Boneless

I think the MSRP for the 5-stringer is supposed to be 1000$.
This means street price is going to be... 650-700$, I guess. About 50-100$ less for the 4-string version.

I think

[quote]And the view that 15 cabs go lower than 4x10's is a very out of date view.[/quote]

Never said so, I just said that 1x15" cabs are generally darker, more low-midrangey at least. I know that many 4x10" today can actually go deeper and lower than most 1x15", but coupling a 2x10"/4x10" with a 1x15" still yields interesting results due to the difference in dynamic and frequency response of the cabs.

Anyway, yes, you should check what you've got first. I just assumed you had already thought of this

[url="http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=1412"]http://www.epiphone.com/news.asp?NewsID=1412[/url]

Finally a neck-through Far Eastern alternative to the Gibson.

...I know, I know... it's an active T-bird, but hey, it doesn't take much to run it in passive

Plus, they're gorgeous
The Translucent Black is fabulous, the Sunburst even more... the Natural Oil it's kinda weird for a T-bird but interesting nonetheless.

Now that I think of it (stupid me ) the Dual Parallel mode can be useful, since it lets you use a 8 ohm cab together with a 4 ohm cab

Anyway, I don't know if the Hartke LH500-1000 are loud (I would think so, of course ), but the HA3500 (350W) is very loud indeed.
Markbass amps are very loud as well, I have never, ever raised the volume over a quarter (while keeping the gain at the maximum level before clipping, of course).

Keep in mind that you already have kind of a "natural" crossover between the cabs, since a 1x15" tends to have a darker, bassier tone than a 4x10" for example. 2x12" are generally great standalone cabs.

[quote]Nope.

The Hartke LH1000 has 2 power amps. Dual parallel mode means you use both. Bridgedmode sticks one on the end of the other, giving one higher-powered output at double the impedance.[/quote]

Ahhh, I see, the single power amps get down to 2 ohms, while the bridge mode only gets to 4 ohms. (Well, I knew I was going to be wrong ).

Useless, I'd say, anyway, since there aren't any cabs (that I know of) with a 2 ohm impedance, and going through 4 cabs (as in two stacks made of two 4 ohm cabs in parallel) is never going to happen adding a crossover would have slightly increased the cost, OK, but also it would have given a reason to be to the "Dual Parallel" mode.

It depends, really, by the type of preamp.

Some tube preamps are made to saturate or distort, others are made to stay clean and clear. Tubes are there, anyway, to give their "colour" to the tone. Tubes tend not to have a linear response, and tend to add what we would call "warmth" (although it always depends on the preamp... some tube preamps are made to be absolutely hi-fi, with clarity in mind, not warmth, not generally the case in bass preamps though).

The Hartke head has a single tube preamp, which is made for clean, not saturated sounds. I have never tried it, bear in mind, I'm only suggesting it as a choice because it's so cheap really.

The Ashdown ABM, instead, has a valve stage in the preamp which is there to add grit and saturation.

Tubes anyway, aren't necessarily better than solid-state alternatives. The Markbass Little Mark is greatly appreciated on the forums*, for example, for its clear yet warm and even tone. I've read nice things about the Peavey Tour heads (supposedly good workhorses with a quite faithful tonal response and lots of power).

*: maybe TOO much, really I've seen people considering it better than amps 3-4 times more expensive, and while taste is personal, I think some people exaggerate and I'm Italian! I should be praising Markbass, and I actually own a Little Mark, and don't get me wrong, they're GREAT amps, but I don't think they're as high-end as they make 'em over the forums, especially on the US forums

EDIT:

Dual Parallel mode, I think, is a bi-amped mode where you can decide what frequencies to amplify over two different speakers. For example, all frequencies above 300Hz amplified by a 2x10" and all frequencies below by a 1x15". Not sure, though.
With only one cabinet, you don't need this feature.

No point in buying separate preamp and poweramp, really, if you're not actually choosing a particular pre and a particular poweramp.

There are loads of choices out there, the first three I can think of:

- a Markbass Little Mark II: solid-state
- the new Hartke LH500 (cheap): hybrid
- the Peavey Tour 450: solid-state

redzombie,

[quote]It's more the other way around with the VT bass. The tube emulation will beef up your tone, in a similar way to the BDDI but even better (IMO), only it will add more drive unlike the BDDI. Basically it will do the same job as a BDI and Bad Monkey together.[/quote]

what I meant is "if you have a nice clean tone and you just need some distortion, get a VTBass, if you want to switch between beef and drive, then get a BDI for the beef and a Bad Monkey for the drive".

If the VTBass had two footswitches, one for colour and one for boost/drive, then it would be the ONLY way to go.

