Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:06 am Not a specific piece of gear but a general trend that's existed for the past 30+ years. Why do bass amps have to, generally, look dumb? Like everything is just a metal box with too many controls and switches, designed to be rack mounted, and a generally boring aesthetic while guitar amps, generally, get to look cool.

preach. I don't get this at all - I don't get why no-one stops them. It's a guitar, just lower

The Yeoman Ghost wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 6:24 pm The AKG D112. My first home recordings were made with a friend’s mics, which included a D112, and I could not get a good sound out of that thing. No matter where I placed it, and no matter how I configured my kick drum, all I got was basketball “sproinginess”. (That I subsequently found its weirdly pushed midrange somewhat interesting on fuzz guitar did not assuage my vexation.)

To this day, I feel like I can tell when a kick drum is miked with a D112 at a live show, and it’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

I agree. I hate it in a kick drum. It's Ok on Floor tom, and not terrible on a bass cab, i've used it on snare drum too, but really, I could completely do without mine. M88 and even Beta 52 I like better. I have a cheap Audix F6 (cheapo D6) that is better.

The only modern Orange I've ever played was a slightly used AD30, playing a new 330 through it at the Sam Ash down the road from me. It was breathtaking. If I'd had the money I'd have walked out of the store with both immediately. I still want that combo. Haven't played the rest, so it's a bummer to hear what y'all are saying here. I'd kinda been wanting to hear the 50-100 watt jobbers as a platform for heavy/doom type stuff, but everyone here seems to hear otherwise. Oh well. We'll see.

The Fender Blues jr/deville/deluxe series is my kryptonite. I've played through several, owned one and played in bands with people that had all the mentioned versions. I've never been able to make them sound like anything but genericboringflatmidrange shit. No bite, no low end, just mush - single coils, humbuckers, fenders, epis, EGC's - none had any character through them

I know they are adored as an all purpose, anyone can get a good sound out of them type amp, and I've seen them used as rentals by tons of bands that sounded good to great, but I hate the motherfuckers.

TylerDeadPine wrote:

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:06 am Not a specific piece of gear but a general trend that's existed for the past 30+ years. Why do bass amps have to, generally, look dumb? Like everything is just a metal box with too many controls and switches, designed to be rack mounted, and a generally boring aesthetic while guitar amps, generally, get to look cool.

preach. I don't get this at all - I don't get why no-one stops them. It's a guitar, just lower

Yeah, and more than aesthetics: what about a bass needs a gillion active EQ knobs, cross over, multiple gain stages, etc. The limiter I can kind of understand for slapping/aggressive finger playing, but that doesn't apply to most bassists I encounter.

My submission is these. They were the 'fancy' acoustic guitars ("please ask someone at the counter before playing") my local guitar shop as a teen carried and I always thought they looked goofy and sounded like plastic-y shit. I would gladly reach for one of those corny modern Fenders (in the barely-an-acoustic-guitar category) before playing one of these:

Frankie99 wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:38 am The only modern Orange I've ever played was a slightly used AD30, playing a new 330 through it at the Sam Ash down the road from me. It was breathtaking. If I'd had the money I'd have walked out of the store with both immediately. I still want that combo. Haven't played the rest, so it's a bummer to hear what y'all are saying here. I'd kinda been wanting to hear the 50-100 watt jobbers as a platform for heavy/doom type stuff, but everyone here seems to hear otherwise. Oh well. We'll see.

Those AD30s seem to be the exception there that seemed to be a well regarded amp.

For the doom type stuff, I think the real reason that crowd gravitated toward the originals (other than aesthetics) is large value coupling caps meant that the treated down-tuning a little more favorably.

Yeah, it's definitely hard to get into playing bass and not fall down the rack of shit or hunk of crap with tons of lights and knobs and switches and shit. Though I do like the grey/black utilitarian GK 400/800-RB aesthetic (and was luck to just get an old 400-RB for my first bass amp). One time plugged into some SWR monstrosity as part of a backline and there was nothing I could do to make it sound not stupid.

Also, fuck any bass cab w/ a tweeter.

Also I do not like Ampeg 8x10s for a variety of reasons. Yeah, they're a heavy pain in the ass to move, but I've never liked how I sounded through one, they've just also sounded bland as possible. I'd take my old crappy SWR Workingman 4x10 over an Ampeg fridge any day.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:07 am

Frankie99 wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:38 am The only modern Orange I've ever played was a slightly used AD30, playing a new 330 through it at the Sam Ash down the road from me. It was breathtaking. If I'd had the money I'd have walked out of the store with both immediately. I still want that combo. Haven't played the rest, so it's a bummer to hear what y'all are saying here. I'd kinda been wanting to hear the 50-100 watt jobbers as a platform for heavy/doom type stuff, but everyone here seems to hear otherwise. Oh well. We'll see.

Those AD30s seem to be the exception there that seemed to be a well regarded amp.

I had an AD30 for a while and it sounded great at home or playing by myself, but I could never dial it in in a band situation. Really hard to balance too dark vs. too shrill on the EQ, and getting enough volume and gain to sound good but not horrifically feedback. And the higher gain channel was pretty much unusable at band volume. No issues sound/volume/feedback/etc-wise with a JTM45 and that same guitar/band.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:06 am Not a specific piece of gear but a general trend that's existed for the past 30+ years. Why do bass amps have to, generally, look dumb? Like everything is just a metal box with too many controls and switches, designed to be rack mounted, and a generally boring aesthetic while guitar amps, generally, get to look cool.

Yes. Like, oh you play guitar, there's tweedy retro, there's metallic scoop machines, there's the Vox/Marshall/Orange route of keeping them looking pretty much how they've always been, but bass amps look like they're designed for nerds. Fender have a cool logo that they put on everything - except their more recent bass amps, for which they designed some stupid 80's future metal logo, on top of a metal grill.

I don't like amps or pedals with the controls on top. It seems dumb to hide them away from the player. I've sold/not bought things because of this. DIP switches too. The Danelectro Cool Cat V2 was a great sound glassy drive, and pretty versatile, but it had the trifecta of top mounted controls, concentric knobs and dip switches, which for this large-fingered, cramped-playing-space lumbering dufus made it completely unversatile.

Specific gear I hate - the Fulltone Fulldrive 3. The boost part is aces, a really good addition, but the gain sounds are just the most generic boring OD sounds I have ever come across. They should have called it "Hey! Rock Guitar!" and be done with it. The only pedal I've owned where there was not a single moment of excitement. It had zero character.

Dudley wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 11:29 am I don't like amps or pedals with the controls on top. It seems dumb to hide them away from the player.

Depends. If its a combo amp that's going on the floor, top controls make sense. If it's sitting up high then they dont. Same goes for flat front controls in reverse, though.

TylerDeadPine wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:16 am

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:06 am Not a specific piece of gear but a general trend that's existed for the past 30+ years. Why do bass amps have to, generally, look dumb? Like everything is just a metal box with too many controls and switches, designed to be rack mounted, and a generally boring aesthetic while guitar amps, generally, get to look cool.

preach. I don't get this at all - I don't get why no-one stops them. It's a guitar, just lower

There are only a few cool looking bass amps: a real Ampeg SVT, the SVT-350H solid-state version, and the various tube heads by Mesa/Boogie and Marshall. So the cool factor is basically the tube amp format with minimal knobs. I don't know if the big toroidial transformers found in most rack power amps is too big to fit in a tube-style chassis, but class D power amps should fit in any enclosure so I don't know why Ampeg is the only company who makes a solid-state bass head that looks cool .