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After having the worst equipment failure experience of my career, I have been contemplating getting some new gear.
I play bass and guitar, but play bass in Heavy Metal band.
In the band I use a 500w Ampeg SVT with matching Ampeg SVT 8x10 cabinet. I LOVE this rig. Yes it is beaten up, heavy, cumbersome and the cab has no dolly and weirdly placed handles, but still I love it. It has a great sound with a ton of flexibility, a TON of volume and that classic vintage amp look.
We set up in the afternoon for a show on new years eve, and done a sound check, everything was fine. We had coffins at either side of the stage that we were all going to come out of during our intro. [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]
That time came, we hit the stage and the curtian dropped, Pete, our rythm guitar player came out of his smoke filled coffin, playing the start of the intro. Next was me and our lead guitar player coming in with our parts and coming out of the coffins. My time came, I burst out of the coffin!.... To nothing! [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] I was playing but there was nothing. Complete silence on my behalf. Complete Spinal Tap moment.
I checked the amp, power on, all setting normal etc, standby off, cables and chords in, volume on bass up... Nothing. I looked at the sound guy with these kind of looks [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
He had a quick check with no luck, so he brought up a direct box and I plugged straight into the PA. I played the rest of gig through the PA, so every body could hear the bass, except me. The monitors were not powerful enough to give me a good stage volume on the bass. I couldn't hear a thing the whole friggin time.
To make matters worse on our third last song "Sexy She Bitch", all the chicks in the crowd joined us on stage. This is a good thing yeah, but there was so many chicks on stage dancing and spraying beer and champagne, somebody done something to my direct box and once again, no sound from the bass! I'm sure it got wet or something becuase for the rest of the show, there was no signal. Nothing.
This was a great fun show, but a complete **** nightmare at the same time. Nobody in the crowd noticed or cared but I, and the rest of the band did. I was really bummed out by the end of the show.
After partying, and suffering for a few days, i got my stuff together and checked it all out at home. Everything worked fine. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
It's not the first time I've had an amp problem that has fixed itself but I certainly want it to be the last.
So......
Im looking into maybe purchasing some new gear, that I wont have to worry about not working.
If I had the money I would buy a new Ampeg SVT Classic and new 8x10 but this is out of my budget. Wait, there is no budget. Im broke right now.
I've been looking into the Carvin RL1000 with the Redline Series 4x10 and 1x18 after reading Horns666 raving about them.
This directed towards Horns, and anybody that has had any experience with these amps and cabs. I've read they sound great, and you can get a lot of sounds out of them, but then I have read a lot of reviews saying that they are very unreliable. This is not what I am looking for!
This is one of the cheaper bass full stacks and usually go by the saying "you get what you pay for".
Can anybody shed some light on the build quality and reliability of these Carvin amps?
I gig a lot and move my equipment around a lot so I need something solid that isn't giong to start rattling inside after a few gigs.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks
I play bass and guitar, but play bass in Heavy Metal band.
In the band I use a 500w Ampeg SVT with matching Ampeg SVT 8x10 cabinet. I LOVE this rig. Yes it is beaten up, heavy, cumbersome and the cab has no dolly and weirdly placed handles, but still I love it. It has a great sound with a ton of flexibility, a TON of volume and that classic vintage amp look.
We set up in the afternoon for a show on new years eve, and done a sound check, everything was fine. We had coffins at either side of the stage that we were all going to come out of during our intro. [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]
That time came, we hit the stage and the curtian dropped, Pete, our rythm guitar player came out of his smoke filled coffin, playing the start of the intro. Next was me and our lead guitar player coming in with our parts and coming out of the coffins. My time came, I burst out of the coffin!.... To nothing! [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] I was playing but there was nothing. Complete silence on my behalf. Complete Spinal Tap moment.
I checked the amp, power on, all setting normal etc, standby off, cables and chords in, volume on bass up... Nothing. I looked at the sound guy with these kind of looks [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
He had a quick check with no luck, so he brought up a direct box and I plugged straight into the PA. I played the rest of gig through the PA, so every body could hear the bass, except me. The monitors were not powerful enough to give me a good stage volume on the bass. I couldn't hear a thing the whole friggin time.
To make matters worse on our third last song "Sexy She Bitch", all the chicks in the crowd joined us on stage. This is a good thing yeah, but there was so many chicks on stage dancing and spraying beer and champagne, somebody done something to my direct box and once again, no sound from the bass! I'm sure it got wet or something becuase for the rest of the show, there was no signal. Nothing.
This was a great fun show, but a complete **** nightmare at the same time. Nobody in the crowd noticed or cared but I, and the rest of the band did. I was really bummed out by the end of the show.
After partying, and suffering for a few days, i got my stuff together and checked it all out at home. Everything worked fine. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
It's not the first time I've had an amp problem that has fixed itself but I certainly want it to be the last.
So......
Im looking into maybe purchasing some new gear, that I wont have to worry about not working.
If I had the money I would buy a new Ampeg SVT Classic and new 8x10 but this is out of my budget. Wait, there is no budget. Im broke right now.
I've been looking into the Carvin RL1000 with the Redline Series 4x10 and 1x18 after reading Horns666 raving about them.
This directed towards Horns, and anybody that has had any experience with these amps and cabs. I've read they sound great, and you can get a lot of sounds out of them, but then I have read a lot of reviews saying that they are very unreliable. This is not what I am looking for!
This is one of the cheaper bass full stacks and usually go by the saying "you get what you pay for".
Can anybody shed some light on the build quality and reliability of these Carvin amps?
I gig a lot and move my equipment around a lot so I need something solid that isn't giong to start rattling inside after a few gigs.
Any input would be appreciated.
Thanks
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