Well that's kinda cool...

Well, after my last "it's still on order" email from the music store down in London, I had largely forgotten about the skillbook (as I call it, being an ex EVE player), choosing instead to run my pc audio through my FX box, and play along with tunes I liked/tunes that were simple enough for me to play well.
One day a couple of weeks ago though, I was pleasantly surprised by a package, that turned out to be my book. I didn't know it was coming, or that it had been dispatched, and it arrived without warning, explanation or apology. At least I have it now.

Having started working my way through it, it is indeed as the title suggested, a rather in-depth book (with accompanying CDs, which annoyingly, made turning the pages a pain in the butt until I took them out and shoved them in a CD case) starting with "How to hold your bass without hurting yourself" (no, really), and going through in depth tuition on everything from plucking and stopping, picking and slap, through various musical styles, to a kinda adventurous "final test" that crosses several genres of music, through fun (if rather stereotypical) examples of each. Having played for several weeks before the book turned up, I did find the first few exercises a little too simple, but technique is every bit as important as repertoire, and you certainly can't hope to be any good at writing poetry without having a pretty solid grasp of the alphabet first.
A few examples later, I found myself getting tripped up by some of the arpeggios, though I am progressing through them. So I do get a satisfying feeling of accomplishment with each completed exercise. When I was a kid, music books were chores. Now I'm a little bigger, I'm enjoying working my way through them. Money well spent I think.

I had a bit or a rather awesome day out on Saturday though, a nice sunny day, where I managed to get a lift to a newly-discovered music store along with my nephew.
Arriving at the store, I walked in with my bass over my shoulder and explained that I'd brought it with me, and so to avoid confusion, they happily put it behind the counter for me.

I had a bit of a wander round the place, making a beeline to the bass amplifiers, where I found several rather lovely stacks of Markbass amps and cabs, as well as a couple of combos including the one I was after. Having found it and eager to grab it before someone else did (it would have been just my luck to have the thing swiped from under me by someone else after many weeks of waiting), I asked the staff if I could "take a look at it". They handed my bass over, and I was shown to one of the little practice rooms, which I was pleased with, as having only been playing for 2 months, I didn't want everyone hearing how bad I am ;).

The Amp:

The amp that I was looking at was - to give it its full name - a Markbass Mini CMD 151 J.B. Player Combo. Being very new to playing bass, all I knew about Markbass is that they're a fairly new but highly regarded Italian company, that as the name suggests, specialise exclusively in amps, combos, cabs and pedals for Bass guitars. Not having heard the amp, I was attracted to Markbass because all but the least expensive combos and cabs they manufacture have snazzy yellow speaker cones (like this) which look pretty cool.
The fact that the CMD 151JB would fit almost perfectly in the space I had available pretty much sealed the deal. I walked in not knowing what the amp sounded like but knowing that it was pretty much the only one that would fit. Fortunately for me, it just so happens that it's a pretty decent amp, as I found out.

Now amps come in several flavours, for both electric guitar and bass guitar. Generally, the more expensive/powerful ones consist of a head that contains all the electronics, connected to one or more cabinets that contain the speakers themselves. If you're after something smaller, less expensive, or just something easier to transport around, you can get a combo amp, which as the name suggests, contains both the speaker(s) and the amp head in a single unit. 

Being new to bass amps, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I have been surprised in the past few days at just how different the amp can make my bass sound, by virtue of the tone controls on the head - the face panel of the actual electronics - itself.

 The 151 has a "cute little" 250w (at 4 ohms, 150w at 8 ohms - we'll come back to this) head with a handful of quite important knobs (low, mid low, mid high, and treble), a pair of very important knobs (VLE/VPF), and a couple of knobs which if not correctly used, will result in either hurty ears, screaming neighbours, or worse, no sound at all. These would be the "GAIN" and "MASTER"

As I currently understand it, Gain and Master work as a pair, and one seems to affect the other. Gain, weirdly, seems to increase the volume very sharply if mishandled, so there must be some difference between the two that I have overlooked. In fact, I think I'll read up on them right now...

