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MarkBass CMD 151P Jeff Berlin

#41
TN WOODMAN said:
Durock you sound like me-I'm 52, started on guitar in 1969, got into bass in 2007 and loved it.

Me and some buddies get together when we can( I have a 5 year old daughter and younger wife) and play a little blues or two just for our own grins with no aspirations to gig or anything.

You'll find this amp fits the bill nicely for these purposes. Great blues amp,capable of Ampeg B-15 type tone.(what I was looking for originally). With 300 watts (@8 ohms) , the power is there, but I still want the extention cab to get the full 500 watts (@ 4 ohms) to unleash on occasion. (mini rig of doom)

This is a combo, but the cool thing is, the LMIII is an awesome amp as a seperate in it's own right. True, it can't be seperated but you don't have to worry about it getting knocked off the cab either and you get the quality of a seperate head and cab.
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Dude!!! Your wife is younger than five????:eek::hiding:
 
#43
I just picked up a lightly used Berlin combo from CL yesterday. Really liking it so far. We'll see how it sits in the band mix tomorrow.

6D12D517-0C72-4399-9F19-0F01254831F2-7718-00000CB765E36142_zps4842584f.jpg


I already love the weight, or relative lack thereof!
 
#45
It more than held its own in rehearsal last night (three piece with loud guitar!). Volume was set to about 10 o'clock and it sat really well in the mix. I was even happier loading in and out. I'm very pleased with the amp.
 
#47
Bassamatic said:
I have the CMD 121P for about 3 years. It is just so amazing. It seems that there is no indoor gig that I can't play with just this little box. It sounds great in recordings of the band and has huge power if I add an extension cab. I have super pro friends that borrow it instead of their own gear.

The ONLY possible improvement could be a few extra Hz at the bottom, and that is what you get with the 151P, plus even more output. A sure winner - you can't go wrong with it.

Just FYI - I play it with the tone controls flat, and both filters set about 9'0 clock - on just a little - and it is perfect!

If you want to really blow the walls down, back the cab into a corner, using the walls of the room as a giant horn. I do this with the 121 and other players come up and ask where my "stack" is, expecting to see a giant 8x10, etc.
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+1 on the CMD 121P, what a great little combo.:hyper::bassist:
 
#53
If the OP hasn't yet made the leap, I'll add my .02...

I got the amp in question about 4 years ago, while playing regularly with a fairly loud gospel/outreach band. Prior to the MB, I had been using an SWR Workingman's 10, which was great for small venues and as a stage monitor when going into a PA.

Well, the first night I showed up with the Markbass JB model, everything changed for the better. I play mostly fretless 4's, and the tone, punch, well, everything about this amp made us all believers.

All this, and when EQ'd the way I liked, never turned above about 20% up on the master volume.

Nowadays (moved a couple of years ago), I mostly leave that amp at church and use the head only, through the PA, with IEM's for mixing on stage. We have a back wall that produces a very distinct 1/2 second echo back to the stage, so stage volume is a problem here like few other venues I've played.

I get lots of comments on the tone and flavor of this amp, and the sound board fellas have reported that this amp is hotter than they've encountered before.

Wouldn't go back, you'll love it too.

All the best,

Shane
 
#56
Russell L said:
I chose to go with a separate Little Mark III head and Traveler 151P cab (now two 151P cabs). I have never played the Berlin, though. But, I wonder if the bigger box of my 151P cab adds any "bigness" to the sound, or if it may even have an altogether different tone. Anyway, going modular is still an option for you while you wait.

Oh, I also have a CMD 121H combo (the big brother of the CMD 121P combo). It has a really nice tone, but the 12" will run out of excursion at higher volume with any lows boosted at all. But, it is a great combo for more moderate gigs and rehearsals.

Something that gets talked a lot about in reference to the Little Mark amps (LMIII inside the combos nowadays) is the low mid control being centered at 360 Hz. Most folks consider that to be too high, including me. But, there are ways to eq to get around it some, or you can add an eq pedal or any number of other pedals to compensate to give you something in the 100-150 Hz range (which is what most folks want to manipulate). Otherwise, I find that my LMIII sounds fine with the eq flat and both filters off.

Beware the VPF filter, as it cuts mids (a sound that can make you disappear in a mix) and adds some sub lows (which can eat up your headroom and run your speaker out of excursion at higher volume). KNOW that both filters are OFF when their knobs are rotated fully counterclockwise, NOT AT NOON). Do you remember where they were when you tried the combo? You might wanna try it again in case your ears were being deceived by the filters being turned on. BTW, the VLE filter simply cuts some highs, so no harm in that. Just be careful with the VPF.
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True.
The first time I took my Berlin to practice, I turned up the VPF. I kept checking the amp to make sure it was working because the midrange just disappeared. After two songs, I turned it completely off, along with VLE. Then, the amp worked fine.
Now, I use the VLE just to thicken up the low end.
 

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