Hi everyone,
I've had a Vox Mini3 for a while that I enjoy using when learning songs etc. on my laptop, and it hit me that something similar but for bass might be worth considering.
I'm struggling to find anything along the same lines (small, range of tones (ideally modelling and some fx), cheapish (under £100 ideally), sounds pretty good considering how small it is) for bass, though. There's a bass microcube RX but it's actually quite big and is pretty expensive (~£200). Artec does a Cubix which on paper is what I want but I'm a bit wary of Artec stuff- I'm, er, not convinced it's much good and the (few) clips I've heard kind of backed that up.
Vox does the RhythmVox Bass but I'm concerned it's maybe too small to sound that great.
There's that Hotone mini amp which was mentioned in another thread recently but it's pretty expensive, especially if it's a (cute) gimmick.
Another option might be the most basic practice amps from Laney, Warwick, Hartke etc. since they might be small enough but again not sure how good the sound quality would be (since the reason they're small is the small speaker, not to mention being the most basic model they're probably not that amazing anyway). And they seem pretty basic in terms of features.
Another sort of more leftfield option might be a Peavey Vypyr VIP1 or 2- they're a bit bigger but can be used for guitar as well so from that point of view it mightn't need to be as small (plus with the bigger speaker it'd likely sound better than my Mini3 for guitar). But if the bass tones are almost an afterthought that might be a silly idea. If the bass tones are good, though, it might be the frontrunner. The idea of something which can be used for both (plus for acoustic, if I ever get an electroacoustic
) ) sounds good on paper, but if all the tones are mediocre as a result, that's obviously not so good.
Any ideas? Anything I'm missing? Thanks for your help
Comments
I have an old Laney practice bass amp and it sounds great.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
The Laney's maybe a little big and basic? Not sure.
On another forum that Line 6 was recommended too. I'll keep an eye out, but I'd really prefer new generally.
Can you run a bass into a regular guitar Cube? I was thinking that if I was ok chancing it I could just do that with my Mini3 that I already have. Though I'm a bit scared of breaking it )
How about the Peavey Vypyr VIP idea? There are some good deals on them at the moment (£130 for the VIP2), and something that works for everything sounds like it might be a good idea... as long as it isn't a jack of all trades, master of none, kind of thing. I think I'm sort of veering towards it, but maybe that's silly...
Yeah the Microcube RX Bass is probably worth considering. Just as you said, it's pretty expensive (£200 is getting towards serious money for something that's just really for a bit of fun). And it's also not actually all that small. If they did a regular micro cube bass version at the same price and size as the regular microcube (around £100) I'd be all over it.
And yeah I'm not a teenager any more (despite to all intents and purposes still acting like one >:D< ), but I think I could probably handle it. In fact I think you can plug into your computer through it as well, which'd be handy as I don't have any way to connect to a laptop at the moment. Subtract the cost of a computer interface (I'm guessing at least £25-£30?) from the Vypyr's price and it starts to look like pretty decent value.
But I could be wrong. ) I'm well aware I've kind of crossed that dangerous line where I more or less want it and unless someone tells me something really bad about it I've near enough already made up my mind. The old pre-purchase-i-already-want-to-make-rationalisation...
I've come across the Peavey Max 126 (not sure how I missed it before). It's pretty small and cheap, and while it doesn't have a ton of features, it seems to have a bit more than most of the smallest practice amps. Any thoughts on that one?
The THR10 seems pretty dear, though. Any prices I've seen have been £200+.
Don't have full-range speakers, as least as far as I'm aware )
https://speakerimpedance.co.uk/?act=two_parallel&page=calculator
They sound good too !
Thanks. How little? I'm talking (ideally) microcube size, unfortunately.
(what does tagged mean? ) )
https://speakerimpedance.co.uk/?act=two_parallel&page=calculator
^ It'd have to be pretty bad for it to be worse for me than headphones. I really don't like using headphones. )
That little Peavey is the frontrunner at the moment I think. No massive rush, though, anywhere which has it at a decent price and with a decent postage cost to NI is out of stock. Gear4Music says it's back in March. So that's plenty of time to think and possibly change my mind. )
Yeah that's what I was sort of wondering.
Yeah it had finished by the time I clicked the link yesterday )
got mine at cash generator.
everything the micro cube has plus drum patterns to play along with.
Sounds sweet.