EDIT: I just discovered with horror that Tech21 is using the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans"]Comic Sans MS[/url] font for the Character series.



I COULDN'T buy something with that crappy font on it, it's offensive

...that's not what they're good at.

What they're good at is [i]adding colour[/i].

The Hartke will give you distortion as well, more than the Sansamp, but I wouldn't use it as a regular stompbox. For Sansamp-ish tone AND distortion, get a VTBass.

The best chorus ever, to my ears:



half rack unit mount (did I say it correctly? ), so it might be a nuisance. Also requires 500mA (strange, as it is analog).

But it is the BEST chorus I have ever heard. Wide, spacious, lush chorus. If you like fat choruses, then you won't like it, but if you want to add depth and shimmer to your sound, and you don't like strong choruses (just a light, subtle effect), then you'll love the Rockman.
Goes at about 100€ on the 2nd hand market, even less maybe. But it's worth every penny.

Otherwise, I'd suggest the Digitech, I remember trying it a few years ago, and it was quite nice, very versatile, I thought (it could go from subtle to TOO thick). I never liked the Boss chorus (at least the bass one), for some reason...

BBE Optostomp.
Not sure about the true bypass, but it sounds transparent when bypassed anyway.

I used to own the Behringer copy. The Sansamp:

- has loads more volume
- has a brighter, more open sound (still kinda boxy to my ears though)
- is much more reliable

This said, I have had my Behringer copy working for more than a year without any problems, then my bass fell on it and the Drive knob hasn't worked ever since (it's kind of stuck on the minimum gain setting), not too bad though since, while very nice on the distortions, very warm and full, I thought it wasn't rich enough, it always sounded as taking something off your tone, and not really "adding".

The Hartke VXL (it must be the 10th time I've said it on this forum alone ) is a better buy, IMHO. It costs much less, sounds richer and brighter than the Sansamp, and with a more usable drive, I'd say (less warm altogether, though), it is just as reliable (I'd say it is built like a tank) and if you like having a contour control, it has it, a -20dB notch filter on a selectable frequency, I think the notch filter is too much for me, 20dBs are a lot, but I found an use for deep, full, synthy sounds setting it at something around 350Hz (plus, I roll the tone off my bass so to cut off treble), very nice. Slappers (not THAT kind as in "people who slap a lot" ) will appreciate it as well. The only issue I have with it is that the EQ is always on, even when the Drive is deactivated, which is a bit of a nuisance (but if you leave it always on, it's not that big an issue, of course). It has a DI, and a parallel output (if you want a dry sound to go to your amp).

But... I wouldn't suggest it to you. You have an Ampeg SVT-3 Pro, which has that kind of tone already. Any Sansamp-like preamp is going to be superfluous for you (unless you want a small box-DI to do the job when you don't want to carry your rig around).

Well, sorry for the mistake then I thought the VTBass was only supposed to be a kind of "overdrive". So can it actually drive a power amp? Is there anyone who has tried to do this and succeeded?

Anyway yes, the BDDI is NOT an overdrive (despite reading about it very often in threads about overdrive-distortion). It might give that HINT of saturation nicely, but it's not a drive, and it doesn't work nicely when cranked, IMHO. Although you can happily drive it with another overdrive before in the chain, I used to drive my BDI when I had one* with a Bad Monkey, which for rock I find it is a perfect complement for it. If you prefer a grittier tone, you might also like the Sansamp GT-2, or the Ashdown Drive Plus. Some like the Guvnor as well, but I hated it.

If you're happy about your clean tone, and you don't have any modeling needs (so you don't need the general sound of the BDDI), the VTBass will be loads better. Otherwise, if you prefer having something that will beef up your clean tone, and OD/Distortion as well, I suggest the cheap combo, Behringer BDI + Digitech Bad Monkey (you can always upgrade to the Sansamp if you feel you need to do it).

*: the Behringer one, I never really LOVED the Sansamp sound since it's too "woolly" for my taste, and the differences with the Behringer BDI are subtle, when used as a modeler and not as a preamp to drive power amps, which the Behringer won't do, having half the volume. If I ever needed to drive a power amp, I would have chosen the Sansamp, of course.

Thing is, it's not the aging process which makes them such a bad deal (although I would never buy one), it's the price! For crying out loud, it's nearly double the price of a "normal" Classic '60!

I think, though, that the marketing team at Fender's not stupid. Most probably, they have made a Road Worn series because there are people that will buy one

Huge rip-off.
They're supposed to be simply Classic '60 Fenders (MIM, then), with an aging process.

