Obrienp

OK. In the case of the Ashdown Little Stubby the balanced out requires a TRS jack (no XLR out), so would that require a cable with TRS one end wired unbalanced and TS 1/4” the other?

It would be another compact cab matched to the second amp. Probably a 12” like the lightweight Ashdown with the white speaker. Now I have spent out on the Little Stubby, I cant afford a Barefaced, or GR 12” but there seem to be quite a few Ashdown 12s on the second hand market.

Just thought, even though my other heads don’t have effects loops, I could still use this basic idea. Just connect a pedal into the effects loop on the Stubby that has wet and dry out. Send the wet back to the Little Stubby and send the dry to the input of the other amp. In fact, I guess the pedal could just be a splitter box. Then all I have to do is make sure the total volume doesn’t drown the drums.

Thanks to you all for the suggestions and advice. Better PA maybe the way to go:;well at least a sub.

Hmm. true that. Maybe I better just get a sub but they are all so big and heavy. Food for thought. Thanks.

Have you done it with a Little Stubby, or other Ashdown valve head? The manual says you “MUST” connect a TRS cable.

It is going into 2 Barefaced One10s, which are pretty loud. Much as I would love to go into a 4x10, or 4x12, I have reached the age where light weight and general portability are key. I think as a combo the Little Stubby and One10s will be loud enough for small indoor pub gigs but probably not for large halls, or outdoors.

Yes, the balanced out is transformer driven 😱. Do I dare?

That is a great idea but unfortunately neither of my Class D heads have effects send and return. Still, it might be cheaper to buy a second hand head with a send and return than a power amp.

Hi Knowledgeable Folks, Looking for some advice. I recently bought an Ashdown Little Stubby 30 watt valve head. It may be loud enough for some very small gigs but I think it will need some reinforcement for larger venues or gigs outside. Now at the moment our PA has 2 EV 12” active speakers and no sub. I wouldn’t normally plan to DI into our desk. The Little Stubby has a TRS balanced DI out. Can I feed this into my more powerful class D solid state head? Would I need some sort of TRS to mono converter? The other head only has jack input. I know I would need the Stubby to have a speaker load. Why do I want to do this rather than just use the solid state head? Because I love the tonal options of the Little Stubby and I want to use its preamp and just use the solid state head like a power amp, with all EQ flat. This is trying to avoid shelling out for a separate power amp. Supplemental question for Little Stubby owners: the manual says it will deliver 30 watts into either 8 or 4 ohms cabs; is that possible? Won’t it be 15 watts into 8 ohms and 30 into 4 ohms, or do valve amps work differently to solid state? Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi Folks, it pays not to be hasty: I ordered a set of the Wilkinson tuners only to see I had been messaged with an offer of some unused, surplus ones! Rats! Then I discovered this: https://www.wdmusic.co.uk/hardware-parts-c1/tuning-machines-c28/bass-tuners-c33/wd-music-enclosed-4-in-line-bass-tuners-chrome-p4987 at WD, which look pretty much the same as the stock tuners but with proper metal buttons. Anyway now you know folks. They look as though they will drop in without any need to ream out the holes but might be a little more robust.

Thanks I’ll keep a lookout on fleaBay.

Thanks Neepheid. That is reassuring. I’ve got a set of regular vintage style machines. I thought they were going to be too big at 18mm and with big clover leaf buttons but they look fine on your headstock. I might save myself the cost of the Wilkinsons. 👍

Sorry folks, I know there are plenty of Bronco mod threads but I searched for this particular question and didn’t find it. Please point me to it, if it has been answered. Like many I want to change the machine heads on my Squier Bronco without spending too much, as this a cheap temporary bass while I wait for a luthier built custom. I like the look of the Wilkinson WJB750 lightweight tuners (look like Hipshot). From what I have read elsewhere, the standard Bronco tuner hole is 12mm and the.Wilkinsons require 14mm. This is easily accomplished with a hand reamer, or step drill bit but this is going to push the machine head slightly to the right. The string pull isn’t straight to start with, especially on the low E. is this going to cause problems? A couple of issues I envisage are: the nut getting pulled across the neck if not properly glued in place; the off centre string pull causes the strings to bind in the nut slots leading to tuning instability. What are peoples’ experiences with changing the machine heads to those with larger posts? Should I try to enlarge the holes towards the left, so that I don’t change the right hand edge of the tuner post (as you look at the headstock of my right handed bass). This won’t be as easy to do as reaming out the hole evenly. Incidentally, other mods I am going to do are: change the strat pickup for a Tonerider Precision Plus (and the pots, etc) and put on a bridge with individual string saddles. I will be sticking to 18mm spacing and I have ordered something cheap and cheerful (I hope) from China. I am thinking I can move the coils of the precision pup to align with the string spacing. If you have done this I would love to hear how it went.

