shizznit

I used an EBO ('68) on a recording for an artist a few years back. It belonged to the studio and they told me that they picked it up for £400. It was in pretty good nick and I was amazed it was valued that low. Considering that two iconic players in the 60's used them (Jack Bruce and Felix Pappalardi) you would think they would have more apeal? That said, not my cup of tea at all. One trick pony and it doesn't even do that trick very well! Very dull and lifeless tone and plays awful. Better off with a Hofner Violin bass if you want an old short scale bass that you can actually use.

The main advantage is having the low B for extended range or some folks like to tune E-A-D-G-C to have an upper extended range. I tune one of my 5's A-D-G-C-F, which is a popular tuning with Gospel players. The initial disadvantage is that you will have to learn how to play with the extra string and at first attempt it is not as easy as it sounds, but as with anything new it will take time to adapt and you will get over it with time. I switch back and forth to a 4 and 5 string quite often and it can be a little disorientating at times, but if you are familiar with your instruments it's not that bothersome really.

Be careful replacing necks for Fender basses or guitars in general. I bought my old '76 P-Bass with a nasty dink in the back of the neck that was driving me crazy, so I bought a new one at quite considerable cost from Chandler Guitars. The neck was too small in the pocket (you could fit a 50p coin in the gaps either side of it) and the bolt holes didn't line up. Fair play, they gave me a full refund when I sent it back to them and I went back to using the old neck! I took a neck from a standard USA P-bass before I sold it and that didn't fit either. I have heard many other stories similar to mine.

Can't go wrong with a Shuker bass! Never bought one personally, but it's only a matter of time! I have spoken to Jon in person on a few occasions and he's a great guy. He really does build beautiful instruments at a very reasonable price. I fancy an Uber Long Horn 5 string! (that sounds so wrong when I say it back to myself!)

[quote name='B.Flat' timestamp='1319362631' post='1412977'] I have just read all 11 pages of this thread and would like to add my 2p. It is a simple anecdote. Many years ago whilst in a residency in the south of England I went into London on my day off and went to Ronnie Scotts club in the evening. One of the bands featured that evening had an electric bassist that I particularly wanted to hear after reading reviws of his work. When the band commenced their set I was set back by what, to me, was the awful tone of the bass! Within a few minutes I was transported to a wonderful place by the melodic lines and musical ideas the bassist was creating. And, guess what, by then I thought the bass sounded great, which came as a great surprise to me and was something of a lesson learnt. A great idea is a great idea regardless of tone and a dull idea is dull no matter what equipment you have. So ends the first reading, let us pray. [/quote] That's a good point. My first built to order bass was a Warwick Dolphin Pro 1 which cost me in excess of £3k 10 years ago. It had a Zebrawood body and a 3 piece Wenge neck and fingerboard. I thought it was the mutt's nuts, but my sound engineer hated how it sounded front of house and insisted that I would go back to my off the rack Thumb BO. He said it was easier to work with and had more punch. That wasn't the end of it though. I used it for a couple of days whilst recording my first album and the producer also took a disliking to it! So, the Dolphin didn't get much use and I certainly didn't see a return on my investment as I sold it after only 10 months after it left the factory in Germany!

I have owned a lot of Warwicks and a couple of privately made basses that have had all kinds of exotic woods and each bass has had it's own tonal characteristic. Most of the time I have blind purchased these basses without really taking into consideration if I would actually like the tone. Some were nice to my ears and others not so nice, but after several years playing a variety of basses with exotic woods I realised that my favorite is the non-exotic and ever trusty Ash! My Lakland is Ash (very rare for a 55-02) and the MTD 535 has an Ash body with a very thin Buckeye Burl top. Thats when I realised that Ash is my fav wood on a bass (thanks to Mike Tobias for educating me!). Both basses have Bartolini pickups and pre-amps. Because there are so many wood breeds that are good tone woods for basses you can spend your life searching for 'the one' for you. Experienced and reputable luthiers will help you in the right direction and the ones I have met over the years are quite insistent that they want to consult with you first before parting with your cash. They do want to make sure you are 100% happy with what you get at the end of the build.

Wow! Some pretty collosal bass histories going on here! Mine is not as impressive as some, but here's my history in order of purchase... Encore P-bass (gotta start somewhere!) Aria (can't remember which model, but bloody hell is was sh*t!) Hohner Jack Bass Washburn Bantam Fender 'Long Horn' J-bass Jaydee Supernatural Fender '76 P-bass Status Energy 6 Custom Overwater Progress III Warwick Corvette Proline x2 Warwick Thumb BO Warwick Alien Warwick Streamer Stage 2 Warwick Thumb NT Warwick Dolphin Pro 1 Custom MTD 535 Lakland 55-02 Only the Lakland, MTD and Warwick Thumb NT remains!

