For the man who has everything Gibson.......

[Hornisse]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Gibson-GB440-Bass-Amp-Thunderfunk_W0QQitemZ260574126105QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3cab6da019


Uwe needs one!

[uwe]

Uwe is no amp afficionado at all. I'll play anything that uses electricity and makes woofish noises. Depending on what rehearsal room I'm in I currently play either an Ampeg SVT, a Markbass combo or a boutique pre-amp/JAE Ashdown pre-amp/QSC slave bi-amping behemoth. I'm still Uwe on bass on all of them. To the utter horror of guitarists I've played with I'll gladly even use any stationary rig offered at a venue as long as it works.

[Hornisse]

I'm the same way Uwe.  I'll play through just about anything if I can get a good sound out of it.  I had a JAE preamp that I used around 5 years back.  I never did like the sound of it.



My favorite rig of all time had to be this simple setup that I used with my old 212XT cabinet which I loved as well.  It was one of those cheap Behringer power amps with an ancient Yamaha PB-1.  With my 70's Jazz Bass reissue (MIJ) it was the cleanest tone I ever had.

[uwe]

Admittedly, the best bass sound I ever had was on a rented Genz Benz something. That sound was just incredibly pronounced and "there". But even that did not get me to buy one in the aftermath.

The JAE has nice lows, ok mids and the treble can be a bit harsh. I use it mostly for the lows in biamping mode and leave the mids and treble/presence to a boutique all-tube preamp whose sublows are a bit fluffy. I hardly play that rig anymore though.

[eb2]

The rumor is these Gibson amps are good.  Never played one, so I can only offer what I have heard many times.

For me, if I had my druthers I would always use Ampegs.  And for many gigs, I had my druthers.  But I also have played many great bass rigs, some old some new.  A few that I liked: Peavey MkIII, SWR, Eden, Guild/Hartke, Trace Elliot, acoustic.  Fenders typically take work and must have lots of headroom, hence most old Bassman amps are totally worthless for bass.  Showmans or 135s have enough power and can be manipulated enough.  That old Gibson thing that Jerry Lee Lewis' guy used in the old movie was fun for its time, but I wouldn't pay any for it.

I had an old Alamo bass amp that sounded like crap.  That was a least fave.

[Dave W]

This is not "built by Thunderfunk", I don't think that company even existed back then. It was a Gibson Labs product designed by the same guys who did the original Acoustic amps and then the AMP 420 (similar design to the Gibson). IIRC Steve Rabe (later of SWR) and Russ Allee. Mr. Funk of Thunderfunk uses a similar design.

They aren't "very rare" as they do come up fairly often, usually in the $400 or less range.

[stiles72]

I thought of getting one of these just so my little Gibson THOR amp could have a big brother 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I have two of the GB 4x10 cabs, one with its original plastic wicker weave grille. They have  pumpkin-colored tolex and are low-mid focused with not much bottom, kind of like an early SWR Goliath with less low end. I'll post pics when I get around to showing off my amp stable.

BTW Dave, there may some truth to the eBay claim of Dave Funk building that amp. When he started building his own s/s amps (he had built tube amps for years prior), he bought out all of Gibson's leftover parts stock of the GB line as well as the designs and a made small run of 'non-Gibson' GB 440's around 2000-2001 before he got his own "Thunderfunk" screened chassis. IIRC, he worked for Gibson on those amps years before and the Thunderfunk amps of today are that design with improvements.

[Dave W]

Interesting. Maybe he did have a hand in building it. But even if he did I think it's misleading to say the amp was built by Thunderfunk. That makes it sound like his company made them for Gibson.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Depending on how you want to split the hair, since Dave Funk is, to my knowledge, the only employee of Thunderfunk, which was around since the 90's making tube amps, that claim could be interpreted as legit. I'm not saying that it is, just that it could be true, and I agree, the amp is overpriced. I have an AMP preamp, the preamp section of the AMP 420 and don't really care for it.

[Hornisse]

The only thing I didn't like about my SL-1 was that it was 1 1/2 rack spaces.

[Highlander]

Whatever became of those amps built to complement my RD... 

(still playing my favourite rig... well, when I finish rebuilding it... )

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The only thing I didn't like about my SL-1 was that it was 1 1/2 rack spaces.

I can't find a fat low-mid tone I like. It's either too boomy or too thin. The mids just don't work for me.