Marco De Virgiliis knows a thing or two about bass tone. Along with his company Markbass, he has released some of the most well-regarded bass amplifiers in the world for players who demand a warm, responsive sound from a portable package. The Little Mark series of pint-sized, low-end powerhouses were an instant hit for the company when introduced, and are considered to be one of the de facto standards on which high-wattage, small-chassis bass amps are judged by.
The recently released Big Bang—a 500-watt, solid-state amp head—represents the next step in Markbass’ continued pursuit of providing full, warm, bass tones from a unit that’s as light and small as possible. To achieve this, they’ve designed a completely new digital power amp section and cut as much fat off the circuitry as feasible. Barely tipping the scales at a whopping 4 3/4 pounds, the end result is a bass amp that weighs less than most basses on the market.
Shot in the Dark
Sporting a very smart design, everything on
the Big Bang’s front control panel is laid
out in an easy to use and accessible fashion.
And each control is voiced to have plenty
of effect within its specified range, which is
great considering the challenge of packing
in a lot of knobs and switches on an amp
head of this tiny size.
The input signal is shaped by a quartet of non-parametric EQ controls—labeled low, mid low, mid high, and high—with each knob offering 16 dB of boost or cut. The Big Bang includes Markbass’ VLE (Vintage Loudspeaker Emulator) and VPF (Variable Pre-shape Filter) controls as well, which are extremely effective in manipulating the tone—in some cases, even more than the EQ controls.
Markbass Big Bang Ratings
Pros:
Versatile preamp. VLE and VPF
controls are worth the price of admission
alone. Plenty of power when needed.
Cons:
Pedals are needed to get
grittier tones.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$679
Markbass
markbass.it
Also located on the front panel are the amp’s master, headphone, and line-out volume controls, along with jacks for headphones, an MP3 player, and the optional footswitch for engaging the VLE and VPF circuits or muting the amp altogether. Residing on the unit’s back panel, a series effects loop, tuner out, speakON and 1/4" jacks, and pre/post EQ switches round out the features of the loaded, yet portable Big Bang.
While the Big Bang is certainly capable of driving most cabinets on the market, we paired it with a Markbass New York 604 cab for this review. Recommended by the company as an ideal pairing with the amp’s high power and low weight, the 600-watt, rear-ported cab is outfitted with four B&C neodymium 6" drivers and a 1" compression driver with horn. There’s also an attenuator control on the top of the cab for pulling back the highs if they get too excessive. The New York 604 is pretty light at just a little over 30 pounds, and its top-mounted handle makes for easy transport, no matter what your mode of travel.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Alternating between a Fender American
Jazz and an American Precision, I found
the Big Bang was easy to setup for a variety
of musical styles. It took just a little bit of
EQ tweaking from the noon positions to
sculpt whatever tone I was going for, and
judicious settings of the VLE and VPF
controls really rounded out and tightened
up the tone even more. The VPF control in
particular was incredibly useful for digging
out mids for slap and pop techniques. Even
at its highest settings, the boosted presence
of the highs was never too grating or harsh,
and the boosted lows, while very full, were
never overbearing on the rest of the sound.
The VLE knob essentially works as a roll-off
control for the highs, and cutting the
high end let me turn the amp up louder for
a fuller, less aggressive sound.
A standout quality of the Big Bang is its transparency. It allowed the signature aspects of both basses to shine through with hardly any coloration, doing a fantastic job of letting the guttural nature of the P bass punch through in the midrange and the characteristically smooth lows of the Jazz to expand and carry throughout the room. And paired with the New York 604, which offers an astonishing amount of subs for such a tiny cab, the level of detail was even more evident thanks to the cab’s excellent design and rear porting. With that said, this cab is meant for smaller or more intimate gigs, and its speakers can easily reach their limits when being fed a lot of volume. For bigger rock shows that demand more volume, you might want to consider Markbass’ larger cabs.
Markbass New York Ratings
Pros:
Great tone at low volumes.
Light, portable, and well-built.
