Offset Offspring
The first Rascal was an experimental prototype built by Fender Custom Shop master builder Jason Smith for the 2014 NAMM Show. The original version featured a few very substantial design elements. The sweeping bridge was inspired by the tailpiece on the Guild Starfire bass. The headstock matched the contoured take on Fender’s trademark headstock that graced the Coronado hollowbody line. The lipstick pickups, meanwhile, were a clear nod to Danelectro. The new Squier version sticks a little closer to Fender convention, and the shared parts bin. The bridge is a Mustang unit, while the pickups are a big, contemporary variation on the Fender Wide Range bass pickup that 1970s Telecaster basses made famous. Like Smith’s original Rascal, the Squier version is a pretty thing, and the combination of Fender design elements feels more like an organic whole than a product of Frankenstein’s secret bass lab.
The bass is well balanced. Neck dive is a non-existent problem, thanks perhaps in part to the biggish Bass VI body, which has ample mass in the lower bout, and the instrument’s 30-inch scale length. The body contours will feel familiar to any player that makes a Jazz Bass home, and the length has the effect of making the Rascal feel substantial where its short scale cousin, the Mustang, can feel almost toylike. It feels very much of a piece, too. So much so that it rattles the ribs with resonance before you ever plug it in.
The neck is lovely. It feels more than a little like a Precision Bass neck in spite of the 4-inch difference in scale length. Again, the curvaceous body probably has a part in this sensory illusion. For more obvious reasons, it also evokes the feeling of the more substantial 1960s Mustang necks I’ve met. It’s a great compromise between fat and thin.
Robust and Rascally
Curiously, the Rascal is the only bass in the Squier or Fender lines that uses Wide Range humbucker bass pickups—either in cunife or more conventional pole-piece formats—which makes you wonder what else the company has in store for the type. (I know a few players that would love to see a Telecaster bass.) And as their impressive, gleaming visual presence suggests, they are a bold-sounding lot. Almost needless to say, they are loud. They’ll out-thump a Precision in terms of sheer volume. And they’ll blow the Rascal’s short-scale stablemate, the Mustang, out of the water when it comes to output and mass, which is a smart move in terms of differentiation among Squier bass models and features.
It’s a safe bet that the Rascal’s style and price will make it popular to younger, more punk- and punk-pop-aligned players. But the Rascal would not be out of place in an Albert Hall-era Cream tribute band, and could probably give a Gibson EB-0 a run for its money in terms of punch. The tone differences between the pickups, too, lend real utility to the Rascal’s attitude. Bridge position sounds are in-your-face and bossy, and will induce breakup in 10" speakers with the right amount of amp push. They can also drive a fuzz or overdrive to fizzy heights. In combined mode, you can use the bridge pickup’s mid-forward attributes to convincingly coax Rickenbacker-like tonalities. And the neck pickup has the personality of a gentle bear. I loved using it for mellower, vintage-style sounds.
The Verdict
The Squier Rascal impresses on many fronts. The construction quality is excellent for an instrument in any price class, but it's particularly impressive for an accessibly priced bass. The lines of the instrument are elegant, pretty, and proportioned in a way that suggests an original design rather than an amalgam of existing style moves. But the best thing about the Rascal is the way it feels. It’s an instrument that will inspire confidence in a pro or a beginner (and it is very cool, indeed, to imagine a player getting to learn the ropes on this fine machine).
The pickups won’t be everyone’s lot. They are pretty aggressive and have little of a 1960s-style Precision’s or Mustang’s high-headroom, rub-a-dub contoured edges in the voice. These are rocking, punky-sounding units and, even with volume and tone attenuation or foam dampening at the bridge, they pump out weight and attitude. For most tunes, these pickups will be a great fit—provided the player has a sensitive touch. But it’s hard to not recall the original Rascal’s lipstick units and wonder what a little less output could do for such a great feeling bass. Then again, this Rascal is a Paranormal Series instrument, and it exists to accomplish the unconventional and unexpected. Who knows? Maybe a future iteration of this beautiful bass will be more tuned for vintage ears. In the meantime, even strict low-output adherents will likely find something to love in the way this fantastic value looks and feels.