[quote name='Linus27' timestamp='1325253373' post='1481343'] Thanks for the awsome review shizznit. I am planning on getting one of these with two EBS classic 112 cabs or maybe two classic 110 cabs. I have some gigs next year playing at the Roundhouse in Camden with my acoustic band which is 3 guitars and bass. I was planning on using just one of the 112 cabs with the Reidmar for the gig as I will have foldback monitor on stage. You think this will be loud enough? The other option is to scrap the two classic 112s idea and get one Proline 210 but I am worried I would lose that warm vintage tone that the classic cabs produce. Any thoughts on this? [/quote] The ClassicLine cabs are quite ballsy for their size and you will definitely get a nice, full sounding finish if you decide to get the 2x 112 setup. That should be quite a sweet backline for an acoustic band as you won’t be battling with a couple of cranked Marshalls! Plus, they are very reasonably priced. Two of those cabs will cost the same as a Proline 210. I can definitely say that the Proline cabs are different animals to the ClassicLine cabs and you will get a very different feel with the Proline 210 cab. Prolines are very focussed and sparkly in comparison and are very much tuned towards the ‘hi-fi’ market. I also like a traditional tone too when I need it and that’s why I bought the Eden XLT 210 and use that instead of the EBS cab. It has a lot more power handling on tap than the ClassicLine cabs and it is surprisingly very deep sounding compared to other 210 cabs I have tried and I have never needed a second 12” or 15” cab below. One of the best cabs I have played through for a nice powerful old school tone is the Bergantino AE112 (now replaced with the HD112 model) with the tweeter turned down very low. I played through one with my EA iAmp 500 at Bass Direct using a standard USA Fender P that was in the shop and fell in love! Not cheap, but it handles 350w (sounds more like 600w!) and there will be many people on this forum that would swear by them. Personally, I love anything Berg! I took my Reidmar and the Pro 210 cab to my NYE gig and the result was stunning! As this cab is 4ohms I could squeeze every 250 watts from the amp and I could really push it to it’s limit. I am happy to say that I didn’t find the limit because the backline volume was so loud! The Reidmar behaved very differently to the EBS cab than it did with the Eden cab. It didn’t give up as quickly as the Eden cab and I could get beyond the volume I had that night, presumably because I had less headroom going into a single 350w 8ohm cab. But, the stage we performed on NYE was very small and we were on top of each other. I got past the point of tolerance from my band members when they start asking me to turn down, so I will have to pump it in the rehearsal room this week to see how far I can push it. But WOW!!! I am so chuffed with this little rig :-) I got the exact same tone I normally get from my HD350 into the Proline 410 cab…there really was no difference. Definitely not missing my MarkBass LMIII !!! I wouldn’t say that I would ditch the larger rig in favour of the Reidmar setup because I will still need a bit more air pushing ability for larger venues and outdoor gigs, but this amp hooked into a high performance 210 cab has ticked every box for me. I have finally found my portable rig! EBS are marketing this amp to be matched up with the ClassicLine 112 and 110 cabs. Very tidy combination and you no doubt you will get much joy, but don’t feel limited by that. If you can, use this amp into a single 4ohm cab, but nothing beyond 400-500w at high volume because even though the Reidmar is very loud you may be pushing amp to breaking point. You cannot defy physics at the end of the day! I typically only use 10” speaker setups, so I don’t need the extra thump from a 12” or 15” cab below. If you can live without a full range 2x cab setup then try using a single 4ohm cab to get the maximum performance from this amp. But, for a 250w amp the Reidmar is proving to be very flexible for me and I can see a variety of different speaker setups available using it. Whichever way you decide to go depending on your individual taste you won’t be disappointed. (I am not on the EBS Payroll! Just a big fan!)

