Russ

I seem to recall it was brought up in a thread over on TB when Fred from Peavey was soliciting input from Trace enthusiasts about upcoming products. I recall him being non-commital. Obviously they’ve got a 10” ELF combo right now, but it’s pretty conventional, with no bass reflex trickery. More Commando than BLX, but better sounding than either of them!

I can recommend Herrick - https://www.herrickpickups.com/ Martin makes some great stuff, including some fantastic multicoils in various configurations. He's pretty quick, but, like most of these companies, he's not all that cheap.

They're great - SUPER hot for a passive bass. And they look lovely. Only downside is they're boat anchors - proper 70's Fender weight. The 5-string comes in at around 10lbs. They're also good mod platforms - the pickups are 35/40DC-sized so there's any number of replacement pickups available, and, if you want to upgrade to active electronics, it's already got a side jack. Been thinking of getting one and Wal-ifying it, with Herrick multicoils and a Lusithand NFP jazz plate preamp.

Klos are now doing aftermarket graphite necks, to try and take that gap in the market formerly occupied by Status. They're currently only doing P and J necks, but it might be worth shooting them an email to see if they are planning on doing MM necks. https://klosguitars.com/collections/bass-necks/products/carbon-fiber-bass-neck-and-pickguard-upgrade-50-deposit

Just realised I never posted my two new Ooshyks on this thread! Meet Scarlett and Skye - a pair of Frog 6S 6-strings, fretted and fretless: The spec is basically the same for both: 6-string Ash body, quilted ash tops with colour in the grain Roasted maple necks with ebony fingerboards and graphite rods, bolt-on 17.5mm string spacing Luminlay blocks on Skye (the fretted one), edge lines (on Scarlett, the fretless), Luminlay side dots on both Hipshot Ultralite tuners, monorail bridges, Schaller straplocks, coloured knobs for volume and pan (I have the coloured knobs for the other pots, but Noll use a non-standard size for their concentric pots and they don't fit!) Delano Xtender pickups with series/parallel/single coil switches Noll custom 18V 4-band EQ (frequencies adjusted to match the 4-band EQ on a Musicman Bongo) Absolutely loving them so far. One thing I've noticed - if anyone else has the Noll electronics, do you notice the output at the jack being a bit quieter than you might expect? The pickups and circuit are extremely hot, but the output is pretty low, considering...

Possible. I'd heard it was an ICEPower one, but I'm happy to be corrected if it's not!

The power section is, as in many Class D heads, an ICEPower module, similar to that in the MiniMega (with a bit more power), but the preamp section is completely different to anything Peavey have done. The TE team at Peavey are all Trace fanboys and were fastidious about maintaining the "Trace tone" - the pre-shape EQ boosts and cuts the exact same frequencies as on the classic amps, the dual-band compressor is basically the same as the one on the old SMX heads, and the gain staging is designed to work pretty much identically to the classic designs. They even enlisted a bunch of Trace fans online to get their opinions on what they were doing (including, if I'm not mistaken, on this very site, as well as on TB). Basically, this is a lot more than a rebadged Peavey head.

These would be the main ones over the last 30-odd years: John Paul Jones Tony Levin Anthony Jackson Justin Chancellor Doug Wimbish Colin Edwin Cliff Burton Geddy Lee Steve DiGiorgio Billy Gould Flea Les Claypool Mick Karn John Taylor Nick Beggs Mark King Jaco Out of those, the ones that have persisted the most have been Levin, Burton and Wimbish.

You should try it through a Big Twin... 😮 It's like it never runs out of power, it just keeps getting louder! I've been having to deal with the input gain thing again recently - I recently got two new Maruszczyk basses, and they're wonderful. The only weird thing is, despite having pretty hot pickups and active 18V electronics, the actual output from the jack socket is quite low, so I'm having to deal with the input gain / compressor interaction again. To my ear, it also affects the EQ. It's fiddly but I'm not going to shy away from a challenge!

Great review. I own a TE-1200 and echo pretty much everything you've said about it. My only personal criticisms are that it has no way to monitor input gain (a clip light in the LED ring around the gain knob would be good for a putative version 2 of the head) and yes, that the included gig bag doesn't have a shoulder strap. It's quite hefty for a Class D head and having a shoulder strap would make transporting it much easier.

