Minininjarob

4 hours ago, BassmanPaul said:

For me, if you took apart a combo amp that you had borrowed from me I'd be more than a little peeved!!

I only slid the amp section out briefly and the owner knows. I do have an electronics background and wanted to check the condition of the inside of it, it was in fantastic condition and just needed a bit of dusting out. If I bought it I’d put in a quieter fan but it works fine so I won’t be doing anything to it unless I own it. 

13 hours ago, Geek99 said:

It was a year ago. Maybe he removed those pictures from the linked album?

Sorry, seen that now. The website seems to order the posts in a really weird way as this was right at the top in the first page when I posted. Weird!

I can’t buy this and I wouldn’t be able to do it justice anyway, just wanted to say it’s stunning - GLWS. 

Your pics aren’t working for me, not sure about others. 

Hi - do you still have this for sale?

3 hours ago, ern500evo said:

There’s an Ashdown Mark King combo in the classifieds at the moment, which has been price dropped to £300, it’s in Stockport. That’s a great price. 

Looks like a big beast!!!

Thanks very much. Seems the cost of buying all the stuff to make a decent box isn’t low (especially with the price of timber!) might not be worth it, especially as I’ll have to buy a new speaker cab as well. 

14 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Plywood best.

MDF if needs must. MDF sawdust is very toxic.

 

Make absolutely sure your bolts won't contact the amp guts when it's assembled. If there's any doubt, the best way to do that is match thicknesses and use the original bolts.

It would be ply or maybe some nice pine, but not MDF - too heavy and I hate using it. 
 

The bolts screw in from above into the chassis so would be easy to replicate the bolt locations and types - I have a really good local bolt stockists.

Unfortunately it’s not a rack mount unit and from memory I don’t think it’s even the same width. 
 

If I made a ply box for it to go in what are the options for covering it? Also the edge protections, I like the black ones, any tips on suppliers for these?

I have a TE combo which I’ve borrowed from someone but it is crazy heavy. I quickly removed the amp section from the top of the combo to see if it needed any cleaning or servicing and found that it isn’t very heavy on its own - it’s the cabinet itself which weighs as much as a small moon. The amp itself is of excellent quality. 
 

My question is how easy is it to rehouse the amp section into another box? Are they a standard size (I’m guessing not) and so can you buy an off the shelf housing? 
 

I am assuming that if I were to make a box it’s basically just a sleeve which I bolt the amp inside, with maybe some metal corners on?

I can make things out of wood so am considering making my own one day - any recommendations on a wood or other material to make the case out of?

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

If you're in the Oxfordshire area, FinnDave is selling a 2x10 Ashdown combo at a reasonable price in the Market Place (no connection to me, so not trying to boost a pal's sale). It has a tweeter, so should do your required clean and sharp.

I had seen them but it’s a long way from me in Yorkshire. 

I went to PMT in Leeds - very helpful there - and tried out a few sub £400 combos. I found out the one I tried when I first went in was a very expensive Ashdown which might have explained why it sounded good but to be fair I was so excited with buying anything I was a bit blinded. 
I was underwhelmed with the Ampeg sound, just a bit unexiting really, and the volume on the one I tried wasn’t great despite a decent size driver. 
Tried an Ashdown Studio 12 and I wasn’t that impressed. It was ok but that was it. Also it was really hard to see where the level knobs were on them as they were so shiny. Weird I know but it bothered me. 
The staff said they were getting a lot back faulty too which is a shame. 
The Fender Rumble 40 was excellent, such a great open sound, punchy and clear. Controls were a joy to use too. 
So that’s what I would choose if the 2nd hand option doesn’t work out but I’d probably look for one 2nd hand as they are expensive new. 

On 18/10/2022 at 01:49, VTypeV4 said:

It's been a while since I've owned a 7-band Trace but the SM pre-amp is pretty useable, just don't get sucked into putting a 'smily face' on the graphic! The pre-shapes are quite handy for a change in core tone but personally, I find them both a bit too harsh and boomy without help from the graphic so I use it to EQ a bit of the '80s out. 😀 

 

My advice with these (and the twelve band series) is to know your frequencies - set the EQ flat, switch the pre-shapes out and set the amp for a low to moderate volume then play fully boosting (be careful!) and fully cutting each band returning to the zero point before moving to the next slider - listen carefully. Do the same again but with the pre-shapes switched in this time - see what works for you and what doesn't. Be careful with the 50Hz slider as this will eat power and increase driver displacement costing you potential headroom and percieved volume.  

