The Last Bass Outpost

...Now has anyone ever compared a Traynor YBA-3A 200 watt head to the Marshall Major?
If I am correct, I thought I read that the Traynor YBA-3A head was the first 200 watt tube head.

Apples and oranges: the YBA-3A uses a quartet of 6KG6 tubes which have exceptional peak current capabilities. They're normally used for horizontal deflection in televisions.  In stock form, it's not unreasonable to expect 300 watts out of a Super Custom Special, and it is a very boomy, but articulate sounding amp, like crossing the lows of a Fender with a really bright s/s amp. There's nowhere near as much midrange emphasis as a Major and the Major also pre-dated the YBA-3A by two years.

Majors are nice amps, not really so tempermental as they are just removed from the abilities of the average hobbyist "tech." They run their tubes in ultralinear configuration, which means that the negative feedback loop must be carefully tuned and their output tubes MUST have very tough screen grids. Basically, they're a Marshall preamp stuck in front of a psuedo-hifi power section for the guitar/lead model and a PA/bass version, but they're not really all that different. The sound is very mid-focused. On the scale of relativity, with the Fender Showman being the "deepest," followed by the Sunn 2000S with round lows and more punch, leading to the Ampeg SVT being punchier still and low-mid focused, the Major is the most "brash" with more upper mids and less bottom and not much punch.

 There's nothing out there like them, but there was also plenty of room to improve the design. Marshall themselves tried with the very limited runs of JMC800 2001 and 2000 amps in the early 80's, with the 2001 being called the "Bass Major" and the 2000 was called just an ungodly overpowered guitar amp.

I have a 4x15 slant-front cab that was part of the 2001 bass cabinet series. It looks like an oversized 4x12 and uses four Gauss 15" speakers, but is ported. There is a straight-front 4x15 that was meant to be the bottom of the "stack," with the cab I have being on top of it, but I've never encountered that model.

FWIW, if you want Jack Bruce's Cream tone, just get an EB-0 and blow up the tone cap in it, no kidding. I played a 63 EB-0 with a blown cap and it sounded like Jack Bruce in EVERY amp I played it through, and all of them were s/s, mostly cheapie practice models. The distortion came from the bass;  I've never heard any amp, including a Major, replicate that sound, even with equally old EB-0's that were intact.

I had hoped not to see Glenn Beck and Conan in one channel!

Don't worry about that. Only the bad comedy ends up on Fox News Channel. 

Keep in mind, this was in pre-internet, pre-MF/GC, semi-rural East Tennessee and "retail plus" pricing was the norm.  There were never-sold 80's Korean made Samick's priced at $1K+ at one of the music stores I worked at about ten years ago.

Being employed by an NBC affiliate that was affected, let me set things straight. NBC was making money off of Conan AND Leno, since Leno's show was an order of magnitude cheaper to produce than a primetime drama. BUT Leno's show was awful as a lead-in to the news and Conan that followed it. It basically just encouraged people to switch the channel. My station went from being a double-digit decades-solid ratings #1 at 11:00 to an occasional #2 after Leno debuted at 10:00.

 Local newscasts are where local stations make most of their money, and any drop in ratings there hurts them far more than the network. Several stations boycotted primetime Leno even before he went to air for this reason, and 22 NBC affiliates eventually refused to air his show, opting instead for syndication or local content.

Personally, I think NBC lied to Leno and Conan, and Leno got unfairly cast as the bad guy. I like them both, and the limited professional interaction I've had with both of them has been great. I had to talk to them when they were doing satellite interviews to promote their shows. Conan was more personal and funny and Leno was the consummate professional. Jimmy Fallon, OTOH is a talentless and clueless twat.

Keep it under IRE 100 or you'll glow.

I counted 266 before the clip stopped. WOW!!!!!!!

+1 on the using a cassette four track for live recording. My old band's best sounding track was a cover of Folsom Prison Blues done live to a Yamaha 4-track. The fidelity was fine, and the difference was that when I played live, I could keep our Tommy Lee-wannabe drummer in line and on time, whereas when we tracked separately through my expensive audio interface and he set the "tempo," everything was a headache and a matter of shoehorning. I still have that song. Does this board have the bandwidth to post mp3's? (Thought Dave might appreciate the irony in that.) If so, I'll share.