I had never heard of that before. I just found it on Thomann. Incredible it only ways 10Kg. I imagine that it is not vintage voiced though with that switchable tweeter. I can’t afford to change though and break up is not too much of a problem for the music I play: I rarely get to turn up that loud anyway and both my amps have DI out. Had I known about GR before though..... life is full of missed opportunities.

I promised some pics. A couple here to try to give you an idea of scale. My studio is a bit dimly lit, so apologies for quality.

Interesting. What did you replace them with?

Yes, sorry. I’ll take a few and post them anon.

For the sake of accuracy, I have to make a couple of additions/amendments to the review: 1. The brushed aluminium outer case is actually in 2 pieces, not one. It stops at the front above and below the control knobs. 2. I forgot to mention that the front panel has a 1/4” headphone socket (far right), which apparently has speaker emulation. 3. You probably guessed but mine is the vanilla version without the USB, or Bluetooth. The top model is 300 watts, mine is 200 @ 4 ohms.

I just received my Warwick Gnome today. i bought it as a spare/rehearsal amp. My main amp is TCE BH550. The main criteria for my choice was that I wanted a small 200 watt (or thereabouts) head that could be put into the pocket of a gig bag etc, as a just in case for gigs. It also needed to be comparatively cheap. I considered the Trace Elliott Elf (too expensive and apparently has a noisy fan), the TCE BAM 200 (I already have a TCE amp) and the Gnome. I went for the Gnome because it is only £5 more than the BAM 200/and i have already given TCE a lot of my hard-earned over the years. Not the most informed decision but there was no chance of getting to do an A/B/C comparison. There are quite a few reviews online of the Elf and BAM 200 but I could only find one of the Gnome and that was released by Warwick themselves. I thought it might be useful to folks considering one to give my first impressions. The Gnome is available from the German box shifters for less than the two UK outlets I could find online: Andertons and Bass Direct but now we are out of the EU I suspect there would be duties to pay on an import. The unit I received from one of the two UK dealers turned out to be a European model and came with a two pin power cable, which was annoying. I have duly whinged to them and I hope they will be sending me a UK kettle lead. More importantly I have asked for reassurance that the manufacturer’s warranty would be honoured in the UK, should the need arise; so watch out for that one! My immediate impression on unboxing was that it had the look and feel of a high quality item. The top front and bottom of the unit seem to be made of a single folded sheet of thick brushed aluminium, with the rest of it being made of black painted steel. The controls, while dinky, appear solid and it gives the impression of something that can take punishment, and last for a good few years. Controls are limited to input gain (with a clipping LED that changes from green to red when the built in compression kicks in), bass, mids, treble, master volume and a green light to show the unit is powered up. On the back is is a pretty standard rocker on/off switch, socket for the kettle lead, jack socket for speaker cable (min 4 ohms) and a balanced DI with ground lift button. Although about the size of a thick A6 paperback, it feels reassuringly heavy for its size, despite being only a couple of kilos. I connected it up to my standard rig, which comprises two Barefaced One10 cabinets daisy-chained giving a 4 ohm load. I started off with all gain and tone controls at 12 o’clock and the master volume at about 8 o’clock. Wow! I was staggered by the volume and girth of the sound. I swear it is louder than my TCE BH550, which as the name implies is 550 watts, at the same settings. Still with gain and tone at 12 o’clock, I raised the master volume to the mid point also and it started to drive the One10s to break up! They are rated at 250 watts each but Barefaced say they will comfortably take 300 watts each. Now they are designed to break up when driven but I don’t think the BH550 drives them that much at half volume. This is certainly one loud 200 watt amp! At this point I decided to protect my hearing (enclosed test space) and not try to open the volume control anymore but I am absolutely sure it has easily enough grunt to keep up with my band’s drummer in a pub type gig. Warwick claim that the Gnome is designed to be completely transparent tone wise. It was hard for to gauge with the One10s because they are definitely vintage voiced (think Ampeg at a 10th of the size). The tone controls apparently give plus or minus 15 DB and to my ears they deliver. I would say that the mid is pitched around the low mids but that is pretty subjective and I haven’t actually looked at the frequency band but for those of you who understand that stuff, the data is freely available online. It would be nice to have low mid and high mid controls but there wouldn’t be enough room on the front panel without increasing the unit’s size. All in all I would say they were pretty good and give you a good tone pallet to experiment with. Although the fan kicks in pretty quickly in operation, you can barely hear it and it seems to be effective: the unit never got more than slightly warm to the touch. My summary (and this is pretty subjective): a very useful, tiny and surprisingly loud amp. It appears well made and solid. It feels like it will take a lot of punishment. It is a great fall back amp, in case your main amp goes fut at a gig. Perfect for practice, rehearsals and small gigs. I will continue to use my BH550 for gigs but only because it has low and high mid controls, mute, built in tuner and 2 X TCE TonePrint effect slots. I can’t say it is better, or worse than the BAM 200, or the Elf because I haven’t tried them but if you are in the market for one of these mini-amps, you should definitely have the Gnome on your short list.

