action_panzer

Thanks for the replies guys, really useful info!

Eh up,

Recently acquired an Ashdown Rootmaster 220 - great sounding amp, love the warmth and vintage feel of it, HOWEVER - finding it a bit quiet. Admittedly only running it into one 2x10 cab, and as this is my first foray into heads and cabs, vaguely understand that I'm not unlocking all 220 watts doing this. So a couple of questions:

+ I'm running the amp at about 3 o'clock on volume to keep up - I know this SHOULDN'T kill the cab but long term would it affect the cab?
+ Would buying a second cabinet release much more volume? If so, great, happy to get another cab, if not, will have to switch for the 420

Many thanks for your input!

That, Conan, is just about as cool as its gets. THAT'S how cool it is!!

Were they as bad, musically, as everyone says?

OK, I know this isn't going to be a common thing, but for some reason I've always really liked Cronos' bass sound (at points, even playing...) on the first 3 Venom albums, at war with satan in particular. Growly and warbley and clankey at the same time - I've never come close to recreating it - any ideas?

And if anyone comes back with 'just find your own sound, man'....I like to figure out other people's sounds, I have my own sound too - is that okay?

K thx bye!

+1 Wunjo Bass on Denmark St.

Went in to buy a bargain basement Squier P as a backup, had a nice chat. Working in luxury retail myself I really value people going out of their way to make you feel comfortable in what many people see as an intimidating atmosphere. Point in case: the first thing they said as I came through the door (besides hello...) Was 'if you want to try anything out, just yell...'

So I had my first ever go on a Rickenbacker even though I was only spending £150. They must get that about 10 times a day and you'd never have guessed.

True gents, great service, I'd rather keep them in a job than someone with a spreadsheet for an online retailer.

What do people think? The 1 speaker behind the other sounds mental, never heard them myself.

Reason I ask is I've decided to take the plunge with an OTB 500 and wondered if anyone had any experience of decent cabs to run them through as this isobaric stuff sounds like witchcraft to me!

AP

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1401400882' post='2463389']
Warwicks (Streamers anyway) are Spector style basses, not the other way around. They nicked the shape from Stuart Spector.

Just sayin'.....
[/quote]

Thanks for clearing that up for me! As I was writing it I was thinking "...I bet I've got that the wrong way round...". Good to know!

If pickups are the weakest trait, they can be swapped out quite easily.....

Are the cheaper (I think Korean...) made models much cop? They look like decent reasonably priced Warwick style basses....but for the money are you better off with a second hand warwick?

I'd have thought a valve pre would curb some screaming MIDs? Mind you I play with a Sansamp cause I like the fat, semi distorted lows, so call me captain hypocrisy. What about hartke? Lh500 looms OK and HyDrive cabs, while expensive, could fit the bill with aluminium cones..

Seems to be an awful lot of love for the fusion....is it really worth the extra £150? I'd have assumed a tube preamp would soften and warm up the growly mids I'm after?

Hello chaps,

After my recent amp-y woes, thinking of ditching the combo and taking the plunge with head and cab - really liked the look of GB Streamliner 600 series. I know there's a spanking one on For Sale but I haven't the money just yet (DAMN), but was wondering if the Streamliner series just isn't being exported anymore as everywhere has discontinued it yet its still listed on the GB website?

I play with a bright, upper-mid sound with a sting ray to 'cut through' as it were...would welcome any suggestions, have a top budget of £800 (in a month or so..)

thanks!

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1400834050' post='2457311']
Does the 115 have an external speaker socket or can you unplug the internal and connect to another cab?
Easy way to test your, amp (which is almost certainly fine) is to run it into another same spec speaker.
You probably have overheated your driver, and a replacement shouldn't be too expensive.
Would be a good idea to un-Mastadon your amp first and have a good listen,you may have just dialled in a tone the amp can't do very well and gone too loud to compensate.
[/quote]

It doesn't have this unfortunately.

I did un-mastodon the amp when i noticed the distorting and went back to the frank bello stylee one and it seemed to recover ok, although i haven't tested the passive input yet.

To be honest, I've been thinking about getting a new more portable rig for ages (this weighs 90lbs...), so perhaps this is God's way of telling me to take the plunge

[quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1400774729' post='2456898']
Two very simple things:

It doesn't matter where the controls are pointed, it's the sound coming out that matters. Read Alex's article on gain at the top of this forum.

You haven't buggered your amp.

What has probably happened is that it got hot. You did two things, cutting the mids made it sound quieter because we hear mids well and bass poorly (damn those guitards). Boosting the volume to compensate and then boosting bass demanded extra power. Your amp can do this for a while (half an hour apparently) and then it starts to overheat, all your resistances rise with temp and protection circuits activate and the available power falls. the amp is protected but sounds s**t. You turn it off, it cools down and you are back to normal probably. I have no idea if the speaker will take this, it just depends.

If you want certain tones the cost is extra power and usually more or bigger speakers, or perhaps a bit of both.
[/quote]

Ah that really useful (and good to know). Makes sense to me!

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1400795682' post='2457173']
I don't like the styling at all. The control panels look like something from a 90s Peavey.
[/quote]

100% agree.

BA 115HP

[quote name='VTypeV4' timestamp='1400766532' post='2456789']
It seems unlikely that you'll be damaging the amp by using the passive input, I rather suspect there's something else going on. Also consider the position of the knobs on the control panel as it doesn't always tell the story of how hard the amplifier is actually working.

