Wolverinebass

That could be one of the funniest things I've heard in years. Just when you think it can't get any more insane, it does. I'd be really tempted to use that as a sample in a song.

Tech21 said something similar on here a few years ago when an amp they were selling was $1800 in the US (roughly £1300) and the UK distributor was pricing it at £2500. I pointed out (just as you have) that you could just not work with them as surely there would be reputational and brand damage caused by certain territories being "exploited" shall we say. I appreciate that they've got contracts etc. so it's not as easy as just saying it. However, that being said, Mesa have managed to sort out things so folk only have one calling point for spares/repairs which can only be a good thing rather than going through middlemen.

The GK Fusion was £949 from Thomann. It was new, not B-stock and believe it or not, was cheaper than Polar Audio! I still don't quite know how I got away with that. The irony was that everywhere in the UK was selling the 800 version for about that price with the 1200 version about 200 quid more.

No, it's not massively important to me if the amps are made in the UK. In fact, the last 3 amps I've owned have actually been from American companies. I think some of Ashdown's ABM range is still made in the UK, but I find that range a bit heavy, so there's another thing to consider as a factor. I actually considered Mesa when I bought my GK and at the time, the prices weren't so far away from each other. I felt the GK did what I wanted better, so I bought that. Value for money is of course down to the purchaser of course. By whatever pricing, feature or arbitrary comparator they wish to use to decide.

@agedhorse, if it were 800 quid for an 800w amp, thats okay. For something that is so ludicrously low powered, er, no. Mesa isn't a budget brand and that's never been the case. I've never tried a Mesa amp I didn't like, so I have no axe to grind as regards the quality of the products you're selling. You asked what people's criteria is for choosing. Mine is probably quite similar to most people's: "Not getting price gouged." Nobody that isn't American gives a toss if the product is made in America. People care about virtually everything else though. Pricing, value for money, treatment of staff etc. Whilst the whole sourcing of parts is I'm sure no doubt a problem, the fact that you're having to justify the pricing maybe says something in itself about the misjudging of the perceived acceptability of it? Rightly or wrongly.

I must admit, I concur about the 350W amp being "pricey." Whist, I accept that costs have gone up, I got the GK Fusion 1200 for £940 new. For something that has a quarter of the power, being almost the same price is laughable. Mesa have now went full Warwick/Ernie Ball with their pricing thanks to Gibson. They are to be congratulated. Who, apart from well off people are going to buy this stuff? Oh, it's "aspirational" we are about to be told. No, that's crap. 800 quid for a 350w amp you'd be redlining the whole way through a gig (unless it's a jazz gig) is into the beyond of far off deep space exploration of justification for overpriced products. Well done Gibson, that's something else you've ruined for us all.

That's even before you get to the basses. I recorded a band whose bass player had a Saint bass. So, I had a go on it. It wasn't great. I said he might like to use my Fender 50s classic precision instead. So we used that. An infinitely better bass. Which ironically is almost 300 quid less. I mean, to me that's a pointless niche to try and get into. There's so many manufacturers at that £1100ish price mark that they're never going to get many people buying them unless they're diehard Ashdown bods. To me, the bass played okay, but the pickups were nowhere near good enough considering the competition. I kind of feel the company as a whole is slightly backwards looking. Geezer has retired, Mark King left, John Entwistle died, James Lomenzo and John Myung are nearly 60. Even the Biffy Clyro lads are closer to 50 than 40. The point is, they could have went after a whole generation of upcoming players and didn't. I'm not saying get every Instagram influencer they can manage of course. However, nothing really appears to be as cutting edge as one might like. Is an ABM with 9 sliders going to do it for you if it still weighs 15kg? Probably not if you can get a lighter amp for the same money that you can pick up with one finger. In a way, it's quite sad.

To be fair, Ashdown's output is always a bit hit and miss. For every amazingly brilliant thing they've done, there's at least 5 things as crap and pointless as the B-Social. Plus, none of the amps hold their value at all. Rightly or wrongly. I got a Hyperdrive from Ashdown during lockdown when they cleared out their warehouse. Its great. For the price of the Mega Drive, it's not worth it I don't think. For maybe £170 I'd take it if they'd make it smaller. I appreciate that the VU thing is their thing/calling card, but it's kind of become counter productive when it makes a pedal chassis almost twice as big as it needed to be. I remember trying the Geezer Butler head. I couldn't understand how aside from the name they'd sell any as soundwise, my Wounded Paw Battering Ram EQ pedal gives an infinitely better "doom" type sound and only cost £150. Even the triple roast overdrive pedal. Soundwise, sounds good. They priced them at 300 quid. Good luck with that. I don't think they could give them away for £150 now. Most of Ashdown endorsees are maybe not as current as they might like or once were. None of them are under 40. Or even 50 actually. In many ways that doesn't bode well. Whilst I doubt they'll ever end up as utterly crap and creatively bankrupt as Hartke, they've maybe lost their way a bit and had a march stolen on them by other companies like Darkglass in the case of pedals or take your pick for amps. Ashdown seem to be immune to the lightweight trend, and fair play, I've played quite a few ABM's and MAG's and they're great. Given the choice is anyone going to get an amp that weighs 15kg when they could get something lighter that won't lose half its value the split second you've bought it? No.

I don't mind Tim at all actually. However, there is a point that he's hardly unbiased as he works for Tech 21. Fair enough. We're quite a way away from Scott Devine levels of irritating where the universe implodes on itself due to all matter being sucked into a clickbait YouTube wormhole full of cheery, plastic optimism. Were it me doing the reviewing, there would probably be too much John Entwistle type playing with chords, typewriter tapping and people would probably be just as infuriated by my style as much as anyone else's as it's not their own. On the other hand, I would just make stuff up on the spot to play rather than something from Moving Pictures every time.

The rack thing is perfectly true. However, if it were a rack unit it would have outputs for both channels, possibly loops for both sides, maybe even a dual input if you want to run say a Rick 4003 or Alembic in stereo. The comparison point to the ADAM/Photon/X series and whatnot is that the functions are accessible through presets and the XB has none. Say you have the Darkglass X version and want to go from something with quite a high crossover and medium gain (maybe a Geddy type sound) to say a low crossover point with loads of gain (a Muse type sound), you can do it in one pedal press. You can't do it with the XB as all the functions such as bite and crossover are small buttons you have to push with your fingers. Looking at pricing, the X version is still a good £50 cheaper than the Sansamp and it has multiple accessible settings due to having midi capability. I honestly will say, if this was £450, I'd entertain the idea of getting one. £600 for the functionality it's got (or not got) is "jog on" territory.

I don't care how it's worked out 600 quid for a pedal is robbery. Now, bear in mind, the Darkglass ADAM, Photon and X versions are midi compatible so you can store presets. Most of the functions of the XB can't be accessed even with a pedal push as they're buttons. No presets. No ability to flip from dual rig to crossover on the fly. No dual outputs or inputs. See where I'm going with this? Also, just for comparison, an HX Stomp is what, 500 quid? No, I'm not digging on this at all.

Yes. Obviously they're shipping the pedals singularly in 1st class Virgin Atlantic and serving them caviar.

£599?!! So now Rocky Road surpasses Westside Distibution for the title of "biggest price gouger ever." They seem to have stuck with the formula of: 1. Take price in dollars. 2. Change Dollar sign to pound sign. 3. Add £100 or more more if niche item. There is no way that pedal is worth that. People (including myself) have criticised Darkglass pricing. This is a whole new level to that. You could get one of the midi controllable Darkglass pedals (ADAM, Photon) for that price. When we had the fun of the Dug Pinnick amp being sold for $1800 stateside and £2500 here, the Tech21 bods said on here that they didn't have any control over UK pricing. That's fine. What they do have control over is choosing to work with middlemen companies ramping up the price by £200. $499 = £395. Surprisingly not £599.

Oh, no. Please don't get him to do anything except hand over money. The time for patience and being nice is long gone. Even at that, I feel you'll be screaming "Gimme the money!!" a la Gary Sinese in Ransom with very possibly no result. You won't get any joy from this if you try and get him to build something because it'll never happen. Surely, can you not just get the bailiffs to take his car, TV, phones, camera (since he's making Youtube videos), PC's and anything else of value? Or does it not work like that? Are court mandated payment orders not enforceable by asset seizure?

Ah, Chewin' The Fat. I remember that sketch.

