Adrenochrome

Ha ha, I played a gig at Certificate 18 in York in similar circumstances and the promised bass rig there turned into a tiny practice combo. Sounded fine out front funnily enough...

Yes, lots of bands do it (including mine) - it makes the on stage sound messy and indistinct. In our band the backline level has increased as the drummer gets louder through playing and gigging more often. We've got a massive PA with everything miked so we have no need to be loud. Even drummers with reasonable dynamics often have a 'normal' level which is too loud.

As above, pick the one that you like the look of. 'Tonewoods' for solid bodied electric basses are a myth.

Good advice, thanks. I'm sure the Compact would be ideal based on the specs, just quite a bit above my budget at the moment.

Like many of you I'm thinking about attempting to downsize my rig without losing out soundwise. I play in a rock-metal covers band with [b][i]substantial [/i][/b]PA support at all gigs and my bass rig is only used for onstage monitoring. I also prefer a bright sound onstage to loads of boominess. My current extension/spare/practice cab is an Ashdown MAG 210 - occasionally gets used on it's own in tiny pubs. It seems like the blueline speakers in this cab take a lot of driving, and don't sound that great. I like the cab itself, so would it make sense to upgrade to much better speakers (eg Celestion 300s neos), and possibly even use this as my main cab? Thoughts? (BTW my current main cab is an ancient Peavey black widow 1x15 that sounds the t1ts, IMO but is quite big and not easy to load into a lot of the pubs we play)

I bought a footswitch from Tom. Absolutely top class transaction. Cheers fella!

Well none if that causes me to 'hate' but one thing that causes mild annoyance when setting up: "Do you really need all that gear?" ...no, we don't really need it. We transport it all at great cost (instead of sharing one vehicle) just for the hell of it. And then we drag it in through these narrow doorways, scraping the skin from our knuckles, having to force our way past ignorant chain-smokers who won't move from the entrance halls of these dives because we've nowt better to do...

A small point is that for a full pub gig - the gig has got longer! I started off doing 2 x 45 min sets with a couple of encores, now 2 x 1hr with 3-4 encores is more common.

[quote name='tony_m' post='1371538' date='Sep 13 2011, 09:28 AM']Summat like this? [url="http://nwb.co/"]Northwest Bands[/url][/quote] ^ That's your best bet Tony. I've been a member on their for years from when we used to gig all across the north regularly. Sadly now not economically viable for a normal pub gig.

[quote name='bassman7755' post='1370180' date='Sep 12 2011, 10:38 AM']Or just switching to a 5 stringer to save all the messing about [/quote] This can be a pain when playing stuff with a pedalled C or C# in the bassline like SOAD or QOTSA riffs. I use a 4-string strung with 50-110 on.

Yes, we do it occasionally when limited space demands it. It provides passable onstage sound, and obviously our front of house sound isn't affected.

*EDIT* This post doesn't make sense now, as I hadn't seen the above post!

Had similar problems with guitarists running Line6 amps from a generator that wasn't producing enough voltage at a bike rally. I don't know if the amps had class D power supplies but they switched off almost immediately, and worked fine from mains electric.

The high end gear makes little difference to the band sound for an average gig. Also a lot of it doesn't sound much better than my budget gear (in a band context) - in my humble opinion of course. Why risk getting a 3K bass dinged in a rowdy pub gig?

Welcome Olivier, I see you mentioned Steve Albini - I'm a fan of Big Black myself. For 35" scale, active pre-amp, string through body and lots of sustain you could use something like this: [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=145330"]Cirrus[/url] (I use a bass with the same pickups and pre-amp and I get a fairly aggressive sound with using minimal drive) Jon

[quote name='MatthewKeys' post='1319038' date='Jul 28 2011, 09:43 AM'][url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=147793&hl=2x10"]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=147793&hl=2x10[/url] Is this any good? [/quote] It should do the job if you don't max your volume knob.

I got my Ashdown MAG 2x10 for about £100 new. It's pretty average sounding to be honest but it's also a useful little cab for tiny pub gigs (stood on end as the 'feet' wrap right around). I'm no expert but I think the cabinet itself seems really nice and it's the blue drivers that seem to let it down. BTW - I always have big PA support so this cab is only ever an extrension cab or purely for onstage monitoring.

...and I've got a basic Aria PJ fretless you could borrow if that'd help you get through a gig.

That's a bummer. I'd love to help if possible but I can't really read dots, nor do I play double-bass, and I'm gigging Friday. I could blag my way through a pop/rock gig if that was any use. Why not pm 'Jonny-lad' as he's a proper musician and I assume he can read! Jon

Yep. In my originals bands I moved from: Garage Rock (Stooges/MC5 style) evolved into Hard Rock Punk'n'Roll (Misfits/Ramones style) Metal Core In covers I've done everything from light pop to modern metal (Alice In Chains, System Of A Down) but no real direction to that, just trying different things. And I'll play owt if I'm being paid to dep!

Good work fella! Really good presentation for a pub gig as well.