Well, a cursory search seems to explain that Gain amplifies the signal before it is sent to the bit of the hardware responsible for making the speaker make noise. The practical effect is that it can sharply increase volume, but also adds distortion to the signal, changing the sound of the instrument quite sharply in some cases, and can cause clipping where parts of the signal go beyond the amp's capability to turn them into sound. Fortunately, my amp also comes with a snazzy clip light that flashes when the signal is not to the amp's liking.

Volume (or "Master" as it's called on my amp) only controls the output volume of the signal, and doesn't by itself change the sound of the signal, other than to make it louder. Or quieter. Folks tell me quiet is just as good Not yet being at the stage where I want everyone to hear what I'm playing, I'm inclined to agree.

So the next thing I do is to turn the amp on, twiddle the volume and gain to the 9-o-clock position, fumble for my bass, and plug in.
The resulting sonic boom from the speaker makes my hair stand on end. The amp might only be a 150w but a 15 inch speaker moves a lot of air when it's pissed off.

Yep, it turns out that you're not supposed to turn the volume up until after you've plugged the guitar in. I didn't know this, but it's a lesson I have now very effectively learned. Thankfully, no one came to shout at me, and the amp seemed to continue working quite happily. Some folks say it's not good for the speaker, other folks say "I do it all the time". Better to be on the safe side though, it's not even my amp yet.

So I'm part way through messing some tune up, when one of the staff comes over. I think "Uh oh, he's here to tell me off", but when I open the door, he's come over to announce that they actually have a used 151 in, for £249, instead of asking me to pay £369 for a new one. I explain I'd quite like to see/hear the used amp, and he rushes off to bring it over.

So I turn off the new amp and move it out of the way, and - carefully this time - plug the bass into the second one, before powering it on. Hmm. Looks exactly the same, sounds exactly the same.

I twiddle with the settings noticing just how much difference they make to the sound of the bass. I check the amp over, looking for any evidence that it is not in fact, brand new. I don't find any. It's pristine.

 During my time playing, I continue to marvel at the size of the amp. My brother used to have a much smaller electric guitar amp, and I figured that there wasn't much of a middle ground between that amp, and the huge 6 foot tall speaker stacks. The 151 though, is a heavy (heavy for me, light for its size and performance) 15 kilogram box made from 20mm thick poplar laminate, measuring half a meter on each side. Smaller than a 6 foot tall stack, sure. Not something I'd want to carry to a buddy's house though.
It's pretty solid though, and it has hefty bash guards on each of the corners, so while my natural instinct is to wrap it up in cotton wool, it doesn't actually need such gentle treatment.

So I play for a few more minutes, playing with the low, low mids, high mids and treble knobs, and seeing a pretty fine level of control over the sound of the bass. I don't know what the VLE or VPF controls do, so I leave them alone. Seems I was missing out by doing so.

Having played with the amp for a few days, I've come to learn these functions a little better.

VLE or Vintage Loudspeaker Emulation is a very popular signature feature on Markbass Amps that cuts the treble/high frequencies, giving the amp (in Markbass's words) "a mellower, less modern sound". Combined with flats (which were more common in the past), the sound is well suited to motown, classic rock etc, it could essentially be named ye olde classic sound knob. But of course they'd have to print that very small to fit it on the head.

VPF or Variable Preshape Filter is the other signature feature (not including the snazzy yellow cones, obviously) that boosts the lows and the highs, while cutting the mids, resulting in what is known as a smiley face, partly because it makes the people who like the sound smile, and partly because the frequency response curve looks a little like a smile.

Of course, me being me, I wondered what would happen if I tried to use both together. And so I set my tone controls to the pattern you see in the photo of the head up there^. And the result?

The "twang" from the strings is gone. The metallic screech of fingers sliding along the strings is gone. The tone of the bass is now the musical equivalent of a chocolate milkshake with a load of fudge and ice cream floating in it. It's a thick, powerful gloopy warm sound, and it's a sound I'm learning to love.

