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TC Electronic BG250 Club (Part 2)

#861
I spent a lot more quality time with my amps. I did an A/B experiment. I wired up both of my amps with the Zoom B3 as an ABY.

First I would play the Hartke with no active effects (bypass). Then I'd mute the Hartke and unmute the BG250. After going back and forth a bunch of times, I learned some things.

a) On the Hartke, with the settings flat and the "shape" on the amp disabled (off) the sound is a lot more aggressive with a ton of mids. Engaging the "shape" at 400hz sounds to me like it's applying the U-shaped graphic EQ effect. It's much cleaner, warmer and much less honky mid-range.
b) No matter what....I don't think I can duplicate the Hartke aluminum tone. There is a certain sweetness that I feel can only come from the aluminum.
c) On the BG250, I messed with the EQ settings through all of the extremes. The characteristic flat tone has a nasally mid-range to my ear. Decreasing the mid doesn't seem to get rid of the nasal sound.........until you hit -5. At -4 the mids are there but at -5 it's like an off switch. The bad news is that the volume of the amp takes a nose dive (pardon the pun) when you set the mids to -5. I had to bump the gain and master to compensate.
d) For me, the best setting to my ear was -2 bass, -5 mid, +2 treble. I believe I can use that at a gig.

Now I started experimenting with the B3 as the pre-amp. I set the BG250 back flat (noon).
a) I tried the AcBsPre again and couldn't find a setting that would tame the nasal mid-range.
b) Went through my favorite set of amp emulators; Aguilar, Markbass, Hartke and SVT.
c) Ironically.......the Hartke emulator seemed to do the best job of controlling the mids without sacrificing volume. Believe the Hartke emulator settings I used were...

Bass 0, mid 0, treble 0, level somewhere in the middle, tube emulation 10 , comp off, cab mix 50.
 
#863
Last rehearsal I had an anxious moment with this amp. I had the gain at 7, which apparently is too high because when I hit a hard open A the amp distorted and cut out. Had to turn it off and on to get it working again. Left the gain at 6 the rest of the night, no more problems. So watch your gain setting! Anyone else run into this?
 
#864
PluckyThump said:
Last rehearsal I had an anxious moment with this amp. I had the gain at 7, which apparently is too high because when I hit a hard open A the amp distorted and cut out. Had to turn it off and on to get it working again. Left the gain at 6 the rest of the night, no more problems. So watch your gain setting! Anyone else run into this?
Click to expand...
This happened with my first bg250 115. Don't know why but it did. Haven't had it happen on my new one though.

EDIT: New being a new 1st gen 115
 
#865
Hey it's the same story for me. Saturday I bought in a local store near me, a BG250 208 for 420 euro because the shop had slightly lowered the initial price of 469 euro.
The amp is very good but after a short web search it seemed clear that the price was too high. Today the shop returned me the money difference from 420 euro to 299 euro. For this price this amp is unbeatable.
I checked the bg250 with a big band rehearsal and it was a good sound what I've listened. At 65% of volume the tone was solid. Maybe the Ebs Classic has more volume but the bg250 has some features as built in tuner and the Tone Print feature that is pure fun.
A great little amp.




BassChap said:
I just pulled the trigger on the BC250-208! Made a deal with the local reseller to test it out over the weekend and have the opportunity to trade it for a 112 if it isn't to my liking. This weekend, I am playing when I'm not sleeping (band rehearsal Friday night, jazz group workshops on Saturday and Sunday and a jazz jam on Saturday night). That should decide it.

Had a pleasant surprise regarding the price of the little box. The local store listed it for 469 euros, which was comparable to what the internet stores did. Two hours before I went out to buy it from the store, I checked internet and found out that Thomann (a German internet store, who ships free to where I live) offered the thing for 298 euros! Couldn't believe my eyes, more than 1/3 off! The amp went from the most expensive in the BG250 range to the cheapest one. Almost ordered it right away, however, I decided to check with the local store first. If the difference between local store and internet would be a few tenners, then I would favor the store for various reasons. But this difference was just too big. The store guy was unpleasantly surprised and thought the Thomann price was an error. I could follow this thinking. He phoned his TC Electronic representative to find out that it was a special offer. They just didn't inform all their resellers yet (which is weird, IMO). Once off the phone, he offered the amp to me for 299 euros, which I gratefully accepted. :)

Can't wait to try it out with the band.
Click to expand...
 
#866
PluckyThump said:
Last rehearsal I had an anxious moment with this amp. I had the gain at 7, which apparently is too high because when I hit a hard open A the amp distorted and cut out. Had to turn it off and on to get it working again. Left the gain at 6 the rest of the night, no more problems. So watch your gain setting! Anyone else run into this?
Click to expand...

This is strange. There's a video on the TC Electronic web site on which a guy explains that you can push the gain knob to increase the saturation when the tubedrive is engaged.
So this amp is supposed to support a high entrance gain, no ?
Maybe you should ask directly to TC Electronic.
 
#867
I've recently been having some issues with what sounds like vibration of the speaker. Almost like it is loose or something. This only happens when I really dig in on the lower notes. I play a starfire with bisonic pickups and I keep my gain at 3, volume 5-7. I played an open mic last night and forgot that my pickups are much more powerful than average and I was wwaayyy too loud, this was on an 810 SVT rig. I must say, thats the best my bass has sounded. A lot of the sonic issues I've been experiencing were not present on this rig.

