance. When he inevitably says "no" make some sort of observation about that being a pity were his saxophone used to knock out most of his teeth then give him an experimental brass enema. A friend of mine has a midi saxophone which he brought to a random jam we had a few years ago. Hateful thing. Sounded like a badger being castrated whilst trying to sing "Welcome to the jungle," by Guns & Roses. I'd take suggestions. Dictated to? Good luck with that, pal.

Like all heritage brands, they can't win. They could however, try to not screw up so readily. They could have just used the same kind of design as their 4 string pickups instead of something as bad as those triangles. Not that it matters as I don't play 5 strings. My Rick kills and I use it dropped to C# standard in one band. Just fantastic.