Hi guys! I am new to the site and this is my first post on any of the forums. I bought an EBS Reidmar 250 this week and I thought I would write a few comments about what I think of it compared to my HD350 and how it performed in a gig environment for the first time last night. When it arrived I tested it through a Proline 2x10, a Proline 4x10 and a David Eden XLT 2x10 (just to get a different flavour). I used a Lakland 55-02 5 string and a Warwick Thumb Thru-neck 4 string. I dialled in the exact settings as I normally would have on my HD350 head and I was amazed how close it was in tone quality. I never use the 'Drive' setting on the HD350, so I am not missing that. I have a separate Aguilar TLC compressor which I run through the effects loop, so I don't normally use the inbuilt compressor anyway, but just for the sake of comparison I left the Aguilar out of the equation. Again, I couldn't tell any difference between the amps whilst fiddling with the compressor. Nice and subtle up to the 12 o’clock position and super tight from there on. I still think the attack and release is just as exaggerated on the Reidmar than it is on the HD350, so I will continue to use the Aguilar TLC going forward. Despite that, I still think that the inbuilt compressor on EBS amps is the best out of any manufacturer. I played around with the ‘Character’ and ‘Filter’ functions and nothing has changed here either. I normally have the ‘Character’ function on only and it was nice to hear the same tonal difference with the ‘Filter’ effect on or off with the Reidmar. Once I was happy with my tone I tried the Reidmar through the cabs. I use the Proline 4x10 mostly, so that was first to test. At a low volume and (hand on heart) if you blind folded me I wouldn’t been able to tell the difference if I was playing through the HD350 or the Reidmar! I was seriously impressed! But, after a little more time getting my ears adjusted to the Reidmar I would say that it is a little bit warmer sounding that the HD350. A little more rounder in the mid’s and the low end is probably not a tight. I later found myself rolling back the back an extra notch and moving the ‘mid freq’ control forward towards 600hz. Once I did that the tone was exactly the same as my HD350! As I bought this amp to use as a portable rig along with my Proline 2x10 I then tested it at full whack volume! There is no other way of putting this…this amp is ridiculously loud for 250w! I thought the same thing when I first tested my HD350. I used to have a Little Mark III and I record with an EA iAmp 500 and the Reidmar can definitely keep up with those boys! I was quite blown away by how much air I was pushing. The low B on my Lakland was starting to break up a little once I got the volume beyond what I would call a ‘rehearsal’ level, but I won’t be using this amp that loudly at small club gigs anyway. My Thumb bass really likes this amp! With the absence of the low B I could push the amp a bit more. The Thumb is a lot more lively sounding than the Lakland and I had to roll off the Gain quite a bit on the amp, but I have to do that on the HD350 anyway. This bass works a lot better with the Reidmar and I could get a very good scooped hi-fi tone immediately. I then tried the David Eden XLT 2x10. This cab is 8ohm and much deeper sounding than the EBS cabs, so I wasn’t expecting a sonic miracle. To my surprise…it sounded very good! It doesn’t quite have the same focussed articulation as the EBS cabs, but I could still get a very punchy and clear tone with a couple of EQ tweaks. I can find the EBS cabs quite fizzy, so I generally use this cab to get an old school ‘Bernard Edwards’ type tone and it didn’t take me long to find that once I switched to the Lakland. I could actually push the cab to a very reasonable volume…not as loud as the EBS cab, but because the XLT has so much bottom end it sounds more impressive than it actually should be. I tried the amp in a ‘real world’ scenario at my gig last night. I actually ended up taking the David Eden cab as I was playing with a soul covers band, so I wanted that extra bottom end. The drummer is a very light player and I wasn’t going through the front of house. During the sound check the amp really filled the room. However, as always, when the room is full of people the acoustics change and I was asked soon into the first set to turn up a little. I couldn’t really get a good impression of the amp until the 2[sup]nd[/sup] set we played because I was constantly tweaking the amp in between songs because the guitar player was bitching about the onstage volume of the bass! Two simple remedies…I rolled off the bass EQ a bit and used a bit more mid and politely asked the drummer to hit the kick drum a bit more! The tone was much tighter and I really enjoyed the rest of the gig. A couple of bass playing mates were at the gig and they gave a lot of good feedback from an audience perspective. They said that the sound was quite grunty (by design), but the tone across the fingerboard was very balanced and clear. My friend Jon is a pro player and has played through pretty much every amp ever made! He played it after the gig was done and he really likes the Reidmar. He owned a HD650 about 4yrs ago and even he said that the Reidmar is a very accurate facsimile of that amp. When I told him that it was only 250w he was quite taken back! I did agree with him that using a 4ohm cab or 2x 8ohm cabs would get a better performance from the amp. I watched the speakers flap quite a bit during the second set and the amp had plenty more volume left in reserve. I will try the amp at a gig on New Year’s Eve with the EBS 2x10 to see how that performs. I was very satisfied last night with the Eden cab anyway, but I did feel I was pushing that cab to the brink. To sum up…I am very, very impressed with the Reidmar 250. I am glad that I can get the same tones from it than I can get from the HD350. It’s remarkably loud which is another testament to the quality engineering typical of EBS (even though the Reidmar is manufactured in China). I owned a Markbass Little Mark III to use at smaller gigs, but I sold it to finance the Reidmar. Not that the Markbass amp was rubbish…I really liked it, but I much prefer the EBS tone and until now the Markbass is arguably the best D-class compact bass amp on the market. If you consider which market this amp would appeal to it has to stand out as one of the leaders in the pack. The 250w rating will put a lot of people off, but I am sure that EBS will introduce a more powerful model in the future to use with a bigger cab setup. But, before you consider buying one of these think carefully about the application. If you play with a very loud drummer without going through a PA or if you don’t have your own stage monitor you might struggle with overall volume. If you are playing in the open air such as an outdoor festival you may want to consider something a bit more powerful. With my regular 9 piece band we mic up all of the musicians, I have the bass rig DI’d to the front of house and I have my own foldback monitor. Our engineer gets quite vexed if my backline volume is too high if we are in a small venue and if we are on a small stage both space and individual proximity can be problematic, so this new Reidmar setup is going to be ideal! Yes, this amp is very loud for 250w, but you won’t rock Wembley with it! For me, it’s perfect. My HD350 and 4x10 is overkill for most small gigs that I may do. The Reidmar fills that gap. I can now fit all my gear into the boot of my car, get a great EBS tone that I prefer and quite happily satisfy my onstage volume requirements.