Osiris

I'm inherently sarcastic, a bit of a pi55 taker and an occasional wind up merchant, so I'm happy to hold my hands up if I say something that sometimes gets interpreted in a way that it isn't necessarily intended. So yeah, I see how that can be read as a bit of an over reaction, even though that wasn't my intention. No offense meant to anyone 😀 But I do also believe that it's wise to reserve judgement on something until you've had first hand experience of it. As I said, the Quilter Bass Block is very loud at its 40 watt setting, so while I'm not saying that the new amp can keep up with a drummer, it wouldn't surprise me that it could keep up with one when paired with an efficient speaker. But again, we'd need to try it in anger to know either way.

No, I'm not a Quilter rep, but I am trying to offer a balanced view of the product. The rip it apart comment was meant somewhat tongue in cheek but was in response to the comment; 45 Watts at 4 ohms though?  I'm struggling to think what gap this would be filling. Even though the product description clearly states the intended uses for it. Fair comment about the Elf having an XLR, but a TRS to XLR cable is still a simple solution. @Reaper I assume you're being ironic with the engage brain comment, particularly as you then made the assumption that I must be incapable of making an objective assessment of the unit based on the comment "... something new and shiny, let's all rush out and get it!" bandwagon." Bandwagons aren't my thing, but I do believe in being fair and objective. If you know something about the Interbass that I don't, based on your experiences with it I'd be interested to hear about it.

It's nice to see that this has already turned into one of those classic There's something new on the market, let's all rip it apart before anyone has even got their hands on one type threads! *Facepalm. According to the online blurb the Interbass contains "... the best features of the Bass Block signal path...". Anyone who has tried the Quilter BB, and I have, will tell you just how loud it is even at the ostensibly unusable 40 watt setting. The blurb mentions this being "enough volume for practice and small gigs". And with that Bass Block DNA, I have no doubt it will be, especially if you have an efficient speaker. Not only that, if it is voiced the same as the BB it will be a great vintage sounding little amp with a real valve like response, especially when gain is pushed and the limiter kicks in. The line out is balanced, while an XLR socket would have been welcome, a TRS to XLR cable cheaply remedies this. With bass gear getting smaller and smaller, I suspect that we'll be seeing more balanced quarter inch balanced outputs in future. Other than some online whinging it hasn't proved a fatal design flaw on the Helix Stomp, for example. And no doubt the effects loop return can be used as an auxiliary input. If the Interbass turns out to be a baby Bass Block, and it looks as though that is indeed the case, then I think that this will prove to be a very useful tool and I could see myself getting one.

As @Ed_S says, try it without the Sansamp. The classic P sound has that big low mid rich kick that sets it tonally apart from classic J and MM type sounds, but the Sansamp has a huge void in the mids that will be detracting from the classic Precision sound. A Precision through a Sansamp is a tried and tested sound that a lot of guys use but it's not the same as a P through a clean amp. Just don't scoop out those mids 😀

I use amp modelling to replace my physical amp and cab. Around 12 months ago my band moved over from having traditional backline on stage to using in ear monitors. Using an amp and cab sim (more accurately sims as I use different amp and cab models to suit my different gigging basses) allows me to keep the bass sounding natural, as though it's still being played through an amp and cab, so the sound is still coloured to some degree. I personally prefer this colouration to going straight into the desk via a DI. And with the quality of modelling currently available the sounds are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing what with responsive touch dynamics and realistic weighty sounds. My sound is simple, just an amp and cab model and a compressor plus a touch of drive for a couple of songs, no other bells or whistles. Bass into the modeller into the PA.

Cheers @Muttbass. The original review is a couple of years old now but I still stand by it. I gigged the Magellan for around 18 months and I still cannot fault it, the EQ is so simple yet has all the versatility you're likely to need (unless you're running a heavily effected sound, but you'll have your pedals for that). The pre-amp just seems to have exactly what you want, when you want it. I have never not been able to EQ to a room in a few seconds. It may not have as many controls as some other amps but you just don't need them with an amp that sounds this good. It just works. Every time. In my experience. My band ditched backline for IEM's around a year ago so I'm not currently gigging with the Magellan, but I do still fire it up from time to time because it is such a great amp 😀. So good that I also bought the smaller 350 version and I have also gigged that too. The 350 has the same flexibility of its bigger brother and is more than loud enough to gig with. It doesn't have the sublime drive channel of the 800 but if you're only using clean sounds it is more than capable of delivering a hefty, versatile array of sounds.

Fixed

I still don't think you really understand what I was trying to get at. Lend me your interface and DAW and I'll see what I can knock up with the Stomp. If anyone wants me, I'll be listening to this (with nary a synth in sight);

Cheers @dannybuoy I can confirm that this link works fine on my Windows 10 PC, just click on it and you get the full version with none of the blurb in the installation about it being a 30 day trial as with he previous link I'd posted earlier.

Just received some freebie bridge parts from Dave and he's a great guy to deal with, fast and friendly communication and the parts arrived very quickly too.

I had a go at downloading Riffstation from the above link but it looks like all you get is a 30 day trial after which it will stop working. In the end I didn't install it as I was hoping for the complete full version which looks to have been a freebie prior to being pulled. Ah well.

Thank you, Father Teebs. Does the absolution also cover the incident with the donkey and the gimp mask?

Looks like you can still download it from the link below, but I should point out that I haven't actually downloaded it so I've got idea if this is what it claims to be or whether it's a virus or some other nasty! I'm just absolved myself from any blame if it turns out to be dodgy! http://riffstation.findmysoft.com

It's like Crack to him.

Alvarez Baritone and the Cüm Brulees.

