TC Electronic Staccato '51 450W Bass Amp Head Custom-Tuned by Rocco Prestia from Tower of Power

Welcome back again to another episode of Loudest Reviews. This is the TC Electronics Staccato '51. 51 is for 1951 Which is the year Rocco Prestia
The Fabulous bass player for Tower of Power was born.
Staccato '51 was a joined effort between Uffe Hansen at TC Electronics in Denmark and Rocco After the original TC Electronic bass had came out RH 450 TC Electronics approach Rocco and they said if he being interested in trying and he said yes, and they collaborated on modifying the original 450 into this new Staccato '51
Though Roccos suggestions they modified all the circuits Spectrecom, Compressor circuit which is completely variable their tube emulation circuits, also variable
and lastly the fact that you can actually pre set three different settings
So you can find the settings you like for certain songs, or for a time you're soloing a time when you're playing regularly memorized them and activate them
through an optional foot switch. A kind a neat Chromatic tuner right out on the front panel. So at any time when you're playing you can glance over to it
to see if you're in tune The tuner is not defeatable. It runs all the time
also, the controls in the front are little LED that light up as you change the settings It's actually quite neat on stage and very easy to see.
When you want to get into the secondary functions Actually it works of a switch button so you shift and then get into the other settings off the same knob
Different kinds of digital connections. You can actually connect this into a mixing board or do digital out for recording You like the sound you're getting out and want to use it for studio recording just bring your head to the studio they can take different outputs right of the back of it to the highest possible fidelity
The engineering on this from a digital perspective is very sophisticated more sophisticated that you see on any other bass product in the market. So from a
circuitry point of view, and from an electronics point of view this is studio quality gear The case on this it's all beautifully machine aluminum. Top, around on the side You can flip it up like this carry it, and it has feet on the bottom as well. Again all machined aluminum trough out It's probably the nicest case and one of the most attractive pieces of gear you'll own.
TC Electronic calls this bass 2.0. Sort of the new evolution of where bass gear is going in their perspective.
They now have a range of head and cabinets I will say that we did try it on a live gig with a 1 x12 cabinet on one of our rock gigs and it had tremendous power
tremendous bass response, even with the cabinet off the floor and you could hear the sound beautifully all over the club with great dispersion, and you could actually hear it outside in the street very cleanly also so the sounds projects very well.
It's not an inexpensive piece. It's $1200 on the street but it's beautifully constructed and I believe this will last quite a long time and can go on the road for a very long time with no hiccups.
It's absolutely professional grade gear. The cabinets are set up in such a way to match the head so, you can actually drive 3 cabinets from one head and perfectly
acceptable, perfectly within the specifications of the head and there's quite a variety of cabinet combinations So you could literally build a rig with one, two or three cabinets and that's kind of unusual usually the bass heads with this kind of configuration are not design to run three cabinets but with TC Electronics design from the word go to run three cabinets of the single head.
So, you'll be hearing more about TC electronics from us and I highly recommend you to give it a listen and check it out for own need. This is Martin from Loudest Reviews.
Thanks very much