Cons:
Some difficulty handling
louder volumes.
Tones:
Versatility:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$529
Markbass
markbass.it
Coaxing overdrive from the Big Bang is another story. It’s possible, but not to any extreme degree. Even with the gain control maxed, the amount of grit is pretty light. Cleanliness and plenty of headroom are traits that Markbass is known for, and the Big Bang is no exception. So if you want any seriously fuzzed out or overdriven tones, you’ll have to throw your favorite stompbox into the mix.
Overall, I found the clarity and warmth of the Big Bang tones to be nothing short of remarkable. Plucked notes sustained extremely evenly, and the lows never died out before the mids and highs stopped ringing. This amp has an analog quality that coats the highs and attack—almost as if there’s a post-EQ “warmth” circuit that processes the tone. There are other digital amps that do this, but few at this level. Not only does the Big Bang sound warm and full, it feels and reacts to playing in a very tube-like manner.
The Verdict
The Big Bang is a perfect example of why
Markbass continues to be an industry leader
when it comes to quality bass amplification
with a diminutive footprint. This is
one seriously cool amp with fantastic tone,
versatility, and a reasonable price to boot.
While the ability to overdrive the preamp
would be a welcome addition, there’s really
not much else to quibble with. The Big
Bang is an excellent choice for the player
who demands great tone with power, definition,
and portability.
Pickup screws with latex tubing.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how to eliminate most of these issues. And if you haven’t faced such problems on your Tele, you can still give these a try, and chances are good that you never will. These procedures will not alter the tone of your Telecaster in any way, so it’s better to have it and not need rather than to need it and not have it.
Checking the Pickups
Over the years, I have seen the wildest things coming stock from the factory, especially on budget pickups: unbent metal tabs on neck pickups, loose metal base plates on bridge pickups, bridge pickups only held by the springs, and other crazy stuff.
Let’s start with the neck pickup. Make sure the cover is installed tightly and is not loose in any way. The metal cover is only held by three metal tabs that are bent around the bottom of the pickup, one of them usually connected to the pickup’s ground. Make sure they are tight, holding the metal cover firmly in place. If not, they need to be re-bent. Be careful to not break them.
“Often, these small metal springs can cause feedback, and I’m sure Leo Fender had his reasons for choosing latex tubing instead.”
On the bridge pickup, the metal base plate on the bottom needs to be attached firmly. Check with your fingers to see if it can move. If so, even in only one spot, you need to re-glue it to isolate vibration. Otherwise, it will squeal at high volumes. This is easy to do, and the easiest and best way is to completely take the base plate off, clean it, and re-glue it with a thin layer of silicone from your local Home Depot.
While you are in there, it’s always a good idea to convert both pickups to 3-conductor wiring by breaking the ground connection of the metal cover (neck pickup) and the base plate (bridge pickup). Attach a third wire to one of the lugs of the metal cover and another one to the metal base plate, and solder both to a grounding point of your choice, e.g. the casing of one of the pots. This can be helpful for future mods, like any 4-way switch mod, where this is a mandatory requirem
Un-springing the Pickup Attachment
If your pickups are attached with metal springs to enable height-adjustment, you should replace them with some latex tubing. Often, these small metal springs can cause feedback, and I’m sure Leo Fender had his reasons for choosing latex tubing instead of metal springs. This is cheap, fast, and easy to do; you can get latex tubing from any guitar store or online for only a few cents. (See photo at top.)
Cushioning the Pickups
On a Tele, there’s usually a gap between the bottom of the pickups and the inside of the guitar’s body. This open space can exacerbate feedback issues. Luckily, it’s easy to solve with a piece of foam.
Using a piece of white paper, outline the routing for each pickup. Cut them out as a template for the foam. Then, trim the foam to shape. Place the foam on the bottom of both pickup routings, and you are done. There is no need to glue or attach the foam in any way.
It’s important that the bottom of the pickup is touching the foam so there is no more open gap. I usually use foam that is a little bit thicker than necessary, so the pickup will press on it slightly, making a perfect connection. The type of foam is not important as long as the gap is closed. I prefer to use foam rubber that is easily available in a variety of thicknesses.
