thodrik

3 hours ago, BassAdder60 said:

Yes only the Keeley in use 

 

I think it’s faulty perhaps 

Sounds like it. That is rotten luck. 
 

I once got a faulty Trace Elliot combo. Completely died under warranty. Sent it to TE for repair. Got sent a brand new unit with a repair slip for old one containing four words ‘Cause of fault: death’.

Hopefully you get it sorted or a refund.

Could it perhaps be a signal chain buffering issue? I sometimes had bother with other non true bypass pedals and faulty patch cables having an effect on the sound. Though I appreciate that if the pedal is the only thing in the chain then the fault is likely with the pedal.

Yepp, totally silent. I’m very picky about artefacts in the sound signal so if there was any kind of noise then I would have got rid of the pedal.

Just tried mine. Pretty much silent. Might just be a defective unit which is annoying.

I would say, I would pay £1000 plus for the huge Strategy valve amp. The one at Bass Bros has been calling me for a while and I have been really hoping someone buys it just to put me out of my misery. 

25 minutes ago, Mudpup said:

If that was from a certain recording studio in Essex then it's not a true indication of it's value - everything they list is hugely overpriced and they have a few Mesa amps advertised. As an example they have a Mesa Big Block 750 up for £1500 - the realistic market value of those is somewhere around £500/600 I think.

 

I would probably put the M2000 in the same ballpark. The MPulse that pop up occasionally (BB750, M600 and M360) seem to be around that pricepoint recently except the Titan which usually commands a little more if you ever find one. I have experience of the BB750 and MPulse 600 and love them to bits - probably my favourite amps ever. These were the next generation after the M2000 and were simplified a little as people said the M2000 was a bit over complicated to use. (Make sure it has the footswitch included)

Yepp, I paid £600 for an M6 in 2016 (which I sold for a bit less) and £750 for a Big Block with footswitch and matching headcase in about 2019. I think anything in the £600-£800 region is fair for the M-Pulse or Carbine range depending on condition. Personally I wouldn’t pay more than that as I would probably buy a new WD800 or TT800 instead (when it is possible to do so in the UK). I would probably wouldn’t pay much more than £600 for an M-2000 but that is just my preference for amps with fewer controls.

Saw one for sale for £1500 recently but I think that is a bit steep. However they are pretty rare. However I think there is more demand for stuff like the all valve 400+ amps. 

I am a big Mesa fan but there are far too many knobs on it for me. However I think that they were the flagship bass amps for Mesa at the time. If you can handle all of the features then it would be a great buy.

12 minutes ago, BassAdder60 said:

Probably sounds like the CTM range as they are KT88 driven albeit with passive EQ 

I wanted a neutral sounding comp / limiter and the Keeley appears to be good 

I’m sure that there is a bunch of the Trace V-type DNA in the CTM line in terms of the EQ controls.

Just now, BassAdder60 said:

The V6 is a tube amp I believe ? 

A tube amp and a half!

6 x KT88 output tubes. It is a monster. 

43 minutes ago, BassAdder60 said:

I’ve just ordered one of these to use in front of my CTM100 valve head 

 

I’m aiming to use it as a limiter really but I like the fact it claims not to colour your sound at all 

It works great with my Trace Elliot V6. I also recommend trying it as a boost by turning the compression all the way down and turning the gain all the way up. Instant clean boost.

Another happy Watford Valves customer here. My brother uses HotRox and says they are equally as good. 

I generally find that JJ 12x7 tubes are good, reliable and cost effective. I use them in my Mesa Big Block and Walkabout.

1 hour ago, Supernaut said:

Any recommendations on string gauge for drop C / D standard? 

I have used the D'addario Balanced Tension set 120-90-67-50 for D standard/drop C and for C sharp standard/drop B for the best part of a decade. Great strings, not that expensive and easier to get than having to constantly buy singles. Probably work better in D standard and drop C. 

Before D'addario released the balanced tension range about a decade ago, I was constantly trying strings trying to find ones I liked in D standard/drop C. I tried all manner of different 'heavy' gauges with varying degrees of success. I tried the DR DDT 115-55 set for D standard/drop C but found the higher strung strings to have way too much tension and the low strings to be too loose. I also tried a Newtone custom set but despite the rave reviews by others on the forum I wasn't particularly impressed for the price. Ones I did quite like were the GHS Heavy Boomers (115-50) which I preferred to DR and Newtone.

The D'addario though were my go-to for price and ease of availability. Otherwise at this point I would buy singles of 120, 90, 70, 50 of my preferred brand and make. 

In the last couple of years I have been using a set of Elixir nicklewound singles: 130 (tapered), 95, 70, 50 for purely drop C. If I still needed to do D standard as well I would I use a 120 or 125. Expensive to buy but they last about a year or more, whereas the D'addarios last about 6-8 weeks of regular use.

Personally I like the red and green together. Reminds me of the old 'Green = play' and 'Red = Stop/Record' buttons on my childhood tape player. 

If proceeding on that basis though I would probably get the back pickup coloured green as well to work alongside the red coloured front pickups. 

I do a lot of downtuned doom and stoner stuff. I generally use a couple of different overdrives stacked together on very low settings to get my drive 'tone'. That runs into a V2 Sansamp Bass Driver. I can pretty much run that into the PA or whatever amp I bring, which is usually a Mesa Walkabout 1x15 combo or an EBS Fafner into a Trace Elliot 1x15. I try to keep my pedal board setup reasonably simple so that (a) it is easy enough to carry around and (b) any problems or malfunctioning bits can be identified and address quickly at a gig.

