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Amps you hate

#241
Bryan R. Tyler said:
I've heard other players through GK stuff that I dug the sound of, but for the sounds I like for my own playing, it just wasn't there.
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+1. This is a really important point and it explains why so many people love or hate various gear. It's really all about what YOU need from an amp or cab. Just the other day I was totally floored by a guy in GC who was tearing up an OLP bass and a GK Backline 600/4x10 rig. I have played that same rig and it did nothing for me. It really goes to show how much tone comes from the hands.
 
#242
what a fun thread! I love to hate bad gear!
1) Anything by Behringer - they should be sent to jail for IPR infringments and mass fraud! it just proves that really cheap gear can be sooooo frikking expensive as bad sound will cost you your reputation and lost gigs!
2) Behringer (yes, they deserve it!)
3) Peavey bass gear - what is there to like about Peavey
4) Phil Jones: Crap - this is the exception to the rule above, crap sound can also be VERY expensive...the guy is a genius and should have loads of credit for the hifi stuff.....but the bass gear is crap! and big! and heavy! or to small!
5) Trace Elliot - harsh, unmusical....eeeeeekkkkk!
6) Fenders latest bass amps......sigh! horrible sound, ugly....

god gaaad I feel so much better now! Is there a thread where you can slag of basses as well...:)
 
#243
Carl999Pop said:
3) Peavey bass gear - what is there to like about Peavey
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Nearly indestructable (internally and externally), sounds decent, can be had for peanuts, have all the features you'll need, and sometimes some you won't, many go down to 2 ohms, heavy enough to be used as ballast in most major oceanliners.

I'd say there's a lot to like about Peavey.
 
#247
Amps that break down during a gig. :hyper:

If going strictly by sound, which is what I assume is meant here, I would have to say that the worst sounding amp I ever had was a circa 1991 Fender Bassman 60. I could never get a good sound out of it, and ended up gladly getting rid of it after about a year.

If we mean mainly reliablilty, the winner goes to a Fender BXR 400 head I had once. It cut out on me many times at gigs, and my BXR 100 sounded better anyway IMHO. The BXR 100 also seemed to sound just as loud, don't ask me my.

Runner up in sound goes to a Hartke kickback 15. Didn't seem very loud for 120 watts, and I didn't like the tone that much. I would say it was good if you wanted a nice hi-fi kind of sound, but for a more vintage sound, it just didn't do it for me. A friend has the kickback 12 with a paper cone speaker, and IMHO it sound much better. the kickback was reliable however-no issues to report.

The guitar player in my band has a SWR workingman's 2004 head, and WM's 15 cabinet-he bought it because it was easy to carry. It sounds very harsh, and I would not gig with it. However, I heard a Christian bassist playing thru a 350 watt SWR pro series head, and son of bertha cabinet. That rig sounded very nice, and I wouldn't hesitate to use that setup, if it was offered to me.

I also like peavey amps. I like the tone I get from them, and they are IMHO very reliable. Some people don't like Peavey, but I do.

Please keep in mind, that these are my opinions, based on my personal experiences-YMMV. I say, as long as you are happy with the sound, and it is reliable for you, who cares what name is on it? :bassist:
 
#248
Hmmm....
I dont like Peavey and fender amps much, what i do hate is the looks of the Hartkes although their sound its ok in many cases. WIth Ampeg I had bad expierence also, so I m running away from SVTs... I dont like Behringer also. But then again I dont like mayonaise either. :p


bassking511 said:
ok ill ask again...anyone like/dislike KUSTOM?
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I played in the local store with the Kustom amp and combos. Nice stuff, more hi-fi than SWR... and i felt i was missing something. Not an amp to hate, especially for its price.
 
#250
Playing through GK amps and/or cabs makes me want to quit playing bass.

I'm running my Epifani UL112 cabs through a GK700RB-II head until I get a UL502 next month, and it sucks the good tone from the cabs and replaces it with its scooped, obnoxious fart sounds. Not to mention that it has four volume knobs! Why would they give 50 watts to the tweeter when tweeters are designed to be passive? Their cabs are even worse.

But enough of my ranting. I love the sound of Epifani, Aguilar, and some Ampeg stuff.
 
#252
the thing i've noticed about Mesa bass amps is that alot of players i know use them and sound absolutely great, but i just don't like the way I sound out of one. same thing with Ampeg SVTs, Fender Strats and Marshall guitar amps. i have no idea why. a buddy of mine has a Carvin that actually sounds pretty damn good, but will only ever work for about four songs before crapping out, no idea why. no sound, just hiss and crackle. turn it off for about 5 mins and turn it back on again, it works fine
 
#253
SWR amps - Too many things going on, seems to me they're for people who tweak their sound a lot. I've also yet to play thru a more, bland flat sounding amp ever (I'm talking about the 750's and Workingman stuff). I was in a store one day trying out a Geddy Lee jazz and the sales guy insisted on plugging me into an SWR amp and after a few minutes I plugged into a Roland combo. The guy came flying over to me and asked if something was wrong, I said no that I just never liked SWR Gear and from the stunned look on his face you would have thought I shot his mom.

Hartke - Not a fan of many SS amps and no fan of Hybrid amps either. I've played thru the 3500's and they just didn't work for me. Too much going on with the eq

Gallien Kreuger - 800RB's were good, the new stuff doesn't seem so good and I can't seem to get a good sound with them. Backline 112's are junk, absolute junk.

Eden Cabs - the ONLY time my SVT didn't sound as good was when I ran it into an Eden 410. Not interested in the heads for some reason.

Mesa Boogie -can't seem to get a sound I like but they are loud.

Ampeg SS amps - seem to break a lot, I had a B2R that blew up on me twice, once during a gig. Finally got an SVT-CL and it's been great the 5 yrs since I bought it. Simple, loud and beefy. If you can't get a good sound with an SVT, something is wrong.

The only Ampeg cabs I ever loved are the 610's, I just don't love that they weigh 115lbs
 
#255
I had a Peavey megabass that sounded pretty bad considering all the hype that went into it when it came out. I paid way too much for it.

Later in the mid nineties, I finally tried out a Trace head, the big one with the black light on the front. I was so disappointed in the tone, lack of power and general blandness of the tone this amo proficed. For $2,000.00 Canadian at the time, it was a joke.
 
#256
My first combo was a Yorkville. I didn't really know what the hell I was doing in the first place:rolleyes: , but when I bought a GK400rb and an ampeg 4x10, I knew I sounded better. Not too much out there that is really all that bad though. If you think about what was available to the masses 20 or so years ago, you can get a decent sound on almost anything out there now for very few duckets... Amps and cabs are like cars. In every make and model produced there are bound to be some lemons that crap out, and some models that are notoriously unreputable "Pinto's"...:D Not every Hoda Civic is gonna run forever...
 
#257
Something to keep in mind about Peavey gear is, for what it costs (and especially what it cost back in the 80s, when the company really established itself) Peavey provided about twice the amp as anybody else for the same money. There was no-name crap, there was high-dollar name brand stuff (Ampeg et al.) and in between there was Peavey. It allowed many financially challenged musicians to acquire gig-worthy new gear, who would not otherwise have been able to. I don't think anyone (except Peavey's ad people) thought or pretended that Peavey gear was top-level pro gear---although it was certainly built for the road. (I did manage to kill a Mark III series Bass amp once, though, when somebody spilled a Coke down the back of it during a show.)

My first bass amp was a TKO 65, and even with a Black Widow it was not that great, but I had a Mark IV series Bass head as my main amp for years (it's still in the basement somewhere) and with my unusual rig (Gibson Ripper, Fender 115 slotted cabinet with a Black Widow) it gave me a tone I really liked. If a nefarious scoundrel drummer hadn't appropriated that cabinet I might still be using it. I've since used that head through other cabinets, and it does sound rather lackluster. It just goes to show that a bass/amp/cabinet rig taken as a whole can vastly exceed the sum of its parts. An amp that you might say sounds awful, coupled with a cabinet that nobody likes and the right bass can combine to achieve at least one really good sound.

"Hate" is a strong word, but I've certainly fallen out of love with my GK 800RB. It's light, it makes a lot of noise, and it's taken plenty of abuse, but the EQ knobs don't touch a certain high mid/low treble frequency where P-bass fret clatter seems to live. Maybe the much-maligned Hartke aluminum speakers are partly to blame.
 
#259
Beefbass said:
Amps that break down during a gig. :hyper:
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+1000

Most people here "hate" amps with a certain tone, without any tone at all, or whatever. But that's completely subjective. All I care about: does it get the job done?

I've played through many mediocre rigs at open mics, jams, sit-ins. As long as they were loud enough (no excessive distortion) and reliable, then it didn't matter to me at all.
 
#260
IMO, any bassist who needs a certain amp to get "their tone", doesn't have much of a "tone" to start with (excepting people who use tons of effects like Billy Sheehan, etc.). The things are tools and stage monitors...not a religion.

As long as they don't have reliability issues, I can work with anything.
 

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