What amps did bassists use in the 70s?

[inthedoghouse]

I had a Wem ER100 head into a couple of Leech 4x12s for a few years as my first proper bass gear.  Before that I had an AC30 head (I could dry that I ever sold it but I didn't know better at the time) into a cab made by the local music shop with a 12 and 15 in it.  I think I eventually progressed to a Marshall head with a 4x12.

[Woody1957]

The one thing I remember back in the 70's when I started playing was everything was heavy and never really sounded clear or loud enough unless you were lucky enough to own Ampeg or Acoustic stuff. I played through various amps of the day including Selmer Treble/bass, Elgen (caught fire on stage lol) and Orange but bar far the worse by a country mile was the Carlsbro Stingray..anyone have experience of this one?

These days we are absolutely spoilt for choice with all kinds of really top line amps and cabs that sound great and weigh nothing. Mind you for anyone who started playing in the 70's its a godsend having this type of equipment.

[inthedoghouse]

29 minutes ago, Woody1957 said:

the worse by a country mile was the Carlsbro Stingray..anyone have experience of this one?

These days we are absolutely spoilt for choice with all kinds of really top line amps and cabs that sound great and weigh nothing. Mind you for anyone who started playing in the 70's its a godsend having this type of equipment.

Hands up here admitting to owning a Stingray - truly awful!  What's worse is that I traded a Marshall (I think) head in for it because .... I don't know why. 

I still use heavy cabs - I've never known anything else and don't mind the weight too much.

[Woody1957]

26 minutes ago, inthedoghouse said:

I still use heavy cabs - I've never known anything else and don't mind the weight too much.

Oh man,..........I've had two barefaced 1x12 cabs for a couple of years now and they are a revelation...lighter than a tray of coffee cups and sound great....try em..you'll never go back to having a couple of lumps in your throat that aren't your tonsils.......PS,  you're a brave man admitting to the stingray thing lol

Edited April 22, 2020 by Woody1957

[BigRedX]

Here's the weird thing about the Carlsbro Stingray bass amp. Back in the early 80s the one bass player who I really admired was in a local band and used an Aria SB1000 bass with a Carlsbro Stingray combo - the green version with the 15" speaker. He had by far the best bass sound of any band at the time, crystal clear and always up front in the mix and this was a six-piece band with two guitarists and a synth player so lots going on sonically. Maybe it's not the amp but the user who is at fault?

[inthedoghouse]

30 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Here's the weird thing about the Carlsbro Stingray bass amp. Back in the early 80s the one bass player who I really admired was in a local band and used an Aria SB1000 bass with a Carlsbro Stingray combo - the green version with the 15" speaker. He had by far the best bass sound of any band at the time, crystal clear and always up front in the mix and this was a six-piece band with two guitarists and a synth player so lots going on sonically. Maybe it's not the amp but the user who is at fault?

Maybe it's one of those things where it sounded less than great on stage but good out front?  I never heard what an audience heard but I never had any negative comments on my sound.  Mind you, it wasn't loud enough either in the days before everything went through the PA and all the backline was on 10.  Ahhhh, those were the days, ha ha 🙂

[inthedoghouse]

50 minutes ago, Woody1957 said:

Oh man,..........I've had two barefaced 1x12 cabs for a couple of years now and they are a revelation...lighter than a tray of coffee cups and sound great....try em..you'll never go back to having a couple of lumps in your throat that aren't your tonsils.......PS,  you're a brave man admitting to the stingray thing lol

I'm certainly in no way opposed to lightweight gear but I can't afford it and I'm happy with the sound of my old heavy Trace cabs.  Admission time - I bought a trolley though.

I remember back in the day a guitarist I played had a Simms Watts 4x12 that we nicknaked 'the concrete factory' because of its weight.  The old PA bass bins we had were lighter than that thing!

[4000]

22 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Here's the weird thing about the Carlsbro Stingray bass amp. Back in the early 80s the one bass player who I really admired was in a local band and used an Aria SB1000 bass with a Carlsbro Stingray combo - the green version with the 15" speaker. He had by far the best bass sound of any band at the time, crystal clear and always up front in the mix and this was a six-piece band with two guitarists and a synth player so lots going on sonically. Maybe it's not the amp but the user who is at fault?

Same with the HH VS bass combo, a local player had one and used a Ric through it and it sounded amazing. I used to aspire to a VS combo!
I started with a JHS 50w guitar combo with built in tremolo, because it was the only thing I could afford after buying my first bass, which was a brand new Ric. This was in 1980 so tail end of 70s gear. Most of the stuff around was HH or Carlsbro, or old valve amps. 
I traded the JHS for a used Custom Sound 1x15 combo with a graphic and distortion; the speaker part was like an old bass bin, it was a pretty big thing. It sounded pretty immense to be honest. At some point I bought an old Vox 2x15 and added that (blue speakers!). No idea what happened to that. Sold the CSound and bought a Fender Bassman 135 valve head and a brand new Ohm 4x10, which was awful. Sold the Ohm and bought 2 Eezee 1x15s, built buy a local shop; one sounded great and one didn’t! Gigged with our drummer’s Marshall Superbass (which was fab) and HH 2x15, which was pretty good. Then the whole lot bar the EeZees were stolen from the band van.   The next amp finally brought me up to date with a very early Trace GP11 AH150, which was great, one of the best amps I’ve ever had. Think I sold the EeZees and bought a very early Trace 4x10, which was brilliant. I did later get another a Marshall Superbass and 4x12. The head was fantastic (the cab wasn’t), but for some reason I sold the head for £150 in the mid/late 90s. Doh! I also had a rare Marshall 2001 375w all valve bass head briefly, but that was terrible. It blew up all the time and sounded pants. 

[Frank Blank]

22 hours ago, inthedoghouse said:

Admission time - I bought a trolley though.

I don’t think you need to admit to common sense, I use an FRFR cab ... that I move on a trolley.

[el borracho]

Not sure if I posted on this 8 years ago but here goes again if I did - probably with a variation on the facts as it was longer ago!

I used a 70s rig in the mid 90s for about 18 months. It was a 1971 Marshall Artiste 100W guitar head through an early 70s White 4x12 .

It was very loud and had a lot of low end. Actually there wasn't much else. I played a lot of gigs with it (we were playing about 100 a year at that point) and only stopped using it as my brother, who owned the head, wanted it back.

I replaced it with a Peavey MkVI & 1x15 which got some abuse but took it all.

Earlier I had a Stingray head in the mid 80s through the same White 4x12 and was quite happy with it.

Incredibly the speakers out of the White (25W Celestions) are still going strong to this day in a friend's Marshall 4x12!