Blackstar Fly 3 Bass model

[PaulKing]

I got one for chrimbo.
For the money, and convenience (permanently set up in kitchen for spontaneous plugging in without shaking the house with 500W) ... it's a groovy little thing, fits underneath the sideboard. I can stick on a CD at reasonable listening level, and play along without struggling to be heard.

It goes pretty loud (at least with the extension cab), although the sound [i]quality [/i]is not great - unless you want to play dirty crunch bass. Then it kicks out an astonishing amount of noise.

But no, it doesn't really handle bottom end - at low gain/volume it is a bit thin and puny (no surprise). Doesnt sound like my bass, doesn't have richness of tone.
And then gain can only go up to 50% before overdrive kicks in (that's on clean channel), and even at that gain level it starts to distort with volume anywhere over 50%. I finger pick, hard and bassy old-school flats sound. And I guess all my basses are pretty hot-output vintage instruments..

But then the aux input really reveals the audio character - it's not a pleasant reproduction, like a really cheap portable speaker. I guess I'm used to the quality of £100+ mini-bluetooth speakers, which increasingly blow me away ... so i shouldn't have hoped for anything like that quality in this low cost baby. Still, I'd actually rather play along to audio from a separate system than listen to the nasty nasal reproduction of the Blackstar.
All the bass from MP3 is lost ... which makes it tricky to pick out what you're supposed to be following, if that's what you're using it for (alternatively you could say it provides a convenient hi-pass filter to rid your MP3 of bass so you can play along unhindered!)

All that said, I'll happily take this away on holiday for idle play along practice. I'll just always miss that 'mmm' factor of hearing the warm tone of my basses. Perhaps I'll have to start playing crunchy rock fuzz bass.

6/10

[Ghost_Bass]

Now that you mentioned the bluetooth mini speaker i'm wondering if it would be possible to connect the bass to a cell phone with something like the iRig and have the sound comming out of one of these speakers. Anybody has the gear to perform a test?

[Musashimonkey]

Running anything through Bluetooth creates a lag time for the information to be passed. So that if your running your bass through it will be painfully slow in response. (That's my understanding and experience)

[PaulKing]

Update to this. Raising my score to 8.5/10 (via compressor and EQ).

First, I figured out the value of the compressor on this baby. I never normally use any compression so I had it dialed right down. Then I read somewhere in a review about this amp (was it here?) "... compressor ... almost essential on an amp of this size..." so i dialled it in. Wowser, what a difference. Suddenly got a heap more output and presence without distortion.

Then I thought I should beef up the EQ a bit, lose that nasal honk. Running the bass through a boss EQ7 was all it needed. A big fat scoop, boost hi and low, cut low mid, boost output a bit - bingo.

Its a shame to add another piece of kit to something that's all about portability, but as it basically sits under the sideboard in my kitchen, I can leave the EQ pedal plugged in.

Now I can hear my bass tone!
Pretty bloody good actually, a pleasure to play, rather than just a compromise solution. happy days.

[Fionn]

[quote name='PaulKing' timestamp='1484830053' post='3218838']
Update to this. Raising my score to 8.5/10 (via compressor and EQ).

First, I figured out the value of the compressor on this baby. I never normally use any compression so I had it dialed right down. Then I read somewhere in a review about this amp (was it here?) "... compressor ... almost essential on an amp of this size..." so i dialled it in. Wowser, what a difference. Suddenly got a heap more output and presence without distortion.

Then I thought I should beef up the EQ a bit, lose that nasal honk. Running the bass through a boss EQ7 was all it needed. A big fat scoop, boost hi and low, cut low mid, boost output a bit - bingo.

Its a shame to add another piece of kit to something that's all about portability, but as it basically sits under the sideboard in my kitchen, I can leave the EQ pedal plugged in.

Now I can hear my bass tone!
Pretty bloody good actually, a pleasure to play, rather than just a compromise solution. happy days.
[/quote]

Do you think it would be loud enough to jam with a couple of acoustic guitars, without distorting?

[Martley]

[quote name='Fionn' timestamp='1507883103' post='3388488']
Do you think it would be loud enough to jam with a couple of acoustic guitars, without distorting?
[/quote]

Yeah I have one that I use exactly like that - for vocal rehearsals.

I also use it for my home silent practice rig - headphone out from my laptop into the Blackstar's mp3 input then into cans for me to hear the full playalong