Hi, It's Martin again from Loudest reviews thanks everybody for tuning in again
this is a latest review of the Phil Jones Bass Cub.
The bass cub combo It's Phil's attempt to make the smallest lightest bass amplifier that you can really use on a gig in the market. Now I know that Phil It would say is a practice amp. If you're sensitive about your volumes and the band doesn't play extremely loud and the drummer is somewhat sensitive and you position it properly
you can actually use it on a small gig. A duo, a trio or maybe even a quartet
Absolutely for upright bass with the assumption of the upright bass the band
is not playing that loud anyway I had a long Let's say affair with Phil Jones
don't tell his wife!
I have to say Phil Jone's equipment is very flat sounding. It has a beautiful open mid range tone. Very even response. What I particularly I always liked about Phil's stuff is I'm not really one that slaps, so I don't really need a lot of twitter or horn. I don't need a lot of brightness on my sound
I just like a really good finger style tone from top to bottom and since there's no twitter, and not really crossover to speak of It's just all this drivers moving in unison you get a beautiful even sound from top to bottom. It's not like a different sound the high notes and a different sound on the low notes. It's one even tone, top to bottom.
Phil started out as a High end audio speaker designer schooled with some of the best minds in the home audio speaker industry. When the big speakers where being built in England. Phil starter under one of the best designers in the world
and then branched out to make some of his own products but for me the question is if you can actually play with a real drummer in a small room, and the answer is yes, you can definitely can, just have to watch your volumes.
You'll be running it near full out but it's got a limiter if you're careful you should be fine It's two channel, which you'll never see on a practice amp. So one channel is designed to take in miked piezo pickup instruments so, ideal for an upright bass where you want to run a microphone that's attached to the bass, or placed adjacent to the bass and a piezo or a magnetic pickup into a second channel
So you have a miked channel and a typical magnetic pickup or piezo pickup channel
One of Phil's unique concepts is he uses room boundaries to enhance space response
when a speaker cabinet is freely in the room like 3 or 4 feet away from any wall
there no real boundary effect except the floor So it's getting some bass enhancement from the first reflection coming off the floor, If you move it back to a wall Now you have two boundaries. That tends to enhance bass frequencies even further. If you go to a corner you have the two walls, the corner and the floor
so you have three boundaries So the more boundaries you put with it the more low bass you'll get. Sells for up to close $550 So it's not a typical practice amp
Practice amp are like 49.99, 199 maybe So It's not on the practice amp category
but certainly the practice amp size It weights 13.5 lb A little bigger than a shoe box So in terms of size it's really in the practice amp domain but in terms of price is not.
It's considerably more expensive It's really for someone who wants a very fine practice amp particularly somebody that plays double bass or someone who wants to take an amp on the gig a small gig with controlled volume I played a lot of practice amps even by very good companies, 60W, 40 W, 100 W. They're built to a price, you know $199, $149. They don't really sound like their bigger brothers in that same product line They're a very scaled down version. To my opinion not very good sound. For me practice amps never really did it Even though this is marketed as a practice amp It's not a practice amp in my eyes 'cause it sounds good even at practice volumes, and so I personally wouldn't buy practice amps for my own use
Phil Jones bass cub brakes new ground It's a 13 pound bass amplifier and given the limitations that I mention you can actually play small gigs with it and certainly rehearsals all day long and not have the box of the practice amp you got so much flexibility you can use it with an acoustic bass or an electric bass running a mic and a pickup.
It's really terrific for what we called doubler bassist system that run both kinds of instruments.
If you haven't had a chance to check out Phil Jones products, do yourself a favor
check out their website, see what there's give one a spin They're really fantastic stuff. Something that should be on everybody's arsenal. This is Martin from loudest reviews, thank you very much for tunning in!

Tycoon Vertex Series Cajon with Bubinga Body and Makah Burl Front Plate

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Loudest Reviews. Today we have this wonderful cajon by Tycoon Percussion. It's the Vertex Series
and It's made out of Bubinga wood. Bubinga wood is mainly found in Africa and it's one of the Rosewood family. You can see it because of the red color of the cajon
Tycoon percussion has been doing a lot of very nice and interesting products since 2006. They started they operations here in America in 2006.
One of the key features of the Bubinga wood is its bright and clear tone and you can definitely hear that when you're playing the instrument.
I really like the combination of the different sounds but I'd have to say I was extremely impress by how deep and rich the bass tone was
This cajon is made in Thailand. It has a pyramid style shape and you can see on the edges that they were all rounded, that actually increases the comfortably of the person playing on top of it.
This rubber legs at the bottom of the cajon since you're going to be playing on top of it having something that would not slide I think it's very important.
Overall I have to say It's really nice. I took it on a live gig where it was kind of an unplugged type of intimate session. It's really nice to have an instrument who can produce a variety of different sounds in a single piece.
The cajon is originally used for flamenco music in Spain and also in different rhythms from other regions in Latin America.
Not until recently we have seen the combination of the cajon and other instruments in more modern pop and rock music. I think it's a really nice addition, because the variety of sounds that you can get out of the cajon are really nice, and they can fit into very subtle and different ensembles. From an unplugged session to a more intimate maybe Jazz trio or Pop with a singer. I think it blends really well.
So, signing off for Loudest Reviews my name is Diego. I hope you like it and if you have a suggestion for another instrument you want us to review just drop us a line here on our Youtube channel or at our website: Loudestreviews.com. Take care, Bye bye.

