jonno1981

Thanks for the valuable advice all. I'll do some measuring. I appreciate the only way to downsize a little bit without a huge compromise in tone is to go 2x12 or 2 x 1x12. Key is to have a smaller footprint.

Hi all, Rig advice please! I'm looking to downsize my current setup (well gigged schroeder 410l and nearly new sansamp vt500 head) to something a bit smaller. Tone wise I run it with the front end pushed really hard with Sansamp/Darkglass/Trex pre-amp/ overdrive before it gets to the amp. I don't have hugely diverse requirements as I currently only play in 1 project. I'm looking for something that takes up less footprint than a 4x10 so maybe a vertical 2x10 type design? Looking around I've spotted the Ampeg ba210 which you can pick up for around £500 but I don't know about other options. There are some new designs from Ashdown and Laney which I've never seen or tried. Alternatively I could just downsize the cab and keep the head but I'm not sure! All ideas considered!

I have to wish Phil, Barrie and Vic the very best. The business sounds like it's going to continue which is fantastic news. I'm sure there are lot's of factors involved in this, I reckon Brexit will be a major contributor. Exchange rates fluctuations and supplier confidence in dealing with the UK makes being a specialist retailer very difficult.

I've got one and really enjoy it. Worth noting that bassgear have these in their clearance sale for a silly price. I would imagine these are shortly to go up in price along with everything else imported from a US supplier......

Arrrrrgh. Why did I find out about this the day after the gig. Fail.

I bid £700 which was declined. In this case I'm apprehensive about bidding any more given the seller. They aren't a specialist by any means so this one could have a neck warped inside out and they wouldn't know about it.

I picked up one of these from bassgear last week after an extensive shoot out with some other contenders. The VT went up against the two aguilar tonehammers and a carvin head. Overall, all the amps sounded great but were surprisingly different. The aguilar's are really excellent amps but I struggled to get much variation out of them. They offer a really warm, creamy vintage tone but couldn't really do much more for me. They are loud, light, extremely well made but only really had a single sound. I think the TH500 was marginally the loudest of the amps I tried and probably the easiest to get a good sound out of, but beyond the core tone I couldn't really make it sound that different. I would be perfectly happy with one of these for the core sound but it isn't the ideal tone for me. The sansamp however has a far broader tonal palette and has a far more versatile overdrive/crunch tone. I really like a slightly over driven sound when I dig in and the sansamp nails it. It's got a huge amount of control with the 3 band EQ and master operating independently of the character and drive which you can also blend in against the dry signal. Changing one control has an impact on the other controls so you can spend ages tweaking it. This is something that I can see could be frustrating for some users but I love it. They are also the most sensitive controls on any amp I've ever used. A little adjustment goes an a long way! One gig in I'm really pleased with it. The one stage sound was great with my schroeder 410l, it's a really loud set-up. It certainly doesn't lack any ooooopmmmh which was my concern with buying any digital amp. Our soundguy really liked the DI, he said the overall tone was a little brighter and much higher output than the DI on my old ashdown head and easier to work with. I thought I might sell the VT pre-amp pedal I've had for ages when I bought this but I think I'm going to leave it on my board. I use it in front of my trex fuzz and it jumps the level up and increases the saturation of the fuzz. I could probably sell it for a signal boaster but I like the flexibility of it. Time will tell but I'm really pleased with it so far.

Agreed!! Very curious!!!! I've been keeping an eye on this thread hoping for a review before pulling the trigger!

Thank you for the responses and apologies for hijacking the original thread. I'm seriously looking into the VT500, my concern is that as it's such a new product it might be a while before I get my hands on one. I'm not so keen to buy another ashdown, for reasons I wont go into details here. Anyone have any experience of the TC stuff or GK digital amps?

I've really valued reading through this thread as I'm in a similar boat. My Ashdown RC500 evo ii has died a death and is beyond economical repair (needs new PSU and it's cooked half the transistors on the board). I have a Sansamp Bass VT and use a trex bass fuzz and tend to have a slightly overdriven sound pretty much all the time onto a full on fuzz through a schroeder 410l. I need to get a new head but don't have a huge budget to play with. I've been looking at a lightweight heads but have been a bit disappointed with the overall heft of some of the amps I've tried before. They just haven't had the same big chunky natural low end of the Ashdown which I really loved. However I don't want to get anything as heavy and I don't want a hifi esque tone. I've been eyeing up the new sansamp VT 500. It's appealing as I'm used to the tone of the pre-amp pedal that's been in my chain for years. If I get one I can also sell the pre-amp pedal too for £100ish. Are there any other contenders for less than £500? Am I asking too much for this budget? I play in a really loud 3 piece with a big hitting drummer which doesn't help! Any advice is much appreciated.

Was the the MIM with the new pickups in it? That was a very decent bass!

I know someone who had a firearms license (he used to keep shotguns) and he would keep all his music gear locked up in the secure cupboard he had. His excuse was that legally he was the only person who was allowed entry into the room! He had loads of stuff! He would also only buy guitars in certain colours and rotate the 1 or 2 he had in the house. Genius! His wife never looked at them closely enough to realise he had different ones out every other week as they were all the same colour!

A special piece of music written and performed by the guitarist and drummer in my band :-)

Are they really going to be selling Sandbergs at £800-£850? That's going to screw over the UK distributor who has worked really hard to build the brand over here.

I know the feeling. I play in a band called 'Heights', a year after our first gig another band appear with the same name! Rubbish! Annoying but we are VERY different sounding so we move in different circles. Not been in issue for a while really.

As an update to my friends order I posted about earlier, it has arrived! After threatening legal action for the umpteenth time a crushed, poorly packaged and protected box turned up. Inside was an amp cover, for the wrong size!!!! It's about 5cm too big all the way round. He has given up trying to deal with them and has decided to try and make some use of it. You can just about grab the handle through the cutaway on the top but still not ideal. It does prove that there is someone working away at the company at the present time though which might be useful for folks here chasing orders.

If you are willing to trek to Wokingham then a good pal of mine Jay runs a place called www.therhoom.co.uk just outside of Hurst/Twyford. It is busy in the evenings but you can check the calenders for each of the 4 studios on the website to save you the hassle of calling in. Studio's 2 and 3 are the best sounding I think. We originally built studio 1 as we got fed up with the quality and price of the local competition then Jay took it on as a business for other bands and has built it up over the years since. A lot of the more successful/high profile Reading area bands use it regularly, worth a shot!

My sole bass is an all parts build that sounds and plays great. I bought it secondhand so didn't assemble it myself but have played around with different pickups and string choices. The quality is great overall, body grain looks good, neck and fret work excellent. The guitarist in my band has just put together a tele based around warmoth parts and the quality and workmanship is incredible. I think there is a lot to be said in putting something together yourself from sourced parts.

I've had this before with a Jap P bass I had a while ago. After 10 minutes or so of playing (without digging in hard) it just kept going out of tune. I spent some time with a tech who determined that the neck wasn't flexing when tuning up, the strings weren't slipping at the tuners, the tuners themselves were stable, turned out it was the nuts slots which were trapping the windings of the strings. This can really be a problem if you do a lot of vibrato/string bending. If the string is bent and the windings lodge in the nut then when you bend back down the string stays trapped because of the winding which has been caught and doesn't return to pitch. This is one of those annoying things that can really only be down to a number of potential causes. Best to try and systematically eliminate them one by one till you find what's causing the problem. Best of luck!