Italian leather couches. An expresso machine steaming away. And a room full of some of the most incredible basses and amplifiers. Sound like heaven? Actually, it’s a slice of it, brought to you by H.P. Wilfer and Warwick. In a bold move, Warwick opened a storefront in Manhattan in September. The Warwick Showroom is a dream of HP’s for many years. But his Showroom is a LOT more than meets the eye.

Think about this. If you wanted to have Warwick’s Custom Shop build you a dream bass, you would have to do a lot of the decision making about styles, woods, and options, from pictures and descriptions - not necessarily the best way to spend $5K+ on an heirloom. That’s because Warwick Custom Shop instruments are not stocked anywhere in the world for you to try. Even regular Warwick models are getting harder to find in US showrooms. Add to this the scarcity of finding the fabulous Hellborg amplifiers in any store, and you’ve got a hole waiting to be filled.

Enter the new NYC showroom. Its main reason for existence is to showcase Custom Shop models and amps that are hard to find in the flesh, like the new Stuart Zender Signature. Stop in, check out the options on real basses, and put together your dream. Don’t know if you want French Flamed Ash versus standard Flamed Ash? Considering yellow, red or blue LED’s? Or how about Green and White? Or an LED headstock logo? Or seagulls, spirals, or dolphins? They are all there, waiting to be seen and played. Hmmm, how about finishes. I’d like to see Airbrushed, chromed, high-polished, Burgundy Red, Nirvana Black, Honey Violin, Amber Oil, and the natural colored finishes, please. Just step right up! An 8-string ‘octave’ bass? We got it. A 7-string Steamer LX? Over there to the left. The showroom has nearly 100 instruments, the vast majority being basses (there are Framus guitars too). From a $1,499 Corvette Standard to a fully loaded Stage 1 6-string in Buckeye Burl, for $11,500.

All Warwick amps are there too - the Hellborg’s, Pro-fets, Tube Path and Extreme. From a Blue Cab 15 at $199 to a monster Hellborg stack at $14,000. Every single one.

The big question we had was, can you try AND buy? YES! Although this is mostly a playground for seeing and testing, you can BUY anything. All items are on the floor, with some back stock of amps. And all is for sale. You will pay full retail price, which is about 20% above what a typical store will sell for. But you can be assured that anything that’s here is setup RIGHT. There’s a full tech shop in the basement for setups and repairs. Tyler Krupsky and Freddie Villano, a pair of Warwick’s best staffers, run the showroom. Tyler was the Service Manager at Warwick’s importer for years, then went to Germany to build basses in the factory. It’s safe to say that no one knows Warwick basses better than Tyler. Wouldn’t you want him to do your setup? Freddie has been with Warwick for about 2 years in Artist Support. If you want an instrument in your hands as if it just left the factory in Germany, you might want to consider buying it at the Showroom.

OK - we got a great selection, and killer setups on instruments you buy in the shop. That’s not all. The Warwick Showroom serves as a Warwick artist retreat - so you might just see a famous player or two hanging out. And, it also serves as a repair and setup center for all Warwick products. Warwick has a network of service shops, but if you want THE factory service and setup shop, this is the place. They can do just about anything that can be done in Germany, without shipping overseas. If it is under warranty, the work is free. Out-of warranty work is very competitively priced. Call ahead for wait times. Soon, the Showroom will feature clinics, and a weekly open jam for all players, from beginners to pros. Gifts and accessories, from wax to strings, t-shirts to key fobs, will be in stock by the end of the month. Hours are 10-7 Mon-Fri and 10-3 Saturday.

Warwick Custom Shop, 76 East 7th Street, New York, NY 10003. (212) 777-6990.

You’ve got to hand it to bassists. We’ve helped launch a sea-change in amplifier technology with our rapid adoption of micro amplifiers. We’ve even heard from some bass companies that their micro heads are outselling their conventional designs by a wide margin. But what is a “micro bass amp?” The modern micro bass head is defined by its light weight, compact form factor, class-D output section and switched-mode power supply. Pretty much all the current micros follow this recipe. But it took a while to get here. Let’s set the Time Machine back to 1970. 1970? Yes, think muscle cars, computers the size of freezers and if you wanted an innovative telephone, it weighed 4 pounds, came in pink and was wired to the wall. It was also the year that a guy named Walter Woods made an amplifier that was, oh, only a FEW DECADES ahead of its time. It was compact, lightweight, sounded great, and used a switched-mode power supply. Walter still makes incredible bass amps today, handmade, one at a time, just like he did in 1970.

