thodrik

At this point when looking at older Trace Elliot amps you are looking at amps that are often over thirty years old so in many cases that the question 'how does model X compare to model Y?' often matters less than 'what kind of condition is the actual amp in question in?'. 

If the condition of the amps is comparable, I would probably pick the AH250 owing to the 11 band graphic compared to the 7 band, also the additional watts. I had a 7 band SM 300 combo for over a decade and while it was good, the 7 band preamp was a bit limiting and I greatly preferred the 12 band SMX head I later got. So essentially if both amps were in similar condition I would get the AH 250. If you have patience then you could wait for another model like an SMX amp but for the core Trace Elliot tone, any of the solid state amps should manage to get that pre-shape voiced classic TE tone. 

The V-type amps are pretty much completely different to the solid state heads so not really comparable. From the ages of 13 to 27 I acquired an GP 7 SM300 combo, a GP12 SMX 300 head, two Peavey era Trace Elliot cabs and a V6. The V6 is the only bit of Trace gear I have left at the age of 37.

I’ve had a V6 for about ten years. The cost of re-valving it in 2014 was more expensive than the price I paid for it. Still one re-valve in ten years is not too bad.

I play it through a Mesa 6x10. Just ridiculous. Currently looking for a more portable 4 ohm cabinet.

Really great amp, huge headroom, in fact too much headroom to achieve much overdrive at useable volume levels. 

In terms of the weight, it actually not too bad. Certainly lighter than an Ampeg SVT and no heavier than a standard Marshall JCM 800 guitar amp.

Mesa Boogie to ship products to Europe and the UK.

I know that they have had a number of issues out of their control but these issues have now being going on for well over a year and it is frustrating, particularly as they have launched a lot of good gear in that time. 

Ryan Martinie of Mudvayne comes to mind for me. He is utterly incredible player in technical terms but I generally find Mudvayne to be one of the more 'meh' bands of the post nu-metal early 2000s. 

 

The old Trace Elliot cabinets are just incredibly heavy. I actually preferred the Peavey era ones from 2006-2012 as they were much lighter and had better power handling capabilities. The old Trace Elliot cabs were good in their day but they are antiquated now compared to modern cabinets.

Also bear in mind that most GP12 SMX type amps are coming on about 30 years old, so unless the price is a steal I would recommend trying before buying as there are components that can go 'pop' at anytime that might might be difficult for a tech to economically repair or source parts for. I mean, most Trace Elliot amps are pretty reliable.

I would probably get the amp and pair it with a more modern, lighter 4x10, 2x12 or 2x10. If you must have a matching Trace Elliot cabinets I would recommend picking up one of the new Peavey era Trace Elliot cabinets instead. I think that someone on BC is selling one of the Peavey era 4x10s ones for a very good price (i.e. I would buy it but I can't collect it from the West Midlands so it isn't possible). 

2 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/35930091-ampeg-v9-1979-910-9x10

75kg. Nice.

Honestly I expected it to be heavier.

I think that he really needs to have another two cabs stacked on top for them to be of much practical use. The current cabs don't quite come up to ear level so he might not even hear them properly. Also, he definitely needs a couple of those Trace Elliot Bright Boxes as well for added sonic balance.

I have heard many worse songs recorded by the band. They have gotten on well enough to actually record something so good for them.

Not used them, but I would perhaps contact Noisy Hammer.  https://www.noisyhammer.com/

Based in Norwich and although they mostly make cabinets I think that they would probably take an order for a custom grill cover. 

Though when using a 6x10, a mismatched grill doesn't bother me as much as the sheer difficulty in loading it in and out of a car and venue (I own a Mesa Powerhouse 6x10 which is just a silly weight). Just for practicality I would consider the 2x12 option before a 6x10.

Blues and folk music have a lot of non-standard and open tunings on guitar which can be replicated on bass (or you could just get a five string bass and transcribe).
 

Albert Collins played in F standard (a half step up) at times. 
 

A four ohm 4x10 or 2x12 cab to pair with my old Trace Elliot valve amp. 
 