Closing Support Routings
On a lot of Telecasters, you can find open support routings from the neck pickup routing towards the electronic compartment. This is for easier access when running the wires of the neck pickup through the body.
Note the various cavities in this typical Telecaster body.
Photo courtesy of Singlecoil (https://singlecoil.com)
There are two ways of routing the wires of the neck pickup through the body: from the neck pickup routing directly into the electronic compartment or into the routing of the bridge pickup, and from there into the electronic compartment, which is the traditional way. In the latter case, make sure all the wires are running underneath the additional piece of foam. If you have any open support routings on your Telecaster body, put some foam in to close them. You don’t need to attach the foam; the pickguard will hold it in place. The kind of foam doesn’t matter, and you can also use things like a small piece of cotton cloth, cotton wool, Styrofoam, etc. in there.
Addressing Bridge Plate Flaws
One of the most common reasons for unwanted feedback is the typical Telecaster bridge plate. The Telecaster bridge system was designed in the ’40s by Leo Fender himself and is crude at best. Its function was simply positioning the strings and providing a rough, easy adjustment of the intonation and the string-height settings. It wasn’t long before Fender released the much-improved bridge design found on the Stratocaster.
The current production Fender vintage bridge plate, as well as most budget aftermarket bridge plates, is made from thin hot-rolled steel in a deep-drawn process. Using this manufacturing process, parts can be made very quickly and cheaply, but at severe cost in quality. The steel used must be very soft and thin to allow it to fold and bend in the corners.
A classic Telcaster bridge plate.
Photo courtesy of Singlecoil (https://singlecoil.com)
Unfortunately, this process creates unusual internal stress in the steel, which can bow the plate so it can’t sit flat on the wooden body. This is a common reason for unwanted feedback on so many Teles. Interestingly, the early vintage bridge plates Fender made used a cold-rolled steel procedure to relieve stress in the material and to avoid this problem. Long live modern mass production!
If you have a Tele with a bowed bridge plate, there are three possible things you can do:
• Change the bowed bridge plate for a straight and even one. (This is the easiest way to avoid any troubles.) There are excellent replacement bridge plates on the market, so you’ll have plenty of choices for materials, designs, finishes, etc.
• Get the bowed bridge plate to a metal fabricator or tool maker so they can try to solve the problem for you. This process will probably cost you more than a new bridge, so this is only an option if it’s a special bridge you want to keep, no matter the cost.
• Drill two small additional holes on the front of the bridge plate, shown as red dots in the picture. After re-installing the bridge plate on the guitar, tightly drill two wood screws through these holes. Often, modern replacement bridges already have these two additional holes. In many cases, this will do the trick, so you don´t have to buy a new bridge.
If you have gone through this entire list and still have problems with feedback, it’s very likely that the pickup itself needs to be re-potted, which a pickup builder can do for you.
Next month, we will stay on the Telecaster subject, taking a close look at the famous Andy Summers Telecaster wiring, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
Andy Powers has been working with electric guitars his whole life, and he’s been slowly collecting all the ideas that could go into his own “solo project,” waiting for the right time to strike.
As CEO, president, and chief guitar designer of Taylor Guitars, Andy Powers has an unimaginable amount of experience sifting through his ideas and, with a large production mechanism at hand, efficiently and effectively realizing them. He knows that there are great ideas that need more time, and rethinking electric guitar design—from the neck to the pickups to how its hollow body is constructed—doesn’t come quickly. His A-Type—which has appeared in Premier Guitarin the hands of guitarists Andy Summers and Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard—is the innovative flagship model of his new brand, Powers Electric. And it’s the culmination of a lifetime of thought, experience, and influences.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things. I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar.”