The Bad Monkey will do it OK then.
It's VERY touch sensitive as well, the degree of overdrive can be easily controlled by simply playing softer or harder. I haven't seen many pedals which respond this naturally to your playing, the Bad Monkey has been a great find.
Even without the mod, though there IS low end loss, it's not too bad... I'd probably mod the pedal though, I'm not too bothered since I have a trebly kind of tone (I will try to mod mine, anyway, with a simple cap change).

Ah, by the way, mine started working again today

Oh, but don't get me wrong, if I can't manage to fix mine, I am going to buy another one straightaway.
For the price, a terrific pedal. And even without the low price, if it cost twice as much, I would buy it anyway, I can't think of a pedal under 100€ with that kind of tone, creamy and smooth as freshly made custard
Just thought it would be the right thing to do, to point out that I have had some reliability issues.

The only thing about the Bad Monkey is that it might be a bit prone to failing.
I have a Bad Monkey, right beside me, I've had a couple of issues with it I must say, and at the last rehearsals it started coughing out static but I didn't hear anything wrong from others, though, so it might just be me unlucky

Of course, but the thing is, I am a serious paranoid about my tone, I probably wouldn't be able to live knowing that there MIGHT be a loss of low end, and nothing I can do about it on the fly
I'd end up screaming and tearing the cap away while jumping up and down on my amp

I will probably do it on my own, I told to the guitar tech not to install it, but I feel safer to do it myself, with my amp and being able to compare the tone before and after

I'd say they're quite different, yes.
The MXR M80 has got 2 channels, clean and drive. On the clean channel it's clear and articulate sounding, not much colour, it tends to be quite respectful of your bass's tone. I wouldn't say hi-fi... but not very coloured either (of course, it will be coloured, by hi-fi standards).
The drive channel is very modern sounding, a bit scooped, a bit on the fuzzy side, quite aggressive, I'd say.

The Sansamp BDDI (in its normal version) has got only one channel, and it isn't capable really of distortion, only gets to overdrive, but I don't think that heavy drive is its best feature, it's best with a VERY mild drive, IMHO. It is a very warm sounding preamp, a bit complicated to set properly (it has no mid pot, it has got a "vintage" kind of eq stack, where the mids are fixed and you achieve a KIND OF flat EQ with bass and treble at about 8 o'clock, I don't have one here and the last time I used one has been a year ago, so I might be wrong), and VERY coloured (it has a tone of its own, I think it's supposed to remind of a SVT amp). It features a DI, of course.

The VTBass is a modeling pedal, it isn't a preamp, so you might think of it as a distortion pedal (no DI then), it's supposed to be better at mild-medium drive than a normal Sansamp (they say "think of it as a Bass XXL into a Sansamp BDDI"), I have never tried it, but by what I hear from the samples, it sounds just like a Sansamp with an overdrive before it, as they say. Not modern, though, always "vintage-y".

If you need distortion, and you're happy with your clean tone, I'd get a VTBass, or a M80, if you're OK with the fact that you're actually "underusing" the pedal (it's supposed to be more, much more than a distortion pedal). They cost about the same, I think.

You might prefer a Sansamp or similar for a more vintage-y tone. The VTBass looks like something you might like.
I personally prefer the M80, but it is modern sounding, not for everybody's taste.
A good preamp, though, nice clean tone, and great as a DI as well.

My concern is that, though, the bleeding cap may have some effect even when the volume is fully turned up (like with the tone control), since pots aren't "perfect" and some of the signal still goes through the cap.
With a bass, I fear that some of the "high pass filter" effect the bleeding cap has (since it's just basically a HPF) may actually affect the tone. On a guitar, it is more likely to not hear any difference with the volume turned up, since the frequency range of a guitar starts, I think, at around 100Hz o something like it , while with a bass, the loss of deep low end that MAY occur could affect the bass's tone I don't really have a bassy tone, it's more of a high-mid/treble rich kind of sound, but still...

I found both the Sansamp and the Behringer BDI (which is a quite close copy) "boxy" and dull-sounding.
The Hartke VXL Bass Attack, albeit less warm, is more "open" and clear. Only drawback (a very annoying one, though) is that the EQ is never bypassed (the best thing would be to get a line selector, or modify it in some way, shouldn't be hard, it's just a matter of rewiring the parallel output to a switch).
My Peavey T-40 isn't black, it's natural ash.

Neat!
Thanks a lot!

EDIT: I was thinking, though, the cap on the tone pot affects tone even when the pot is maxed. Won't this be the case with the bleeding cap as well? I don't really want to lose the low end...

I read you can put a resistor parallel to the capacitor, for a "better" effect.
What would be the difference? I haven't really understood.
Plus, would you suggest me some values for resistors and caps (always considering I have humbuckers).