@CameronJ My pleasure, my good man 😀

Alvarez Baritone. Sounds like a Mexican pimp 😃

There's always one. And it's often me. And this is no exception! I owned a 250 watt SMX 1x15 combo and matching 1x15 cab, bought new in the early 90's and in time grew to hate it with a passion, it was an absolutely gutless pile of 5h1t that was about as versatile as Rik Mayall. It was my first serious rig and I'd saved long and hard for it. I'd bought it on the strength of the buzz about them at the time, still very much pre-internet times so I was influenced by the likes of Bassist magazine and the word on the street. I was still young and relatively inexperienced when I bought it but as I developed as a bass player and got to know what bass sounds work for me I came to realise that my Trace rig couldn't deliver the goods. I wanted a fairly flat sound with tight lows, punchy mids and enough high end to give the sound some definition. All the Trace seemed to deliver was a bright top end. The SMX pre-amp had a million and one tone shaping options but no matter what I did with it, it didn't really stray form a bright sound that was delivered with the slam of an asthmatic nematode. It was like dealing with an 8 year old; Trace, give me gutless sound with lots of treble. No problem. That's great, how about thickening things up with some audible bass frequencies? What about some more treble instead? Trace, give me some punchy mids. I know, a massive boost between 2-4KHz will work wonders. And so on. I eventually saved up enough money to replace it. I couldn't care less what the anti class D crowd say but it was replaced by a Mark Bass Little Mark 2. And there it was, all of a sudden there were all the lows and mids that were missing from the Trace. The Little Mark was rated at 500 watts and was easily twice as loud as my old SMX and didn't break a sweat delivering the lows and mids with a conviction that the Trace never could. So if TE watts are twice as loud as everyone else's, then Mark Bass watts are >4 times as loud! All in my experience of course!! Fast forward to last year and having more or less got over my old Trace rig I thought try again. Based on the high praise heaped on them on here and elsewhere online, I bought a TE Transit pre-amp pedal as my band was ditching backline for IEM's. This was a significant improvement over the SMX but still not without its issues, for example the so called legendary Trace pre-shape added so many subby lows that it was unusable. I reckon it'd even be too over powering for dub reggae. Still, the EQ was very good, and the dual band compression was fantastic. But that soon followed its predecessor out of the door. So it came as something of a pleasant surprise when I dropped in to buy a used bass from a guy a few months ago and he plugged it into a GP7 (?) (1x15 with 7 band EQ) combo to show that it was working. My initial reaction was to think "oh no, don't" but with the EQ set flat and any idiot buttons switched off, there it was, my Trace Elliot epiphany. There was that big, punchy Trace sound that's so revered. There was the weight and heft that was lacking from my old SMX. Mine was obviously a Friday afternoon special and I still sometimes shudder at the thought of it. But some 25 years or so later, I think I finally get it.

Spot on. ^ Compression metering is definitely of great value when setting up a compressed signal, without it the temptation is to flatten the dynamics to the point that the compression is audible and obvious, which invariably means that you've over done it and that leads to complaints that compression obliterates your dynamics. You can, of course, use it that way if you are looking for a dynamically flat signal as an effect (not that I can think of an example off the top of my bald little head). But when set up correctly it controls your dynamics and doesn't flatten them. However, in the absence of metering you can use your ears if you know what to listen out for, that's what I've done with my Stomp compression patches and they work for me, giving me the control and punch that I like.

Someone agreed with your unsubstantiated claim (only one of them by the way) therefore your statement has indeed been validated. My defense withers in the face of such empirical evidence 🤣🤣🤣

My interest was based more on your ad nauseam repetition that the synths on the Stomp are noticeably inferior to those of dedicated synth pedals such as the Future Impact, without actually offering anything in support of that claim, rather than any serious interest in bass synths themselves. I thought I'd been fairly unambiguous on that point in my previous posts? Or was I being too subtle?? Didn't the link to the The best (insert whatever here) thread give you a hint??? My background is in science which is an area where anyone making a claim needs to provide evidence to back it up, otherwise they are ignored. Unsubstantiated claims do not last long in scientific circles. And quite rightly so. Unfortunately this is a trait that I carry into my everyday life too, if you can't support the claim you're making don't expect me to take any notice of it. It's also a handy way to filter out some of the copious amounts of bovine excrement that life throws my way. Not that I'm implying anything personal here 🐄 💩 But as I'd (also) said in an earlier post, just playing with the synth models in the Stomp and mindlessly tweaking parameters, the functions of which I don't understand, was yielding results that to my untrained ear were comparable to some of the synth clips that I've heard online - though these are not exclusively Future Impact clips. The clips posted by Quatshisname do indeed sound great, and may well be "better" (presumably measured by whatever metrics you are use to determine betterness?) than the various models currently in the Stomp, but until I see of hear a direct head to head comparison between the two any claims of superiority shall remain, in my eyes, an untested hypothesis. Conjecture. Speculation. As for my compression settings...

Thanks, @Quatschmacher for stepping up when others couldn't or wouldn't! COUGH* @Al Krow *COUGH.

The pub circuit we play, roughly Northants, Bucks to Leicestershire-ish, pays between £250 to £350. There's the odd venue that will pay below that (which we avoid!) and only 1 or 2 WMC's that will pay more. But £250 is standard in most places that we play.

Both bought used, I prefer to buy new so you don't have to chisel the various solidified secretions of the previous owner off before feeling comfortable but these we at prices that I couldn't refuse. Both punch well above their weight too. The reverse P is great as is the fact that the bridge pickup is closer to the neck than the standard positioning means that it's useful too, I find the standard positioning of bridge pickups gives a sound that's too thin and nasal for my tastes. I assume that much of this collection was bought used too?

A bit of upper mid boost to add some presence to the inherently dark short scale tone, pulled back the lows and treble a touch, and a healthy dose of compression. Strings are La Bella S500L's.