“I’ve got a lot of musician friends who write songs and have notebooks of ideas,” explains Powers. “They go, ‘I’ve got these three great verses and a bridge, but no chorus. I’ll just put it on the shelf; I’ll come back to it.’ Or ‘I’ve got this cool hook,’ or ‘I’ve got this cool set of chord changes,’ or whatever it might be—they’re half-finished ideas. And once in a while, you take them off the shelf, blow the dust off, and go, ‘That’s a really nice chorus. Maybe I should write a couple of verses for it someday. But not today.’ And they put it back.”
That’s how his electric guitar design spent decades collecting in Powers’ head. There were influences that he wanted to play with that fell far afield from his acoustic work at Taylor, and he saw room to look at some technical aspects of the instrument a little differently, with his own flair.
The Powers Electric A-Type draws from Powers’ lifelong influences of cars, surfing, and skateboarding.
Over the course of Powers’ “long personal history” with the instrument, he’s built, played, restored, and repaired electric guitars. And, having grown up in Southern California, surrounded by custom-car culture, skateboarding, and surfing—all things he loves—he sees the instrument as part of his design DNA.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things,” Powers explains. “I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar. Post-World War II, you had Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby and Les Paul—all these guys living within just a couple of miles of each other. And I grew up in those same sorts of surroundings.”
Those influences and the ideas about what to do with them kept collecting without a plan to take action. “At some point,” he says, “you need the catalyst to go, ‘Hey, you know what? I actually have the entire guitar’s worth of ideas sitting right in front of me, and they all go together. I would want to play that guitar if it existed. Now is a good time to build that guitar.’”
“I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this?”
The pandemic ultimately served as the catalyst Powers’ electric guitars needed, and that local history proved to be a jumping-off point necessary for focusing his long-marinating ideas. “I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this? As a designer, I think that’s really interesting. Overlay that with understanding what happens to electric guitars and how people want to use them, as well as some acoustic engineering. Well, that’s pretty fascinating. That’s an interesting mix.”
Tucked away in his home workshop, Powers set about designing a guitar, building “literally every little bit other than a couple screws” including handmade and hand-polished knobs. Soon, the prototype for the Powers Electric A-Type was born. “I played this guitar and went, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to play this guitar.’ A friend played it and went, ‘I want one, too.’ Okay, I’ll make another one. Made two more. Made three more….”
The A-Type—seen here with both vibrato and hardtail—is a fully hollow guitar that is built in what Powers calls a “hot-rod shop” on the Taylor Guitars campus.
From there, Powers recalls that he started bringing his ideas back to his shop on Taylor’s campus, where he set up “essentially a small hot-rod shop” to build these new guitars. “It’s a real small-scale operation,” he explains. “It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
The A-Type—currently the only planned Powers Electric model—has the retro appeal of classic SoCal electrics. Its single-cut body style is unique but points to the curvature of midcentury car designs, and the wide range of vibrant color options help drive that home. Conceptually, the idea of reinventing each piece of the guitar’s hardware points toward the instrument’s creators. That might get a vintage guitar enthusiast’s motor running, but it’s in the slick precision of those parts—from the bridge and saddle to the pickup components—where the A-Type’s modernism shines.
“It’s a real small-scale operation. It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
Grabbing hold of the guitar, it’s clearly an instrument living on the contemporary cutting edge. The A-Type’s neck gives the clearest indication that it’s a high-performance machine; it’s remarkably easy to fret, with low action but just enough bite across the board. Powers put a lot of thought into the fretboard dynamics that make that so, and he decided to create a hybrid radius. “You have about a 9 1/2" radius, which is really what your hand feels, but then under the plain strings, it’s a bit flatter at 14, 15-ish—it’s so subtle, it’s really tough to measure.” Without reading the specs and talking to Powers, I don’t know that I would detect the difference—and I certainly didn’t upon first try. It just felt easy to play precisely without losing character or veering into “shredder guitar” territory.
The A-Type looks like a solidbody, but you’ll know it’s hollow by its light, balanced weight. That makes it comfortable to hold, whether standing or sitting. But its hollow-ness is no inhibitor to style: I’ve yet to provoke any unintended feedback from any of my amps. Powers explains that’s part of the design, which uses V-class bracing, similar to what you’ll find on a modern Taylor acoustic.
