Muzz

It's all a bit pointless from the perspective of backline, though - the 'large machinery' mentioned earlier in huge venues may well produce an awesome sound, but I'll bet a lot of money that the FOH engineer isn't going to be interested in someone's backline bass cab having a crack at sub bass. It'll sound rubbish in the Dog & Duck, that's for sure... I've always understood a 'floppy' B was the physical, tactile sensation of the guitar itself, removed from the actual reproduction via the cab...

This, in spades: one of the best bass cabs (actually I've had a couple) I've used in a live band was a Schroeder 1515L, which is a very small (for a 2x15"...in fact very small full stop) mid/low mid voiced cab - it sounded fairly unpleasant soloed, but live, it worked very well. With my Barefaced, I cut lots of very low frequencies and boost the mids/low mids, which works.

When you say 'picked it up'...?

We have 2 x 12" RCF tops (700w RMS) and a single 15" RCF (700w RMS) sub, and although we're only a trio, it's plenty for pubs and weddings/functions that aren't huuuuge (300+) halls, with everything going through it. We've never been asked to turn it up, anyway... I'd agree about EQing for punchy bass, though - it's a whole different world from voiced bass cabs...

In our function wedding trio it's FOH/IEMs. Brilliant for load ins and outs, some of which can make a pub fire escape look like a bowling green. For example, we played Crewe Hall on Satdy night, and while it's a magnificent Jacobean Mansion, when Sir Randolph Crewe was building it he gave very little thought to the problems of loading in and out to a gig in the Long Gallery on the 2nd floor. You could have offered me any backline bass rig in the world for the evening, and I'd still have told you to stuff it. Politely, of course.

Dunlop Nylon .88s I've been using them since forever (well, probably around 1979). I've been using my fingers longer, but mostly for picking my nose.

I used a LMIII and a 1515L for a good while, and that was a really good combination: I kept the 1515L for longer than the LMIII, and it did a great job with many different heads. Just a superbly practical cab in a band mix: not an attractive tone on its own, but it sat superbly well with the rest of the band. And for such a tiny cab, it could really project: we gigged up in Scotland in a club with a resident engineer, and at one point I saw him fiddling with a slider, looking puzzled. He came over and asked me if I could remember what channel he'd put me on, as he was trying to turn the bass down a bit. Then I reminded him he hadn't put me through the PA... I'm struggling to remember why I sold it now...

High praise indeed, from the forum's premier wordsmith. I am pink to the ears. It really was an excruciating afternoon though, and has left, as you'll have gathered, an indelible impression. I occasionally wonder where he is now, no doubt counting some hapless new recruits in with a 'one, two, seven, nine, er...four...'

I had a Magellan for a good while, and it was the best Class D head I've used (out of, IIRC, at least a dozen). The newer Class D amps have the newer power module which is a big improvement on the earlier generation.

