thisisswanbon

The headless mod sounds like it would be incredible! I always thought a headless stingray would be a glorious thing. Where did you put the battery for the active pre-amp? I'm tempted by the Warman mod, but think I'll see what it's like stock first.

That scratch plate looks great! I'd love to exchange the bridge when mine comes, those big back plate bridges without the retaining posts next to the saddles just don't do it for me.

Thanks for all of the info guys... mine hasn't come yet but I'm pretty excited about it. I did seem to read a lot of bad reviews AFTER I'd ordered it, but I'll stay open minded until it arrives. Was thinking of either an Aguilar or Warman pick up depending on how the pick up sounds, I think it's a given that the tuners will need changing. I've read a lot that they're short of low end, have any of you experienced this?

Hey all! I've pulled the trigger on one of the Harley Benton passive stingray clones... For £121 delivered they seem an absolute steal! I'm thinking even with a new pick up and tuning pegs it's going to be cheaper than a SBMM sub ray 4. Not a lot of info on modding these online... Anyone got one? If so, did you change anything?!

This is very true! I haven't heard one stock setting that's useable! John Willis from Dr Tone's lab has come up with some "balanced" EQs for the bass amps, but I always find them too trebly/Mid scooped. More surprising though is that a customer has had to do this rather than the company themselves, poor showing really.

I wonder if panning both paths left and right and using one out for mixer and the other for amp would be a work around 🤔. I'd go ampless for convenience, but we don't always use subs in our set up. That, and I love my current amp set up and am pretty sure I'd miss it. Fortunately I'm not a heavy effects user... half of our set is done with solo'd octaver which my 3 leaf octabvre covers, and the rest is done with specific C4 patches or clean bass. I do use a hotwax pedal for a couple of sections of songs to give a boost and bit of dirt and a sovtek deluxe of fuzz infrequently. It would be great if it covered those, but from what I remember this is where I soured on the stomp last time I had one. Far better players than myself get great results with this, so I don't doubt that it's me that's the issue though. I think some heavy youtubing is in order!

Thanks for the advice, folks! I think a bit of perspective change is needed for me to be honest. I've always thought that it instantly had to replace at least my drive pedals to be any good. In reality though, it's replacing a sansamp VTDI that I didn't get along with, and I was happy for that to be nothing more than an FOH DI with parallel to my amp. In this context, there's no reason why the stomp can't do the job and then some. I do wish that the parallel out didn't rely on the FX loop though, as I don't want my external effects to go through the compressor block I've got on there.

May be a bit late to the party here, but I had a stomp earlier in the year and moved it on as I couldn't shake the digital "flatness"... Obviously all you folks on this thread have had far more success than I had with the helix gear and I'm thinking of taking another dip! Do any of you miss your analogue gear, and what are your secrets to overcoming the digital quality? Torn between a stomp or the Two tones revolt that comes out next month, but the stomp seems much better value!

That seems to be a pretty accurate description, going off my 1 gig with it 🙂. I couldn't believe the volume of it compared to my 1000w mark bass head I'd had before either. I really thought I might struggle with the limited functionality of it, but thinking about it, what else do you really need in an amp head?! Thanks for linking the bag! I'm hoping my MB bag I bought for the vintage 1000 will fit, otherwise I'm stuck with a £60 bag for nothing. If it's no good then I'll certainly order the orange bag!

So my Mark bass LM Vintage 1000 (which I loved) has gone the journey. Nothing wrong soundwise, but the input jack fitting crumbled and apparently the part had to come from Italy! Rather than wait a month for repair, Andertons agreed to do an exchange 👍 Enter... Orange Little Bass Thing! Possibly even more of a eureka moment than the mark bass was! Less bloated on the low end, arguably closer to a tube sound than the MB (which had a tube pre), more immediate sounding with a tonne of weight to the note, and the compressor really adds to the heft. It just felt so easy to dial in a great tone, with minimal adjustments. It's rated 500W, but volume was massive with the dial at 9 o clock, so either the MB was a bit generous with its numbers or this is hugely more efficient. Only issues with it are notched controls rather than continuous... Not sure why that'd be it a thing but it'll take some adjusting to. Also, if I was a bass>cable>amp guy, I'd have that compressor dimed, as it's absolutely magic! But half of my set is played with a solo'd octaver quite high in the mix, and I think it was a bit agressively compressing the notes on D and G above 12th when engaged. Rather than knock heads off as they normally would, they just vanished. I had it set at about 1 o clock, so I'll have to check that out next gig. It has a big impact on overall volume, so not something I want to fiddle with mid gig. As it was nearly £300 cheaper than the MB, I also got a sansamp VT DI for ampless gig and desk feed. Sounds great through headphones, but the Little Bass Thing did all the heavy lifting last night, so time will tell on that... Anyhoo... What a great little amp, for what feels like a bargain considering the quality of tone!

