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Mesa Walkabout Megathread!

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#563
My Mesa and Bongo
mesaBassRig1.jpg
 
#570
So having read thru the whole pile, my 2c's:

Spent many years hauling (or paying someone else to) an SVT tube rig (sometimes w/ 2 cabs) all over the country. Now I am old wiser, weaker, and no longer a full time pro.

Had the same :hyper: WOW effect when I found the WA12 at GC several years ago. Brought it home and have been giggin with it ever since. Still also have an SVT III Pro and GK RBH210 also.

Always enjoy compliments from fellow musicians on my tone vs the size of my "little boogie" .:D
Nice to also have the ability to adjust the pre and master levels from clean to gritty, or quick to thick. Very versatile.

I generally keep the tone settings flat and dial in the passive mid, then use the para's to tweak for the room. I play an old Jazz bass with TI JF's, an Epi Casady w/Lak JO Flats, a Martin B15 with old bronze rounds, and a Lakland DJ5 with nickel rounds. Mostly Christian P&W, old school rock & soul, straight blues.

Tried the WA on a loud 3 piece pwer trio gig some time ago, stacked on top of my (8 ohm) GK cabinet, for the aforementioned 2.67 Ohm load. The guitard was stupid loud so I just jacked it up (master about 3/4). It lasted almost one set before starting to cut out. I turned town quite a bit (master about 1/2) for the rest of the night but still had intermittent cut outs. :mad: It was running hot. At my next rehearsal it simply died then came back after a minute, so I took it in for repair and the recall etc. Have had NO problems since, but have not pushed it that hard either.

A spectacular little tone brute!!

I found the Master/DI level thing to be annoying, but tone reigns supreme, so IMO a minor gotcha by having to counter-adjust one level when adjusting the other (master goes up, DI goes down). BUT...

No Longer use the DI from the heads anymore. Always hated the sound of a "naked" bass direct to FOH. "Spend all this money for a great tone, then sound like crap in the house". Solution? SansAmp Paradriver DI to the house and use the parallel output into the amp. Gets some tubey warmth into the DI signal. And seperate control for the stage. Most FOH guys dont mind since I am very cooperative when dialing it in.

Walkabout Fan is noisey, but I haven't been bothered enough to do anything about it. Thanks Vic for the info, maybe one of these dayze...

I have not tried any tube mods yet but you got me thinkin about trying to find some of those Telefunken....

I would, and have, recommend this combo to those looking for big juicy old-school tone in a portable one-trip-load rig.

Thanks,

=JR=
 
#571
Sorry to hear about your shut down issues.
I've run mine for four set nights with no issues, but I have the master at 5, and input at about 2.5...it's just ridiculously loud at that point with a Schroeder 1210 underneath it.
 
#575
Vic said:
Ok, this is a bit of a weird one. I just got one of these and am falling so hard for it I immediately immersed myself it tube-mania and wanted feedback from all the Mesa owners I could find. Well, I PM'd several TB'ers here, and as usual, all were more than happy to respond with great stuff rather than be annoyed by an unsolicited PM.

Anyway, here's what I asked:



After getting some of the responses, I realized I should have just started the thread and PM'd these folks to post instead, which I will now do. In the mean time, what follows are the responses I've gotten so far...
Click to expand...

Getting back to the original post for a minute;

I've owned my Walkabout for about six years now and love it's tone and have no need for anything else. I've been using it with a Ampeg Portabass 210 for about four years and it sounds great for lower volume gigs and even large gigs with proper PA support.

I also used to own a Scout 1x12 4 ohm combo that I kept in my living room for practice and as a backup amp. I took the Scout combo out on a number of gigs and everyone preffered the sound of the Walkabout with the Ampeg over the Scout combo. I even had them set up side by side and switched from song to song on some gigs and rehearsals. It was a fair comparison.

The Portabass is also much lighter and easier to move than the Scout combo. If any of you Walkabout owners have a chance to try your Walkabout with a Portabass 2X10, you should. The Portabass 2X10 is light at 32 lbs. and can be found for $300 used.

I've never had a need to try different tubes since the Walkabout sounds so good.
 
#576
Just want to jump into this mega thread, as a very satisfied Walkabout Scout 12 owner. Very good information, but it took a long time to read everything to this point, I need a little nap now. Always been too skeerd to run mine below 4 ohms, I use it as it is, or atop two Powerhouse cabs, 4x10, and 2x10. Almost traded it in on an MPulse 600, but now I'm glad I didn't, after reading through this behemoth. That's it, thanks.
 
#579
Freddels said:
Is the portabass 2x10 a sealed or ported cab? How does it sound?
Click to expand...

The Portabass cabinets I tried when they first came out were very nice sounding cabinets. They were sealed. Their biggest problem for me was they couldn't play very loud. Pretty inefficient compared to most other 2x10 cabinets. And they were 4 ohms which meant you could only use one of them with the average solid state amp.

But they did sound very warm, yet clear within their volume limits and they were very light and easy to haul around. I imagine the Walkabout head with one of them would be a very nice sound, but just not loud enough for many players.
 
#580
62bass said:
The Portabass cabinets I tried when they first came out were very nice sounding cabinets. They were sealed. Their biggest problem for me was they couldn't play very loud. Pretty inefficient compared to most other 2x10 cabinets. And they were 4 ohms which meant you could only use one of them with the average solid state amp.

But they did sound very warm, yet clear within their volume limits and they were very light and easy to haul around. I imagine the Walkabout head with one of them would be a very nice sound, but just not loud enough for many players.
Click to expand...

62bass is right on the money with his comments and description.

If this Walkabout/Portabass combination is loud enough for you it is the way to go. Like I said, I used this setup in a couple of different bands and everyone preferred it to the Scout 1X12.

Please understand, I'm not cutting down the Scout; it sounds great. This just sounds better. In either case, I always went direct into the mains. I never had to push the amp or speakers hard.

Without PA support, this combination is only for smaller clubs. Although the Scout has a more efficient speaker, I'm not sure that it has a "bigger" sound. All of these small setups do have their limitations.
 
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