Along the road to today’s micros, there are several honorable mentions. First is the MB (”Micro Bass”) series by GK, which were lightweight, but conventional, heads from the 1980s. Then came amps like the Eden WT-550 and the Mesa Walkabout, which helped make the compact form popular. Acoustic Image, Euphonic Audio (EA), Markbass, and others continued to press forward with ever more lightweight and powerful designs. In the last few years, these pioneering companies put the pedal to the aluminum and started rolling out whole product lines of micro bass heads.

Larry Ullman and John Dong (EA’s co-founders) started on the road to bass fame with their 3-way transmission line design cabinets. In 2000, Gary Gibilisco joined EA and helped lead them to their first ‘hit’ in the amp market, the iAmp 350 head in 2002. While not a micro by today’s standards, it was compact, and pretty darn good sounding. This led to their higher-power iAmp500 and 800 in 2005, their first to utilize class-D poweramps. Based on the designs in those units, EA borrowed a Shrink Ray machine and created the tiniest bass amp anywhere, the Micro iAMP300, in 2006. At 34 ounces, and the size of a paperback book, you practically needed tweezers to operate it. I can tell you from personal experience, this was not a lightweight in the sound department. In fact, it was the cat’s meow (actually, my cat ate mine). The Micro 300 did play fairly loud, but I was always looking for the day when EA would squeeze out a bit more juice.

At this year’s NAMM show in January, EA released 3 (THREE!) new Micro amps, their new 550-watt rated Micro, the upright-friendly Doubler, and a new 1200-watt Pro. In one fell swoop, they upped the power on the smallest Micro amp in existence, added a variant especially designed for upright bassists, and finished it off with a super high-power amp mid-sized amp that weighs in at only 9 pounds.

The new two-channel Micro fits in the same 2.1″H x 8.5″W x 5.4″D chassis as its predecessor, continuing its reign as the smallest of the small. They’ve switched their output section to Bang & Olufsen’s ICEpower module which shows up on some of the top bass products out there. Doubly true for the Doubler, which also adds variable controls for Phase, Notch Filter, High Pass Filter, and an XLR input for mic with a switchable phantom power. All this, and it’s only 2″ wider and a few ounces heavier than the Micro. The Pro is a whole ‘nuther animal. The preamp layout is similar to the iAMP 500/800, but the power is a foundation-rattling 1200 watts. Yet, it is a good bit lighter than its forefathers. At only 3.5″H x 14″W x 9″D (the size of the iAMP500) and 9 pounds, this is bound to make a lot of people take notice.

A final note. The Micro streets for $675, the Doubler for $750 and the Pro is $1195. Very reasonable if you ask me. But get this - they are all made in the USA. Who says we can’t build ‘em here anymore! Available now.

eaamps.com

One of the cool things about transitioning from being just a bass player to
running a bass publishing company is that you are now ‘in’ the industry. To
give you an idea what it’s like, think Austin Powers. I roll out of my shag covered circular orange and green water bed, pad across the shag rug
and head down to my shaggy ‘den’ where I am offered champagne and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups by a literal Who’s Who of the bass industry. Sure beats watching SNL reruns on my 25″ Magnavox. One of those in regular attendance at my soirée’s is Larry Hartke. Larry usually brings the Rolling Rock, so he’s always invited.

There’s more to Larry than meets the eye. Take away the shag hair, the
shades, the silver jeans… no in fact, ah, put them all back on, please.
Now! What I was trying to say is that Larry actually knows what he’s doing.
I caught a bit of the correspondence between Larry and our resident EE, Tom
Lees, during the review process for the LH1000 and HyDrive 410, and let’s
just say, I stopped reading when they started talking Singularities and the
Multiverse. However, I am sharp enough to spot a new product release, and
there’ve been several at the House of HyDrive. We’ll focus on their new 5210
and 5410 combos.

In a nutshell, these two new combos are the LH500 head mated with either a
2×10 or 4×10 array, in one enclosure. In case you’ve been in a cloud of
illegal substances for the past year, HyDrive transducers fuse paper and
aluminum, so you get the best of both designs: the warm tone of traditional
paper cones and the clear, punchy attack of aluminum. Hartke’s patented
Hybrid Cone Technology produces a speaker that uses an outside paper cone to
push warm lows and an inner aluminum cone that produces mids and highs that
cut, without harshness. All this and it’s 40% lighter than traditional
speakers because of its cast aluminum frame and neodymium magnets. Great
taste, less filling.

