New Amp Day

[basslayer]

My Fender Rumble Stage 800 arrived today. I'm an effcts user, so I will be taking advantage of a lot of what this amp has to offer. I'm definitely getting the cover for this amp next. This thing sounds great and is very portable. I should get to practice my band next week.

 

[Linnin]

WOOT! This is the amp that will change the state of bass amplification forever. Please keep us informed of all your Stage 800 adventures drool

 

[basslayer]

The first rehearsal went great. I play the p bass in my avatar in an 8 piece funk jazz band. I had all the headroom in the world. I mostly used the Motown and Give It Away Now presets. Navigating the amps presets with the pedal was not the most intuitive experience of my life. When I did try some of the more effect-laden presets, I realized I needed to do some serious tweaking to get the sound I wanted, and trying to do it in rehearsal with my phone wasn't gonna happen because I play with gloves. Today I want to build my three instant recall sounds and put some bypassed effects in them. It was great having a volume pedal and floor tuner available. I use a mono gigbag and the guitar tick holds both pedals and the cabling that connects them perfectly. I really need to get a cover on it for transport. This week we should be recording our rehearsals so I can have a better reflection on the whole thing.

 

[basslayer]

I've explored the effects are created my quick recall tones, and placed bypassed effects in the patches; that way I can pretty much stick to my three quick recall presets and limit the amount of preset moving and switching. For most I play for other people gigs I probably will not need any effects, but for my band and solo project these features will be a large part of what I'm doing. The effects you can use are limited by memory; some multi effects processors give you a set number of effects to use in any order, whereas the Fender system will not limit you by how many instances of an effect you have, but rather the limits of the system's memory. That means that effects like Shimmer cannot be used in concert with any distortions or overdrive effects because of the memory draw. On the flip side, if you use effects that do not draw heavy ok the CPU, your chain can get pretty long; note that the pedal (in effects mode) can only bypass and activate the first three effects in the chain, which didn't include the modelled amp that is required for all presets.

The Bluetooth connection to the Fender Tone app leaves something to be desired. If I close the app, not only will not automatically reconnect, it falls to establish a new connection without repeatedly opening and closing the app. I was first worried about someone Rick rolling my amp with the blue tooth audio player capacity, but it's not a problem since I have yet to get Bluetooth audio through my amp from my phone.

 

[basslayer]

So I have played out three times with this amp in very different venues with varying results.

The first was a dance party gig; funk band onstage with vocalist and horns. We ran the set beforehand, and the amp did amazing. The four button switch rejected the right angle plug that connected it so the the expression pedal, more than once I had to reseat the cable. The pedal has a startup that only takes a moment, but its a notable one and it reminds me of another thing to note; this amp has a startup time that you will have to adjust to if this series or life with tube amps are unfamiliar to you. The startup process mute the amp fully so if they are calling for an encore, sprint to the amp and then spark up the conversation. Patchwise, I was mostly toggling between two tones, Motown and Give It Away Now, and they sounded great. The toggling was not as great. Halfway through our set, the pedal stops switching effects. its clearly still connected, but there is no response. It was frustrating but I lived to play another gig.

The second playing out I did with this amp was in a medium sized church. I skipped the pedals entirely since I was so close to the amp for this event and the pedals failed me last time. The sound was amazing. The only trouble I had was trying to find the right volume for the playing with a piano and drums without over powering everything. Otherwise the amp performed flawlessly. I just left it running through the service, since I didn't wan't to be caught waiting for the screen to load.

The last gig was an outdoor reggae gig; no stage, covered, in the alcove of a food truck park. Great sound. I tried using the pedals again and, aside from briefly getting stuck on the tuning screen no matter how long the button was held, I had no problems to report.

Maybe I have bad cable, but he pedal's performance left a bit to be desired. The amp sounded great, But I hope for a firmware update that will resolve some of these problems.