 

The setup pictured should be pretty loud and sound great - the 1153 cab is a great sounding single-fifteen. The BLX combo with the ten-inch driver will play reasonably loudly without complaint plus that HF component will give a bit of 'zing' too. It won't be Ampeg 8x10 loud plus I doubt it'd compete with 100w Marshalls and multiple 4x12s on eleven but, still, it should be eneough for most situations.

 

As stated previously, build quality is generally good with tidy wiring and chunky components, decent wood-work and well finished upholstery. Most techs will happily repair them if they do fail as they're reasonably traditional and straight forward inside. The cost of them being oldskool is of course they're pretty heavy by today's standards.

 

Hope that helps. 😀

I couldn’t have hoped for a better response, thanks so much for the detailed advice. 
I don’t think I’ll be moving it around too much to start with so if the sound is ok for me I reckon I’ll go for it if the price is right. 
I’ve been pretty underwhelmed at the combo amps I’ve been looking at in the shops under £300 so if this is pretty cheap then it’ll be well worth it I think. 

That looks amazing!!

On 14/10/2022 at 13:19, marleaux62 said:

I’ve put a set of radio knobs on my Old Smoothie stingray.

 

Where did you get those from? I really like them. 

Well I’m going to give it a try, thanks for the help. 
 

Are TE Amos generally decent quality?

12 hours ago, 3below said:

Played (dabbled lol) guitar in a musical many, many years ago, the bass player used the same combo.  As a bass player I was well impressed with what the combo delivered from a small package.  @Downunderwonder has sound advice about avoiding hearing damage.

A close friend of mine is a sound engineer and he said when he went through Uni his teachers drilled into him that his ears needed to be protected from day one so even as a student he had custom in-ears made, it’s rare I see him not wearing some sort of ear protection!! 
I will certainly be wearing some form of ear protection as soon as I get a bigger amp than the little practice one I have now. 

3 hours ago, Bassmidget209 said:

I saw a video recently of fat Mike talking about these. He's one of the few, if not only people with custom Dunlop picks and he got them cos he got drunk with Jim Dunlop at a NAMM and badgered him about it till he agreed. You wouldn't think it to look/hear him but he has a very rigid view on the role of the bass in the band (basically support everyone else and make them sound better, to the detriment or otherwise of your own sound) so the thin pick gives a subtler, rounded sound that he's after.

That’s interesting as his bass is always pretty obvious in the mix. 
I tried a thicker pick and I found doing fast alternate picking is much harder with one, I can see why FM likes a very thin pick as it doesn’t get caught on the strings. Probably my lack of skill doesn’t help but it seems to make sense. 
I’ll get a pack of .73 as well to try. 

Hi all, I have the opportunity to try out this combo - Trace Elliot GP7 SM combo amp and extension cab. I don’t know much about amps - this is my first one - but a friend is selling it and I can try it out first. Condition wise it will be perfect as I know he really looks after stuff 100%. 
 

Are they reliable? Easy to fix? As far as sound goes I like the punk sound but want to try and play a bit of everything so I’m not wedded to anything in particular. 
 

Any experience of this one?

I have to say it looks flipping awesome. 

I’ve just started out and I went shopping for a guitar at Rich Tone in Sheffield and they had some Fat Mike picks - had to buy them as I love NOFX. They are very thin (o.6) but I like them, but they aren’t cheap. But they are pink. 😂

I do have a single .9 Dunlop pick which has a knurled grip on it (not sure what they are called as it came in a variety pack) and I’m going to get some thinner ones of those as they feel really secure to hold. 

2 hours ago, Vin Venal said:

No specific recommendations, as options abound and very much depends on what style you're going for.

 

In case it helps though, as yours is a Player Precision like mine (saw your intro thread), you will have 1/4" pots with smooth shafts, so don't get knobs to fit 6mm, or splined shafts. 🙂

Thanks that’s helpful, I don’t know much about them so that is important info!

I have a PB as my first instrument - got this week - and I was thinking the same thing that the knobs aren’t great to use. Could do with some sort of marker on them so I set them a little easier. 
Anyone recommend some nice ones? 

1 hour ago, Tim2291 said:

 

You're not just encouraging a new member... I'm trying to work out how I could convince my wife that I need this as well... I mean this one has a maple fingerboard and mines rosewood, would be rude not to have both right?

It’s very nice indeed - if you haven’t seen the colour in person I reckon it’s gorgeous. When I saw one I knew I had to have it. 

12 hours ago, MungoBass said:

Nice.

 

@Minininjarob here is your +1 formula!!! 😁

Nice try, got to learn to play my first one yet!! 😂😂

Oh no what have I started?? 😂😂