That is true. I have done exactly as you say on some occasions. To give you an example. A couple of years ago my brother passed away. After arranging the sale of his flat, the people downstairs land grabbed half of the garden which belonged to his flat fencing it off and put a set of French doors in a supporting wall without planning permission. Now, the offer gets pulled, they've caused structural damage and I'm easily going to win taking them to court. Obviously they're not going to pay, so what's the point? Now, I had to sell the flat for almost a loss because of these idiots and we are talking way more than the value of a bass here. Even if it were a series 2 Alembic. Ironically, I was just executor. I wouldn't have got anything anyway. I wasn't advocating physical harm on Mr Letts. Just thought it might be the case that at some point he's going to get someone who might try to get a refund in a less polite way. Though for £1600, I don't think I'd bother going that way as it wouldn't be worth it. He's not going to cough up. However, that being said. His reputation is shot to those who know and he may or may not be an incredibly sad, pitiful figure.

That's grim. Whilst I appreciate that clearly the guy has dug himself into a hole, he's been incredibly duplicitous about it. This isn't waiting almost 2 years for a Wal as I did or 3 years for a Grainger (which I should get in a few weeks). Quite a lot of the latter was due to covid and their resulting backlog before anyone asks, this Letts bloke is just taking your money and trying to run. Or hoping you'll give up. Were it me, I think a few of my friends in Edinburgh would be called. The fact that he's now saying he can't afford 50 quid a month. Nah, I'm not buying that at all. That's the problem with this idiocy. You can easily take someone to court and win, but then they'll just turn round say they can't pay and thumb their nose at you. Sod that.

In truth, there are so many hilarious things about that film and so many awful ones. All of them (Newsted excepted) come across as awful people. Kirk especially comes over as a passive aggressive tosser. Plus, he can't write lyrics either. Frankly, they're an awful band. They've had some great material, but in every case it's mainly been ruined by crap production decisions and ludicrous egotism. I run a book with some fellow producers as to "How will Metallica ruin their next album." I won for Death Magnetic as since they're generally 8-10 years behind trends (plus they got Rick Rubin in) it was always going to be brickwalled and digitally distorted. The best one was Lulu when one of my fellow producers said, "it'll just be awful." He won that one. 72 seasons has the whole "stupidly attacky drum samples." Nobody needs that amount of 10kHz on a kick drum. It's so obviously samples. How very 2011. They're so far behind the times.

Funnily enough, I'm actually from Falkirk myself. I can't say I'd be up for doing that amount of travelling.

The title did say RAY4HH hence my slight confusion. I guess that's a bit better then if it's only 500 quid? Still not acceptable in any way though.

The bridge isn't just off centre, it's squint as well. Look at the top of the bridge next to the scratchplate. It's not straight. Now, I'm sorry, but that bass would cost more than a grand new. That's utter crap. People rightly complain about fit and finish. How is it so difficult? On the other hand, does this not prove that the Sterling series is overpriced by a factor of 2? It really gives me the fear when manufacturers are so stupid to use pickups with exposed pole pieces but don't actually think this might show up the fact the bridge isn't aligned properly. See Gibson Les Paul's as well. What sort of mugs do they think we are to accept this?

I must admit I noticed that the lpf and hpf were labelled wrongly as well. However, the thing that stuck out to me was that you can only (admittedly it may not be final) take the drive channel up to 750Hz. It would have been nice if it could have went up to 2kHz with more of an overlap from the clean channel. Admittedly, that's in no way a deal breaker. Just a thought. The X7 ultra goes a lot higher in terms of how much low end you can cut from the distortion. Also, the dUg amp had a filter you could push round towards almost 3kHz if I remember right. Whilst I don't doubt that the major points are taken care of, it's always cool to have settings that are a bit less safe than you think is acceptable. Applying tons of distortion to just the upper edge of the harmonics can quite often sound brilliant. It's probably too much to hope for really.

Thanks squire, youre too kind. I'm actually working on a 2nd album just now. It's really just fitting it in between family, 2 bands and whatnot. Hopefully by the summer.

I actually still have a massive rack mount setup with the Rolls and a Digitech 2120 amongst many other things, which is insane. The Hamer through the Dug sounds brilliant. Just add a sliver of chorus above 700Hz and it's monstrous.