Orange Amplifiers Terror Bass 500 Series BT500H 500W Bass Amp Head

Martin does a very completely first look of the Orange Terror 500W Bass Combo.
Here's the video transcript for future references:

Welcome back to another episode of Loudest reviews. I'm happy to say that we have Orange. Orange is a very interesting company.
They were founded by Cliff Cooper in 1968 in London England. I played my first Orange bass amplifier, actually a guitar amplifier
and an Orange guitar cabinet I think it might being a 2 12. In a gig in 1977 in a bar, and I remember walking with my Fender Jazz Bass.
The guy said, don't bring your amp, we have a bass amp. So I walk in and I see this Orange, the strangest looking thing I have ever seen.
1950s style knobs and graphics, really big, this kind of orangy picture frame around a white face...
I said: Did that came out of a science lab ? what the heck is that ? So he said, No, no... Just trust me, try it.
I said, well that's a very strange bass amp... Well it's really a guitar amp. You must be kidding, I'm not going to play through a guitar amp!
Kind of a big show for us.
No, you just got to try it. So I plugged in, I was completely hooked. The first part of this combo is the Terror Bass Head. This a lunch box style head, which means it weight only 10/11 pounds, with a lunch box handle and a lunch box kind of case. So it's very easy to bring around. They created the first lunch box bass head. Lunch box style head have been around for guitars for a little while,
but no one has made them for bass player until orange did, and what I mean for Lunch box I mean as a metal handle with a metal box and it's size as a metal pale.
The Terror head comes in two formats 500W and 1000W. This is the 500W, It's a tube pre-amp and a solid state power amp.
The Power amp is digital, which enables Orange to make it so small and light. The first thing that it's remarkable about the 500W head
is the fact that it's incredibly loud. I don't know if all the power is stoked into the beginnings part of the switches, I think that's probably some of it, but it's unbelievable powerful.
It's one of the most powerful bass amps I've ever played through. Tremendous low-end, tremendous head-room. Now, with the tube pre-amp if you start to drive it harder you hit the notes with great attack, It's tube so it would brake in a nice way. But it's tremendously powerful. The tone controls act passively. So I tend to use the middle range higher than the middle, I roll of the bass frequently, and I leave the treble some where straight up, but I have to say, It does behave passive tone controls so you would have to play more than you would with a typical amplifier. Also in Orange, one of their main distinct feature is that everything is reverse.
The input is on the right side if you face it, power switch is on the left side, the pre-amp control right near the input on the right side,
and the master output is on left side.
you can buy the head separately of course, and It's a wonderful amplifier for someone who likes a more traditional warmer sound
but it's definitely for someone who wants more vintage kind of sound.
I play in a lot of classic rock bands, play a lot of traditional rock and roll music so a vintage sounding amp is very good for me or a vintage bass with kind of a flat amplifier. I surely don't mind a vintage amp around. This is an isobaric speaker cabinet. Isobaric means constant pressure, so the idea is that the better. Engineers argue this point, say it's very inefficient, that it's not very good for producing a lot of bass, but to say that the lind DMS in its day was one of the best speakers you could buy and it had a faboulous low end very accurate sound.
This is the Isobaric SP212. It's the size of a single 12" speaker cabinet but there's two woofers. There's a front woofer, and a woofer in sliding enclosure behind it. The Cabinet is vented in the bottom, but the isobaric concept still applies. Two 12" drivers, one is the one you hear, the other one is creating the isobaric loading of the first driver.
Very interesting design, I wouldn't say that it goes as louds as a typical 2 12 but It's a very powerful small format speaker cabinet.
Still weights only around 40 pounds very small easy to bring around, so I think it's a very successful usage of this isobaric concept. I'm really happy Orange decided to use it, they make a 10 a 12 and a 4 10, which is a 2 10 and then an isobaric behind them. The Head is design in England and produced in China, the cabinet is design in England and made in England. Most people thinks is a 1 twelve, no it's a 2 12, but just in a much smaller cabinet. I took it on a live gig, and as I expected I barely was turning up the volume,
had all the power and low end I needed a really rich warm vintage sound.
Knowing more about it, I'd have probably adjusted the mid range more to match the bass I was using and match the room and maybe roll out the bass I was using to match the room and maybe roll out the bass a little more. I just started with all the control set to flat.
I really like the Orange stuff.
They really went into territory that no other's done before. Made a lunch box style bass head. I think it's really cool. The stuff looks great, and they did an Isobaric speaker cabinet. Considering Orange tends to be a traditional, people think about them as a traditional tube kind of amplifier company, the fact that they did something so unique is very impressive to me. You can get the Orange products in Orange covering and now they make some in white too, but frankly I like the orange color. This is Martin from Loudestreviews, if you have any recommendations for a product you would like us to review please contact us,
Thanks again for tunning in.

