Biu
New member
Well, boys, picked my Bassman 10 up today. I think the weather was trying to steal it from me. There was a big snowstorm when I was picking it up, but once I walked into my house, BAM! Storm's over. 
*shaking fists* YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! :laugh2:
Ok, back to the amp. Fired it up and tried out all of the 4 different inputs. Bass (1) with the 2 EQ knobs was REALLY a treat. Holy ****. Extremely clean and rich, rich, rich (Ahhh, sweet Deep switch)! There was none of that icepick treble you get with some amps, even with the treble maxed out on a bridge humbucker. Switching off the Deep switch yields a more Twin-like sound, as it's really sparkly and twangy. Normal (input 2) sort of accentuates that. Both of these "channels" have a considerble amount of mids, which I really dig. I cranked up the pre-amp volume to max and was in classic rock heaven. Loved every bit of it!
The next two channels actually have a MIDDLE knob. This was more versatile for my needs. Bass (1) was absolutely beautiful. I backed off the mids just a little bit, and the tone was righteous in all its (once again) fatty richness. Studio (2) was the same, but with more of a mid-cut. Really good for bangin' out the jazz chords or dominant 7th #9 "Jimi-Hendrix" chord without making ears bleed. I liked these two channels best because they had a more malleable clean tone for me to use with my Boss ME-50. This is the "fast-food-lard-burger" of the amp world, my friends!
With the Boss ME-50:
I had to do some serious tweaking, but once I got it down, I made this mother scream like a hot-rodded Marshall. It just nailed that tone, and I found I don't have to use much gain at all with this amp. Something about its divine clarity seems to somehow keep everything very sustain-heavy and sweet. I couldn't imagine that this distortion tone was coming out of a pedal! Yowza.
In stereo:
I hooked up my Boss ME-50 to run in stereo, my Bassman and Carvin X-60A. The Carvin sounds similar to the Bassman, but is a lot brighter, so more like a classic "surf's-up" Fender sound. Holy cow! Combining the fat, rich, bottom-end of the Bassman, with the sparkly bright sound of the Carvin resulted in a wall of sound I'd never experienced before. HUGE! Very "alive". One of the biggest advantages was that I could finally pull off the stereo long-delay Brian May does to harmonize with himself.
Overall:
Couldn't be happier. What an awesome sounding amp. I was expecting a lot to begin with and I was STILL blown away. I'm a happy camper to say the least, and one of the true beauties of this amp is that, I could just "misplace" my Boss ME-50 one day, just play the Bassman direct with no pedals and still be able to burn on the 6-strings! This was NOT the case with other clean amps! There's no hiding in playing it straight in, but then again, there's no need to.
I'll admit, my 5150 with vintage single-coils has a Biu lead tone that isn't even touched with this setup, HOWEVER, that's why I have the 5150 in the first place. It's my one-trick pony for high-gain leads and nothing more (except rolled off volume knob). This Bassman setup does EVERYTHING else, clean-to-dirty, classic-to-modern, meat and potatoes-to-bare bones. I plan to A/B/Y these two setups for a nut-crushing tone
In conclusion, if you have not felt the tonal fury of a real vintage Bassman, find a neighbor or friend who has one and kick his ass. Play it while he's down, it truly is worth it.
Big thank you to the SD Forum Members. You're the guys who turned me on to this amp in the first place. Three cheers!
*shaking fists* YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! :laugh2: Ok, back to the amp. Fired it up and tried out all of the 4 different inputs. Bass (1) with the 2 EQ knobs was REALLY a treat. Holy ****. Extremely clean and rich, rich, rich (Ahhh, sweet Deep switch)! There was none of that icepick treble you get with some amps, even with the treble maxed out on a bridge humbucker. Switching off the Deep switch yields a more Twin-like sound, as it's really sparkly and twangy. Normal (input 2) sort of accentuates that. Both of these "channels" have a considerble amount of mids, which I really dig. I cranked up the pre-amp volume to max and was in classic rock heaven. Loved every bit of it!
The next two channels actually have a MIDDLE knob. This was more versatile for my needs. Bass (1) was absolutely beautiful. I backed off the mids just a little bit, and the tone was righteous in all its (once again) fatty richness. Studio (2) was the same, but with more of a mid-cut. Really good for bangin' out the jazz chords or dominant 7th #9 "Jimi-Hendrix" chord without making ears bleed. I liked these two channels best because they had a more malleable clean tone for me to use with my Boss ME-50. This is the "fast-food-lard-burger" of the amp world, my friends!
With the Boss ME-50:
I had to do some serious tweaking, but once I got it down, I made this mother scream like a hot-rodded Marshall. It just nailed that tone, and I found I don't have to use much gain at all with this amp. Something about its divine clarity seems to somehow keep everything very sustain-heavy and sweet. I couldn't imagine that this distortion tone was coming out of a pedal! Yowza.
In stereo:
I hooked up my Boss ME-50 to run in stereo, my Bassman and Carvin X-60A. The Carvin sounds similar to the Bassman, but is a lot brighter, so more like a classic "surf's-up" Fender sound. Holy cow! Combining the fat, rich, bottom-end of the Bassman, with the sparkly bright sound of the Carvin resulted in a wall of sound I'd never experienced before. HUGE! Very "alive". One of the biggest advantages was that I could finally pull off the stereo long-delay Brian May does to harmonize with himself.
Overall:
Couldn't be happier. What an awesome sounding amp. I was expecting a lot to begin with and I was STILL blown away. I'm a happy camper to say the least, and one of the true beauties of this amp is that, I could just "misplace" my Boss ME-50 one day, just play the Bassman direct with no pedals and still be able to burn on the 6-strings! This was NOT the case with other clean amps! There's no hiding in playing it straight in, but then again, there's no need to.
I'll admit, my 5150 with vintage single-coils has a Biu lead tone that isn't even touched with this setup, HOWEVER, that's why I have the 5150 in the first place. It's my one-trick pony for high-gain leads and nothing more (except rolled off volume knob). This Bassman setup does EVERYTHING else, clean-to-dirty, classic-to-modern, meat and potatoes-to-bare bones. I plan to A/B/Y these two setups for a nut-crushing tone
In conclusion, if you have not felt the tonal fury of a real vintage Bassman, find a neighbor or friend who has one and kick his ass. Play it while he's down, it truly is worth it.
Big thank you to the SD Forum Members. You're the guys who turned me on to this amp in the first place. Three cheers!
