NancyJohnson

I'll also be bringing this along. It's the extremely loud [b]Handbox Red Fighter[/b] head. I got it from Michael/WaterofTyne earlier this week with the view of taking it out on a few dates, but after a five hour session, it's not really my thing; it runs [u]very[/u] clean and I was struggling to get it to overdrive, so I'm back to my Sansamp and poweramp set up for my upcoming dates. Bridged she offers 1000w of output, even just going out parallel I didn't take the master A channel past the 9 o'clock position (7 o'clock is off). The plan was for the maker (a Polish guy called Leszek), to allow the head to circulate amongst (the more well known members of) the group and report back to him with how the amp fared. What I'll do is sit it on top of my racked gear, I guess just take it away and try it with your cabs and let me have it back at the end of the day (unless we can find a suitor to take her away for a dirty weekend). It accepts Speakon/jack connections. Paul

We did actually give some consideration to doing the upcoming gigs with the drum recordings I'd done for home demos, they're certainly sound enough although I don't know how things would actually pan out, especially in the event of one of us making a minor error live. I utilise a mahoosive amount of live drum loops by Beta Monkey for the home recordings...I did argue at one point that I could easily drop the drum tracks for each song into an iPod or a tablet of some kind and just push these into the front of house. Might have been fun. As things stand, the guy we played with earlier in the week is chomping at the bit to come on board full time. He's a very busy player and really wants to get back to working with a loud originals band, which is great. Happy days.

Just a little update here. Two of us in the band (me and the guitarist) had an issue to resolve in bringing the vocalist 100% round to getting shot of the drummer and it eventually came down to tape evidence(!) and finally coercing the singer into playing with another drummer (which we did earlier in the week and to quote a line from Star Trek Generations, 'It was like the joy was tangible.'). We had a very uncomfortable 60 minutes at rehearsal last night and told him he was toast. It was horrible really, but done now. I was a little amazed at the excuses he was giving to cover his decline (too many to go into here), but I suppose his defence mechanism simply kicked in at this stage. We have two gigs upcoming in the next week which he actually asked if he could do, so we agreed to that, afterwhich that's it. Just in closing, after we told him, he actually played a lot better, so it is certainly in him to play well, but he just slipped back into the usual after less than half hour. Anyhow, it's done. The End.

I've got the Red Fighter now (it was delivered about half hour ago) and I will be taking it to the bash along with a pair of Hartke Hydrives (410 & 210), so you can try it then. The sound matrix illustration that Michael provided above explains what the knobbage does; I'll experiment a bit tonight. Paul

Mullet warning. Not withstanding that this was Hall and Oates arguably at the top of their game [i]and [/i]on home turf, the first three tracks (well for me at least), still blow me away after 25+ years. This still makes me feel warm and fuzzy, despite not really being a fan of this musical genre, they just do it so well. It's the classic lineup too, T-Bone on bass and G E Smith on guitar. Daryl Hall's tenor guitar appears at around the seven minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRTTES4BZ04

I've had a bit of a soft spot for tenor guitars since I saw Daryl Hall playing a Gibson 335 style version during the Governer's Island show more than 25 years ago. Anyone play one? Got one?

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1474368726' post='3137411'] On the Hartke website it says the 115 (and the 112) are ported. Nothing said on the 410 and 210 page so assume they are both sealed [/quote] Well that's news to me...I owned one until around 18 months ago (it never left the house). There didn't appear to be a vent anywhere, although I assume that it's feasible the port could have been a smallish opening (or two) on the facia that wasn't visible behind the grille.

My signal chain is Sansamp RBI > Matrix Amplification poweramp > Hartke cabinets. Something that came to mind since starting this thread is that we did switch guitarists recently; while I know this shouldn't make a difference, the bew guy's tone is of a more clearer distortion rather than the muddy tone of the previous guy. My bass used to cut through a lot more previously; we really didn't own our frequency, so to speak. I guess it's feasible that we also have a reversal in place here and maybe I just need to phatten up a bit.

