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.

Peavey has been providing bass players with some of the most rock-solid, best bang-for-the-buck amps for decades. But don’t get the impression that they are generic or boring; far from it. Back in 1996, Peavey released one of the most awesome tube amplifiers ever conceived, the Classic 400. Never heard of it? That’s because sadly, it didn’t stay in production for very long. But if you ever heard one (or lifted one!), you’d know this was a Moon-shot like none other. First of all, the dang thing weighed 93.6lbs. My math ‘buddies’ tell me that this means it’s almost 100 pounds. Not only could it power a small city, but it also featured two channels - a clean and a crunch - that could be switched or combined remotely. It also had a foot-switchable effects loop, resonance/presence controls, and Peavey’s DDT power amp compression circuit. But get this; there were no solid state devices in the signal path – just pure tubes, baby. Of course, you could use either of its massive transformers as an anvil.

Flash forward a bit. While most bass companies might add a preamp tube here or there to some of their models, Peavey astounded the bass world in 2007 when they announced the release of not one, but two new all-tube bass amps. The few of us still standing after hearing that were bowled over when they mentioned that one of them, the VB-3, would be a 300-watter weighing only 37 pounds. Huh? Yes, Peavey has gone where no bass amp company has every gone – again. Here’s where the Classic 400 comes back into the picture. The two major lessons learned from the 400 were:
1. Bass players LOVE tube amps.
2. Bass players HATE lugging 100-pound heads around.
The VB-3 delivers 300 watts of all-tube power, but instead of the gigundous pair of transformers that just about every all-tube bass amp requires, Peavey is using a universal switch mode power supply (SMPS) - the first ever to do so in a tube amp - to shave off about half a ton of weight.

We asked Peavey’s Fred Poole how did the idea for a SMPS come about, and what were the engineering challenges to incorporate it? He told Bass Gear Weekly that Hartley Peavey has always wanted to make a high-power, all-tube bass amplifier with a SMPS, but there are many challenges to overcome when incorporating them into tube amplifiers. Here are a couple: ??1. The extremes of high voltage/low current and low voltage/high current in the power supply; and??2. Switching supplies, if not designed properly, can interfere with other electronic devices. This is because they operate in the range of radio communications. Tube amplifiers can be very sensitive to radio interference. The shielding inside of the VB-3 is very sophisticated for a bass amp and is designed to deal with radio interference.    ??The reported result is that the amp sounds and feels completely like a tube amp. The VB-3 sports eight EL34 tubes, four 12AX7 tubes and one 12AT7 tube, and the setup is quasi-dual-channel with Volume/Overdrive, master Resonance and Presence controls, a footswitchable tube compressor and a 9-band EQ.

We heard the VB-3 at this year’s NAMM show (in a private booth, so it was possible to get an inkling of the sound), and, man-o-man! We liked it! We are happy to report that the VB-3 is NOW SHIPPING. Price is around $1700 in the US. peavey.com

A few other Mesa/Boogie tidbits: the Titan V-12 and Walkabout now come in black. Also – there’s an urban myth we’d like to mark as TRUE. In case you didn’t know, Mesa’s Scout line of combos mates the mini-sized Walkabout head with one of two lightweight, neo-loaded cabinets - one featuring a 12” driver and 8” passive radiator, and the other offering a 15” driver plus 10” passive radiator. Mesa/Boogie also makes both variants as Scout Extension cabinets to add to either combo. But get this – when Randall was out picking grapes, the elves of Petaluma swapped out the passive radiators in each of the extension cabs for the next size up. So the 12” Scout Extension gets the 10” passive radiator and the 15” variant gets a 12’er. When you add in the extra internal volume each extension cabinet has (due to the missing head), you effectively have a completely new stealth Mesa Cabinet. Reports are that these stand-alone extension cabs have a fuller and bigger sound, while retaining an easy-to-grab size and weight. Rest assured, we’re going to try them out firsthand, just to be sure.

mesaboogie.com