Al Krow

Interesting point. So what's the key cause of a flabby B string?

Should be fine. Maybe a little extra in terms of handling costs, but there are no Customs duties on imports of basses from the EU and you always had to pay the VAT on new basses anyway. Where there is an issue is with used basses to / from the EU where an additional VAT charge applies now and makes UK <--used goods--> EU much less attractive.

Brilliant thanks for that. Love to exchange notes / pick your brains. Will PM you, if that's ok. Mine should be arriving in the next 45 mins

Asking prices in the FS for mint Euro 4LXs seem to be around the £1,350 to £1,500 mark at the moment - which are obviously subject to "haggle" as with any asking price. There were a couple of beauts that went for less last year and the market is generally gummed up at the moment, so you may be able to negotiate a bit of a price chip. Do you know how old the bass he's selling is? What I do know is you're almost certainly going to love the bass! Just remember to wind the TonePump down a bit if the seller hasn't done so already 😉

Well only one to find out if they have succeeded isn't there, and that would be to A/B their "free" patch against a Mesa amp. Not something I'm in a position to do and haven't been for about 18 months since moving on my Stomp. And you'll still need a decent power amp in your signal chain. So not sure how "bottled" the fx sim + power amp route would be, even if it comes close to emulating the real thing. You could go FRFR, of course, but that's a whole 'nother story and not something I'm looking to do having considered the weight options in some detail a while back.

I do, pretty much every day mate! 😉 But I'm not lugging a 25lb head on the road to gigs with my dodgy back. I'll leave you 6' strapping youngsters to do that. I suspect I'm going to end up with a BIAmp for the road - been highly recommended by a dodgy mate of mine, who has a M6 at home 😁

Cheers buddy and doh(!) quite correct about HXFX not having the amp modellers - I'd forgotten that, lol! (which will reconfirm my superior memory skills for @dave_bass5 on all matters Helix!) @LukeFRC - maybe on one of the Helix threads to avoid another non OT tangent 😁, it would be really good to understand what the individual components of the M9 patch are? As I said, I would be positively stunned if a multifx patch can emulate the complex harmonics provided by something like a tube preamp paired with a class AB poweramp you get in the Mesa M9 (and M6).

It would be a shame if this was being stated incorrectly on formal well respected YT reviews such as Dan's, as I get the impression from comments on this thread, and elsewhere, that not working out that the v1 OTB was boost only on the treble and bass EQs, and thinking that neutral was 12 noon, was a key reason for a number of OTB owners giving up on their amps. (Tbf - it's not unique: we've had similar unhelpful comments about the Spector TonePump from Spector, themselves, about the EQ being purely boost, when they are not!)

Ah ok gotcha. Two things (i) I don't currently have a Helix (ii) I would be (very pleasantly!) stunned if a Helix patch could closely emulate what a Mesa M9 (which you're right should be pretty identical tonally to an M6) does. I suppose the way to test it would be to bypass the preamp on an amp and feed the Helix straight into the power amp section of a clean amp such as a DG M900. Having said that - I would be less surprised if you had said a Kemper or the new DG Quad Cortex came close just based on their reputations. Calling @bassfan - dunno if you've come across the M9 patch on your HX Effects, buddy? But if you get a chance to A/B it with your Mesa M6, it would be interesting to see if it comes close.

Nope it won't be. But I'm not really sure what the connection with the HX Stomp is?

Not even close!

Hah, actually you're more than half way to recollecting correctly. It's a bass I nearly bought a month ago, but had the opportunity to try before I bought. It's beautifully balanced and was great to play, but the EQ seemed to be a little shot. The seller kindly agreed to check it out and concurs and has adjusted his asking price to allow me to budget for a new pre.

Nope, not that I know of!

I know, it really does tick a lot of boxes. A Carvin BB neck-through 5 string. Being brought round by the seller tomorrow night. Needs a new preamp, so all the recent chat about those & EQ has been very useful too!