Anyone know how detrimental it is to the amp or speaker when the clipping light flashes? Its a pretty common occurrence for me. I would say it happens a few times during any song. Typically with the really low notes or high pitch notes. I could turn the gain down further i assume but it seems unavoidable.
 
#868
wisconsindead said:
I've recently been having some issues with what sounds like vibration of the speaker. Almost like it is loose or something. This only happens when I really dig in on the lower notes. I play a starfire with bisonic pickups and I keep my gain at 3, volume 5-7. I played an open mic last night and forgot that my pickups are much more powerful than average and I was wwaayyy too loud, this was on an 810 SVT rig. I must say, thats the best my bass has sounded. A lot of the sonic issues I've been experiencing were not present on this rig.

Anyone know how detrimental it is to the amp or speaker when the clipping light flashes? Its a pretty common occurrence for me. I would say it happens a few times during any song. Typically with the really low notes or high pitch notes. I could turn the gain down further i assume but it seems unavoidable.
Click to expand...
My 115 started vibrating a while back, I went to take off the front grill but I guess its not only screwed on, but also glued. I tightened the speaker a little with the grill still on, and tightened the grill. This solved it.
 
#873
Gig update:

I played with my dance band this evening. We played in a church gymnasium. So as you can imagine, the room was rather "live." My Squier VM Jazz bass and my BG250-210 amp sounded outstanding. I set the EQ at noon, with the bass cut to -2. Typically I do the Jaco thing and just run the bridge pickup. Tonight I ran both pickups at 100% with the tone on 5%. It fit the mix with band wonderfully. I soloed the bridge pickup for a couple of rock tunes. That sounded great as well.

I take back the nasal comments I made about the amp. To be fair, you can't truly judge the sound of a bass instrument in a small space. I studied tuba in college. My tuba professor would say that in a small space the wavelengths that a tuba (or bass) generates are not allowed to fully develop unimpeded. The waves run into a wall or ceiling before being able to complete the full length of the wave. The result is a sound/tone that is not accurate and compromised. That's why a tuba in a small practice room can sound bright or buzzy, but when brought into a decent size room or, better yet, a concert hall the sound is much fuller and warm. That is because the waves have room to propagate without being distorted.

Of course my professor was a hippy. So who knows. The theory SOUNDS good.
 
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#874
I thought this amp was kind of nasal and a bit damp myself. I haven't memessed around with the tone print options too much but yesterday I plugged in the slap n comp TonePrint and wow that thing makes my Lakland bass sing . it so much clearer than the amp was before it's probably just a :-) Eq but it's a perfect match what a sound.
 
#876
tubatodd said:
Gig update:

I played with my dance band this evening. We played in a church gymnasium. So as you can imagine, the room was rather "live." My Squier VM Jazz bass and my BG250-210 amp sounded outstanding. I set the EQ at noon, with the bass cut to -2. Typically I do the Jaco thing and just run the bridge pickup. Tonight I ran both pickups at 100% with the tone on 5%. It fit the mix with band wonderfully. I soloed the bridge pickup for a couple of rock tunes. That sounded great as well.

I take back the nasal comments I made about the amp. To be fair, you can't truly judge the sound of a bass instrument in a small space. I studied tuba in college. My tuba professor would say that in a small space the wavelengths that a tuba (or bass) generates are not allowed to fully develop unimpeded. The waves run into a wall or ceiling before being able to complete the full length of the wave. The result is a sound/tone that is not accurate and compromised. That's why a tuba in a small practice room can sound bright or buzzy, but when brought into a decent size room or, better yet, a concert hall the sound is much fuller and warm. That is because the waves have room to propagate without being distorted.

Of course my professor was a hippy. So who knows. The theory SOUNDS good.
Click to expand...

Even if your professor was a hippy it seems he knowed his things :)

I clearly see on my side too that the bass knob is the good key to remove the boominess of this amp. And if I find the tone too honky with the bass reduced, I just cut a bit the mids.

I tried your setting with my jazz bass and it sounds very nice. I find the tone knob very efficient on the jazz bass, more than on my p bass. Maybe because the jazz is brighter at the beginning.

kellyrojo said:
I thought this amp was kind of nasal and a bit damp myself. I haven't memessed around with the tone print options too much but yesterday I plugged in the slap n comp TonePrint and wow that thing makes my Lakland bass sing . it so much clearer than the amp was before it's probably just a :) Eq but it's a perfect match what a sound.
Click to expand...

I just tried it (never before, maybe because of the name... as I'm not a slapper), and yeah, the sound fits me way better than the Spectracomp.
When I use Spectracomp I can't really cancel the boominess. The Slap'n Comp sounds more natural.

Thanks for the tricks !!
 
#877
Well, at the end I couldn't stand that muffled tone my BG250 208 had. I wasn't able to EQ it out and instead of buying some kind of pedal to try to get rid of it I just returned it.
I got Fender Rumble 500 V3 combo instead, and I can't be happier. This combo is, for me, everything TC was not. Loud, clear and it sounds fuller and richer. Again, IMO.
 
#879
I really like mine - especially for the price. After screwing around with the Tone Print, I just leave it as a compressor. Usually run the tube drive at around 2, and compressor around 3; tone controls depend on the bass and the room. I will take a number if you are doing that.
 
#880
Stizz said:
I really like mine - especially for the price. After screwing around with the Tone Print, I just leave it as a compressor. Usually run the tube drive at around 2, and compressor around 3; tone controls depend on the bass and the room. I will take a number if you are doing that.
Click to expand...

Ah, it's good to get get something that you like :-)

The thread has a "club" name, but there's no numbers.
 

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