Epiphone Worn '66 Wilshire Electric Guitar, Worn Cherry

Herbie does a very entertaining look of the new Epiphone Wilshire re issue. Listen also to the audio samples we have prepared in the video as well as some this tracks taken from a 24 bit professional recording studio.

Line Guitar - pickup: Brige - AMp Simulator: Guitar Rig on ProTools
Miked Cabinet with SM57- pickup: Bridge
Miked Cabinet with SM57- pickup: Bridge
Miked Cabinet with SM57- pickup: Bridge
Miked Cabinet with SM57- pickup: Bridge - 2 guitar tracks
Miked Cabinet with SM57- pickup: Bridge - SINGLE NOTE ARPEGIO ( We like this one )
4 guitars mixed
Full mix with other instruments ( We like it!
Here's the video transcript for future references:
H Everybody. Welcome again to one of the videos by Loudest reviews.
Today we're going to be showing you a re issue of the Epiphone Wilshire.
This a classic design that Epiphone started doing in the early 60s.
Originally came out with some other humbuckers, the P90 single coils. Later on on 65, 66 they switch to this type of humbucker, the mini humbuckers, and that became a classic among rock artist. From Jimmy Hendrix, to Johnny winters, Paul Gilbert
and it became really after it got discontinued a very sought after model. One of those in the vintage market, it will cost you a lot of Doe, probably 5 to 10 grand for one of those 60s Wilshire models and they actually sound amazing.
This is without a doubt a faithful reproduction of those or at least one that sound really, really great.
All right!. It's sounding a little loud in the studio, We're rocking!
As you can see the Epiphone Wilshire excels when using distortion and the bridge humbucker.
I particularly love the very balanced a little compressed sound that of course has to do with the Fender Tone master that I'm using now. It's a classic, you know, Marshall distortion. I think it particularly sounds amazing with the minihumbuckers
in the bridge position. I'm going to play some other power chord so you can hear the distorted sounds that you may use. From classic rock, to more modern rock
even to some heavy styles where you could apply, heavy, heavy distortion
to this humbucker.
Combination of both, and when you go to the bridge a little more mellow. If you don't hit it hard it will sound less bright. This is more of a sound for soloing that I will try now. It sounds pretty interesting...
I like it!
If you want it you could get a lot of harmonics by doing the guitar thing.
I think this is a guitar, could be use for any rock style, wherever you're into blues or more hard rock. The bat, the batwing. It looks a little bit like a batwing
and it gives it a retro look that seems very cool to me I like the appeal.
You have the gold letters of Epiphone and of course the classic logo it features in this model die cast tuners. I found them in my few tuning sessions here at the studio that they are very very precise and they do not move they don't let the string get out of tune very easily.
I tend to check for tuning all the time having played with guitars that go out of tune very easily and I have to say that this one stays in tune perfectly well.
You'll have to abuse it a lot so it could go out of tune also the headstock angle helps a bit to keep the tuning in place The guitar is made out of Mahogany wood
the body and the glued in neck. In this case the finish we have is the worn cherry red. Of course the fret board is Rosewood. Very balanced, when you switch
from one to the other. Neck. The combination of both and now the bridge.
This is a little more High sounding. And something else I really like about the guitar is that when you use the combination of both each volume and tone. That's marked with the letter V and T, Of course this volume and tone correspond,
to the neck pickup and this two to the bridge. They can be combined kind like a mixer. If you reduced the volume. It adjust exactly the amount of volume you provide from each microphone to the output. All in all, I would name this Epiphone Wilshire re issue that Epiphone has very generously sent over, we're going to send it back don't worry, shortly, a winner. This is a winner guitar for sure
very inexpensive, affordable for all kinds of guitar players and it provides with quality of a very expensive guitar. Another important thing to mention
is that it's a very light guitar I used to have a teacher that said anything that's heavy is good, and I kind of agreed with him most guitar players think that a heavy guitar is a good guitar. This would be an exception. This a very light guitar
that sounds amazing and it's very well constructed Without a doubt I'd give it a shot and test it if you have a chance to do so See if it fits your style
Most probably will. Because it's a versatile instrument that can be used in most any style I'd say.
Signing off, once again, Gervasio. Thanks again for watching loudest reviews
support it and see you soon.
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Acoustic 260 100W 1x10 Bass Mini Stack, Black

