Markbass Minimark

It seems I'm not alone either, as bass backline manufacturers have cottoned on by introducing a variety of compact and lightweight products that, while performing far beyond the capabilities of cheap and cheerful 20W practice combos, are not a great deal heavier or bigger.

While small, yet capable, bass combos are not an entirely new phenomenon (who remembers the Polytone Mini-Brute much loved by upright bass players in the '70s and '80s?), there are a couple of relatively recent technologies that have made them more practical. First, there is the use of rare-earth permanent magnets in speakers. Rare-earth magnetic materials, of which neodymium iron boron is the most commonly used, are far lighter and more powerfully magnetic than traditional sintered ferromagnetics. Secondly, the development of switched-mode power supplies and thermally efficient 'switching' amplifiers has offered the potential to reduce the weight of powerful amplifiers enormously, by respectively removing the need for heavy mains transformers and heat sinks.

The Minimark comprises a small and slim, corner-protected, black 'carpet' covered, wood composite cabinet. Only the slim, easy to carry shape and the decidedly gaudy and oversized canary yellow logo draw attention to the unit as something slightly out of the ordinary.

The combo incorporates two six-inch diameter paper-cone bass drivers — with a joint cone area roughly equivalent to a single nine-inch driver — stacked one above the other. An extremely sturdy metal grille protects the drivers, and a letterbox-shaped reflex port exits at the back of the cabinet. Between and to one side of the bass drivers is a small horn-loaded piezo-electric tweeter.

A carrying handle is ideally placed on top of the cabinet, and behind the handle is the upward-facing input and control panel. The Minimark weighs in at a very easy 9.4kg (much less than half the weight of my usual small combo), and the fact that its cabinet is constructed conventionally from 15mm MDF panels gives you some idea how little the electronics and speakers must weigh.

The Minimark is a single-input amplifier with just one gain control and a couple of tonal adjustment controls. The tone controls are labelled 'VLE' and 'VPF'. VLE stands for 'Vintage Loudspeaker Emulator' and VPF for 'Variable Pre-shape Filter'. Both graduate clockwise from 'Off' to 'Max'.

The VLE control is, in reality, a specifically voiced high-frequency shelf filter that increasingly attenuates frequencies above 200Hz. This control, it is argued, enables the Minimark to emulate the tonal characteristics of vintage loudspeakers. I couldn't really say if it's a successful emulation (having no vintage bass combos around to compare), but I did find the VLE control to be a useful mid to high frequency attenuator.

Engaging the VPF modifies the tonal characteristics of the combo by increasingly boosting both extreme bass and high treble, while at the same time inserting a notch filter centred at 380Hz. Setting the VPF at around midway gives the combo a nicely rounded, bright, yet warm, thud that's ideal for slap with an electric bass, and if combined with a touch of the VLE control, just about perfect to help my Steinberger electric upright sound more like the genuine article amplified.

In contrast to simple bass, mid and treble controls on a combo, which have always seemed to me somewhat redundant when the instrument itself can usually define the basic tone, I like this approach to tonal voicing. I found using the VLE and VPF genuinely intuitive and creatively useful.

Also to be found on the Minimark control panel are a fixed level 3.5mm jack input (which enables external signals to be mixed with the main input), a headphone output socket, and a power switch and blue LED power indicator. Around the back of the combo there is a mains input socket, a balanced (post-EQ) line output, a ground lift switch, an extension speaker socket and a switch that turns the speaker off. The latter could come in useful in a recording situation where the tonal control offered by the Minimark is desired, but its acoustic output is not — in fact, I used this very feature while recording with the Minimark. Finally, on the back panel is a very quiet-running (practically silent) fan.

It's not just the surprising low-frequency power that seduces with the Minimark, however; it has an inherently warm tonality that, when combined with the VLE and VPL controls, enables a good sound to be found very quickly with a wide variety of instruments. I used the aforementioned Steinberger EUB, a Wal Fretless Custom, a fretted Veillette Single Cut Retro and a fretless Veillette MK IV five-string. Four basses could hardly offer more variety, and yet I had each one sounding spot on almost immediately.

I drove to the gig, parked and walked a couple of hundred yards to the venue, carrying both instruments and the combo at the same time — again, previously unheard of. At the soundcheck, I sat the Minimark on top of another big bass combo that was sitting on the stage, plugged in and started playing. The guy doing the sound initially couldn't find any signal on the desk. He thought I was playing through the big combo! Game, set and match to Minimark. The gig went well and the Minimark performed faultlessly. I had the guitarist carry it back to the car, though — some things never change!  0