Blackstar fly bass combo pack: disappointed

What exactly did you not like about it?

 

You might be just as disappointed in the Roland also. I own one and, it does have alot of nice features, bells and whistles, but it sounds like crap through those tiny drivers, unless you play it very low volume. It distorts easily, in my experience. For years I've wanted to yank out the amp section, and use it as a preamp. I suggest looking for the smallest 110 you can find and get a small head like the PJ Bass Buddy, which has a 10 watt amp built in, or the GK MB 200.

 

Not having heard one before, as well as not knowing if this brand new or not, I'd say play it a while and let those tiny speakers stretch out a bit. They're gonna be pretty tight out of the box; though I do realize there won't be anything lower than mids. That's too bad. Seemed like a neat product. Trade the rig in and swap it for a small combo amp if that'll work for ya.

 

Phil Jones Double 4 is the answer.

 

But disappointment is the only thing I have left in life

 

I've wondered about the Roland Cube for some time, but honestly the cost has deterred me from buying one. Interesting to hear some input on it though.

Doesn't seem to be much in the way of portability for us bassists.

 

The best ultra small amp that I’ve played is the Markbass Micromark. I think it’s like 50 watts and 1x8. It can actually do a decent job on low frequencies if it’s not super loud. The downside is they are very expensive for what they are (I paid $400 for the one I used to have), but probably still cheaper than a Phil Jones.

 

I use the Blackstar Fly 3 Bass rig with an acoustic bass uke for gigs we do walking from room to room at a children's hospital. We can't put anything down or touch anything in the rooms, so I added a shoulder strap and hang it on me. Lower volume is perfect for that situation. I also use it for practice in my apartment on my desk next to my computer where I make up my own PDF bass arrangements. Again, lower volume is best there too, it sounds perfectly fine, in fact, I'm quite impressed with the bass it puts out.

 

Wow, the Roland sounds better then I could ever get it to sound !

 

Sorry to hear your dissatisfied with it. I love mine and feel it provides great sound for practicing.

 

I dig my Warwick BC-10. About half the size and weight of the MB112. No frills, but inexpensive and a solid bass tone. I even use mine for small jazz gigs. But this might be too big for your use.

 

I had a Fender Rumble 15, not the new silver faced one. Cheap, light, sounds pretty good. It would keep up with an acoustic guitar for sure

 

I need to chime in about the Roland. I have one and for a while liked it quite a bit. Then something happened. I either blew a few speakers, something happened with the electronics, or maybe I just finally noticed that it distorts really easily. Like, really easily. More so than when I first got it, of that I'm pretty certain. Maybe it happened slowly (?) over a couple week period, I'm not sure. So I looked into repairing it; Roland doesn't sell those speakers to consumers, only authorized repair shops. That's fine, but the labor was out of warranty, and it was going to be a minimum of $80 for my local authorized repair place to even look at it. I simply couldn't justify throwing another...what...maybe $120 into a small practice amp that cost $280 to begin with. At that point I would have had $400 invested in a friggin' practice amp.

I'd go on to tell you how much $400 can get you in another combo, but I suspect you know (hint: a fair amount). I decided I was done with the Roland and got a Fender Rumble 25 for $100. It has an aux in so I can run a drum pattern from my phone. I wasn't using the battery feature, so no loss there for me, but if I needed to run it off of battery I have a pure sine wave lithium battery pack from my photography days that I think would run the Rumble just fine. The Rumble is a bit bigger than the Roland, although not by a massive amount, and it fits (physically) where I need it to. Oh, and it sounds fantastic. Yes, fantastic.

So yeah. Not so hot on the Roland Micro Cube.

 

My experience also, as I posted earlier. The preamp itself I really liked, and ran it into the effects loop of my old Roland DB800 combo. Someone here on TB took the amp part out of the cab, and put it into a box, and used it as a preamp . Always wanted to try to do that myself.

 

The pignose Hog 30 that I foam modded sounded pretty good for 6 years, but the batter eventually wore out and the darn thing was really heavy for its size. I like the new rumble 25 a lot more for low volume practice tone and it's super light compared to the pignose.

 

The Rumble 25, in my opinion, is the best 99 dollar amp money can buy. Perfect practice amp, but not as small as the Blackstar or Cube. Very light, and cool looking to boot.

 

Has anyone tried the new Vox 50 bass amp?

• High 50W output power from a revolutionarily lightweight and compact unit.

• The warm vacuum tube sound of Nutube.

• VOX original eight-inch speaker delivers rich low-frequency sound.

• Bass reflex structure provides rich low-frequency reproduction with ample output.

• Four-band EQ allows detailed sound shaping for the bassist.

• Compressor lets you enjoy tight-sounding performance.

• Punchy overdrive.

• A rich selection of input/output jacks such as AUX IN, PHONES out, and DIRECT out.