I meant if you physically change one of the knobs by accident while changing the lower ones on the fly and then long press without realising you've done it. It would be much more beneficial to be able to change all 4 controls though. I'd have preferred 6-8 smaller self assignable knobs like the Bananana Matryoska, but no doubt there'd be as many people put off by that... can't please everyone 🤷‍♂️

I do the same thing, except I adjust the low end EQ instead of input gain with control 1. The only issue with this is if you catch one of the other controls without realising and then overwrite your preset (which I've done more than once 🤦‍♂️)

Hey All! Pretty much as the title suggests... This is both an issue I have and something that I think would be useful all around, I can't be the only one with this conundrum! I'm lucky enough to have a mega and hugely loud amp (MB vintage 1000 and Barefaced BTII), but for overall mix and consistency I DI to the desk and use my amp for stage monitoring and balance when we're on a single sub set up... As with most players these days, I use various drives, fuzzes and saw wave synth effects, which sound great through my cab but too fizzy through the desk. First I thought cab sim, but that'd ruin the cab sound... then I thought set the DI post EQ and turn the top end down on the amp, but then the cab sound is affected and too dark. The dual output modellar approach seems to be an idea, but I'm just not convinced by digital modelling yet. My HX stomp swiftly got moved on. Has anyone got a work around for this? How did you find harmony between your on stage and FOH sounds???

I traded back a bass that I previously overlooked if that counts? Traded my (heavily modified) Sandberg Cali VTII for a nordy cat bass back in the summer as I didn't click with it in 5 years I'd owned it from new (hence the mods). Enjoyed the cat bass but was always scared of breaking it as I'm a heavy dude with some heavy bass throwage on stage. Long story longer, Got GAS for a preamp pedal (Origin bassrig) and put it up for sale. The original owner of the cat dropped a message to trade back as he missed the Acinonyx so thought "why not?". I now see my Sandberg in a completely new light. I still think the PJ pick up config is too close together to get the known PJ sound, but when the P is solo'd its just the great, growly, mid heavy P that plays like it was made for me. Video from first gig back with it... https://www.instagram.com/reel/CknZWrMoKj0/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Some lovely knobs on the go here! I must admit; mine were far more hassle to get a hold of than they were worth, but I do like them!

Howdy all, not sure if this is a bass guitar, effects, or accessories issue but hear me out! So I recently took on a 2017 MIM Fender jazz deluxe; and while it's a boat anchor, it's a thing of beauty and tremendous all around. It's the one with the active 18v 3 band eq and active/passive switch, and if there was one thing I'd change on it, that'd be it! The pre is a bit lacking. There's no passive tone control, there's still quite a bit of top end even at full treble cut, and it sort of feels a bit one dimensional compared to passive. With previous basses, I've always bought passive, or converted to passive (ibby ehb excluded) as I prefere the immediate weight and responsiveness of a passive bass. This one feels a bit more important though with the inherent mid scoop and thin-ness that comes with a jazz. Long story longer, is there an active pre out there with the responsiveness of a passive bass, that'll also allow a control to double as a passive tone in passive mode? If not, am I better off looking at an external EQ pedal? Any advice from the absolute fountain of knowledge that is the basschat community would be much appreciated!

Why are you looking to replace the behringer with a Boss unit? Is there something sound wise or function wise that doesn't cut it with the behringer? I ask for no other reason than I'm thinking a bass EQ pedal is the solution to my jazz bass not having a passive tone control

I've always done this by ear. I set the blend to fully clean and make sure the patch output is unity or there abouts to disengaged volume, then get the sound I want and look at setting my volume based on the job I'm doing with said patch. (Genuine answer, apologies if this comes off condescending... not intended at all.)

Way Huge Pork & Pickle for me... If I'm ever in the market for a new drive there'll be no hesitation. I only let it go as the fuzz wasn't quite right, and the drive wasn't quite wild enough for what I needed for what I currently do. Ended up with a used EHX hot wax and a new EHX Sovtek deluxe muff for the same money as the P&P. While the Sovtek is the PERFECT fuzz for me, no other drive has come close to the P&P for me.

Completely agree with you from a volume stand point, my concerns were more with a wattage thing than a volume thing. My head is 1000w at 4ohm, and 600w at 8ohm. All of Mark Bass's compact 8ohm cabs seem to stop at 400w so I'd be forever scared of burning them out.

After doing a bit of digging, I was nailed on going for 2 x 210 cabs and vertically stacking; but it doesn't look like they do a 210 cab powerful enough for my head... I have the LM vintage 1000, and all of their 210 8 ohm cabs seem to stop at 400w 🤦‍♂️ and Andertons is out of stock of the 500 watt version until November so can't even exchange... looks like a 410 will be the way to go after all. Going to hold out for the new MB58R cab reviews start coming through though they look great!

Both of your comments are really interesting to me as I'm SOOO close to selling my barefaced and going for a markbass 104, I've seen comments saying the barefaced stuff smokes the mark bass cabs, but your experiences sound a lot closer to what I was expecting to see!

I've found with my C4 that unless my playing is pristine then (which unfortunately it seldom is) then it's tracking can be a bit temperamental, but I think that's just synth pedals in general. There's no worse feeling than when we play stuff like Rhythm is a dancer by Snap! and instead of the big FM synth sound, there's just a dull thud as it hasn't triggered because I didn't quite mute enough; and that bassline is firmly shred-free!

Hey Lewis. I once tried to run mine on a Cioks DC5 on one of the 100mA outputs (I know yours is higher, but may still be helpful). It seemed to work fine, but occasionally it would malfunction and give me a flashing green light and stop producing sound, as if it was in a permanent cycle of trying to boot up. I now keep mine on it's own 300mA output on the cioks now.