Martin does an exhaustive video look of the new Acoustic 260 bass combo. It might come in a small package, but it carries some enormous bass sound.

Here's the video transcript for future references:
This is Martin from Loudest Reviews and Today we're going to talk about Acoustic.
In the 1990 several different individuals were working on bringing the Acoustic brand back. None of them were successful except for two: the brand we have here today and another very premium version that is coming. A scale down version of the famous 360, 361 but brought down to a $299 practice amp It was so cute, I couldn't resist. So eventually I brought the Acoustic 260 and to my surprise when I got it home It sounded very good.
The 260 features a 100 W head and a single tenant speaker in a rather large cabinet The speaker is actually at the top of the cabinet but the rest of the cabinet is used for acoustic purposes; So it's not just a dummy space no purpose what so ever The head itself, It's round... 9 pounds...? The cabinet is about 25 pounds. So you're looking to a total of 34 pounds. Interestingly enough, It has a 360 style handle on the back and wheels. Takes a single cord in jack to the back of the cabinet A single quarter jack to the head, That's all there's The grill is removable, but not easily. There's a headphone jack, and auxiliary in. An active input, passive input. There's no line out necessary, you'd have to take the headphone out if you want to put out to a PA. Three band EQ and volume control
Simple controls, very easy to use It doesn’t actually get very hot which I was happy to hear. Most interesting to me, is the quality of the workmanship. Again, this is a $299 dollar street price product I actually heard them sometimes discounting below that. The corners are metal and screwed in place. There's white piping on the cabinet. Something I was very curious about, there're plastic knobs of course, but this front is not plastic. This are actually metal fronts with the indentation to help you locate the exact position of the knob.
Very surprising Also the head got a wood case but It's metal everywhere there's no plastic pieces Very well constructed surprisingly so.
I had this amp, probably about a year now and I had no problems with the tollex peeling as it does often with inexpensive amps. So, very impressive for the price
In the original 360, 361 combination It was an 18 inch vega driver firing backwards in a complicated baffling system this is just a straight front firing speaker There are no ports anywhere but I don't think is Acoustic suspension I believe there's some sound coming out from the bottom
The first thing to know about the Acoustic 260 is that is not just a practice amp Although I sounds excellent playing by yourself at low volumes It gets quite loud and interestingly enough, the single tenant speaker in most people's practice rooms has a tremendous amount of low end here's my little b; as clean as can be and the tone is quite even from top to bottom so, at low volumes is great but what happen when you get a little louder.
I've played this amplifier by myself a louder volumes where the wall starts to raddle and I also played it live on a gig that particularly gig was in about a 1000 sq room drums, pretty loud guitar, a singer and a PA. The amp did not go over the PA. Although I was standing on top of the amplifier and felt I was at is limit during our loudest songs It was wonderful during those quiter passages and anything in medium volumes no problem. Late on at night I moved forward Maybe 1 or 20 feet Instead of standing right in front of the amp I got out, Actually in front of the singer I was quite surprised to hear that the amplifier was completely filling the room .In fact, they were telling me to turn down which was quite surprising, since standing in front of the amplifier I didn't feel I was loud or clear enough but soon as I moved 10 or 15 ft away I heard that I had a tremendous room filling extremely bass heavy quite nice sound The rumor about the original Acoustic 360 with the 8 in speaker was that when you stood on top of it you didn't really heard the sound very clearly you had to go back from the stage 10 rows or more to hear how loud it actually was It has something to do with the length of the wave that the bass speaker was putting out Again, this is not the same technology but I was quite surprised to hear that I needed to get 10 ft or further away to actually hear the correct sound of the amplifier So there's something reminiscent of the original 360 going on here Only a 100W amplifier and only a tenant speaker so there're limits but you'd be surprised how much gain you get out of it specially when you stand far enough away to appreciated.
So, all and all, the 260 is a winner, Excellent clear sound very good volume, for its rated output able to do small gigs without trouble
easy to bring around, and a true still at $299