Manchester...erm, mid-80s... Our drummer (in an originals-with-the-odd-cover 80s Rock Band) was about to become a Dad, and had reluctantly decided he'd have to shelve the rehearsals and gigging for a good while, so he'd stepped down, and we were on the urgent look-out for a replacement. As a thoroughly nice chap, and knowing we had gigs booked we needed to fulfil, he had even left his kit at the rehearsal rooms for new drummers to use, in part or whole, for the auditions. We organised a Sunday afternoon, with an hour slot for each drummer we'd contacted, and it started unremarkably, but then, second to last, was the standout. And not in a good way. He turned up in a six-wheel Transit, immediately earning about a thousand bonus points, but it became terribly clear that all this thing held was his kit...and there was little room for anything else. After refusing to use of any of the already-set-up kit, he began ferrying kit in. And more kit. And more kit. After ten minutes of watching boxes piling up, and with his end of the rehearsal room beginning to look like the dockside of the Queen Mary before a round the world jaunt, we volunteered to help, and then we all spent the next 45 minutes setting up a furry tigerskin-covered double-kick kit, with six raised toms, three floor toms, eight rototoms and so many cymbals we couldn't see him any more. As he tightened up the third china cymbal, I said "No gong, then?", and he froze, looking concerned. "I didn't bring it...should I have done?" I assured him it wouldn't count against him, and eventually, with about five minutes left of his allotted hour, he was ready. The singist had been forced to nip outside to intercept the last auditionee, apologise and ask him to bear with and go for a pint in the local for twenty minutes, and then our hero launched into the first intro, to a then-bog-standard Bon Jovi tune we'd decided would make a good starter audition song. Now, in 35 years of bands, I've never played in a freeform jazz ensemble, and I certainly hadn't back then, so I was unfamiliar with the five-count intro, and the thirteen-bar drum fill*, but this chap was clearly a master. We couldn't possibly fault him for brio, enthusiasm, and certainly energy...it was his counting which left quite a lot to be desired**. In addition, having taken so long to set up his mahoooosive kit, he was determined to hit every single drum and cymbal as often as he could, with scant regard for the song, or indeed the befuddlement he was creating amongst his prospective fellow band-members. I shall leave to your imagination the meal he made of the drawn-out ending, suffice to say Richard Wagner, had he been hanging around the rehearsal rooms (unlikely) and not dead for about a century (for once, fortunate), would probably have shaken his head and said something unflattering about bombast. In German. He finished by standing, his arms aloft and his eyes shining. Had that thing Usain Bolt does (not the running, the archery-arms thing) been around, he would have been doing that. We shuffled our feet, unable to maintain eye contact with him or each other, for fear of collapsing into hysterics. Eventually the singer thanked him for his time, and we all heaved-to loading his van again, while the singer went to buy the other auditionee another pint. He didn't get the job. * I'm probably doing an enormous disservice to freeform jazz ensembles around the globe here, so apologies if so, but I'm at a loss as to where else to place it musically. Perhaps amongst those gangs of glassy-eyed, saffron-robed enthusiasts one encounters on the city streets, each banging a drum in a random manner with a blissful expression and no regard for hard-pressed shoppers... ** I note that 'dyscalcula' is the numerical equivalent of dyselxia, and apparently A Real Medical Thing. It may have been that he was a secret sufferer; that would explain an awful lot. Edit: I've just spotted that I've spelt 'dyslexia' wrong in the footnote above. Oh, the irony...

Yup, it's a lovely bass

I keep buying Rays and then selling them because there's just something missing in the sound (for me, obv: YMMV, IMHO and all that), and then I see someone else playing one and I want another. I've had four now, but in the meantime I've kinda scratched the itch with a Nordy Bigman in my one-pickup Shuker (Ray pickup shape, in the right place) which can sound verrrry close to a Ray with the coils paralleled... They're a very good-looking bass: if I had the spare cash, I'd have another: I'd always have one, even if I didn't use it all that much.

To underline the point about cone size and sound not being equatable, I had a 2x15 Schroeder cab which sounded like very little else...other than another Schroeder cab. If you think a 15 sounds like a 15, you're mistaken, I'm afraid. If you think a 15 (or 2x15) in a particular size and shape of cab sounds like another brand of 15-loaded, similarly-sized/shaped cab, then you're much nearer.

Had a similar situation in a kinda part-time band I'm in with some pals; we rehearsed a set of songs which at least three of the four of us really liked, mostly 70 and early 80s rock stuff, but after two or three gigs it became very apparent that we were the people enjoying it the most in the pub, and though we were the band we'd have loved back in the day, it's no longer back in the day. A swift re-evaluation of the setlist happened, and some more, erm, imaginative thinking brought us to a much better setlist that we enjoy AND won't clear the place apart from the four old blokes at the bar who remember Pat Travers... Me, I'll play anything that people like: I'm playing music, and being paid for the privilege... Oh, and Sit Down is a floor-filler: who doesn't want to play to happy, punters singing their heads off?

