thisisswanbon

Not sure if this counts as a small board, but it's clearly too small for the pedals on it so I'm going with that! 😬 I've been around the houses lately with this; been through a Sansamp VTDI, then an HX stomp in place of the Le Bass, and a Diabolik in place of the Sovtek. I also had an optocomp at the front of the chain. I Found the low end on the sansamp to be bloated and unrefined. I then found that I was shoehorning in effects and over complicating things because I could with the HX stomp and was never truly convinced against analogue counterparts (it couldn't even kick my hot wax off my board). I also just didn't like the flavour that the optocomp added. Reasons for losing the Diabolik were I just couldn't get it to retain low end (despite general consensus of huge low end retention) unless I had so much clean dialled in that it no longer sounded synthy. I suspect it just didn't get along with my basses though. The Le Bass is a fantastic pre, which I'm using as an always on sweetner, and fusion mode for a dirtier rock tone. Struggle to get A, B, and A+B all matched for use at the same time, but A and A+B are worth the cost of admission. The Sovtek is a hugely versatile muff with clean blend, and whilst not as synthy as I'd like, with the sweepable mids get me somewhere into that realm...

For anyone interested in these basses, thought I'd give an update... I contacted Thomann about the unusable tuners, they offered a new set or £25 partial refund. How they can do that on a bass of this value is insane, but very stand up of them. I put this on top of the Wilkinson tuner price and ordered some black Schaller tuners instead. Much better fit than the Wilkinson's sound, with only 1 hole per tuner to be redrilled. Embarrassingly, I made an absolute pigs ear of this after a good skinful; 2 sheered screws later and a few headstock dings later they were fitted. I suspect if I'd been sober, it'd have been an easy job though. the unbalanced string volume was infarct a string issue! Put some D'addario NYXLs on and it sounds awesome for the money. Going to gig it before deciding on the electrics!

Sounds like a shop to avoid if I'm honest! I had a similar experience with an EBMM sterling 5 that had a faulty pick up, sent away 3 times for repair with nothing done! If the sound issue was anything like mine then it doesn't sound pre amp related, as these are passive 😬... Good of him to message you though!

I wouldn't consider this a heavy bass at all to be fair, although my Jazz is an absolute boat anchor!

That's not a bad shout... I'll have a look before spending any coinage! Did you manage to rectify the SBMM Sub issue? I did try adjusting the pick up height last night but didn't make a massive difference in honesty. It's almost as if the E and A aren't as direct as the other strings, almost like the difference between DI and micing a cab from a distance

I may be doing the same myself... I'm guessing they weren't a straight replacement though? Were you left with holes?

Second impressions after plugging in... Sounds great, but the strings seem poorly balanced! D and G are loud and mega punchy, but the A sounds weak in comparison and the E even worse 🤔 I've adjusted action and truss rod and it's slightly better, but still not great. Could be a string thing though although the issue isn't as present acoustically. Other issue is the A string tuner is almost unusable. You can see the paint stripping from the thread where there's friction. I didn't expect glory for just over £100, but I expect functional regardless of how much I pay.

Thanks for the reassurance! Mines just arrived, haven't plugged it in yet but initial impressions are aside from some sharp fretwork, it genuinely feels like a solid instrument and I can't work out how they've produced this at this price point! Can't wait to get her plugged in!

Anyone got their hands on one of these yet? Can't find any reviews, but I'm sure they were supposed to drop last week! Really tempted to move my HX stomp on and grab one of these... Sorely miss my le bass!

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???