razze06

Well for me there's two types of GAS really: one that comes from real musical needs, and one that comes from the attraction of the unusual, rare, and possibly cool. The first type comes from gigging and practicing with the band. It has led to smaller and more portable amps and cabs. It is a level-headed and rational need, and is currently sated. The second one is an obscure beast, that makes me crave obscure instruments with clear flaws, battered home-brew valve amps, speaker cabinets with no practicality but lots of weirdness (marshall 1555 anyone?). That is never satisfied, but I can keep it under control by feeding it little scraps of money every now and again. The lack of space also helps

In my (not vast) experience, average pub gig with average covers set, 2x1hr will pay about £250 here in edinburgh

[quote name='Bassnut62' post='1170085' date='Mar 20 2011, 09:37 PM']You're probably right. A tip top one would probably be over £400[/quote] I agree. Moreover, it can be a little hard to tell if it's in tip top conditions until you bought it and tried it in a real band situation. That can be hard unless it's local or from a fellow BCer who knows his/her amps. The clone I have has a lovely tone, so at least I know it's right in that department. If the problem is "just" with the power stage, odds are the repairs will let me keep the tone I like, and give me enough power to gig and practice with it! If it's a new OPT, £100 for the tranformer and another £60 in labour. I'd be happy with that.

[quote name='Paul S' post='1165905' date='Mar 17 2011, 03:47 PM'][url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yamaki-Performer-Pro-Bass-Guitar-rare-early-70s-/250787357885?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3a641764bd"]Yamaki Performer Pro Bass[/url] on aBay. Looks like an interesting p-bass copy - by Yamaki, so one of the better makers?[/quote] I like, may have a punt...

Location and price, it's the rules

Just set up the zoom H1 on an unused amp on the side of the room, and recorded a few new things. Listened to the results this morning, applied some compression to compensate for volume swings, and here it is. [attachment=74988:newband_Alex_3.mp3] [attachment=74989:newband_Alex_2.mp3] [attachment=74990:newband_Alex_1.mp3] (I was playing the CMI Ned Callan bass through a rather uninspiring peavey tour 400 amp and cabs.) The zoom is the best investment of £79 i've ever done, and the absence of menus make it so easy to use. Just put the switches where you like them, and press the big red button!

[quote name='Ghost_Bass' post='1165593' date='Mar 17 2011, 11:36 AM']To play with two acoustic guitars you don't need more than a simple practise amp! Even a 15W s/h quality amp would suit you just fine! I can't avoid recommending my own choise, a Trace Elliot Boxer15 - only 15W but a huge punch with great quality - you'll be able to find them in the region of £50 in the sales section or fleabay. edit: it WILL sound a lot better (and probably louder) than your Laney![/quote] Never used the mentioned TE combo, it may be just the ticket. However, there's a vast selection of good lightweight and relatively cheap practice amps around that kind of power (15W-30W). I personally use a roland microcube RX for home practice, but that's probably too underpowered at 8W

Do you really need 100w to practice in somebody's front room with 2 acoustic guitars? I would have thought a 30w practice amp would do the trick...

in my tenure on 2nd guitar in a band, I used to wield an old squier strat, with a piece of power cord as trat, secured (...) by two long nails hammered in where the strap buttons used to be. No, it wasn't a punk band...

Got the initial response from the tech: - the amp dates from 74-75, given the close spread of dates on the components - the components are the best you could buy at the time - there are a number of small mistakes, all from the original design, which may have cause some problems in the OPT. Still investigating this aspect. - There are no later mods, so all problems seem to be inherent with the original design

Is "No" a valid answer to the OP?

[quote name='Bassnut62' post='1152765' date='Mar 7 2011, 06:20 PM']Bassman amps are reknowned for great tone and incredible clean all the way to 11 on the dial. I don't reckon your amp should be distorting at all unless you put a dirt box in front of it. I guess there could be lots of reasons for your probs; but I think only a tech will be able to tell if there is a valve, component or clone-design fault with the amp.[/quote] I wonder if the guy that put this together somehow altered the design to allow more overdriving of the front end. If that's the case, I'm sure it can be reverted or altered. I never realised that bassman amps were not supposed to overdrive until the very limits of their operating range. Time to take it to a good tech!

[quote name='Bassnut62' post='1152765' date='Mar 7 2011, 06:20 PM']Bassman amps are reknowned for great tone and incredible clean all the way to 11 on the dial. I don't reckon your amp should be distorting at all unless you put a dirt box in front of it. I guess there could be lots of reasons for your probs; but I think only a tech will be able to tell if there is a valve, component or clone-design fault with the amp. I absolutely know what you mean about Bassman tone too - it's a thing of great beauty. So worth persuing; but maybe you would be better to sell this clone and one of your other amps and go out and buy a real Bassman and go for the 135 this time.[/quote] Well, looks like reasonable proper bassman 135 etc start at £350 or so. This head is probably worth what, £150 or so? Can't really afford the difference right now...

[quote name='umph' post='1149017' date='Mar 3 2011, 10:38 PM']I'd recomend getting it looked at, as with these homemade heads, you could have parasitic oscilation or any number of problems. Open it up and take some pictures of the guts.[/quote] I'll pick it up from the practice room on tuesday, I'll take some pics of the guts if I can

Have you considered a peavey T40? With all the controls and coil switching and all the other knobs it can do a dazzling array of sounds. Neck is a lot bigger than typical jazz, and the styling is certainly not very modern...