LR Baggs Align Reverb Acoustic Reverb Pedal
The Align Series Reverb was built from the ground up to complement the natural body dynamics and warmth of acoustic instruments that we love so much. The circuit seamlessly integrates the wet and dry signals with the effect in side chain so that it never overwhelms the original signal. We shaped the reverb with analog EQ to reflect the natural voice inherent in acoustic instruments. Additionally, the tone control adds versatility by sweeping from warm and muted to open and present. The result is an organic reverb that maintains the audiophile purity of the original signal with the controls set in any position.
Octa-Plus
Klein says the amp’s name came from realizing that he and Shull both owned old Pontiac Grand Villes in the past, and they agreed it would be a cool name for the amp. Settling on a name was the easy part though, and there were some design challenges. As Klein explains, “Rhett wanted a really flexible 2-band EQ, so we played around with some values and found what we liked. Also, he wanted a really low noise floor since he plans to record with the amp. The last hurdle was the tremolo speed. The GA-50 didn’t have enough variation in speed, so we made the circuit switchable between slow and fast settings to achieve both a slower and faster tremolo than would normally be on tap.”
Fittingly, the front panel is home to knobs for volume, treble, bass, and tremolo speed and intensity, plus on/off and fast/slow switches for the tremolo. And around back, you’ll find a footswitch jack along with dual output jacks and a switch for 4-ohm, 8-ohm, and 16-ohmspeaker loads. The head is relatively compact for its punching power at 20" x 9.8" x 8.5" and looks elegantly businesslike in its lacquered black-tweed covering with gold piping.
The Grandville delivers thick, rich, and warm cleans at maximum volume with single-coils and just a little edge-of-breakup when paired with a Les Paul.
The first two preamp tubes are octal-based 6SJ7 pentodes, and NOS metal GE and RCA examples are included in our test amp. (Other production models may be built with tubes from other manufacturers.) The tremolo and phase-inverter slots are home to octal 6SL7 dual-triodes, in this case, new tubes from JJ. A pair of new Tung-Sol 6L6GCs in cathode-bias live in the output stage. The rectifier is a 5U4GB tube.
The Grandville’s handwired circuit displays impressive workmanship, with tidy wire runs extending from a turret board loaded with high-quality components. Robust Canada-made Hammond transformers assume power, output, and choke duties, and there are two of the latter to help keep noise in check.
Clean Machine
I tested the Grandville with a Port City 1x12 cabinet loaded with an American-voiced Eminence GA12-64 speaker. Port City also offers a custom-spec ported cab built to accompany the amp, which houses a mixed pair of one 12" WGS G12-C/S and one 10"Jensen Jet Tornado. Klein says that Shull wanted the amp to be just on the edge of breakup when it’s cranked, and that’s exactly what it delivers. Unlike the browned-out compression and easy distortion many might expect from an amp based on an early-’50s Gibson combo, the Grandville delivers thick, rich, and warm cleans at maximum volume with single-coils and just a little edge-of-breakup when paired with a Les Paul.
All that headroom leads to a couple of potential benefits. For one, the characterful cleans you get with the volume around 10 o’clock on the dial are virtually the same as what you get at a louder 4 o’clock setting, only quieter. That makes it easy to tailor your tone to different venues and recording environments without changes in gain level throwing your core tone out of whack. The other benefit is that the amp is an excellent pedal platform, and while high headroom is no guarantee that an amp will work with overdrive pedals, the Grandville sung sweetly with ODs including a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe, an Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer, and a Friedman Small Box.
The bias-modulated, tube-driven tremolo, by the way, is fantastically round, wobbly, and bubbly in the inspiring fashion of so many great vintage and vintage-derived circuits. And just as Klein intended, it provides a range of speed and depth that enables subtle or extreme atmospherics. The bass and treble controls, too, are very wide-ranging and interactive in a very practical way, which make this simple EQ set deceptively versatile. The amp is impressively quiet overall, which satisfies another design objective.
The Verdict
The Grandville isn’t a particularly loud amp for a 30-watt 6L6 circuit, but clearly it’s designed with tone in mind rather than volume, and for many players that will be a good thing. For all the apparent design contradictions—it’s based on an amp more associated with gritty, gnarly tweed overdrive—the Grandville succeeds at achieving a clean but characterful personality. Some players might find it rather pricey for an amp that specializes more in uniform clean tones and headroom than the interesting colors that happen in between low and high gain levels on most amps. But what it does, it does well, and the excellent build quality does much to justify the boutique price.
The Newport, which shares more than a little lineage with its 6-string cousin, the Coronet, debuted in 1961. And the mashup of style elements and components will tell any vintage Epiphone spotter that this new China-built version is not an exact replica. But it manages to look completely classic and offers a much more varied selection of tones than you can get from many vintage basses. At just $449, the price is incredibly appealing, too.
Expect the Unexpected
Though the mahogany body and 30 1/2" short scale would be familiar to a Gibson EB-0 or original Epiphone Newport player, the new Newport’s got a medium-C profile neck and a smart 3-control array that includes master volume, tone, and a cool pickup/blend knob for the Sidewinder neck and TB Pro bridge pickups that’s a new addition to the mix. The linear arrangement of the knobs looks and feels sleek. All three controls have a slick brushed-metal-looking top and a very usable center notch that gives you extra, tangible reference for your control position.
The combination of the instrument’s compact size and scale length make the Newport very comfortable and made me eager to play it. As set up from the factory, I heard a bit of buzz that was fixed with a few small tweaks. The extra weight of the mahogany body may feel foreign to some players, too. In general, though, the Newport is a smooth performer.
Modern Modes
For all its early-1960s visual appeal, when I plugged the Newport in and set all the controls at full blast, a very non-vintage sound leapt from the instrument—bright, punchy tones that didn’t necessarily match the old-school look of the pickups producing them. Using both pickups together at maximum volume and tone is reminiscent of a Music Man StingRay with a bit of Gibson Thunderbird thrown in, which, in my experience, is not a common combination. Even without digging in very hard, the Epiphone produced upper-mid snarl that responded well when I added extra attitude to my picking approach.
”Using both pickups together at maximum volume and tone is reminiscent of a Music Man StingRay with a bit of Gibson Thunderbird thrown in, which, in my experience, is not a common combination.“
The discovery of that dynamic inspired me to use sounds I would not normally go for right away. Keen to check out the barky upper midrange with a pick, I set up a blend favoring the bridge pickup and rolled back the tone, which rewarded me with a very tight, mix-friendly sound that would undoubtedly work even better with flatwounds. This setting also brought out a more obvious helping of that Music Man humbucker-type tone—yet rolling back the tone control got me close to a snappy, late-’ 60s pick tone that would make Carol Kaye proud.
Just seeing the beefy Bass Sidewinder pickup, which is installed right at the base of the neck, inspired thoughts of classic, sub-drenched tones. But there’s a welcome tightness in the Sidewinder’s output without any help from the TB-Pro in the bridge. Reggae grooves stayed punchy, even with the tone way back, and that combination of definition and mellowness can be a rarity. By the way, the placement of the neck pickup also provides a great resting place for the thumb while exploring warmer sounds in a forward picking position.
The Verdict
The Newport’s breadth of tone options is an asset and superpower. It’s also a bit of a sneak attack because the bass looks so traditional. The Newport’s ability to sound tight, punchy, and modern when needed will surprise many players. I do wish the tone control could cut even more top end for dubbier tones. And while the Epiphone ships with roundwounds, it’s hard to not think about how good flatwounds might sound with that tone profile.
If you’re attracted to the vintage looks and expect vintage sounds, you might find many settings too modern and in your face. But if you’re looking for a lot of sounds … the Newport definitely delivers. It’s easy to get around the neck and it’s friendly to smaller hands. Given all that and the low price, the Newport is impressive as an entry-level bass. But this fun-to-play instrument has a lot to offer to professionals that like the assurance of having many cool, alternative tones close at hand.
