The Funk

EBS Wah One or the Snarling Dogs Bootzilla Signature model.

Closed - Beyer DT100 < £80

I run 450W a side into a pair of Acme 2x10s. The cabs go very low but those low notes require a lot of power and so it's not overwhelmingly loud, just very clean, defined and robust at useable gig-worthy volume levels, no matter what other instruments are trying to compete with those frequencies. Sometimes I do daydream about having another pair of Acmes and a second power amp but that would be silly - unless it was in the doom metal side project. I would probably need that 1800W 4 Acme set-up if I wanted to compete with my guitarist's 120W vintage valve Matamp head (and that's clean valve watts before overdrive/distortion) and pair of Marshall 2x12s. Thankfully he has the sense to leave one at home in the funk band. I should nick his Matamp head and see how that sounds for bass. 120 clean valve watts should be enough for bass.

Just add another Transporter 4x10. I see Alex is viewing this thread which means a detailed explanation should follow.

I used to have a Hartke 2.5XL and a Hartke 115XL. Nice combination of cabs. Used to run them with a Gallien-Krueger 400RB, then later through a Warwick Quadruplet preamp through a QSC RMX850. My favourite 'normal' cab is the Hartke 2.5XL.

Nah, it's Dr Bass, as in 'the curer of tonal health ailments'.

[quote name='finnbass' post='98921' date='Dec 4 2007, 03:47 PM']How did you work that out? I can't see any prices.....[/quote] Sorry, I was going by the US price list.

[quote name='DHA' post='97209' date='Dec 1 2007, 01:15 PM']I would go as far as to say that an output valve without an output transformer will sound the same as a pre-amp valve with pre-amp overdrive distortion but no output valve softclipping distortion.[/quote] Very informative. Thanks for the info!

Well done. The Dr Bass range looks good value and I'm glad to see they'll be available here soon.

[quote name='steve-soar' post='98843' date='Dec 4 2007, 02:21 PM']BTW was £175 a good price?[/quote] Yes, that's an excellent price. You could try a hybrid amp with a valve preamp section of some kind or you could get a Gallien-Krueger 700RB head. I get what Alex is saying though.

[quote name='99ster' post='96772' date='Nov 30 2007, 04:09 PM'][b]+1000[/b] And that's the key - it should sound great without a PA - you should only need a PA to lift the overall volume & let the singer be heard clearly. A PA engineer shouldn't have to fix the crap sound of the band & fight against the egos of 'musicians' who think they deserve to be louder than the rest of their band mates.[/quote] Well said. On that note, do you think it would be wise for some bands in some smaller venues to take the drums, bass, guitar and keys out of the PA, go through their amps and leave the PA just for vocals?

Thanks for the info Dave. What I was looking for was a preamp/effect to go into the guitar input of a valve head. Therefore a small head on a dummy load with a line output (or instrument level output) would be great. In fact, there would probably be two uses for such a head: 1. As a effect to send the preamp/power amp overdrive tone to a clean, higher-powered guitar amp; 2. To drive a talkbox with an overdriven tone at low volume. What kind of price would one of these come in at? If you'd rather tell me privately, then please PM me. Thanks

I think the point is that there isn't one "correct" technique for everyone but that each individual can probably find the optimal technique for them among the various ones out there or, failing that, create a new one.

[quote name='The Funk' post='35673' date='Jul 22 2007, 06:58 PM']Yeah, I always hate being told but I'm always grateful because I want to know. It's amazing how none of the toilet circuit venues in London we've played have a decent engineer - or safe electrics.[/quote] Just to follow up. We played The Rock Garden (or Gardening Club as it's now known) not long after that post and the sound engineer was fantastic. He got a good sound and was a very helpful guy - even after I accidentally gave him a ^ shape EQ on my DI.

Well, the advantage of a preamp/power amp set-up is that you can get the tone you want with all the power you're after for your cabs. And your question was about the power difference between the 300W head and the 700W cab. I can understand you not wanting to bother with a preamp/power amp set-up though! The look of a rack case doesn't really fit with the vintage vibe you're after. Although Ampeg do make rack cases which look like this: .

My favourite bass stuff is when it's played in a supportive role and is groove- and chops- heavy. The point of the technical guys is that they take the science of bass forward. The artists can then incorporate whatever they feel they need to express themselves. I think Nate's point of some of these guys not being able to turn it off is an important one. But nothing inspires me to develop my playing more than witnessing some of the Jaco/Stanley/Marcus/Victor/Steve Bailey/Bill Dickens excesses.

The now discontinued Warwick Quadruplet preamp is (I am told) a clone of the old Fender Champ circuit. I can't understand why all these companies have discontinued their valve preamps.

[url="http://www.ampeg.com/products/pro/svpcl/index.html"]http://www.ampeg.com/products/pro/svpcl/index.html[/url] The CL has 2 x 12AX7s and 2 x 12AU7s. The DI I have has 1 valve in it - can't remember if it's a 12AX7 or a 12AU7.

You could well be right about me mixing up the CL and the Pro. Unfortunately the only Ampeg product I own is their valve DI, the SVT-DI. It's cool but I wish I'd got the CL or Pro preamp instead.

I'd be tempted to get the Ampeg SVP-CL, which has the preamp section of the Classic SVT head with a full compliment of preamp valves. Plug that into a power amp (eg. QSC RMX 850) and go out of that into an Aguilar DB410. In mono bridged mode, the QSC would give you the kind of power you'd want for the Aguilar cab and the Ampeg preamp would give you that Ampeg sound. I think the Aguilar cab would give you just that bit more definition and clarity than the Ampeg equivalents. The end result should be the classic Ampeg sound (or near enough) with lots of power, clarity and definition - and much more portable than an 8x10 (EDIT: especially if you get two Aguilar DB210s instead of one DB410)!

A problem I have is that my right shoulder is completely f*cked from an old rugby injury, which means I can't really keep the elbow up for more than a few seconds. An annoying fact is that I actually started out playing a kind of floating thumb technique - which I gave up when I was taught to anchor my thumb!

Hi Dave I've been a user of your VT2 Dual Bass for almost a year now. Great pedal and couldn't be happier with it. I'm now trying to convince my guitarist to ditch his distortion pedal for a DHA one. What would be awesome would be a pedal containing two preamp valves in a similar configuration to the VT2 Dual with a power amp valve on a dummy load, as in the VT5 Valve Hybrid head. Do you think this would be possible and could you give an indication of potential size and cost? Thanks Syed