SimonK

If you are on a budget I would consider how much weight you are happy to deal with. If you generally have good transport options you can get some absolutely killer second hand rigs that will be more than loud enough in a band. I'm a big fan of the older Trace Elliot stuff, which yes is heavy, but it sounds great and is loud. The saying used to be that there are Watts, and there are Trace Elliot Watts, although this reflects Trace reporting continuous rather than peak power. Just looking on ebay at the moment there is a 300W GP12 1210 for £300 which isn't a bad price and will be louder than most drummers. If you have £600 (although I would try to knock it down a bit) there is a AH250 stack although I used to have a near identical amp and got rid of it due to weight (but the built in black light is very cool!). The other thing to remember is that speaker area makes a big difference. For instance a 4x10 cab gives you an area of 315ish square inches while a 1x15 only 176, so for the same Wattage 4x10 is much louder.

I agree if you have good control over the dynamics of your playing and don't mind the occasional bum note really sticking out: that moment where you see someone in the front row cringe because you decide to randomly pop your G string and it comes through somewhat louder than you intended!

The best reason for getting a compressor is to stop the sound engineer sticking their own on your channel and squishing you out of existence. Generally if you show them you have one, and they are not getting crazy peaks at the board, they will leave you alone. I use the Keeley compressor pro set to "auto on" so I don't have to worry about attack or release, but can monitor the peaks on the LED strip. Ratio less than 4:1 and both threshold & gain according to volume and peaks, and then no need to touch it further!

A friend of mine at University was wooing a classical pianist. As he was also a pianist but couldn't read music he asked her for "lessons", but his game was up when she caught him looking out of the window while playing, but remembering where to turn the page! Turns out he has a phenomenal ear and doesn't really need theory because his head/mind/ear can do it for him. Irritatingly he switched from keys to bass in a funk band on the spur of the moment having never really played bass before... Proved to me that natural ability and a good ear have a big part, if not the main part, to play. Theory can make up for not having the natural ability (as in my case) but irritatingly no amount of practice or theory can make up for a good ear. That's why playing with other people, and learning to hear how music works, is so important.

I knew I would like this community, and hopefully it is a bit more "English" than all the Americans on Talkbass who can't help mixing politics into their discussions (and for the record I only want to talk about music here - I can get the politics/theology elsewhere!). Here was this week's rather abnormal setup for me. Next week will be back to bass duties on the rather lovely Trace in the background (I can tell you the story of how I rescued it from certain death at another time!):

Hi all - just joined this forum as for some reason I had been on the US centred talkbass for years without twigging there was a UK one! However, the US one does have tons of church musicians to chat to, which is one of my main musical outlets at the moment. Last two weeks we've been without a drummer so somehow they convinced me to play Cajon instead, which this morning was with just keys plus a bunch of singers. Worked fine during the four or five songs until they threw in the classic Welsh "Guide me o thou great redeemer" at the end of the service when our keyboard player suddenly went all organist on me. There were so many pauses between, and even within, verses that after one or two practices before the service I just gave up on this one and joined the congregation! Next week back to full band and playing bass again!

Me too - 1997 & 1998 I played full time in a function band touring Europe. Thing is we were in a a couple vans, carried our own PA, and although it was fun for a bit, as an 18 & 19 year old I remember looking at one guy who was in his 30s and had been doing it for ten plus years, and while he was an excellent musician, I didn't want to be him ten years later. So I went to University, and have played music pretty much ever since, but also with a job that pays! I suppose if we had been doing bigger gigs with someone else carrying things and running the PA it may have been different, but very very few people get gigs like that.

Reveals my insecurity about playing fretless - allows me to keep tuners on permanently just to reassure myself from time to time, but can still mute as needed!

We used to use an Alesis SR-16 live back around 2000 ish. Ever since I've been lucky enough to be in bands with drummers, although ironically played Cajon twice myself over the last couple weeks due to a drummer disappearing on half term holiday - first time in years and interesting to see how my bass mind interpretes bashing something in time! Recently I've been using one of these for practice, which has been great. I've been programming a chord sequence in with the guitar, then taking out the bass and voila. Probably my favourite practice tool at the moment: https://digitech.com/dp/trio-plus/

Ooh I like this game. My rack stays at home as class D amps and pedals are so much easier to gig with, but here's mine with one side of the compressor & effects processor handling guitar (from the Marshall) and the other side bass currently from the Ashdown preamp but alternatively the Genz. Then everything back into the Ashdown effects return and out to whichever cab takes my fancy... I like nothing better than fiddling with a rack at home, in private...

"keep your passion as your hobby but not your career because it will be more satisfying" https://theconversation.com/why-putting-your-artistic-calling-on-hold-might-not-always-be-such-a-bad-idea-192203

The nice thing with the bass is it has a fairly shallow initial learning curve - I picked one up for the first time ever in a band that had two guitarists but no bass player, started with roots & octaves, then discovered fifths, and then how to walk up a scale. But by far the most important part is locking in with a drummer, a communication thing you can't really practice on your own. Of course the fun thing is that although the initial curve is shallow, it all gets a lot steeper after that even if you only stick to one string...

Thanks! I've always thought acoustic guitar works well through most bass gear, certainly better than it does through electric guitar pedals etc. Most of the time, however, my acoustic guitar is going to FOH through the DI box, and occasionally I use the bass amp to monitor, but only if it is there already due to me playing bass on other songs. Also, despite posting the picture of "a" pedal board above, my rig changes like the wind and last night I used the below in a little three-piece acoustic get together (playing guitar & even a bit of Cajon at one point). I switched the bass chorus pedal into this board to replace a Boss CH-1 as I prefer the mxr's sound, and also like the way you can control which frequencies it adds the chorus effect to:

There's a huge difference between what sounds great on it's own and what works in the mix. My current approach is to dial in just enough crunch using the drive control on the Aguilar to be aware of in isolation. Then I give the desk the "post" signal on the DI, which some sound engineers don't like - I'm always in two minds as one part of me thinks that the preamp is only really there to shape the tone coming out of the cabs so yes the desk should get a "clean" signal, but then again the Agi preamp sounds so good with a touch of drive! I should say I also have an EHX Big Muff for proper hit the dirt moments.

That's interesting to hear - I was never too impressed by their stock or prices, but used to drop by fairly frequently for strings, cables, stands and also to check out what second hand gear they had in as sometimes gems could turn up. The staff were actually quite friendly, but yes almost aways despairing about the management. It does seem that as a music retailer you now have to go big online as Andertons have done, or maybe try to be more niche. I like the idea of getting a physical premise somewhere and then running a commission business model selling second hand gear sourced from local musicians - there's enough of us around wanting to get rid of stuff. Could probably also branch out into rentals and repairs...

Here's mine:

I was in the Portsmouth PMT just before Christmas. The stock was dwindling and the only basses that caught my interest were a pair of sunburst American Standards - both J & P, albeit their mid priced Ibanez range was pretty good. Then this morning someone told me the shop closed down at Christmas - and checking the website this seems it may well be the case! I wonder if the whole chain is going bust?

Hi all, Decided to join this forum as have been a long time member over on talkbass, but then after some struggles moving on second hand gear as most of their members are US based, someone asked why I'm not on the UK forum! Current setup: Stingray Fretted/Fretless or Acoustic guitar into: (NB top row for guitar, bottom row bass, switching between chorus, envelope & octave depending on mood (but seldom use any of them!): and then into: