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Quilter Bass Block

#1,741
bdplaid said:
I dunno, you must really like your pedals. :) In a perfect world I'd have none of them, and just use the bass and amp, and the Quilter moves me pretty far in that direction. Were it not for the chorus, I'd be straight into the amp.
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Love my Dunwich pedals. The reason I own the DG headis so I could have an amp to take to jams, which wouldn’t require a pedal board for dirty tones. The AO is also one of my favorite boxes for DI distortion. The clipping works better than my other boxes, and sounds more useable. Right tool for the right job ;)
 
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#1,742
Stu_Bass said:
Time to beat a dead horse but I have to say it plainly in a post instead of buried in the middle of posts.

If you are using a preamp in front of a Quilter you owe it to yourself to try both the line in on back and the 1/4" jacks on the front.
I wouldn't be surprised if we took a survey and the vast majority of those who tried both preferred the latter method.
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I tried the line in the other night for the first time, upright > fishman pre 1/4” out > XLR line in. (Only cable I had to use, vs. straight mic cable.

I didn’t realize that this method bypasses the Quilter GAIN stage as well as the EQ.
Simply was not enough gain to result in usable volume, as the fishman does not add any gain. Was hoping I could use this to be able to bounce between upright and electric, but i guess not with this preamp. Guess a different solution is in the works.
 
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#1,744
monsterthompson said:
Anyone else notice the mute switch always defaults to disengaged when the amp powers up, even if you had it engaged when you powered down?
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Seems reasonable since it’s a circuit toggle not a physical switch. I think consistent power on behavior is a good idea from a user interface standpoint. I would design it the same way myself.
 
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#1,745
Skerrvydog said:
Seems reasonable since it’s a circuit toggle not a physical switch. I think consistent power on behavior is a good idea from a user interface standpoint. I would design it the same way myself.
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Minor annoyance. If I decide on a volume setting I like, then mute and power down, I’d like to be able to come back on at the same place. As I said, minor annoyance. Just a little learning curve. I’ll survive ;)
 
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#1,747
So tonight I was farting around with lots of things, including rewiring one of my active basses to have passive volumes, but only an active eq. Sounds a heck of lot better, more natural, but with some active tone control.

Testing it out through the BB800, I'm playing around with gain and for the hell of it, jack into the active input (I usually just use the passive and play with the gain level). Lo and behold, it sounds different. Actually, it sounded more natural, like a passive bass, which is what I wanted to begin with, and why I rewired the bass.

This BB800 keeps coming up with surprises, the more I duck around with it.
 
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#1,750
Frank77 said:
TL;DR : Holy crap, boys and girls.

Ok, so 10 pages or so ago (I guess), I wrote that I tried one / bought one (floor demo) from a local store, took it home and found it had a crazy levels of humming. Sent it back thinking it had issues, ordered another.

Took delivery of my second one Tuesday. Unboxed it / hooked it up in the store and tried it with a Fender P. Hum level: normal. Took it home and hooked it up. Hum level: Crazy. To rule out my bass, I booked one hour of studio time where my band normally rehearses. Hooked it up to a single 4 ohm GK neo 4x10. Hum level: normal.

Turns out I just have sh!tty power and/or crazy levels of EMI at home, I guess.

Oh, and the amp's a keeper.

I can hardly believe how loud this tiny thing is. I had the gain and the master both set at noon, and if dug in hard enough the cab was starting to fizz and fart. Granted, it has likely been through much abuse, but still : Pretty much anything above those settings had the whole room rattling. I'm looking forward to our next rehearsal to find out what volume settings I'll use with the full band. The room we rehearse in has an old 2x15 Acoustic cab with an Ampeg B4R sitting on top. With the gain set just below the clipping point, the Ampeg needs to have its volume set near the max (at like 3 or 4 o'clock) to be loud enough with the whole band (there's 8 of us and the drummer hits hard). I really wonder how the BB will compare!

I played around with the EQ and tried different combinations, too. With both knobs at noon I found the mids and the lows to be quite powerful - had to turn both the depth and the contour knobs left a notch or two to get a sound I'm more used to. I'll need to experiment some more, but anyway this thing seems to be able to do both modern and vintage tones quite well.