Played in a large irish pub in edinburgh last night, 2x1hour+ sets and then some. No time to sound check, we had to show up at 9, set up and go at 10, including plugging everything into FOH speakers. No designated sound engineer either... Needless to say, spent the first half of the first set tweaking volume levels and the like, but overall a good gig. Everybody jumped and danced all night, the manager praised our mix of new and old, and we'll discuss next date on monday. On the minus side, we'll have to learn a couple of oirish classics, but there's worse things to do for a gig Played my default setup of T40 + TC small rig. Excellent, as usual. If we get a more regular slot, i'll try other combinations. You really can't tell how good something is until you put it through its paces in a gigging situation...

My covers band, [url="http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/not-dead-yet/158199286951"]NotDeadYet[/url], is playing at Malones, Forrest Road, Edinburgh, [s]Friday 8th April[/s] Saturday 28th May from 10pm onwards. From funk to punk, a few of the usual suspects, a few unexpected ones. Swing by if you are in the area. Cheers!

[quote name='umph' post='1148305' date='Mar 3 2011, 01:06 PM']So the distortion sounds like it should? no strange artifacts?[/quote] It starts to distort heavily a little early IMO. Now that you mention it, sometimes it does strange, almost howling sound for a few moments. I thought that was just an artefact of the distortion, but maybe you can tell me more...

[quote name='dincz' post='1148058' date='Mar 3 2011, 09:43 AM']If you manage to get its output up from 60W to 100W, you probably won't hear a great difference. A little over 2dB in fact - barely noticeable.[/quote] True, I'm just suspicious of the quoted 60W. Ultimately, I want to know if it can give enough for me to use in a regular band situation.

Thanks for the replies. - I have another couple of amps and cabs that I regularly use for gigs and practice, so I don't really need another amp. I like the tone to bits though, and I'd love to use it more. - According the notes scribbled on the backplate, the amp is designed to take 4 or 8 ohm loads. I never put more or less, or even in between (mixing 4 and 8 ohms) - I would have thought that 100W would be plenty loud. For a couple of years I gigged and practiced with a 120W hartke kickback combo, so I think i'm entitled to expecting more sound out of this setup. We're not THAT loud... - It does have a preamp section, and if I crank both pre and power section to full I get overdrive from hell. Actually, you get Motorhead Lemmy's tone by cranking the power section to full whack and about 1/3 of the way up on the preamp gain. Don't know it the pots are linear, i suspect not... - Maybe i'll phone up Dennis Marshall, or some other tech. Big_stu, what's you real name, so that I can say hi on your behalf? Keep them coming, I'd love to get this monster to its full potential!

[quote name='vocrockguitars' post='1147369' date='Mar 2 2011, 05:18 PM']Hello, The original Bassman 100 had 4x6l6GC valves in the output section and was capable of at least 100W when set up correctly. Might be worth checking the Bias Current. You should be looking at a range of 30mA to 36mA per 6l6GC tube for optimum power and performance. Hope that helps, Regards Voc Rock.[/quote] It does! I'm just hesitant to take it for an expensive rebias and service, when it may not be worth the effort in the end.

[quote name='hubrad' post='1147349' date='Mar 2 2011, 05:00 PM']Any idea of the impedance of your cab? Most amps specify the output power RMS into 4 Ohms. 100W into 4 Ohms amp only gives about 2/3 of that, ie 60-odd Watts, into 8 Ohms. Not much power for a rock band bass. Also, if that 100W is the Peak measurement, the RMS - this is the figure that most of us go by - will also be considerably less, prob about 60W. If both those apply you might be putting as little as 40W into your cab, which will be a struggle in a rock band! I used to struggle with a 100W into 2 x 15" cabs! [/quote] The cab is 8ohm, but bear in mind that we are talking about a home made head here, so I don't know how the power output was measured. I see 4 power valves, I know it's a clone of the fender bassman 100, ergo I suspect the intended output power was 100W. I've played it through an ampeg 8x10 wardrobe in a practice room, with a quieter band, and still had to go very close to full tilt to get the volume. Those cabs are 4ohm and loads of cone area...

Some time ago I've acquired this home-brew fender bassman 100 clone head, and I love its tone. Fantastic clarity and all the rest. Unfortunately, it is not very loud. What do I mean by "not very loud"? I have it plugged into my ashdown MAG 4x10, as my other more modern cabs didn't like it (TC RS212 and Tecamp s210), and I have to run it at full tilt (no clean headroom) to be able to practice with the (rock covers) band. Given that this is nominally a 100W amp, I was expecting a bit more. Now I knew it was a little underpowered when I got it, as the previous owner said that he had it checked, and it seemed to be putting out only around 60W. My question here is quite simple: I would love to use it for live work, what do you recommend I do? - Get a cab with higher sensitivity, more efficient, or with a shape and tuning more suitable to the head - Get the amp serviced again, with a view to restoring its nominal power (or more) - Sell it to someone who doesn't need the volume and get something else, maybe a real fender bassman 100 or 135 - More cabs is realy not an option, as I don't have the space or the inclination to use them.