chris_b

I'm more interested in what appears to be his bass gear for that gig. It's listed as. . . . “The bass is a 1957 Precision. The pickup is from the Seymour Duncan custom shop. It’s a single coil, P-Bass stacked pickup model Rev1. The strings are DR Low Rider nickel 40, 60, 80, 100. The wireless units are Sennheiser EW500 G Series. The bass goes from the wireless receiver to a Pete Cornish switching rack and then is routed to an Avalon VT837 preamp which is sent to a Lab Gruppen PLM20000Q power amp. The speakers are from Clair Brothers Audio. There are two ML 18s with a single 18” speaker in each box and two 12 AM speaker cabinets on top. There is a 12” speaker and a 2” high-frequency horn in each cabinet.” Impressive rig. I'd like to hear it.

IMO flats work well or not depending on your style and the music you want to play. My blues and soul bands get the PJ5 with flats and the loud rocky bands get the Jazz with rounds. The cover bands could get either depending on how I feel on the day. Lozz, from seeing you play and some of your videos, my guess is that you are a rounds man to the core.

I have a Wolfcraft trolley, even for my lightweight cabs. I'm done carrying anything if I don't have to.

I briefly owned a D800. It was a good amp but I slightly preferred my Aguilar AG700. The D800+ seems to be a few steps on. I'd like to try one of those.

I never went to Eel Pie Island. Last buses running at around 11 pm made getting home pretty difficult, but I saw Fleetwood Mac, Cream, John Mayall, Jeff Beck Group, Hendrix etc etc many times at gigs including the Ricky Tick, The Starlight Ballroom, The Manor House, UFO, The Flamingo, Middle Earth and the Blue Moon in Hayes. Never played at any of those though. I did get to play the Marquee, Ealing Club, 100 Club, Cavern, Tiles, Reading Festival and both Whiskey A Go-Go's, but the one gig I wished I had played was Woodstock, and maybe also the Fillmore's, East and West.

If this is for silent practice, why have speakers at all? Checkout a Palmer Pocket Amp Bass.

I gig in several bands and most of them are a mixture. Some only play covers, but most play covers and originals.

Hold on. . . . an HPF isn't a prerequisite for a good bass sound, or even a good bass amp. There have been bass players using classic rigs and sounding great for the last 70 years and HPF's have only become a "thing" in the last 2 or 3. Choose the amp that sounds right.

This is Rock and Roll ffs! The only non negotiable is it has to sound good. If it does then the notes you used are irrelevant.

You want to play every song exactly the same as the original? You've got a better memory (and less imagination) than me.

That doesn't describe anything played by JJ Burnell, James Jamerson, Paul Jackson, Wilton Felder or Duck Dunn.

Body shape. You can put all sorts of pickups, numbers of strings etc on a P bass, but it's the body that defines the instrument. Put a P pickup on a Ric and it's not a P bass!!

I don't bother with the " chasing sound in my head" approach. IMO there are very few basses that don't have a good sound in them. Another band leader dropped in to our gig last night and was only talking about the energy in the bands playing and the way the bass and drums fitted together. Nothing about the sound at all. Fingers crossed, I might get some gigs out of it! As bassists we shouldn't sound bad, but it's how we play that impresses others.

I spent the first 25 years owning 1 bass, a Fender Precision, and buying another never occurred to me. For the last 25 years I've owned 2 basses. I have 3 amps and 5 cabs, but I really don't have a yearning to buy anymore basses. As long as I'm in more bands than I own basses I think I have the correct ratio.

He said to me "Nice bass. Is it a five string? Cool!"

Many years ago, our keyboard player did that in a VW Passat. Left the keyboards poking out, slammed the hatchback down, bang the whole window broke into glass confetti. Then our singer did the same thing with the PA in the back of his VW Golf. The look on his face said it all. I had to keep a straight face, but roared with laughter when I got in my car and drove away.

I hit the first note in the first number, and. . . . nothing!! Everything was on, the bass was plugged in. . . . panic!! With the band well into the first verse, I looked around the back. . . . I hadn't connected the cabs!!

I'm usually the one on the floor and the rest of the band is trying to cram onto the riser!!

My blue bass, a Lakland 55-94D. I played this bass for nearly 14 years. Sadly, it had to go when my back started playing up!

There are a lot of bass players on the local scene and the interesting thing is. . . . . . . the best players usually aren't the best band members. I see bass players out there who have studied and gained music degrees and who have more talent in their little finger than the rest of us put together, but when they are playing in local bands they often use technique rather than feel. They overplay and complicate their bass lines and don't always serve the song. They know so much and seem to want to use all of it in every song! That gives me hope that an old duffer like me will always get called for gigs, because I arrive knowing the set, lock with the drummer and don't get in anyone's way.

Al is asking, where do you stop? Good enough is when you can't be bothered to put in any more effort to be better than you are. When it takes a lot of extra effort to be just a little bit better, and no one else notices or cares, except you. I haven't reached my "Good enough" place yet, but it seems I've been in my "Am I bovvered" phase for a long time. I don't do solos.

IMO the best thing for raising a cab is another cab.

I play with keys on many gigs, different players in different bands, but they are all good at their job. Most of them are professional players and they know the score when playing in a band. I only have 1 problem with 1 player, I can't get him to stop playing boogie woogie bass lines on rock and roll songs. That's the problem when guys are used to playing on their own, some of them can't stop providing the bass lines. This is only one player, so I work around him. It's understandable you're having a problems with a new keys player. Your sound and his now have to co-exist and any "issues" will be highlighted. IMO sorry, but I wouldn't call a "warm mush" a good bass sound in any band. When combining with a full range instrument you should have a clean, well defined and tight sound. And you need a conversation with the keys player about boundaries.

If they are still working, a recone might be all you need.

Hey Lozz. It took a long time to get here, but you are right. I probably own the gear that will see me out.