basexperience

Exactly. It’s a HUGE bargain. The 500 has plenty of grunt for a pub gig, and I’m running it into an 8 ohm 2x10 markbass traveller. Into 4 ohms it’ll be huge! Also - the LWA gets you an onboard compressor. It’ll run without load as a headphone amp, too, and IIRC there’s an aux input...

Hi all, I've got a 5-string streamer fretless which I love for the combination of warwick mid-growl and fretless - but it's got one problem: I moved to D'addario XLs a while back, love the strings on the other 5-strings I've got - but the tailpiece of the bridge won't hold the low B in the string retention slot - the way the windings are tied off means the ball won't slot in. Anyone else have this problem? Did you find a solution? If it's just "find a different string", then that's OK too... it's just that I didn't want to use Warwick strings on it any more... Cheers! Andy W

Very nice! I'm wagering that's some serious cash for 2 custom builts. I'm lucky enough to have a 2002 Ltd jazzman (the swirly bubinga one) and I do love warwick 4-strings for the tone - with D'addarios on it it absolutely pokes at gigs. I did use Warwick black strings for years until moving to D'addario XLs (nickel) - the difference is huge.

I bought an LWA500 a few years back at the LBGS - definitely never regretted that. Fits in an amazon basics tablet case (neoprene) beautifully! It's a backup amp which has been pressed into service mid-gig, and I've used it countless times on small gigs and jam nights with a 2x10 Markbass Traveller. Really loud for 16Kg of total weight, and the perfect height to sit on. The old-school lighting under the controls on the LWA is welcome too... I'd get the 1000, but I still have a Pro Bass IX which I do use occasionally (despite the massive weight!).

Did you seriously manage to break a trussrod? I've had 2 warwicks for nearly 20 years and adjusted the rods a fair few times: they never need more than a tiny turn anyway, and seem reliable enough... what did you do??

Guy Pratt has a signature model coming out, under £500, based on his extremely valuable fender jazz - if you’re a fan of the tones he gets, could be worth it. He says he actually takes it out on the road, so it’s a good sign. Get out there and try some stuff, though. Half the fun is seeing what the signature sounds are of some of the basses, to see if they fit.

Hello lovely BCers. My valve head is in for repair at the moment; 3 gigs in 3 days, and the third one saw a poorly secured stage monitor slide off a subwoofer and crash onto the suspended stage. The massive vibration from this busted a valve, and blew a fuse (we think). Does anyone know of a shock absorbing system which would fit between a cab and an amp, to try to help mitigate sudden shocks like that? Ta peeps Andy W

He’s on twitter saying it’s under £500! Woo!

Something something sounds like a Wings track something something 😉

Dude, that's a monster board! Like some of your choices. I've just completely reworked mine as well - I got a Ditto X2 and wanted to alter the routing to make it easier to use, as well as having a space for my wireless on the top right - The Mooer bitcrusher is excellent - the FCB1010 is actually controlling patches on the Future Impact and the envelope filter, as well as providing midi expression pedal control into both. The two boss expression pedals are plugged into the filter and the boss SYB-5 - so my filter pedal actually has 2 expression pedals - mad flexibility while stood up. I can't tell you how good the SYB-5 is with the expression pedal, it makes it a supremely expressive synth. This board was constructed for a synth based project, but it's going to get use in a funk context as well - I've got a lot of flexibility in here. The FunkFace has great retro funk tones, with the valve filter on board, the FI is supremely flexible, the MarkBass has the best tracking for faster stuff, and combining valve fuzz, octaver and bitcrusher sounds pretty synth as well. All with a final mini wah onboard as required. The Ditto is just for my own creative fun.

I got the Mooer bitcrusher after a recommendation that it was a "true" bitcrusher (and not just a ring mod) but for a low low price. It's certainly been what I was looking for sound wise, and the alternatives I saw (including some truly eyewatering boutique ones) were impressive but massively over specified for what I needed. I think you have a point - I'd wager the truly high-end will still make a living, boutique etc as they're in a different pay grade, so to speak. But you do have to wonder if your midrange producers (like BOSS) will get squeezed out...

