| My G&K MB 115 experience.
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Yep, went and bought one last weekend. Got a call late last Saturday night asking if I could fill in on bass for todays church service, said yeah, sounds great.....only problem was I needed an amp. Didn't have a whole lot of time last Sunday to amp shop (had a lot of other things to do) but I knew I had to find something. I also knew I wasn't going to have any time during the week to look either, so off to GC I went.
Long story short (more on this later), I decided to buy the MB 115 and I used it today for the first time with my Ibanez SR505. Not meant to be a full blown review (after one performance?), but my first initial impressions are: This little amp is a beast! Very loud and very punchy. Very articulate, tight and quick but with some warmth, cuts thru with no problem and is very unforgiving to any kind of slop. I'm not a sloppy player, but when those few moments came about there was NO denying it at all! No hidng with this one! It also handled the low B with NO problem at all.
I used the amps direct out and the soundman said he had no problem dialing in a good, punchy sound. A few of the other musicians were in the congregation today and they said my tone kicked! As you're facing the stage I was set up on a riser on the stages far right. I had the amp to my left but aimed towards the drummer who was about a good 15 feet away from me to my right. Couldn't have the bass in his floor monitor because the monitors couldn't handle it, so I had to have the amp turned up fairly loud so he could hear me. Keep in mind this was my first time using it and I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with the settings, so I just went for it.
Contour and the tweeter were off and the Limiter was on. Gain 2:00. Treble 1:00. Hi-Mid and Low-Mid 2:00. Bass 9:30. Boost 1:00 and Master at 12:30. Again, it's new and I've still got to work with it but it seemed to work quite well. The drummer said it cut right thru and he had no problem hearing me. Even the guitar players who were on the drummers right side said they could hear me with no problem. Said it punched right thru. Fact is everybody said it's the best the bass ever came thru onstage! My initial concern was that the amp wasn't going to be loud enough, but it was plenty loud for this application. Plenty loud!
I hadn't played thru an amp (and a loud one at that) for years and I must say it was a lot of fun! It was like..."HA!! Power!!"
So why did I buy this amp? It came down to asking myself what do I really need? First, I wanted something light and something that could easily fit into into the back seat of my Ford Focus. Hey, I'm soon to be 58 and with my bad back this was a most welcome amp! Second, it didn't cost a fortune. I've always been very careful with my money, been saving for years, live very modest and it's a good thing. I was laid off for 14 months but because of modest living and saving I had no problem with my bills. But even though I've been back to work since last March you never know when things may fall apart again. So it's called spend only what I have to. Third....I play at church but only on a "help out when needed basis' which means at the most I'll only be playing maybe, six times a year when one of the other two bass players can't make it, which was the case today. So I really couldn't see spending big bucks for something that wasn't going to be getting a huge amount of use. So my decisions were really based on very practical reasons.
But of course if I didn't like how the amp sounded I never would have bought it in the first place, right! I liked what I first heard at GC and I really liked what I heard today. Again, I've got a lot of work to do with the settings and all but so far I'm digging it and I can hear a real potential within. So far I'm very impressed with this little beast and I think I made a good all around practical choice for myself.
Do I get a number? | 
