Trace Elliot review (GP11 amp & 2103x cab)

Why did I buy it?

I was playing a fair amount of bass and became dissatisfied with my old marshall amp and especially it’s enormous cab that I couldn’t fit into cars. A couple of my friends had Trace amps which I really liked, so when this one came up on ebay I grabbed it for £400 in around 2004.

How does it sound?

Compared to my friends valve Ampeg SVT this doesn’t compete for sound. However for a middle-of-the-road amp it works and sounds fine. The 11 band EQ allows a lot of control over your sound (almost too much), the noise reduction is effective, the input gain is very helpful with lights to help you judge the optimum input gain and the output volume is enough to compete with a drummer easily. It also has a very cool UV light and a footswitch to control the EQ (although I have never used a footswitch with mine). The 2103x cab is very punchy, and importantly quite small. Although the head doesn’t quite balance effectively on the cab I wouldn’t want to get a bigger cab because of my back. It has a useful XLR output with a pre/post EQ switch (although personally I preferred to use a separate DI box).

Keep or sell?

Unfortunately I have had a few problems with this amp occasionally freaking out and emitting all sorts of crackles and pops. I’ve had a couple techies look at it but they’ve never got to the bottom of the problem. As a result I no longer trust it for gigs, however it works well in my room as a practice amp as I also play my Roland electric drums through it without fear of the bass kick sound destroying anything (for this the input gain control is very useful). As I don’t trust it I don’t think I could sell it in good conscience so it is a keep, but only as a practice amp. Since I don’t actually use it for gigs I have started putting together a pedal board to make my sound as independent of any specific amp as possible (as I never quite know what amp I will end up gigging with). Since I started doing this I have tended to keep the EQ flat in favour of colouring my sound with a Hartke bass attack pre-amp pedal.

Music Man StingRay bass review (fretless)

Why did I buy it?

A few years back I was playing bass a lot but on a circuit with a couple other really amazing bass players. As they could generally outplay me I decided to specialise in fretless as this was something slightly unique. I went to the bass cellar on Denmark Street and they had one of these at a massively reduced price because of a ding on the body and a broken pickup (the picture is not mine but it’s the same model/colour/year). I got the active pick-up fixed and it has worked well ever since.

How does it sound?

I find basses are far more dependent on the amplifier than guitars are – I have had a crap bass sound amazing through a Ampeg stack and great basses sound crap through small amps. In general I choose basses due to their feel rather than sound, however I do quite like the musicman humbuckers especially when you pick closer to the bridge and also the active pick-ups (the EQs seem to actually DO something in the active circuit whereas a number of passive basses i’ve tried seem unaffected by the onboard EQ’s). Without frets slap doesn’t work on this bass but everything else feels great. I was worried at first I might have trouble finding notes (and even played through a tuner set on chromatic mode to check myself) however it’s not actually too hard so long as you can hear yourself quite well. Instead of flat-wound strings I like normal bass strings as they sound punchier but do mark the fret board a bit and probably would cause problems over a number of years, however for the amount that I play it the marks are not a major problem. The neck does seems to bend a little bit (or maybe as a guitarist I’m just not used to such long necks) however the beauty with a fretless is that overall intonation does not really matter – you can change it yourself with a roll of the finger!

Keep or sell?

I’ve had this five or six years and am very happy with it. Of course fretless might not suit everyones style, however for the mainly jazz / classic rock stuff that I play this works as well as a fretted bass. It’s also quite nice to come to a practice, get it out of the case and have everyone say “ooo a fretless” as there seems to be a strange belief that fretless basses are harder to play – they are not! I now feel far more at home on a fretless bass than I do on a fretted one, and love all the glissandos that you can pull off – definitely a keep.