Personally, my criteria for a good gig is how well we play and how good we sound. Anything else is mostly beyond our control: the venue, the crowd on that particular night, other distractions (anyone who's ever played a wedding when they open the buffet during your first set will know there's only ever one winner there) and it's really not worth worrying or getting upset about. We played a big wedding the night Anthony Joshua won the world title recently, and I'd spotted the potential issue beforehand, so we made sure we weren't playing while the fight was on. The main room didn't have a TV (obv), but there was a bar elsewhere in the venue that did, and for more than half an hour there wasn't a bloke in the main room. The bride wasn't amused... We could have huffed about lack of respect, but if even the bride's getting abandoned for half an hour... Now, a GREAT gig is one where we play well AND go down well...

I've played it for years, and other than the iconic intro riff, it's eminently bluffable around the roots and the feel. If the guitarist and drummer have it down they'll carry you all the way through. You can relax anyway: no-one'll be listening to anything you do (after the intro), they'll all be listening to the guitar solo(s)

I did the nostalgia thing and bought a 4001, like I'd saved up for and bought for my 18th, from GAK on t'internet...it went back the next day; it was rubbish. Beware rose-tinted specs... Then I did the sensible thing and contacted Jon Shuker, we exchanged many exciting emails, and I got exactly, exactly what I wanted made for me. I'd said to friends I didn't want any presents, but they could chuck something in a hat for me...turned out to be a fairly big hat, and the Shuker didn't cost me much at all...it is, you won't be surprised to hear, a keeper, for lots of reasons

Ringing ears are damaged ears - get some attenuators right now...

Sounds like overkill to me - what's the quality of the PA gear at the moment? I've found it's the same as backline: the better the quality, the less (and smaller) boxes needed. We have a sub and two 12 tops on stands (RCF ARTs), and we're seriously considering moving to just two ART15 tops and ditching the sub. We're a 3-piece (mostly, but we do go out as a four piece now and again), and we're all through the PA with in-ears; no backline. PA speakers at the back of the band sounds odd...

Smoothound for me: never a single dropout or blip, and verrrry small, too...you can bend the budget slightly and buy new, too...

Not exactly Behringer-levels of surprise, but an old-school/new school combination I have is fantastic: my Walkabout through my Barefaced Super Twin. The cab just delivers all the Walkabout sound, and on the upside, it goes very, very loud. I know Mesa watts vs other watts and all that, but it makes 300w more than enough to deal with a couple of 412 Marshall guitars and a shed-building drummer. And it's a verrry easy one-cab solution (40lbs and wheels? Oh, go on, then ), and with a £30 Maplin case, the amp's a breeze to carry, too. As far as backline's concerned, I'm pretty much done.

I had a MS-60B and found it a bit too, I dunno...one-button-y? The B3's a bit easier for me to work on a gig...and with a few more practical options, too... I have a very short attention span when it comes to the zillion possibilities of pedals

Yeah, I think I'd miss that simplicity and warmth for the one-tone Rawk gigs, and I do love the Walkabout/Super Twin combo (which is more than loud enough with the Super Twin for an old-school Rawk band with shed-building drummer and two half-stack 412/Marshall 100w guitarists) if I went to just the Zoom. The Zoom tones (and effects: some Octave up, some chorus, some distortion) are good enough for the sheer variety of tones I need for the in-ears band (Muse to Johnny Cash to Chic to Daft Punk to Irish to Nirvana and most points in between) but aren't quite the Walkabout...but I'm not going back to hauling it all round for the function gigs... I'd be interested to hear how you get on with DIY pedals, though...

The function/pub/all sorts band I gig with the most have a pair of RCF ART 12s, a single RCF 15 sub sited by the drummer, and in-ears. Presonus mixer, all Bluetooth/Wiffy. Guitarist has a Helix, I just use a Zoom B3, the kit is a very small one bristling with triggers and an overhead. Works a treat, sounds good for all sorts of music. We did step up from the RCF 10s, though, as we were pushing them juuuust a little on the volume front. We gigged in the New Forest not long ago and got all of us and all the gear (including lights, stands, three guitars, two basses, etc) in my car. OK, so it's a big Skoda Superb Estate, but even so... It's the way forward. I still have my Walkabout and BF Super Twin for Rawk gigs, tho...

An 800w ICE power stage, but no 2/2.67 ohm option...hints at possibly less quality in the power stage?