I was lucky enough to pick up one of those Zender valve filter pedals with a good discount at the LBGS earlier this year. Spotted it on my way out! I'm not sure if it reflects the other pedals they've made, but it's well built and certainly has a lot of excellent noises on tap. The overdrive is pretty useful on its own.

Another old bass centre memory from me too (a couple, actually...) - I remember taking my Warwick Pro-Bass IX head back there for repair using a luggage trolley on the tube, and I bought a 2x10 TE cab (also pre-neo and weighed a ton) sometime back in the early 2000s as an extension cab for the Warwick CCL I owned back then. It truly was an epic place. Getting that 2x10 back to the car near Ealing Broadway via the tube was not something I'll forget... although it did make a good seat on the tube between heroic platform changes.

Actually, I have the FI and the SYB-5 on my board - partly because the SYB sounds amazing with an expression pedal on it: some of the distortion tones are huge sounding, and one or two of the synths are really good too. The FI is supremely configurable, but the expression pedal support (I am using MIDI / FCB1010 with Uno at the moment) is limited in what controller IDs it can respond to. Hopefully PandaMidi will continue to update software on request 😉

I'm enjoying mine, although I still haven't tried the PC editor on it yet. I've managed to get an FCB with the Uno chip to change patches and I've mapped an expression pedal onto some patches though: flexibility in spades!

How's the new version of the Super Synth? I have the original one, which I really like. Have you tried the PC editor yet?

I have a perspective here too - I've been using a Warwick Pro Tube IX (900w solid state with a valve preamp) for years through a pair of Warwick Neo Pro cabs (full 4x10 and 1x15) - great sound and huge power, plus biamp and stereo capabilities etc. I now have a Trace V4 head and the sound is just amazing. The all-valve gets so much more out of the cabs - it's so lush, with the EQ completely flat: of course it's oranges and apples, but they weigh about the same. The V4 is just that massively weighty all-valve tech with massive transformers. I think there's something to it. For the cabs I'd wager the weight of the cab itself forms a kind of inertia which the speaker can work against to shift the air, particularly at high volumes.

I've been lucky enough to resurrect a Trace V4 amp into a new Zilla cabs shell. I had been using a little Warwick LWA500 (1Kg) and now I'm addicted to the weight of the V4 because it sounds amazing... there *is* something about weight, I guess. That said, I have a 2x10 MarkBass transporter cab which pushes out ridiculous volume for something which weighs 15Kgs. That thing is amazing. I had a Trace 2x10 cab for many years - even took it to Andorra for a season - and the strongest memory I have of it is getting it from the old Bass Centre in Wapping across to west london where I was parked... on the tube. At least I could sit on it. I thought it would destroy the freaking escalators on the jubilee line... 😀

I've actually got both on my board: the FI is amazing, and I do have a midi expression pedal attached to it, and for years the SYB-5 was really a curio: then I got the roland EV expression pedal and attached it to the SYB-5 and it came *alive*. The SYB-5 is an utterly different beast with the expression pedal on. The tones are amazing for solos - even the distortion "synth" on it becomes really usable - the sweep on the pedal is enormous.

So the HX still can't match an OC-2 with anything? Disclaimer - I've got an OC-2 on my pedalboard too 😉

Oh man, I LOVE that idea! I've had the warwick cabs for many years, love the weight / tone ratio on them, and I reckon I could do this with black hammerite quite nicely...

From last Saturday’s gig. This is the mega-analog-synth-pedalboard setup. Now with added recently re-shelled Trace Elliot V4 all-valve head (its first gig in a very long time). Zilla Cabs do GORGEOUS work IT IS SO LOUD

Here’s the end result - what a stunner!!!

SHould be with me on Monday - I’ll post a pic (maybe a video!) of the beast alive! I got an XLR to speakon cable to bring it bang up to date. Works a treat!