Cab-wise, I was initially thinking of getting a 4 ohm 2x12 to pair with the BB, but now I'm starting to wonder if a single 1x12 might be enough!
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I think it would be hard to go wrong with an Audiokinesis Hathor 212.
 
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#1,751
This is the gig rig I used last night for a private Holiday Party and the BB800 absolutely pounded my Fearless cabinet!

In the past I used to have 1000 watts @ 8-ohms on tap for this same F112, but now the BB800 can achieve the same and better while remaining nicely under its rated 450-watt max output at 8-ohms.

You may have heard or experienced first-hand that Greenboy cabinets usually benefit with 900-watts or more behind them for reserve power and headroom, despite the thermal limit of their Eminence 301xLF driver being only 450-watts.

The BB800 is the first amp I have found that squeezes every bit of bass signal into the first 450 watts. With that wattage being continuous, the LF driver will sweat at/near its thermal limit. Even still, the BB800 may need to be backed-off in fear of thermal and mechanical damage.

Again, this is all possible and courtesy of Quilter's proprietary dual-stage limiter circuitry in the preamp. The BB800 is unlike any other! Quilter has changed the game so that it no longer is the number of watts, but the delivery of them.

Fear the heft!

b3n_f1121.jpg
 
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#1,752
CharlieC said:
This is the gig rig I used last night for a private Holiday Party and the BB800 absolutely pounded my Fearless cabinet!

In the past I used to have 1000 watts @ 8-ohms on tap for this same F112, but now the BB800 can achieve the same and better while remaining nicely under its rated 450-watt max output at 8-ohms.

You may have heard or experienced first-hand that Greenboy cabinets usually benefit with 900-watts or more behind them for reserve power and headroom, despite the thermal limit of their Eminence 301xLF driver being only 450-watts.

The BB800 is the first amp I have found that squeezes every bit of bass signal into the first 450 watts. With that wattage being continuous, the LF driver will sweat at/near its thermal limit. Even still, the BB800 may need to be backed-off in fear of thermal and mechanical damage.

Again, this is all possible and courtesy of Quilter's proprietary dual-stage limiter circuitry in the preamp. The BB800 is unlike any other! Quilter has changed the game so that it no longer is the number of watts, but the delivery of them.

Fear the heft!

View attachment 2846068
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+1 My greenboys love this amp. :thumbsup::bassist:
 
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#1,755
I want to get one of those amps now. . All i have heard for years is how the Fearless cabs need gobs of power. And if the Quilter can handle that . I'd be impressed. I;d like to hear and OWN two of those BF Big Babys and that amp.. Lightweight, Loud ,Big sounding ,Dream rig

CharlieC said:
The Quilter is also quite smashing on this fine chap! :thumbsup:

View attachment 2846078
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#1,756
svtb15 said:
I want to get one of those amps now. . All i have heard for years is how the Fearless cabs need gobs of power. And if the Quilter can handle that . I'd be impressed. I;d like to hear and OWN two of those BF Big Babys and that amp.. Lightweight, Loud ,Big sounding ,Dream rig
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Get ready to be impressed then as the Quilter can handle that.

For even more sonic disbelief consider also auditioning a Fearless F112. ;)

Cheers!
 
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#1,758
^^^ Not really a fan of any other cab color than black, but that looks wild!

This little amp head has really created a dilemma for me. I have just finished our run of Christmas season shows, and most were done with my Fender Super Bassman/Fender 410 Neo set up. One smaller gig was Pedal board into a QSC K12 (unbelievable tone for such a small set up) and a couple with my BB800 into dual Berg NV115s. My B|Amp got one gig!

I love my Super Bassman, It changed my expectation of tone from Bass amps. My B|Amp has all the bells and whistles and sounds amazing. The BB800 was purchased to replace a power Amp for using Pedal boards equipped with a Preamp, but it really has become an Amp that I love for it's simplicity and heft behind every note. I truly am gas free after a massive transformation in my Amp line up this year.
 
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