The combos use a 1″ Titanium high-frequency compression driver, sealed
enclosures, vinyl-clad 3/4″ plywood construction, and lots of metal parts -
because they deflect evil spirits that often emanate from keyboard players.
The 5210 2×10 combo runs internally at 8 ohms, which reportedly stokes 350
watutzies from the head. The 5410 4×10 combo runs at 4 ohms, so here, the
head gives up all of its 500 watts. No fret - you can run an 8-ohm extension
cabinet with the 2×10 to squeeze out the big 5-0-0.

The 5210 will street at $749 and the 5410 will be $999. They are expected in August.
hartkesystems.com

Yes - you can get a line on a Line6 combo, for free. Just click or copy this link and sign-in to win. Thank you and good luck!

http://line6.com/club/contests/bassgear

When you think amp modeling, you think Line6. You know about their hugely successful bass pedals and PODs (plus all the stuff your guitarists run). But did you know Line6 is serious about bass amps? Clearly, they are. They no longer make just a few interesting combos… Line6 is now a full line bass amp company, having recently introduced a pair of stand-alone heads, a 4×10 cab, and an expanded set of combos. All are filled with Line6 modeling, seemingly well-constructed, and all very nicely priced. Let’s take a closer look.

First, the company: incorporated in 1996, Line6 is headquartered in Agoura Hills, California. Their products are sold all over the globe, and they have a second office in the UK. In a few short years, Line6 has grown from an original team of 10 to over 230 employees. But who are they? Line6 was co-founded by Michel Doidic and Marcus Ryle. These guys started Fast Forward Designs in 1985, which became Line 6 eleven years later. Prior to Fast Forward Designs, they worked at Oberheim (during the time they were the s#*t!) as senior design engineers. Yes, they developed a number of Oberheim’s most successful synths. Ryle has also played keyboards for Barbara Streisand, Christopher Cross, Chicago, Chaka Khan and Lee Ritenour. So that’s where this stuff originates. And that’s why it sounds so good.

The HD Heads and Cabinet
The new LowDown lineup includes two bass heads - the HD750 and HD400. The HD750 is the top of line, rated 750 watts at 4 ohms, and 375 at 8 ohms. The HD400 is rated at 400 into 4 ohms. Since these amps are from Line6, they are not just bass heads with a smattering of tone knobs (and a drive knob, and a low boost, and a bunch of other features). They feature state-of-the-art modeling, centered around five classic amp models:
Clean - inspired by the Eden Traveler, this model is the cleanest setting, designed for funk and fusion bass tone, and featuring warm lows and punchy highs; R&B - based on the ‘68 B-15 Flip Top, this is a tribute to late ’60s and early ’70s, with clean and fat bass tones - we’re talking Motown!; Rock - this model offers the power and grind of the ’74 SVT, but without the hernia; Brit - right out of a ’68 Marshall Super Bass, this model delivers the overdriven bass sound found in Cream and The Who recordings; Grind – RatM fans can skip straight to this model, which mimics a distorted SansAmp PSA-1 into an SVT, with a direct clean bass signal mixed in for angry and punchy aggression.

You also have the option of five effects, taken right out of the best of the bunch:
Compressor - modeled on the UA LA-2A.
Envelope filter - inspired by the Q-Tron.
Octaver - based on the EBS® OctaBass
Chorus - using the sounds of the T.C. Electronic Chorus
Synth - maybe the most fun of them all, this is a fully adjustable synth from the guys that know about this kind of thing – Line6!
Of course ALL models and settings can be saved under four memory locations, for fast and easy recall.

The HD750 and 400 include two Speakon outputs, a balanced XLR direct output with exclusive A.I.R.™ processing, a 1/4″ preamp output and a built-in tuner, right on the front panel. They connect to the FBV Express and Shortboard pedal controllers so you can quick recall your presets. Both are three rack spaces high, and weigh in each at around 20 pounds. Street prices are $799 and $599.

Line6 also released a 4×10 cabinet, the aptly named LowDown 410 Cab. It uses Eminence drivers and an adjustable high-frequency compression driver horn. It sports dual Speakon and dual 1/4″ inputs, and removable road-ready casters, which are quite helpful. This cab weighs in at 90lbs, and the dimensions are 29” x 28” x 19.” Street pricing is $699.