I think that by boosting the lows (a little too much possibly) you may have asked too much of the speaker causing it to move further than it was designed to. This usually manifests itself as a papery / fluffy type sound that gets worse as the volume is increased.

If you have hurt the amplifer electrically, it's probably in the power amp stage as by boosting those lows, you're asking it to make much more power. This in itself doesn't usually cause problems but if the amp is over-due a service or has a weak component then the extra stress may have caused it to fail.

220w or 300w or 60w or 1000w is entirely subjective for many reasons..

1: Different companies may have different standards to achieve their 'rated power' so aren't always comparable.

2: Speakers have different senitivities so one with 96 dB / 1w / 1m will take twice the power to achieve the same volume as one with a spec of 99dB / 1w / 1m. At rated power this may change with power compression etc but it makes the point.

3: Valve amplifiers always sound different too with their ratings not always being comparable to their SS counterparts.

Personally I've kept up with drummers using a 60w amp with lots of speakers. Normally I use between 60w and 300w and I rarely run out of steam. My 100w Trace and 300w Ashton are more than enough in every situation I've been in recently. For many years I used 300 and 400 watt SS Trace Elliot heads with no real problems albeit never in a metal setup.

Is it time for an upgrade? Isn't it always!? (I appreciate this comment ins't helpful, sorry!)
[/quote]

No this is helpful! And you are right, it is always time for an upgrade, hehe! Just need to convince the girlfriend...

I love my 115HP, but my god it weighs a ton for a combo.

I agree these don't look very Ampeg...

OK, I've been doing something slightly silly with my amp - an Ampeg combo - and been running my Stingray through the 'passive' slot, sounds fatter and punchier.

I thought I was getting away with it until last night - I've been reasonably sensible with it, running the gain at about 2/3 (or 9 o'clock) and the master the same. Been using quite a modern metal sound - cutting the bass a little and boosting mid and treble to cut through all the sludgey guitars. I also run a Sansamp Bass Driver into it and a Boss Bass Overdrive for an occasional spurt of hairyness. So far so good.

Last night I thought I'd try out a more Troy Sanders Mastodon kind of sound and went for a mid scoop, big low end. Sounded fine for about an hour then started distorting really badly, even with the Sansamp off.

Switched the the 'active' input, with its 15db cut, and to keep up with the band I'm now beginning to rag the poor thing - gain and master up midway, losing a lot of punch and without much left in the way of headroom.

So, in summary this post is twofold, poorly written and even more poorly edited:

1) Was I ruining my amp?
2) Is it just time for an upgrade?

Read around that really you need 300ish watts SS to keep up with a loud drummer, I'm running 220 and running out of puff...

Many thanks as always,

AP

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1399460131' post='2444381']
It does sound harsh. Sorry AP, it wasn't meant to.
[/quote]

No worries dude!

Call me old fashioned, but I always like the trouser-flapping ability of 15" speakers...seems exceptionally out of fashion these days, but I always find smaller speakers sound a bit gutless!

What do you go for and why?

Picked up an Affinity P a few months ago for £100...it feels lightweight in a bit of a jokey way, but the only bass ive played for the last 10 years is a stingray so thats all I'm used to...

Besides weight, I was blown away by how good it was for the money. REALLY playable neck, not at all like an American P (ie bassball bat...see what i did there?), genuinely sounds like a P, and like many others I upgraded the pups to Seymour Duncan quarterpounders (kinda standard I hear) and it honks like you wouldn't believe

I love it for the £170 total its cost me!

Aye I do have two pretty fat necked basses at the moment! Looking for something a bit different on the neck profile more akin to a jazz, so I can get around the board a bit quicker and so its less taxing to play - after a 90 minute set on the SR you can really feel it!

Someone did mention a US EBMM sub, but aren't they quite rare now?

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback - I've decided to shortlist a Warwick Corvette (really really really want a doublebuck....might have to save quite a bit more!), the Yamaha TRB (looks like an absolute steal - i played a BB1500 years ago and it was an excellent bass), and the Ibanez Soundgear range, which have tempted me for a long while.

The Fender Jazz has the feel I'm after but my sound at the moment is all about seriously growly mids and hot pickups - to that end I think the Warwick excels...but it does cost twice what I'm looking at spending.........

Someone mentioned G&L to me a while ago, but when I checked them out they seemed to have 43mm nuts - does this sound about right to you lot? They look like great basses but I'm really not after another chunky neck...

My current backup is a Squier Affinity P, which while sounding pretty good is beginning to wear and feels flimsy. It also couldn't be more different to my regular gigging bass (an SR!) so its being relegated to a studio workhorse now!

The kind of thing I'm looking for is this:

Preferably active (I prefer a modern tone to a classic Fender tone - particularly Jazz)
Jazz style neck - nut no wider than 40mm, preferably 38
Under £400 - not fussed if new or second hand

To sum up, I like the feel of a Jazz and the sound of a StingRay, and don't have much cash!

I had thought a second hand Warwick would fit the bill nicely but, and this will make me sound like a fool, I'm not sure I could get used to having no dots on the neck!

The Squier Troy Sanders Mustang looks like a nice bit of kit, but I haven't heard/played one, but I'm not wild about single coils...

As ever, the wisdom and generosity of the Basschat community is always appreciated!

Update: My mate picked up a second hand Ibanez [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]GSRM-20 for £56! Bit of a steal I reckon!

Thanks for all your help![/font][/color]