So I turned the amp off, disconnected the bass, and went off, guitar in hand, to find the dude.

When asked what I thought of the amp, my answer was essentially that I'd never heard a bass amp firsthand before, and while I liked the sound of it, I might like the sound of all of them. But that was by the by, I added. I liked the sound of it, and told him as much, and he was nice enough to put it behind the counter for me.

Now what's all this watts and ohms business I was talking about earlier?
Well, as an enthusiastic vaper, I'm vaguely familiar with watts and ohms, but the general idea in this case is the less resistance (the lower the ohms) in a circuit, the more watts can be pushed through the hardware. The more watts means more speaker movement, more speaker movement equals more sound.
So why is this important? Because as it's designed, the resistance of the 151 combo is 8 ohms, which means the "little" 250w head can actually only push 150w through the speaker. Add a second (it has to be an 8 ohm cab for this particular amp) speaker by hooking up one of the aforementioned cabs via the "speaker out" port, and two speakers = less resistance - the full 250 watts can be brought to bear. I'm probably oversimplifying a little bit, and you can actually damage hardware by connecting speakers with the wrong impedance (speaker talk for "resistance" I guess), but as an example, my point holds.

If you want to learn more about speaker impedance, amp wattage and cab compatibility, there's a pretty cool video here. You'll learn a lot, and you might save yourself blowing up your amp :).

So the bass and the amp are back behind the counter, and having saved money by choosing a used amp, I'm determined to make the extra cash count. So I wander round looking for other stuff I might want.

I notice that my bass is behind the counter on a rather snazzy looking Hercules self-locking stand. After my embarrassingly badly-built ebay special stand fell to bits (after a couple of weeks of use), I've been needing some way to keep the bass safe and secure, and this thing looked to be just what I was looking for.
But would I be better keeping the bass in a hard case where it would be safer? I only had room for one, not both, so I had to choose.
Asking the staff, I was basically told "If you're gigging, get a hard case, if you're practicing indoors, you don't need one. If you have a choice between keeping your bass on a stand where you can see and reach it instead of keeping it in a hard case somewhere out of the way, get a stand. You'll have more motivation/freedom to practice/play as and when you want".



I was a little inconvenienced by my last stand, to be honest. The mechanism to prevent the bass falling out was a catch that I had to close around the neck of the bass when putting it on the stand, and then undo before I could get the bass off the stand. It only took a few seconds each time, but as I'm fond of saying to folks, even the most minor annoyance repeated often enough can eventually become a big deal. The thing that I liked about the hercules self locking stand, is that the weight of the bass on the stand automaticaly closes locking lugs around the head of the bass, preventing it from being pulled off the stand by accident. That and the fact that not only did it look much more substantial than my last stand, but it was temporarily at a rather awesome price of £24 made the idea sound appealing. 
My old stand supported the bass from below, whereas this one dangles the bass from the neck. Not normally something I would have considered to be a good idea, but as I looked around the store and saw every single guitar and bass dangling from wall-mount brackets or arranged artfully on the hercules stands, and all supported from the neck, I figured that if it wasn't safe, it wouldn't be done. I figured "If they can hang a £4000 guitar from one of these stands without complaining, I can put my bass on one too".

I asked him to put a hercules stand behind the counter for me, which he happily did, and I'm glad I picked one up. It's solid, it's good quality, it's well built, and - important to all new bass players (and a lot of experienced ones) it looks cool too. The hardware is pretty chunky, the leg footprint is nice and wide, making it nice and stable, and the foam padding on the legs and on the neck clamp prevent any scratches or marks on the finish of the bass.
That said, I still felt like I was missing out on something important by having nothing to keep the bass in while I was moving it around. Eager to have the best of both worlds, I asked about gig bags, and eventually selected a Fender gig bag, that would protect the bass on the move, without taking up too much room or preventing easy access to it. Said gig bag is basic but well built, and fits nicely out of the way down the side of the bed where no one can trip over it. I haven't had cause to use it yet as the bass is kept on the stand, but it's nice to know it's there.