A wanted advert might go up at some point.

After that, usually it is five string basses or overdrive pedals I don’t need.

So I have three heads and one combo. 

I currently only own one cab. 
 

Trace V6. Owned about ten years. Bought because I always wanted one and at £600 or so and it was a good deal. 
 

Mesa Big Block. Owned about 4 years. Always wanted one and got a good deal on a used one. Love it. 

EBS Fafner. Owned about 14 years. My main ‘big amp’ for when I need more clean headroom than the Mesa Walkabout provides.

Mesa Walkabout 1x15 combo. My main workhorse rig since 2009.

So, two ‘always wanted them’ purchases. Two workhorse amps. Tonally I can pretty much get by with any of them though the Walkabout struggles for clean headroom, though most of time that is kinda what I’m going for. 
 

Might go the Helix route as I know the days of carrying big amps and cabs is fairly antiquated but frankly I still get a lot of enjoyment out of amps. 
 

I might get a small class D back up like the Elf but I probably would budget for another (lighter) cabinet instead.

Vintage Fenders can be incredibly varied in terms of quality and set up. 

My personal opinion is that a lot of it has to do with the set up, or lack thereof. A bass which has been poorly set up for a period of 40 years (after being delivered in a poorly set up condition and after being poorly put together) is going to be an absolute dog to play if you pick it up. When I started playing (late 90s), a seventies US Fender was seen as an alternative to buying a brand new American Standard Fender, as the prices were not that different. I went on a visit to Denmark Street in about 2000 and all of the 'vintage' shops had the late seventies Fender instruments in the £700-£1000 because they frankly weren't considered to be a good era. 

My first proper bass was  late seventies Precision which I got for less than £400. The jack socket needed fixing and the neck was misaligned which was caused the bridge saddles to constantly collapse. Fair enough for a £400 bass and once the issues were sorted (which took literally years) it has been an absolutely cracking. However if I was buying the same bass now it would cost me the best part of £1800-£2000.

There is no way I would buy a seventies Jazz for £3,000+. I would probably just buy a new Fender Professional model, as it would eventually become 'vintage' after thirty years and would probably be a bass that I would enjoy playing more for the next 30 odd years.
 

19 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

That and nuclear holocaust are the only two reasons a TU-2 needs replacing

Exactly, I was gutted when I lost it because pretty much all of the white pain had been chipped away and the underlying finished had started to rust, so it just looked really cool and roadworn.

I think another acceptable reason for getting rid of a Boss Tuner is 'I am fed up of looking at this thing and need to try something else'.

Boss TU2: 2000-2008 - it got lost/stolen

Boss TU2: 2008 - 2018 - it got moved to my guitar board and I still own it. 

Boss TU3: 2018-now. 

I did have a Kork Pitchblack rack tuner but I thought it was a large and completely unnecessary bit of gear to lug around so it got sold (along with the Mesa M6 amp it was attached to). 

I have tried a few amp sims (the old Line 6 Bass Pod is lying about somewhere), however in most cases I don't need loads of bass amp sims and in practice I have found that the Tech 21 Sansamp Bass Driver to be a great tool. 

The Helix is on the list for sure though, as conversely I like the idea of having a pedal that I can program in sounds for guitar and bass and run that straight into an interface for recording ideas.

Honestly, I watched a few live recordings of the 2012 line up and I thought that this line up is better. 

The 1992 Axl is gone but in 2023 I think he is as good as he was in 2008-2012. Whether that is a high bar of success however I’m not sure. 

it was raw, loose and unpolished, which I didn’t mind given that the core line up was always a bit like that.

Still not a massive fan of the band, but I didn’t totally hate it. 

51 minutes ago, asingardenof said:

 

I've seen a YT video where a guy from Ampeg tried to recreate an SVT sound with the PF range. He got close for the purposes of the video.