So, on Friday I received my new Maruszczyk Frog 6A twins - Skye and Scarlett. Skye is the blue-stained fretted bass, Scarlett is the red-stained fretless. Yes, I name my basses! Specs: Swamp ash bodies Quilted ash tops with colour stain in the grain Roasted maple necks with ebony fingerboards - edge lines on the fretless, Luminlay blocks on the fretted, Luminlay side dots on both, 17.5mm spacing at the bridge Delano Xtender pickups (with series/single coil/parallel switches) Noll 4-band EQ, 18V Hipshot Ultralite tuners Monorail bridges Ramps I’m still exploring the range of sounds available, but, holy crap, these things are nice. Light (8lbs), lovely necks, and a very smooth, slick feel thanks to a perfect setup. They weren’t all that pricey either. Maruszczyk also make it all a bit special - every bass comes with a certificate of ownership, a nice manual, a T-shirt, a big thick leather strap and a fancy gig bag! Adrian’s English isn’t great, but he’s very accommodating of any unusual requests. For instance, to fit the colour theme, I requested coloured knobs - we managed to do them on the volume and blend pots, but Noll’s concentric EQ pots are an unusual size, and we weren’t able to get knobs that fit, alas. Doesn’t bother me really, I think they still look cool. Merry Christmas to me.

I had a Fusion S 1200 for a while. Fantastic sounding thing, but really confusing controls. Every knob has two functions that you have to press the knob in to access.

I like the Sadowsky one. But you're right about the A-C one. It's "blobby", like a low-resolution version of a Fender headstock!

Yup. It's kinda a silly and slightly shallow thing to get hung up on, but the headstock is a dealbreaker for me too.

It goes 'boxy', a little bit hairy, and compressed in a less-than-pleasant way (pretty much standard for solid-state amps), but not noisy. I play active basses, and have to get the gain up to around 2-3-o'clock for it to get to that point. I usually have it around 11-12-o'clock, and there's almost endless gobs of power from the power section, so you'll pretty much never be in a situation where you'll have to dial up the input gain to be heard. The built-in compressor does lower the volume somewhat, but, as Merton said, playing with the input gain and compressor controls yields some interesting results, anything from a hyper-compressed, Tony Levin-style tone to singing sustain (my preferred setting).

I’ve got a TE-1200, and yes, this is a thing. Just dial in your gain until it sounds bad. However, this is something that has been brought up with the Trace team at Peavey, and will probably be addressed in the next iteration of the head. They’ve actually been very good in soliciting feedback on their products, and seem to very much be open to suggestions. Some smaller, lighter cabs would be nice too - updated versions of the 1153/1210H cabs would be ideal - something that would fit in the back of the average hatchback rather than the back of a big American SUV!

I don’t think I’m ever going to be in a covers band. I’m not really wired that way. On the odd occasion that a band I’ve been in has thrown a cover into our set, I’ve never found them very satisfying to play. I’ve learnt entire albums full of songs, but I have no desire to play anyone else’s music on stage. However, I’ve enjoyed plenty of covers bands over the years, although I have very particular tastes with it - they either have to reproduce the original closely (pretty much as if they were a tribute band) or they have to do it sufficiently differently that it becomes its own thing. Can’t stand the half-arsed cover.

Got all the old demo tapes and CDs, press kits, and a bunch of flyers. Also got most of the magazines we got reviewed in, the programme from when we played Bloodstock 2003, and a bunch of backstage passes. I was thinking of making a display case with stuff from each band, but never quite got around to it.

The Nexus heads were cool. I do feel they tried to shoehorn too many features into them though. Never been much of a fan of their cabs, alas.

Looks great, as long as they don't have any reliability issues. I used to be a bit of an Ampeg zealot, loved them. Then my SVT-7 died at a gig, during the first song. So, much as I think Ampeg stuff is great, I'm a little wary. I want to wait and hear some reports on how they perform. The 1200W head looks like it's coming in at US$1000, so probably £1000 when all is said and done. The gig bag is extra though - I wish they'd just include them. The 2x12" cab is $1100.

The two mid controls are the Bongo's big secret. That raspy tone is all in the high mids - dial the treble flat (or just slightly boosted), then dial the high mids all the way up, and you get that lovely clank. The low mids contains all the heft, although you need to take it easy with it - it can get quite boomy and tubby if you dial it all the way up.

It could be done as a 5.33 ohm cab (3x16 ohm speakers in parallel). Most amps will handle that. Markbass and Ashdown have both done 3x10" cabs and done pretty well with them. I'd buy one.

I was 13. That meant a bit of an eclectic selection - Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, a compilation tape of Commodore 64 game music, and whatever "Now" tapes were around back then...

Marshall to re-enter the bass market with a 1000W Class D head, with a valve preamp, the DBS EQ section, and full classic black and gold livery.

As recorded, it's... OK. There's this live version featuring Myles Kennedy from Alter Bridge that takes it to a completely different level though, with some beautiful S&G-style harmonies. Check it out.