Oooh that does tick a lot of boxes! Cheers gents. What's stopping me?...I may have just agreed to buy another bass literally 45 mins ago, lol! Can't really see my missus being too happy with two basses in one month, particularly as she has somehow found out about me and Cuzzie via another thread... I'm seriously intrigued that he's preferring his Spector Rebop though. Must admit I'm more than a bit partial to nice bit of Spector!

Dammit - I do find these Sire threads all distinctly unhelpful. Lol! The P10 has flamed maple top, roasted maple neck, improved pups, tarted-up knobs. Not sure that justifies the £600 new price premium over the P7v2, but it's still tempting. If one comes up used, I think I'll be finding it hard to resist!

Trouble is exactly the same make and model with same type of woods can easily vary +/- 1lb just from the variation in the wood cuts. My Sire P7v2 5er was excellent, particularly for the money. I mean which sub £1k bass provides such a versatile EQ with parametric mids? I would have preferred greater accessibility at the dusty end - I felt I was effectively limited to 18 accessible frets - but this won't be a concern at all for many.

Yup it's a shame you can't simply flip from up and down sweep settings, but that is true for most analogue filters that have both up and down filter sweeps. It definitely repays investment in careful tweaking - as you say when you get it working optimally it's great! FWIW it's the best filter I've had, for me easily beating the MXR M82 and Aguilar Filter Twin and even the juicy Fwonkbeta; I only moved it on because the more recent 3 Leaf Proton Mk4 matches a lot (but certainly not all) of what the GR2 can do but in smaller form factor.

Ah ok - I think I maybe know what is going on then: I used quite different settings (I think attack and decay, in particular) for up and down sweep to get the best "squelch". So if you have it on a really tasty setting for up-sweep, simply flicking the switch to down-sweep is going to sound like it's doing very little and vice versa. Sensitivity and hi and lo range settings will also make a difference and I'm pretty sure that I had mine dialled to mostly "wet". Annoyingly I had a cull of some old pedal pics a couple of weeks back, otherwise I could have shared my fav up and down sweep settings on the GR2 with you.

The DG AO is an excellent amp, but paired with a BB2 lacks the warmth that my Mesa M6 delivers. Guess I'm on a quest for "bottled Mesa M6" in a lightweight amp, very probably hybrid. I've been told by folk in the know that the Berg BIAmp could be the ticket and I'm looking forward to A/Bing one post lockdown.

I've dug out a couple of clips, both recorded without fuzz with the GR2 First by itself and second with OC2 added. How close is that to what you are getting? Filter 9 - 3Leaf GR2.mp3 Filter 14 - GR2 + OC2 (Ian).wav

But tbf you could easily to do the same with a drive pedal of your choice and potentially even quicker i.e. no adjustments on the amp and just engage the pedal. With an amp with built in drive / grit there's always the risk that it doesn't deliver exactly what you're always after in terms of grit (certainly can be true for the DG M900 series) but seems to me that OBT does as well as most, and you still always have the pedal option to bring to the party.

Very useful and at [0.55] he notes that "Ade Emsley, head designer, put the preamp of the AD200 into the Mk2". Have they changed the EQ settings so we now have both boost and cut? Our own Dan Veall at [7.45] is suggesting that flat is at noon with the Mk2, which is quite different to comments about the Mk1. Orange Terror Bass | Review - YouTube

I'm slightly bemused that the manuals are silent on what the EQ centre frequencies for the bass, mid and treble are, unless I've missed them somewhere?

Interesting one - the D800 has had a fair few comments about being "dark" and the D800+ a step up. The new Mesa range also seems to be getting a fair bit of love. In contrast, the Mesa M6 is the best amp I've had, bar none, but it's 25 lbs and am still looking for a portable hybrid that might deliver some similar valvey goodness - OBT2 does sound promising along with the new GK FusionS series.