It does a good Ampeg clean sound for sure, in the same way that I used to be able to dial in an SVT 450 or B2 heads to kinda sound like a clean SVT, but the lack of overdrive (or any kind of drive whatsoever) meant that I needed a pedal to get the sound I actually wanted. That is probably personal preference though, when I think Ampeg, I still tubes and valve-based overdrive and compression, which is why the SGT is very appealing to me.  

7 minutes ago, RikiB said:

I have 2 GK Legacy 800 heads. One as a backup that’s never been used (maybe 2 hours tops) so was thinking of selling one and then buying something that sounds like this SGT pedal.

Thanks for saying it doesn’t sound like the SGT though, my fave thing is the B15 setting with SGT on

A tech 21 VT Bass head might get you closer than an actual Ampeg. Or buy something like a Line 6 Helix Stomp.

Not played the pedal, but did a few gigs on PF800. A good amp but not something that really bore any relation to a valve SVT or Flip Top, which the pedal is really designed to achieve. 
 

I would keep the GK if I had to choice between the two. The GK is a classic tone in its own right.

I have had the Keeley Bassist for  about 7-8 years. 

I honestly don't think about it too much. I think I use it 'wrong' but I generally work from left to right on the pedal:

- first I set the compression level (i.e. how much do I want to compress the signal?)

- then I set the threshold (i.e. when do I want the compression to kick in?). The LED will change when the compression kicks in so it is easy to tell when the compression is working; 

- then I set the gain (i.e. how loud the output signal is). 

So I kinda use the gain control as a master volume for the pedal as per the specs it is not an input gain but an output gain. https://robertkeeley.com/product/bassist-compressor/

If you turn the compression completely off you can use the pedal as volume boost by pushing the gain control. Since people associate 'gain' with input gain it probably would have been better if the 'gain' control on the pedal was called 'volume'. 

 In the whole time I have had the pedal I don't think that the gain control has been lower than 11 o'clock or higher than 1 o'clock. 

My nephew has one. 

I found that the best sounds involved having the gain pretty high and completely ignoring the input gain peak light. 

It is a strange amp in that the 'tube gain' actually works in a way where the dirtier, looser voicing is on the lowest settings and a faster, more traditionally solid state sound occurs with the gain turned up. 

For a cleaner sound run the master on full and use the gain as the volume knob. 

It is a pretty old design with a number of quirks, but there is great tone in there. It is just isn't a 'everything at 12 o'clock with master volume run low' amp. 

 

My only 2 cents here would be that I think that this combo would have been in one of the earlier batches of the Peavey era Trace Elliot relaunch from 2006-2009 or so, where the products stated 'manufactured in Great Britain'. I think in about 2010 or so that label was changed to 'designed in Great Britain, manufactured in USA to Trace Elliot specifications' or similar. I bought 2x10 and 1x15 cabs in 2008/9 and they both had the manufactured in Great Britain.

I haven't spent a lot of time with amps of that period, but I thought that the cabs were really good and much lighter than the old carpet covered TE cabs. 

13 minutes ago, Sibob said:

Yeah, got that about the blend, but it’s unclear whether the Cab Sim forms part of that, or whether it’s just a blanket effect on the outputs regardless of what the blend is doing.

 

Cheers

Si

Yeah, I got my head around it by just thinking of the whole unit as an 'amp and cab' sim rather than an amp sim and the blend really determining how much of the amp and cab sim you want in the signal. The cab sim can't be separated from the amp sim, though it would good if it did!

It is very much dated technology compared to the Helix and other modern amp sims when you can load different IRs etc. However, it is still a classic for a reason.

1 hour ago, Sibob said:

Thanks very much! The manual isn’t particularly clear about how intensively linked the ‘Sansamp circuit’ is with the Cab sim, as you say, they seem to be one-in-the-same.

 

Cheers

Si

Yepp, it is clear but not clear. 

If you turn the blend off, the EQ (bass and treble) still work but the drive and presence don't have an effect. 

I owned a V1 for over a decade, but I really prefer the V2 with the added mid control. Both though are great options for an easy to use, essentially idiot-proof good DI tone.