[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1474287156' post='3136781'] The 410s are sealed. I'm not sure about the 210s but the 115s are ported. [/quote] The 115 and the 210 enclosures are both sealed.

I'd like to add #18. I'm in no particular rush to sell it, but I'll bring it along. 01. Ashdown Rootmaster Mag 212T cab - £60 o.n.o. (silverfoxnik) 02. Trace Elliott AH300 head - £120 o.n.o. (silverfoxnik) 03. Mesa Boogie Four:88 with footswitch (markstuk) if not sold by then 04 Cort A5 Custom SP. (markstuk) 05. Allparts Jazz 70's in off-white with maple board/blocks, Wizard pickups & Gotoh bridge (Cetera) 06. DeArmond (Guild) Pilot Active Bass (Cetera) 07. Mesa Boogie Bottle Rocket pedal (obbm) 08. Hard Rock Cafe suede/ wool jacket (TheGreek) - size large 09. Overwater/Tanglewood Inspiration Bass 10. Line 6 Sonic Port Interface for iPad/iPhone/iPod (obbm) 11. Knackered blue plastic case containing non-knackered amp leads, guitar leads, a patch lead, and a speakon lead (MacDaddy) 12. Warwick Rockbass Streamer Standard 5 String 13. Fender Jimmie Vaughan Tex Mex Stratocaster, White with Maple neck and Fender gigbag - £550 o.n.o. (noisyjon) 14. Warwick Thumb BO 5 inc gig-bag - £850 (Grangur) 15. EBS Multicomp, EBS Bass IQ, Ashdown Lomenzo Hyperdrive, Gigrig Generator, Distributor and accessories, Diago Gigman pedalboard (Graham) 16. MXR Custom Comp CSP202 - £45 (JapanAxe) 17. Status S1 5 string headed, funny post box colour! Price? Dunno yet! 18. Epiphone Dot Studio (w/mods). Discontinued black, with black hardware and cream binding. Very clean. Hardcase, long throw bridge, Sperzel locking machines, Wilkinson zebra humbucker in the bridge position, Dunlop Straploks, strap. £225.00 for the lot. If no interest, I'll take it home.

Such a thing? Been using Hartke Hydrives for about five or six years (or maybe seven!), 8 ohm 4x10 & 2x10, I've been 100% happy with things and I'm always been told 'your bass sounds great'. More recently been playing a handful of under-card gigs where I'm forced into using other guys enclosures and have noticed that with my rack gear settings in their usual positions I do appear to be [i]louder[/i]. Obviously, [i]louder [/i]can be construed to apply tonally fuller (and so forth). I know there's potentially ohm-science stuff could be going on, that frequency range of cabinets differ significantly and that the actual position of the cabinet can affect tone...the 4x10 is also on castors, so it's reasonably isolated from the floor. I stuck my gear through a battered old Peavey 4x10 at a rehearsal place recently and was genuinely shocked at how phat and loud and rich things sounded. Maybe it's my ears. Maybe it's my cabs. Look, I'll admit that the Hartkes are bright, there's a three way rocker switch on the rear of the cabinet that changes the attenuation of the horn, but I am beginning to wonder whether it's worth taking a punt on a Barefaced 2x12 or something (although I do like bigger cabinetry behind me). Might be worth taking a trip to Brighton. P

Dave, did I ever tell you that I love you? Krispn, thanks. Dave, are you able to bring it along next week? Cheers P

Hi I'm likely to be giving the Michael/WaterofTyne's prototype [i]Handbox Red Fighter [/i]head a bit of a whirl over the next couple of weeks, problem is I don't have a spare 2U rack and don't want to damage it. Anyone got one I can have a loan of for a bit? I'm based in Crowthorne, Berkshire (Reading a few miles), so anything in say a 20/25 mile radius? Will happily collect. I'm also attending the Bash in Addlestone next Saturday. Cheers Paul

Can I just put a call out here? Has anyone who is attending got a Gator (or similar) 2U rack that I can have a loan of for a fortnight? I'm likely to be taking the Red Fighter head out for a couple of dates and don't want to get it dinged. Cheers P

A few years back I had a big clearout; just kept the one bass and sold everything else. Didn't play for about six-eight months. It was quite cathartic, to be honest, it was akin to offloading a load of surplus baggage. I then got a call from someone and the floodgates opened. Again. It was nice to have a reason to go out and buy something different.