Epiphone Newport Bass Demo | First Look
New Kid in Town, Familiar Face
A classic, straightforward SVT-style control layout makes up most of the RB-115’s top panel—a welcome and reassuring sight. It includes knobs for volume, bass, midrange, and treble. There are also push buttons for the ultra hi and ultra lo boost/cut functions that take the place of an SVT’s rocker switches. The 1/8" jacks for headphones and aux-in are located immediately adjacent to this section. On the opposite side of the panel are controls for the SGT overdrive. This section includes an on/off switch and rotary controls for grit and level. The Rocket RB-115 features two separate instrument inputs. One offers a -15db pad for active basses. The rear section of the RB-115 features a group of ¼" inputs: effects send/return, external speaker out, and a footswitch in to engage the SGT distortion circuit. A DI with a ground lift switch rounds out the features on the back panel. The checkered pattern vinyl and silver cloth grille, by the way, are nice nods to tradition and make the combo look a lot like a B-15 at a glance. At 34 pounds, the RB-115 is relatively light, too.
- Fingerstyle on neck pickup
- Spector P/J with pick
- Nordstrand Acinonyx with overdrive
Straight Into Battle
Immediately after unpacking the Rocket RB-115, I brought it to a low-volume, in-ear-monitored corporate gig, and a few of the other musicians offered compliments on the tone coming via the Ampeg’s DI to their in-ears. Because there’s no tweeter on the RB-115, (a tweeter is available in the RB-210), the speaker output is heavy on low end. Not surprisingly, the DI signal sounds bright by comparison. But in spite of that brightness, my bass never sounded too modern or harsh when listening to the DI signal only—even when playing slap-style with fresh strings.
While the combo might be visually reminiscent of a B-15, the preamp sounds more like a miniature version of a full SVT stack.
Looks Like One, Sounds Like the Other
Back at home, playing through the 15" speaker, the Ampeg sounded warm and massive in the low end with a slightly scooped midrange and very SVT-like high end that emphasizes warmth and personality rather than definition—in the very best way. This is the natural sound of this amp with all the controls at 12 o’clock. And while the combo might be visually reminiscent of a B-15, the preamp sounds more like a miniature version of a full SVT stack—particularly with the ’60s-style passive Lollar neck pickup in a Shabat Tiger 5 J-style bass.
As a longtime fan of the ultra lo boost on older SVT models, I longed to see how the RB-115 handled the switch to hard rock tones, so I grabbed a pick and a Spector Euro LX 4 with active EMG pickups. For starters, the -15db input did its job beautifully, even when I ran the Spector’s onboard EQ at full boost. Very impressive! To achieve more aggressive pick tone, I engaged the ultra hi and ultra lo switches and added midrange from the EQ section to offset the heavy scoop generated by the preset filters. No matter how aggressively I played, the Eminence driver delivered clear highs and lows without breaking a sweat. Recording this tone with a microphone in the center of the cone and no DI, the speaker sound felt better suited for aggressive pick playing than most VST amp simulators I use. Even the very clean, super-articulate EMG pickups responded like they were going through a tube circuit of some kind, because the amp naturally generates a slightly spongey compression—a quality I always appreciate when playing with a pick.
The SGT distortion circuit, which certainly isn’t a feature on a vintage Ampeg, felt less familiar. Playing just a few notes suggested a raw indie rock or garage tonality, so I switched to a Goya-style Nordstrand Acinonyx short scale with flatwounds. It turned out to be a great pairing. The SGT circuit offers midrange-heavy distortion with hints of bright fuzz at times. For players looking for a more scooped Darkglass-type distortion, the SGT might not be a suitable replacement. But it’s great for more old-school sounds.
The Verdict
With its accessible price, manageable size, easy-to-understand design, and modest but classic array of tones, the Ampeg Rocket RB-115 would be an excellent investment for a player looking for their first true professional combo, or somebody moving on to slightly larger shows and bigger sounds. This is also a combo that a seasoned professional could take to a gig with confidence that many essential, fundamental Ampeg tones are there and easy to access. The Ampeg Rocket RB-115 is a great example of how to properly balance tradition and a modern touch—a valuable skill for amp manufacturers and players alike.