Reverend

I did a tour recently where we were playing a lot of medium sized club venues - 300-400 capacity-ish on average, but our frontman had an awful lot of gear and amps on stage and I could never get my amp where I needed it. Also, his stuff was incredibly loud, and I didn't just want to turn up, as that would have been bad for everyone else's stage sound. I found a nice solution: splitting up my rig and using one speaker output to run a using one powerful 2x10 cab that rocks back into a monitor wedge position, and putting it right where I was standing at the front of the stage. My own private monitor wedge. I left the other 1x15 speaker with my amp head near the back of the stage so the drummer could still get some feel for what I was doing. I thought I'd get phase cancelling issues at the low end due to the differing distances between myself and the two cabs, but it wasn't actually an issue. If you think about it, it's exactly the same as getting some bass back from the monitors desk to a monitor wedge or a side fill. So yes, maybe the 8x10 isn't the answer, maybe downsizing slightly and making a more flexible rig is the solution. Final thought: turning things up louder is not normally the best solution to solving sound issues. It just makes it harder for everyone else and usually results in a crap gig.

Got to try out the MB500 today, and I must say I was totally blown away with what a great product it is! First thing's first, I bought a Mono M80 gig bag today, and it fits in the gig bag. Yes, you heard, it FITS IN THE GIG BAG. AN AMP! A 500W AMP! IN A GIG BAG! That just blows my mind. Anyway, I was also very impressed indeed with the sound of the MB500. Seemed to sound like a sweeter version of my 700RB, and I think they may have worked on the distortion circuitry since the 700RB, as to my ears it sounded more convincing and didn't ruin the transients quite as much. Loved it. So I'm going to save and buy one. I may even sell my 700RB to finance it. Can I just say again: AN AMP! IN A GIG BAG! Wow.

Hello! So I have a setup which I love and have been using for a while, and at the heart of it is a 700RB mk1. I use it to drive a GK 210 RBH cab and GK 115 NEO cab, and it's great. Now I've joined a band that doesn't have a van, I can't currently get my rig to the venues and so it would at least be great to be able to take my own amp head with me on public transport. Still the 700RB is a bit heavy for this, so it looks like it is lightweight amp time! The MB series looks perfect. Question is, will I find them lacking in comparison to my 700RB? I do use the 'Boost' effect a little on the 700RB and it looks like these amps have this feature. I don't ever use tweeters, so I don't use the bi-amp features on the 700RB. I have a lot of faith in the GK pre amp section, so I can't imagine that this would sound much different. Guess it's all down to their class D power amplifiers! Are they good? I'd love to go GK again, as the EQ is SO good. Also, opinions on the MB Fusion would be appreciated. I don't really need a tube pre amp, as I pretty much always run my bass through an EBS Valve Drive pre amp anyway. Would be so cool to rock up to a venue with just my jazz bass, a teeny but powerful amp head and my EBS preamp. Ta!

Gareth sold be an American P-Bass. Arrived when he said it would, meticulously packed and in great nick. Top seller!

With all of you here. That one girl at the Bass Cellar was really lovely and helpful. Have been less impressed with other staff there. They should do a field trip to Bass Gallery, who are everything that a music shop should be. My guitarist friend often remarks how he wishes there was an equivalent shop for guitarists out there. I remember a while back I went in there and was just browsing really. I was interested in trying out a compressor they had on display. The guys asked me what I normally played, I said a Jazz Bass, and expected to be handed the usual Squier starter bass to try it with, but was astonished when I was handed a beautiful Celinder instrument to play through a great EBS combo. Just to try out a compressor. Sounded absolutely amazing. That's the thing, if you want people to buy your amps/pedals etc, give them something that's going to make it sound great. Same goes for the instruments, if you want some someone to buy the nice £2k Stingray, stick it through the fat Ampeg and let them crank it a bit. Get people excited about spending their money! I've subsequently been back there a number of times to get my bass set up and have purchased a bass and an expensive boutique pedal from them, purely because I was so impressed the first time I went there. That's how to run a shop. Al.

Hey, Anyone know of a good small graphic eq pedal for bass? Something of a similar size to that MXR 6B 6 band eq, but that one only goes down to 100Hz ish. I would say that the Boss bass graphic pedal would be too large. Any ideas? Ta! Al.

I've had a number of overdrives, and have tried lots out, cos it's a really essential part of my tone. There's lots of types for many different circumstances. In terms of bang for buck, I'd definitely say go and try the Ashdown pedals. I never liked the valve overdrive on their amps, but these are actually very versatile. The standard Bass Drive pedal is one that I've gone for, and for a specific reason: it allows you to distort the lows and highs separately, and balance between them, so you can keep the low end a little cleaner than the top end. This really works well. The Ashdown Lomenzo takes a slightly different approach, and allows you to select a specific frequency band and only send this to the distortion circuit - again you can maintain cleaner low end and just distort in the area of 2-3kHz to add your grit. I would say both of these pedals work really well for different situations and are both well worth a try. Only down side to these is they're really big, but if pedal board space isn't an issue then no worries. I also have an EBS Valve Drive, which I love for it's vintage tone, but does have a few down sides. The sound can get so 'old school valvey-ness' that it compresses the top end a little too much and you end up feeling like you lose your definition when you kick it in. Also, there's so much bottom end in these units it's ridiculous (which is great, as most distortions suck out a lot of bottom end) but in some cases it can feel a bit overwhelming, and there isn't any way to actually remove bottom end (you can add some in though). This overdrive works best when you're just tickling the input and it's clipping quite softly - it's REALLY warms up the signal, and adds a little bit of natural valve compression, and for this reason I leave it on all the time and roll off a bit of bottom on the amp. It's the most authentic vintage 'valverator' pedal I've tried, but definitely a matter of taste. I have also tried the EBS multidrive, but wasn't quite as impressed at that. I also have a Sansamp BDDI, but I don't like using the drive circuitry very much as I think it sounds crap and muddy - others will disagree, guess it's a matter of taste - give it a try. I just use it for my DI to front of house to make it sound more like an amp (why can't engineers just stick a mic on the bass cab!!!). Also this pedal does have a habit of making all basses sound very similar ( but in a kind of good way). I've used Blackstar pedals a fair bit. These sound fantastic on guitar, and they can sound nice on bass if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of low end. I wasn't, and so I passed it by, but I was very close to buying one. Definitely give them a try. Used a Boss ODB-3 a fair bit when I was younger cos it was all I could afford. It sounded brittle and crap on 99% of rigs I put it through, but I do remember one recording session where I put it through this fairly small Trace Elliot practice amp, and when recorded it sounded absolutely MASSIVE! Weird! So I guess in certain situations i might sound ok, but I'd steer clear of it to be honest. I thought it sounded very artificial. Anyway - hope all that gives you some ideas! Al.