dumelow

i saw muse at earls court in 2004 and they covered dracula mountain at the beginning of the set, i had no idea who it was by till i looked em up.

noone else sounds like lightning bolt, and there isnt many live performances quite as manic as theirs.

think im gonna be ordering meself several neo cabs before the price rises happen!

Right then, Sorry about the long wait for this review but I wanted to wait until the end of the week so that I'd tried it for a few different things

Initial reaction out of the box = hell this thing is tiny. Its not as tiny as the GK MB200, I cant fit it into the pocket on my bass bag but it fits into a backpack easily. Its really well made and I reckon it could take a drop or two; not that im willing to test that theory. Now this is my first experience with Ampeg. Closest thing to an Ampeg amp ive used before is presets on podfarm and a tech21 PBDDI. It doesnt have any growley gain too it. Its a very clean, solid state sound. That being said, it sounds beautiful. At home im pushing it through an Ashdown ABM115. This thing pushes out a lot of bass, even if you leave the bass control flat. The other thing I noticed whilst practicing, and whilst recording through ProTools, is that it has a LOT of mids to its sound. You can cut this obviously, which i have being doing slightly, but it still has a very punchy, clear midrange sound to it. (it might be worth noting that the mid control cuts and boosts at 500Hz) Personally, I love it. For recording this thing is absolutely beautiful, the DI out is post EQ and the volume control on the amp does not affect DI output. If I get any time, ill upload some samples of what this baby sounds like. I also want to point out, that the bass Ive been using with this thing is an Ibanez with an active pre. The manual says that if the "peak" light on the front of the head lights up often, you should use the pad button, which I have been doing. This obviously cuts the volume by -15dB. I imagine that with a passive bass, this head could be pushed a lot more.

Saturday night, I got to use this head at a large practice room, with a hard hitting drummer, two guitarists and a singer through a PA (should have seen ther faces when i whipped out this little tiny head out of my backpack). I didnt take down the Ashdown cab, I was using a Trace Elliot 1x15 cab 8ohm (so was running the head at 250w). When i first plugged in I panicked a bit, cause i had to put the gain and the volume almost on full to hear it. This wasnt too much of a concern because the peak light didnt light up at all, but the limiter button was pushed in and the light to tell you that it was kicking in was doing so on every note played. Now i know this might seem strange, but after about 15 minutes, I dunno if it was my ears settling or the band getting quieter or what, but I turned the volume and gain down to about half and it was cutting through brilliant. Huge amounts of bass being pumped out, very midrangey punchy sound and even through a 1x15", the highs were very clear and audible. We were playing rock/funk covers, and we even played some reggae at one point. This head is very versatile, im over the moon about it. Next step on my list is to buy a 4ohm lightweight cab and run this thing at 350w so I can have the gain and volume knobs running even lower! I really dont know what people are comparing this head to when they claim that it is quiet for a 250w. It seems as loud as any 250w combo ive ever used.

So to sum it all up, I definitely recommend this amp, wether it be just for a nice clean recording tool at home or in the studio, or for gigging. Id venture a guess that this thing would struggle at large gigs without a PA, but saying that, Im yet to run it at 350w.



This is my first ever review! Sorry if it is structured terribley, and please ask any questions if I havent covered something youd like to know about this head.

Cheers

Its an active bass alright, ill go with the ebay link then, thanks a lot for your "input" guys!

yeah pretty much! are the sizes specific to models/makes or is it pretty much one size fits all??

right im getting somewhere.

I found the model number of the part i need from ibanez's website. Just finding a vendor in the uk

Hey guys,

Ive been trawling the net and im struggling to make sure of what i need to buy. I have a 2003 model Ibanez Soundgear 700 bass. Its not the same as the current model, its a four string with P/J pickups. The jack has become loose, no cable stays in for very long, and after reading a few things, this is a common problem with ibanez'. Now as far as i can tell, its a barrel jack socket, and its more of a pain to fix rather than just buy a replacement. I cant get any photos up but here are some measurents;

The length of the whole socket is 35mm. The diameter is 12mm on the inside, but the actual socket on the outside of the bass is about 20mm. I dont care about colour. Ive checked ebay and wdmusic and couldnt find anything that said it was specifically for this bass.

