Carlsbro. A blast from the past.

[Piers_Williamson]

12 minutes ago, NickA said:

Carlsbro in trace clothing.  Always sounds better with a green front panel 🙂 

Weren't Carlsbro Green before Trace Elliot?

[Russ]

21 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Carlsbro are still going!

https://www.carlsbro.com/

Used to go to a rehearsal room about 9/10 years ago that was kitted out with modern Carlsbro gear. It was OK. Nothing particularly special, but it did the job. An improvement on their 80s/90s gear, for sure, but still with a whiff of old Peavey about them. Unremarkable, but ubiquitous and relatively bulletproof. 

 

I notice, with this latest "Viper" range, they're doing what they did with Delta Bass all those years ago - keeping the word "Carlsbro" well away from public view! 

[NickA]

7 hours ago, Piers_Williamson said:

Weren't Carlsbro Green before Trace Elliot?

Really? Interesting. 

 

My cobra was black and white. Had to upgrade to a gp12smx to get the green glow.

[BigRedX]

17 hours ago, Piers_Williamson said:

Weren't Carlsbro Green before Trace Elliot?

 

Looks like the Carlsbro swap to green happened around the same time as Trace Elliot were making their first bass amps (1979/1980)

[Elfrasho]

On 23/01/2020 at 21:15, kodiakblair said:

What was your point of reference ? 98/98 was still quite early days so it won't have been A/B'd against YT videos.

Genuinely curious here. Was it live albums or DVDs ?

 

 

Other amps I'd played at the time. My own ears decided whether it sounded rubbish or not, back in the day we could make our own mind up based on experience, we didn't need to wait until someone told us our opinion.

 

Aye i know this is a 5 year old post but i dont think i replied!

[kodiakblair]

2 hours ago, Elfrasho said:

Aye i know this is a 5 year old post but i dont think i replied!

You replied the next day.

[police squad]

On 22/01/2020 at 01:50, kodiakblair said:

Owned the Stingray back in the 80's, could be seen jumping on buses with it as I traveled about Edinburgh. 

First amp was through a tape recorder mic,then it was a wee Badger. A Kay 50 watt briefly appeared too. Needed a bigger amp and could afford the Carlsbro 🙂
Marked improvement over the previous efforts. Don't recall anybody saying it sounded crap,folks just played what they had,latter half of the 80's before I even saw TE gear in the flesh.

 

Sold the first 30 year back,then bought another maybe 2 house moves ago.

 

Couple of year back a local rehearsal space owner bent my arm to buy it 😎

I had one of these for a while. Sounded great in my bedroom and I did a couple of school gigs with it

It was fine

[Gank Bass]

Id never heard of this brand until seeing this thread, turns out I've just moved house about 1/4 mile from their old factory site! Spooky

[Rosie C]

On 19/05/2025 at 12:39, Pea Turgh said:

Had to find a lookalike of my first amp.  Did its job I suppose!

 

 

I had one of those from about 2001 to 2022. It did its job. I donated it to a local music school and as far as I know it's still going.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 15:37 by Rosie C

[Twigman]

On 19/05/2025 at 22:08, NickA said:

Really? Interesting. 

 

My cobra was black and white. 

My Cobra was black and green.

 

We also had a Cobra (keyboard) amp which was black and orange

[NickA]

7 hours ago, Twigman said:

Cobra (keyboard) amp which was black and orange

Groundbreaking that was. Up to then Synth players had been using guitar amps ... now all my keyboardy friends use ...guitar amps.