Here's the video transcript for future references:
Hi, this is Martin from Loudest reviews and today we're going to talk about Acoustic.
Acoustic is a very dear brand to me in fact when I was in High-school
all the bassist crave Acoustic In fact, most of the time when other people
were hidden, lets just say some kinds of magazine under their beds
I was reading the Acoustic catalog In fact that Acoustic catalog was quite worn out by me.
My third bass amplifier My father chipped in the money and got my a
104 I'm sorry a ... 140 head and a ... 105 cabinet that was two fifteens...
I'm sorry a 140 head and a 106 cabinet It's called the 146 bass cabinet combination
125 watt head and a two fifteen speaker cabinet In those days, we're talking about the late 70s. An Acoustic 146 bass rig retail for about $900 dollars and you could
get in a store for maybe, I don't know... $700 or $750 I'm guessing... In today's dollars you're talking about something close to $2500 dollars. That was their basic line of separate bass and cabinets. So, Acoustic in the early days was very expensive The Acoustic models that I liked the best were the more expensive ones.
The 450 and the 470 head with the matching cabinets. They were very striking
not only do they have a light blue finish on some of the trimm pieces Some of the horns on one of the bass cabinets and guitar cabinets were this big white JBL horns
Very striking looking equipment. They were 4 things that made Acoustic a very unique company. The first of it was of course It sounded great In 1968 when their first amplifier came out the very famous 361. It had a power 30 inch cabinet and a separate pre-amp 361 was eventually adopted by all the big name bass players and made probably most famous by Jone Paul Jones and Jaco Pastorious. In fact Jaco Pastorious in his later days would be seen dragging it up and down the street of New York city going from club to club. He just wouldn't want to play on anything else The 361 was an icon for decades and decades. Very expensive equipment
Very high quality sound Very well made Extremely innovative design They did things that nobody else did... For example the use of horns The way they loaded the speakers. The circuit design. Not in small part due to the fact that they have three very talented people involved in the company Steve Marks, Russ Allee and Harvey Gerst. The trio that made Acoustic what it was. Eventhough the Acoustic company didn't last much past the late 80s The original designers of Acoustic went on to other companies in the musical industry whose names are very well known to us
So eventhough Acoustic is not its original form on the market you can still hear
the remembrance of the company In many other bass products on the market today
Not only was it, excellent sound very well made and very innovative from the design stand point It also was very attractive The Acoustic line from the 60s and 70s
used machine aluminum knobs against the light blue background So, the equipment was very good looking and very attractive to bassist Unfortunately, most of us couldn't afford it The Acoustic brand stay very viable on the 60s was a huge hit on the 70s
and by the 80s started to fade and the company eventually closed its doors they were a few attempts to revive the brand not of them successful.
About two years ago in the midst of several people trying to bring the brand back
the line actually emerged again very intriguing to me because I didn't even know that someone was working on bringing the entire Acoustic line back to market
The models that came back where reminiscent of the 70s style Acoustic and were found at Guitar Center stores and Guitar center's affiliates and were very inexpensive.
In fact the first Acoustic product that came back was a small combo. My first though when seen the line back on the market was...
Mmm, that's not too good.
this famous very expensive, very well engineered company is now back as a
looks like a brand engineered $199.00 combo. Another great american brand has fade into oblivion So, I really didn't pay any attention to it for a year or two
Finally, a model came back called the 260 and that was a very ... Interesting piece, because It was reminiscent of the style of the 360 the most famous of the Acoustic line but scaled down to less than half its size When I say the price of $299 dollars I said well, this is not going to be very good. So, I didn't paid much attention to it Although, I kept on thing about it I wonder how that 260 sounds like Eventually I got myself one and here's the 260 that I brought. We hope you enjoyed this look at the history of Acoustic amplifiers Check back shortly for a full review Acoustic 260 and the rest of the line.