I could certainly try off board controls but I don’t think there is enough clearance between the top and strings to slide a P pickup underneath. That is why I was thinking of the Lace. I am open to any suggestions of (cheaper) alternative slim mag pickups.

Reviving this topic in the hope that I might get some views and advice this time. I have since obtained an Affirma, which is a great bass but does not really replace the Aerium as an acoustic sounding instrument. I was hoping it would provide me with a one-stop bass for gigs but it is not quite there. Also arthritis in my left thumb is making it difficult to play a long scale, although I seem to be able to manage the SRH 500 (Aerium). I feel the Aerium with the addition of a magnetic pickup, either with a separate jack socket, or wired into the original would be my ultimate Swiss Army knife bass for the kind of music my band plays; at least until the arthritis forces me to play short scale only. I am thinking of a P Bass pickup, like a Seymour Duncan quarter pounder, with its own passive volume and tone controls. Some questions to you knowledgeable folks are: 1. If I fit a split P Bass pickup with vol and tone controls, it will be non-reversable, will this reduce the resale value of the Aerium dramatically? 2. Can anybody foresee any technical issues with doing this modification? 3. Would I be better off looking at fitting something like the Lace Ultra Slim (if I can find one), which would not require routing holes in the top? Would the Lace give me the kind of proper electric bass sound, or is it designed to sound acoustic? what does the panel think?

I love the look of that Sentinel. Reverend have really come up with a great headstock shape as well. Familiar but different.

Yes. I’ll try to remember to ask him. Not sure when the build is going to begin yet. He has a 3 month backlog at the moment.

Hi Folks, Well, I thought I would post the conclusion to my debates and thank everybody for their suggestions, information, etc. After chatting to my friendly local luthier, I have ordered a custom build. It’s going to be a scaled down ‘54 P Bass shape (i.e. a 51 with some contouring), 30” scale with a very shallow D profile maple neck, 12” radius fretboard and 40 MM nut width. Lightweight body with through mounted controls. My Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder Jazz at the bridge and a custom wound reverse split P middle pickup. Pickup blender and push/pull parallel/series switch, passive tone, and a Babicz bridge. All sustainable woods in vintage sunburst with some ageing/road worn finish effects. All of the above with case should come in at less than the street price of an American Performer Mustang. I am hoping it is going to be a good replacement for my Aerodyne Jazz but in my preferred 51/54 shape. I will have little and large 51s! If I had known he could do this for what seems a very reasonable price, I would have gone straight to him. It also means I am supporting a local business, which I think is important in these troubled times.