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1474015660' post='3134880'] Hey gang! I hope you don't mind being gatecrashed by a Nawvenner :-) I'm currently in custody of a demo model of a [url="http://basschat.co.uk/topic/282884-handbox-bass-amplification-new-to-the-uk/page__view__findpost__p__3063548"]Handbox Red Fighter[/url] head, and Leszek, the owner, is wondering if any trusted* BC members would like to use it for a while and take it to the bash. If you're interested, drop me a PM. I think someone is already bringing along his other model, the R-400. [size=3]*I know you're all trustworthy really, but for obvious reasons it would need to be someone with a bit of a track record on BC :-)[/size] [size=3][/size] [/quote] I wouldn't mind. I have two gigs for Musicians Against Homelessness/Crisis on the 25th and 1st October. Does it have a 2U rack for protection?

I'd concur with Dropzone on the talent front, BUT, given what was supposed to be going down in the guy's personal life (and hey, let's just skim over the general weirdness here), it still amazes me that he continues to get airplay and no one says anything.

Interesting conversation yesterday concerning provenance. (That's a lot of letters for just five words.) Assume you are buying a bass and had the choice option on two similar basses, let's say Fender Jazz basses, same year, same finish, similar condition. One is selling for £750, the other is previously owned by a big name bass player, was purportedly used on the #1 album he played on ten years ago and the seller has a nice letter from the big name dude to support this, however this bass is £1,500. A simple internet search also throws up photos of the guy playing it as well. Would this sway you to pay more for the more expensive one?

Any updates? It's gone a bit quiet!

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1473784257' post='3133106'] I've never understood the need to add the "in my opinion" to posts you make, the fact you are making the post and the members name on the left tells us it's their opinion? [/quote] The sadness is that we seem to be unable to be able to post any detrimental poop without putting some sort of disclaimer in for fear of upsetting anyone or being on the receiving end of a collective backlash. Why do you think the vast majority of posts are of the positive? If people don't like something, just post it! IMO.

At one stage I was running several Thunderbirds; mortgage paid, the doors of purchase opened and after a long period of using a late 70s Precision (and an even longer period of wanting a Thunderbird), I just went on a spending spree and bought six in as many months. (Over the last year or two I've dropped this number to the best two of the lot.) For me (three point bridge aside), they're the best out of the box bass I've ever played. Build quality was very consistent. I really don't care for the neck dive arguments - especially from the flat-earthers who've never even played one - the neck is a dream, the design is still head-turning 50 years later and tonally it ticks all the boxes for me. The other thing is the Epiphone models -while decent enough - aren't Gibsons; they're far-east manufacturered facsimiles. Look, I'll reiterate this (as I've done previously). I'm a chubby guy in my late 40s and when I use the Thunderbird, I'm lean, agile and 20 again. They're like magic.

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1473580477' post='3131269'] Our guitarist often tries to persuade me that I must change the capacitors in my basses 'to let the tone out'. I always play with tone and volume control on the bass fully open, so surely I am by-passing the cap anyway? He also believes that guitars and basses sound 'better' with the on board volume turned down to about half way, so I take these ides with a pinch of salt. Don't get me wrong, great guy, just got one or two odd ideas! [/quote] I'm 100% with you on the first point. My old Precision went through various wiring configurations, one time the pickup was just wired into the volume pot, on another straight into the jack socket. On point #2, concur. What is all this turning down malarkey about? Are we not men? Heh.