Knowing that it would probably be a while before I could get back into the store, given its kind of out-of-the-way location, I figured that I should pick up anything else I needed, and spent a good long while wandering around looking for other things to spend money on. My journey to the guitar store had turned into an actual "If there's anything you want to sell me, now's your chance" situation. I had a couple of things I wanted to get my hands on. After playing the bass for 2 months I'd started to notice marks on the strings, and I wanted to see if I could stop them from deteriorating, and maybe clean them up a bit. I started looking for isopropyl alcohol which (i believe) is what folks clean the strings with, but instead I was directed to a package of MusicNomad String Fuel - a rather cool looking string-cleaner/lubricant dispenser that not only cleans the strings, but lubricates them to make them less grabby. "Fair enough", I figured, and added some to my shopping list. It seems to work, the strings do seem cleaner, and they're not as grabby which makes moving around the fretboard a little easier (and at this stage I need all the help I can get). Having seen people speaking well of the Big Stubby guitar picks, I decided to grab some of those as well, since my super duper bass teaching book has a section on learning to use a pick, and I didn't have any

Finally, just to be on the safe side, I grabbed a new set of strings for the bass. I didn't know what I was after, so I was happy to let the dude behind the counter decide for me. The strings pictured are apparently as close to a direct replacement for the strings already on the bass as we're likely to get.

And artist endorsements? Yep, it seem rotosound strings are enjoyed by a variety of rather cool bass players, including Steve Harris, Billy Sheehan, and Chris Squire (who sadly passed away in June). So it's nice to know I'm in good company.

And that was it, that's everything. I had a brief look around, couldn't see anything else I wanted (or at least nothing else I needed), and so we put the purchases through the till. And thanks to buying the amp used instead of new, the entire order came to £328.96. Not bad when you consider that I'd budgeted £369 just for the amp by itself. So we got the stuff home, I arrranged it artfully, and took a rather overprocessed photo of it.

At this point, I'd like to say a little about the store itself, Rich Tone in Sheffield, as the staff were very good to me and I enjoyed my time there.
I was in the store about 90 minutes and got talking to pretty much every member of staff at one time or other, all of whom were polite, enthusiastic, friendly and eager to help. I was advised on what stuff I should buy that would benefit me, as well as what stuff I wouldn't really see any benefit from. Rather than there being any kind of pressure to sell, the emphasis seemed to be entirely on giving me the best service/advice, and they seemed just as happy to advise me not to buy stuff if they thought it would hurt me as a player ("put your bass in a hard case somewhere out of the way and you'll just end up not playing it. You'd really be better off with a (£46 cheaper) stand. You can always get a gig bag if you really want one". I asked about getting some stuff to clean and "feed" my fretboard, and the advice was "The bass is fairly new and you've not had it long, you're not gigging daily with it, so you probably won't actually need to feed or clean the fretboard for several months yet" (I paraphrase a little). So rather than the sell sell sell at any cost that I've seen in some stores, these guys were going out of their way to save me money, which I liked a lot. "By musicians for musicians" is the phrase that comes to mind. You can even walk around inside the store thanks to google street view, which helped me know where the bass amps were before I'd even set off! The place has a huuuge stock of cool stuff, and as I've already said, the staff are fantastic. It's a wonderland for guitarists, and I'm looking forward to returning.

I'm pretty much set for kit for the forseeable future, but I'd happily go back. In fact, next time I need an amp or whatever, I'd likely insist on it.
Heck, maybe when I get myself that nice RBX775 as a present sometime next year, I might see if they can get me one in somehow. I don't think they're made anymore, but I can always ask.

So yeah, a busy week. I would have posted closer to saturday, but I've been distracted by celebration beer ;).

And my amp? Fits perfectly in the hidey-hole I've created for it:

 Take care folks!