Powers says the A-Type that is now being produced is no different than the prototype he built in his home workshop: “I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“Coupling the back and the top of the guitar matter a lot,” he asserts. “When you do that, you can make them move in parallel so that they are not prone to feeding back on stage. You don’t actually have that same Helmholtz resonance going on that makes a hollowbody guitar feedback. It’s still moving.”
On a traditional hollowbody, he points out, the top and back move independently, compressing the air inside the body. “It’ll make one start to run away by re-amplifying its own sound,” he explains. “But if I can make them touch each other, then they move together as a unit. When they do that, you’re not compressing the air inside the body. But it’s still moving. So, you get this dynamic resonance that you want out of a hollowbody guitar; it’s just not prone to feedback.”
What I hear from the A-Type is a rich, dynamic tone, full of resonance, sustain, and volume. I found it to be surprisingly loud and vibrant when unplugged. Powers tells me that’s in part due to the “stressed spherical top” and explains, “I take this piece of wood and I stress it into a sphere, which unnaturally raises its resonant frequency well above what the piece of wood normally could. It’s kind of sprung, ready to set in motion as soon as you strike the string. So, it becomes a mechanical amplifier.” The bridge then sits in two soundposts, which Powers says makes it “almost like a cello.”
“Literally every little bit other than a couple screws” on the A-Type is custom made.
The single-coil pickups take it from there. They’re available in two variations, Full Faraday and Partial Faraday, the latter of which were in my demo model, and Powers tells me they are the brighter option. Their design, he says, has been in progress for about seven or eight years. The concept behind the pickups is to use the “paramagnetic quality of aluminum”—found in the pickup housing—“to shape the magnetic field … which functions almost like a Faraday cage.” And he complements them with a simple circuit on the way out.
I found them to run quietly, as promised, and offer a transparent tone with plenty of headroom. They paired excellently with the ultra-responsive playability and feel of the guitar, so I could play as dynamically as I desired. If a standard solidbody with single-coils offers the performance of a practical sedan, this combo gave the A-Type the feel of a well-tuned racecar. At low volumes and with no pedals, it felt like I was simply amplifying the guitar’s acoustic sound, and I had full control with nothing but my pick. (Powers explains that the pickups have a wide resonance peak, which plays out to my ear.) Add pedals to the mix, including distortion and fuzz, and that translates to an articulated, hi-fi sound.
Now up to serial number XXX, the Powers Electric team has refined their production process. I wonder about that first guitar, the dream guitar Powers built in his house. How similar is the guitar I’m holding to his original vision? “It’s very, very, very close,” Powers tells me. “Literally, this guitar outline is a tracing. It’s an exact duplicate of what I first drew on paper with a pencil. I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
Playing the guitar and, later, talking through its features, I’m left with few questions. But one that remains has to do with branding and marketing, not the instrument: Why go to all the effort to create a new brand for the A-Type, which is to say, why isn’t this a Taylor? For Powers, it’s about design. “As guitar players,” he explains, “we know what Taylor guitars are, we know what it stands for, and we know what we do. The design language of a Taylor guitar is a very specific thing. When I look at a Taylor acoustic guitar, I go, ‘I need curves like this, I need colors like this, I need shapes like this.’”
Those aren’t the same curves, colors, and shapes as the Powers Electric design, nor do they mine the same influences. “There’s a look and a feel to what a Taylor is. And that is different from this. I look at this and go, ‘It’s not the same.’”
Of course, adding the A-Type to the well-established Taylor catalog would probably be easier in lots of ways, but Powers’ positioning of the brand is a sign of his dedication to the project. It feels like a labor of love. “They’re guitars that I really wanted to make,” he tells me enthusiastically. “And I’m excited that they get to exist. It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
“It’s like a solo project,” he continues. “As musicians, you front this band, you do this thing, and you also like these other kinds of music and you’ve got other musician friends, and you want to do something that’s a different flavor. You try to make some space to do that, too.”
