First Bass Topic GAS

congrats! That is a bummer that gear costs more in europe. In the US you can get that bass for 243 euro with free shipping.

Is there any gear over there that you can get for BETTER prices than in the US? I've always been curious about this.

I'm from Portugal which makes things even worse on the prices matter but there is a store near my university that is making really great prices.

To tell the truth I'm not really into the usual prices in the US but from what I've read in forums and stuff there are some brands that are cheaper here, mainly EU made brands like EBS.

But check out www.thomann.de or www.musicstore.de to see prices in Germany which are usually the lowest on Europe.
BTW, if your interested here is the link for the store I was talking about www.lismusica.pt

Just out of curiosity, is the used gear buisness there really growing? Here there is a really growing used market because of "the crisis"...

Hi bassmen

Its a time ago this thread was started. But I have to answer, beeing a bassman since 1975.

Markbass-stuff is fine, I own a Little Mark II, a lightweight amp with a heavy tone. 300 Watt @ 8 Ohm, 500 Watt @ 4 Ohm. Together with a SWR Workingman 212 with Beyma Neodymium replacement speaker a sweet sounding halfstack. Light and powerful. And I use it for hard rock / heavy metal. I have a visual sound "Jeckyll and Hyde"-pedal. I only use the distortion effect, no fuzz for me.

You can dial in distortion, tone and how loud the effect should be compairing to the original signal. I love the bass.boost - knob on it, and I can get fine slightly overdriven tubey sounds out of my lightweight half stack.

BTW, I have much more rigs, much more power and much more speakers. I play in 3 bands, two of them real heavy bands. One hard rock band. OK....

I love hybrid amps. The newer tube circuits are able to get a fine tubey sound. Lets talk anout GenzBenz Streamliner, available in 600 and 900 Watt @ 4 Ohm. Three tubes in the pere's circuit and a Class-D - Poweramp. Tubey goodnes.

Talking of GenzBenz, I have the bigest one: GBE 1200, 1200 Watt @ 2 Ohm, 1000 Watt @ 4 Ohm, 550 Watt @ 8 Ohm. Two pre channels, one solid state, one with tubes. I mix this two cannels and get the best of boith worlds: The punch and the clarity and definition of solid state and the grind of a overdriven tube. :woohoo:

Same system with my old Peavey T-Max. Two channels,. one with, one without tubes.Best "No-Ampeg-Ampeg-Tone" ever heard! F*ck SansAmp and co!

Next rig: an old Ampeg SVP Pro Preamp with a 2 x 700 Watt @ 4 Ohms poweramp. This is the Ampeg - tone! It's the pre used oin the legendary SVT II, the one rackmount with the graphic EQ. I love this pre!

Even Markbass has its lightweight class-D - amp with tube. It's called F1. 500 Watt @ 4 Ohm and a fine sounding pre.

I bought my Marshall MB 4410-combo because my SWR Redhead died and I needet an amp imedialely. I was touring in Italy, and I needet an amp this evening. This was a Marshall, and it was available and cheap, and I bought it. Wooow, my suprise! This hybrid amp has a fine-tubey sound, having two channels, one with, one without tube, and a blend-channel, where you can blend the two. So fine! I loved this amp from the beginning. So up on a second 410, ad there it was, the new 8x10-fullstack. The only thing: The MB 4410 is heavy, 51 KG. Having some high-end - amps I kept the amp for my rehearsal room.

It is a bit more complicated with the T-Max and the Genz, because you have to play with channel volumes to get the mix you like. But you will be satisfied.

Even Ampeg goes lightweight, If I had to choose, I would take a Ampeg SVT 7 Pro. Ampeg-pre with a 1000 Watt @ 4 Ohm class-D - poweramp. Only 13 KG, no need lugging around a 28 KG SVT CL.

But if you like full-tube - amps, you are welcome.



Cheers - Uwe

Hey guys, (very) long time no see.
Well, I never stopped visiting the site but for some reason just ended up not being in the forums.

So picking up on Kong's post, a lot of stuff went by since I was here and I feel like I have a bit more to contribute now.
The GT2 never came to be, I messed up bad with some components and the thing never came to a decent shape so...no samples.
The LTD was a disappointment, compared to the Yamaha RBX is an expensive piece of firewood, my hope is to make it somewhat better with some nice Delano pickups.
I've tried the Jeckyll and Hyde, loved it actually but was not what I was looking for. I tested it in my new favourite store that has all the boutique brands and gets me better prices than the German online stores.

Those are some VERY nice rigs Kong, amazing really. Let me tell you about mine:
I'm using an Ashdown Little Giant 1000 that has two independent 500W 4Ohm amps in a half rack unit with 1.5U height. It is not the most resilient amp though, I was a bit stupid and managed to burn one of the poweramps by sending to much signal into the line in... The other is still working so not to bad. I use this with TC Electronic BC210 and BC212 which are amazing cabs. My Warwick WCA211 Pro had a more HiFi sound but the TC are awesome also and the 12" do add a bit to the sound.
As for effects I got a Source Audio Bass Multiwave Distortion and it blew my mind, not for the classic tube-like drive (although I recently got close) but for aggressive, over the top and just plain wakky distortions that's THE pedal.

I've tried the new Fliptop Ampeg and didn't like it that much, I usually use the 4x10 Ashdown MAG combo on the studio and like it a lot.