Any help would be appreciated, got a gig next weekend and dont want to resort to gaffa taping a lead to my bass

cheers

andertons are out of stock till further on in the week, its about £50 more and theres also somebodies topic on this forum showing some quite shoddy quality problems with them. Ive used an ABM speaker before and really liked it so just thought i wouldnt risk going for the portaflex. The storage feature looks really cool on them though.

Am a bit giddy about this one. Took the plunge and ordered an Ampeg Portaflex 350 along with an Ashdown ABM115 from andertons in guildford. Placed the order earlier this afternoon and it should be with me tomorrow. Very very excited to try this out, just gutted I gotta wait til saturday to try it with the rest of the band. I'll make sure to keep this updated with a review for anybody who is interested anyway

Cheers

Wish the government would take your advice

[quote name='4 candles' post='1175219' date='Mar 24 2011, 08:57 PM']some advice. If you cant afford it now. then you cant afford it.

advice 2. out of debt, out of danger

advice 3. never a beggar or borrower be

advice 4. a great bass player can make a cv squire sound better than a poor player with an Alembic

Just my 2 pennies worth

Regards

Mark[/quote]

Ive been using a behringer vibrato pedal, plastic knockoff of the rare and expensive boss vibrato. Its got a fantastic sound i recommend trying it as its only £12. Im hoping theres a similar upgrade that isnt as pricey as the boss.

theyv recently said in news that this years reading and leeds festival will be the last time they play origin of symmetry tracks, absolutely no reason to watch them anymore after that IMO.

sale fell through so this is back for sale £40 delivered for this handy multifx/drum machine/tuner

BUMP

woop woop

Immaculate condition, quite versatile distortion/overdrive/boost pedal. I prefer this to the BOSS ODB3. £35 posted, hopin for a quick sale. Will try get a picture up soon as poss

Immaculate condition, includes box and original manual. Quick sale wanted. Will try get a picture up by the end of the day but this thing really hasnt got a mark on it.

Prefer straight bank transfer

she looks like an idiot doing that

If I go for the ampeg it will be my first. And although ive never used one, i do love the sound i get from the behringer bdi21, and in the short time that i owned it and sold it preferring the bdi21, i liked the sansamp PBDDI. Im assuming the ampeg valve head you mentioned would give me the closest tone to the pedal emulators? The GK probably has a much flatter tone in comparison? I really need to get down to one of these shops and these heads otherwise am gonna end up pulling me hair out

are you sure?

[url="http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product~name~Ampeg-Portaflex-PF-350-Bass-Head~ID~14719.asp"]http://www.soundslive.co.uk/product~name~A...ad~ID~14719.asp[/url]

[url="http://www.gak.co.uk/en/ampeg-pf-350-bass-gutiar-amp-head/45206"]http://www.gak.co.uk/en/ampeg-pf-350-bass-...-amp-head/45206[/url]

[url="http://www.andertons.co.uk/bass-guitar-amps/pid20198/cid561/ampeg-pf500-portaflex-bass-amp-head.asp?utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=pricecomp&utm_campaign=GoogleShopping"]http://www.andertons.co.uk/bass-guitar-amp...=GoogleShopping[/url]

I think im leaning more towards the PF350 and MB200, only thing is, the MB200 is gonna fit in the pocket of my bass bag and ill be able to bike around with it, but then the PF350 could always go in a backpack and has a lot more headroom than the MB200, but is also £100 odd more. really wish i could try the two.

I havent actually tried any of these amps and im not in the position to be able to, but Im going to order one at the end of the week and I cant decide which. Ive read most of the threads on talkbass and here about them but still not of them excels the others based on what ive read. Any advice? Comments?

ive got a broken dbs combo in the corner of my spare room, need to get it fixed because when that thing was still alive it was awesome.

[quote name='ironside1966' post='1139103' date='Feb 23 2011, 08:25 PM']Playing is impotent[/quote]

I know its a longshot but has any brave person out there tried to score out this uber jam? preferably with tab too?