I am still considering going down the Helix route, but damn, I do love the mechanics and tactile nature of working with amps, cabs and pedals and plugging stuff in. Essentially I treat signal chains as audible Lego. 

My alternative doom rig actually just plugging my bass straight into a Mesa Block 750 or Trace Elliot V6, pushing the gain on the preamp and running that into a Mesa Powerhouse 6x10. As you can imagine, this setup certainly does doom, it also does back problems and permanent hearing loss. 

As an owner of a Mesa 6x10 I can categorically state that in 2023, these kind of cabinets are completely unnecessary in this era of high powered compact cabinets and modern monitor systems and high powered venue PAs. I have also found that a heavy 6x10 is more awkward to move than an 8x10 because with it being shorter it is more difficult to tilt and slide into the back of a car/van. I generally use a single 1x15 for gigging. 

So why do I still own the 6x10? Quite simply the sound. Also, the idea of selling and shipping it is impractical. So it will never get sold, particularly as I got it for next to nothing. 

If I was looking at a new cabinet for an SVT, I would probably be looking at a Bergantino 4x10, Barefaced 4x10 or Ampeg SVT2x12 which is designed to sound like a mini 8x10 owing to the non-ported design. 

If you need an 8x10 and weight is a consideration? Definitely the Barefaced or (if you have £2,500 spare) EBS Neoline 8x10.

2 minutes ago, VTypeV4 said:

 

Agreed! 100% The V4 and V6 aren't a million miles away from each other weight-wise but that SVT is just insanity.. 😬

Exactly, it is still a lump, but honestly not much heavier than my hybrid amps like Mesa Big Block and EBS Fafner once they are in a rack case. 

In comparison, something like an SVT II is just ridiculously heavy. Sadly, I kinda want one of them too!

I sold all of my Trace Elliot cabs, combo and SMX amp a while ago just because of the unnecessary weight. I kept the V6 though because for a valve amp it is actually fairly lightweight compared to an SVT. 

Every couple of months though I find myself trawling through the brochures on this thread going 'mmm, fancy that, if it turns up on eBay or BC Market Place then I will get it...'

I now (as of this minute) have a 1979 (well it might be 1978 or up to 1981, I never checked) Fender Precision for sale at a bargain price of £14,000. 

Seriously, it is a very clean bass for the age, and someone might be willing to pay a premium for that. Not me but I can kinda see the rationale for the pricing. 
 

4 minutes ago, kwmlondon said:

I think the 4x10 would be a bit more coloured, bassy, the 2x12 feels very hifi. Let me know if you ever want a 2x12 though, this is probably too much for my needs!

Thanks. I will bear that in mind!

I have considering whether to get the neo 4x10 or 2x12 ever since I bought a Fafner in 2009. Still not bought either!

Congratulations!

I was in an instrumental band who tuned to drop E flat, so essentially the 'drop D' equivalent of being tuned to F standard. Technically I was tuned up and tuned down. 

I actually have one of my five strings tuned to drop C, with the low B string being tuned up to a C and the EADG strings tuned up to GCF and B flat. My other five string is tuned B, F#, B, E, A but I often tune the low B up to C sharp for old school Black Sabbath type stuff which is in C sharp. I used to play downtuned four strings from years and kept the five strings for my E standard stuff. I just decided to try uptuning the five strings when I was bored during the pandemic and was listening to lots of Karnivool where Jon Stockman tunes a six string to an usual drop B tuning rather than B standard. 

The benefit is that I now have at least one four string bass in E standard tuning for the first time in about 5-6 years. After years of playing all manner of non-standard tunings it is actually proving to be quite liberating. If I was in a covers or function band I would be using standard tuned five strings or fours, but I am not so I don't. 

Guitarist in my band saw the new demo for the Agro and messaged me to say 'you need this'. 

As much as I loved V1 still think it needed a blend control and/or a simple 'bass' control or 'grunt' control like on the Darkglass B3K, as I always thought that v1 Agro removed a bit of sub lows from the clean signal when turned on, so I have to EQ that back in. 

However, the quality of the drive is such that it is now on the list. 

I used to use a tube preamps (EHX English Muff'n, later the EBS Valvedrive) as a means to add warmth to certain amps.

They generally worked well but I actually found them to be a bit annoying and superfluous when gigging. It was another bit of kit, more fragile than a normal pedal, generally requiring a different power supply (12v AC) from the rest of my pedals. The tonal benefits were often so subtle that the audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference between those pedals and a comparatively bomb-proof Sansamp Bass Driver. Absolutely loved the valve preamp pedals when recording though and I still own them. 

I think I generally prefer a really nice amp which does my basic clean(ish) tone and I will just use a standard non-valve pedal to add dirt. In one form or another my Mesa Walkabout and EBS Fafner haven't failed me in nearly 14 years. If I was ditching them I would probably go either Helix or 'amp in a box' Origin Effects Bass Rig and FRFR speaker or go the complete opposite and just buy a Matamp GT200/Ampeg SVT/Orange AD200 and 4x10!

 

The old ones were cool, but were very oversized and the shoulders made it difficult to connect using right angled jack sockets. 

I like them. Might buy another Agro after I stupidly sold the other one.