bassbiscuits

Here's my full rig onstage at a big festival gig I did in the summer. Amp wise I've got two Markbass Littlemark heads ( a III and a II) each going into a 4-ohm cab, in this case one Schroeder 1210 and one Aguilar GS410. I used a boss chorus pedal turned off to split the signal into the two heads, as the pedal has one input and two outputs. Apart from one of the Littlemark heads it's all stuff from Basschat too! Bass wise, it's a 1996 USA precision, and a 1970 model of the same bass. My Sandberg didn't come to that gig. Usually I'll just take one of the heads, the smaller cab and one bass to a gig.

This'll be me then. Now, and back in the day c1992

My first gig was Dio on the Dream Evil tour in 1987, when I was 13, and Jimmy Bain played bass at that gig. He was part of a real pivotal moment for me, experiencing the excitement and volume of my first live gig, right at the start of my bass playing life. So thanks Jimmy, and take care.

I take pretty good care of my instruments. They're mostly second-hand and came with their own share of dings and dents anyway, so i'm not that stressed if they get one or two more. But i try to keep the working bits clean (the hardware, the fretboard etc). As previously said, they're working instruments not museum pieces, so the reason that some have been played and repaired and bashed about for years is because they're good, gigging instruments.

[quote name='Slipperydick' timestamp='1453131135' post='2956648'] Could be worse, seeing this put me off using boom stands on at punter level for good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSZHo_hh83g [/quote] What the hell happened to that mic there? Did it smack some teeth out or something? Looked fairly horrible!

Gutted. Life in the Fast Lane is epic. So many great songs. Farewell fella.

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]1. Si600, GK MB212 (house rig), Fender P V. 2. The_Ox (exams permitting) 3. tauzero, Sei Original fretless 5, Sei Flamboyant 6, Antoniotsai 5, maybe something else interesting, and possibly Mrs Zero. 4. Harryburke14 5. Len_derby 6. Andyjr1515 7. seashell, Fender P 8. Bottle. Ibanez bass, Line 6 Lowdown 110, amp rack and effects boards. 9. Annoying Twit. Who knows what I will bring. 10. GrammeFriday - Sandberg VM5, TC RH750, TC RS212, maybe also pedalboard 11. Jabba_the_Gut - A couple of homemade basses (if I finish them in time...again), Markbass head and TC RS112 cabs 12. Kev - Alpher Mako, ACG Finn, couple of pedals.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]13. Norris - Aria SB-1000, Squier P-bass Special, Fender Rumble v3 500 combo[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]14. Bassbiscuits - Fender 1970 P bass, Sandberg TT4, Markbass head and Schroeder 1210 cab[/font][/color]

Yep stick me down for this too. I can bring a Sandberg California TT4, a 1970 Precision and my usual Markbass head / Schroeder cab rig. had a brilliant time last year!

I once bought a cheap bass for rough n ready gigs instead of taking by more expensive ones. However, the rough and ready gigs usually turned out to be the best ones, and i regretted not having my regular bass there. So now I take a good bass, and just keep it safe (i.e. away from drunken punters, grasping hands or spilled pints)

I did a solo acoustic guitar gig (rare for me) for my mate's 30th birthday. It was full of people we both know but not in the context of music, so they were all a bit surprised to hear me playing and singing. Went down really well tho, and I could only get off stage at the end by telling people my parking was about to expire! Job done. A lot of very happy drunk people judging by the photos emerging on Facebook...

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1452872867' post='2954337'] Before I joined basschat I had lived for decades (yes decades-plural) with just 1 bass and 1 hard case......and for much of that time no amp (rehearsals used house gear/gigs hired backline) but basschat has induced me to spend hundreds if not thousands of pounds.....I now have 4 and a half basses, 2 guitars, 2 amp heads, 2 cabinets, several pedals, 2 pedal boards, 4 hard cases, 2 gig bags.....and I've still got GAS. basschat can damage your bank balance. [/quote] This^^^ It's all you guys' fault. I had simple tastes before I discovered you lot!

I've lost track of the number of times I've been smacked in the teeth by my own mic when some drunken tool stumbles into your mic stand while you're singing.

Yay I'm definitely an asshole according to this. Unless the journo is just a ranty idiot with a chip on his shoulder and we're all just happy normal bass playing folk...

