Gear Review: Fender Rumble Version 3

Convenience has become an obstacle in my 108 Days of Practice adventure.  

A great sounding practice rig, and lovely space

My main practice rig is fairly large; it consists of my main amp, a powered monitor and a Mac laptop.  As such, it remains in my practice room.  It is true, I can move it from room to room, but the setup requires a lot of space-- and frankly, I hate moving the entire rig up and down stairs. 

Boss TU-88 is a great alternative
 for silent practice

My alternative practice rig is much easier to move around, but is limited to playing though headphones.  It consists of a Boss TU-88 Micro Monitor & Tuner, laptop, and headphones.  This is a great setup for playing though headphones, though it is limited to sitting in one spot and using something to keep the light-weight Boss unit in place; stand up to stretch and the unit goes with you...

So what to do?  Use the above excuses as reasons not to practice?  Admittedly, that is exactly what I have done over the last few weeks when skipping practice. Granted, I still got in some good practice sessions, but not quite every day as the project requires... more like every other third day.  

Sweetwater to the rescue!

While taking an honest look at my practice habits last week, I logged on to my favorite on-line retailer to explore items that would address my reasons for skipping practice, thereby enabling me to practice more often.  After an hour or so, I narrowed my search to something that is easy to carry from room to room, with a built in speaker, headphone jack, and auxiliary input; and one rather important feature-- it must be under $100.  All of which pointed to a small practice amp, though most were outside my price range, or starter amps that are just too cheap to bother with.

Then there was one!

First test-run of the amp with my G&L LB-100

Two actually; Fender's third generation Rumble bass amps in 15 and 25 watts.  The Rumble 25 was only about $20 more expensive than the 15, and considering the 25 was still within my budget I placed my order.  My hope was this little practice amp would be light enough to easily move around the house, heavy enough to remain in place when I want to stand while practicing, handle input from my laptop, or iPhone, and sound good though the speaker or headphones.  Photos of the amp suggest that leaving it in our living room would also be a welcome option as it is very easy on the eyes.  Reviews on-line were overwhelmingly positive, so I had high hopes for this little Chinese made amp.  Five days later it arrived.

Sound Test

As soon as the amp arrived I grabbed my favorite bass and plugged in; mainly to make sure nothing was damaged from shipping.  At first I intended to spend a few minutes going through the controls just to make sure everything was good.  Surprised at how good this little amp sounded, I ended up spending the next two hours playing though this little box of tone.  Part of the initial getting acquainted period was fiddling with the knobs and the two switches.  

Everything I require in a practice amp

Controls are simple: volume, bass, mid, treble.  As is my starting point, I ended up leaving all at their center detent except the volume, which I set to roughly 25%.  The tone is classic Fender, and loud enough to fill our living room.  The two switches (buttons, to be precise)  are "overdrive," and "contour."  The first does what one would expect, which never really appealed to me.  "Contour" seems to scoop out the midrange; again, a feature that I could happily do without. 

Metronome, iPod, headphones, and a great sounding speaker!

Surprisingly, the Rumble's eight-inch speaker sounds much bigger than it is.  Turn the volume up to half and the house is rocking!  This would be a wonderful amp for acoustic jams-- it is very light-weight (about 20 pounds), sounds terrific and can really wail.  This is primarily a practice amp though, and as such it really shines.  The aux input allows for playing along with an iPod, or a metronome as I have been doing a lot lately.  Unlike some practice amps that have trouble reproducing songs from an iPod, this amp handles it with ease.  Add my bass to the mix, and both sounds come out wonderful-- exactly what I was looking for in a practice tool.

Sounds just as good as it looks!

Aesthetically it is a vintage, simple look that either appeals to you or not.  Personally I really like it; more importantly so does my wife, which is a real blessing!   Because she likes it, the amp is welcome to reside in our living room, making it easy for me to plug in without the bother of moving around a lot of gear.  

Since its arrival last week, I have played the heck out of the Rumble.  Will this little wonder of an amp encourage me to practice more often? We will have to wait and see.  In the meantime...

...stay tuned & in tune!