I've had to push drunken punters off stage before now - wouldn't begrudge them a tambourine as long as they stay away from the stage itself. Had too many drunken tw*ts falling over pedals/mic stands spilling their drinks and hurting themselves. If people get up and dance on stage and they seem sober and harmless i'll usually gently 'guide' them back into the audience with my hand after about 30 seconds. If they do it repeatedly, are annoying or refuse to go, i'll push them off. Last time I did it the guy look round horrified but i smiled and gave him the thumbs up, so he felt like he'd had the bit of attention he wanted, and it worked - it sort of diffused the situation, he looked delighted with himself and threw himself back into dancing in the audience. Takes all sorts i guess. To come back to the original point, I agree you're probably better off not having to play there and put up with that nonsense again.

Well done! I sometimes get caught up in an urgent need to buy stuff, and when it subsides, i realise i could probably survive with half the amount of stuff I've got. Still, its fun buying and trying out new things. But fair play to you. I bet its quite liberating doing the opposite and scaling down to just the essentials.

I've got two Precisions, and i'd happily have more if i had the room/money. Best all round basses i've played. I've mentioned it before but whenever I take a different bass to a gig I find myself wishing I'd brought a precision. When I take a precision, I don't wish for anything else. It's exactly my sound.

The worst bass I ever played by a country mile was the first one I owned back in 1986 - short scale plywood bodied Satellite bass. Utter garbage - seriously I mean unplayable, with a neck like a banana, sky-high action and terrible thin clanky sound. Cost me £60 at the time and I soldiered on with it for a year. Rest assure that almost any modern instrument, however budget it is, is likely to be better than that.

Wow well done! I'm kind of in a similar situation - main gigging bass is a 1995 USA P, but my eye has been well and truly caught by a brand new USA J on a post Xmas special offer. Currently trying not to think about it, and utterly failing!

I played a 2013 USA jazz a few ago and it was intriguing. I'm a fender fan anyway - they just feel right to me - and also a P bass fan really, but this jazz had all the additional tonal variations but with a big dollop of Fendery character too. My wallet is currently deciding whether I need it or not....

Agree with all the above - the flip side is that when I've bought a bass that's right for me, I've known absolutely straight away and it's become my go to bass from the outset. I bought a secondhand precision about 11 years ago, which had been hanging in the shop for ages. I hadn't given it a second glance either until I eventually played it. It just sang - it was everything I was looking for, and was immediately comfortable and right. I gigged it the same week and it's still my main bass. Tho I'm slightly in the same boat as the OP with my Sandberg TT4 I bought in the summer. It's much lighter, better built and set up, and better condition than the Jazz bass it replaced, and I really bought it with a view to being something specials for me. But six months later, I'm still preferring the sound and feel of my precision, which just feels more right for me as a player. Splashed a lot of cash on it, and desperate to click with it rather than sell and lose money again... Hmm.

Hello all I gig about 30-40 times a year on average, mostly playing bass in a covers band playing fairly a diverse range of rock/pop stuff. I have three basses - two Fender Precisions and a Sandberg jazz bass. I find they cover everything I need. I very seldom take more than one bass to a gig, tho I probably should as back up! If I had to narrow it down to owning just one bass I'd say I could get away with just a Precision. In terms of how quickly they wear, I'd say surprisingly slowly. I do play hard and loud but I don't treat them badly. My main Precision is 20 years old and has done about 75% of my gigs over the last 10 years or so, but the thick paintwork etc is miraculously almost perfectly intact. I'd expect the Sandberg's thinner soft relic finish to age a bit quicker tho!

Great tune! It was years between me watching Weekend World as a kid and discovering Mountain a few years back.

Totally. Ive been playing a P bass of some sort for 20+ years, mostly because it was what was available secondhand at that time, and sounded good. In more recent times I've explored a range of different basses, including jazzes, T-bird alikes and various other bits in an attempt to broaden my experiences and scratch that itch of trying some new gear. However in the last few weeks I've dug out my main P bass (a USA 1995 one since you ask) for a couple of gigs and totally realised how much of my whole approach to playing depends on this instrument. It's everything I live for in bass. It's taken me a big circular journey to realise I had the right bass for me in my hands all along.