How did you get to your back line?

[Chewie]

Hello guys and girls.....

I'm feeling the love for my first proper amp and cabinet set up.
It's Genz Benz. Shuttle 6.2 with a 15 and a 210 Focus cab........

I always had combos by Fender and Line 6 and one day I woke up, drove to Bass Direct, ordered a Sandberg California and bought a Genz Benz set up there.

I'm loving this website. You guys have taught me so much from reading your forums and I was wondering how you arrived at your amplification now? What did you start with? Was it sh*te? What steered you? The style of bass you play? Have you stayed with a particular amp and bought better cabs? Or was it the other way round? Were you looking for a particular sound or did you stumble across something beautiful? Can you describe your back line sound?

Warp speed and regards,

Chewie

[JTUK]

Years and years of trying stuff and refining things.

Of course, my early stuff was c@rp, but I'm pretty happy where I am now and still things, like style and technique, constantly change.
The sound tends to change/evolve/refine depending on what I'm listening to.

Onwards and onwards.

[Lozz196]

A very long trip is all I can say. Hopefully I`ve got to the end of it, as was pretty much there, did a swap of gear and found that I preferred the previous. So my rig now consists of Fender Precision strung with Rotosound Steel Rounds, into a Sansamp Bass Driver, into an Aguilar Tonehammer Preamp Pedal, into an Aguilar AG500, into a Barefaced Big Twin 2. This way I can DI to FOH knowing that what I hear is what they`ll get too, plus I can use the pedals with provided rigs.

Its funny but every time I go for the more traditional sounding gear - which is what I`ve preferred throughout my playing history - I realise that for the band I`m in I need a much clearer/cleaner set-up, bizarrely so that the gain/drive I use comes across properly. The more vintagey/traditionally voiced gear seems to colour the sound too much.

The only thing that`s steered me other than trying gear out myself was when we recorded our second album. The producer put a Sansamp in the line and although up to that point I hadn`t been using one i thought seeing as we went to him specifically for his sound/production I`d go with it - and what a good move that was. Went straight out and bought one after that.

Soundwise, well I suppose it`s somewhere between JJ Burnell, Bruce Foxton & Duff McKagan. Gainy, driven, with a lot of top-end twang on it so that when the guitar solos the backside of the song doesn`t drop out.

[xgsjx]

I walk into the rehearsal room & plug into whatever is there.

[ahpook]

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1477854805' post='3164878']
I walk into the rehearsal room & plug into whatever is there.
[/quote]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYppAs6ZdI

Edited October 30, 2016 by ahpook

[bigjohn]

Hey Chewie

Are you a Liverpool fan?

[Cat Burrito]

I started with a 2nd hand Peavey combo that stuck with me for years and years. I always dreamt of Ampeg because all the players I liked at the time advertised them in the magazines. I moved onto Ampeg a few years back as I was working so could afford it. I did downsize to an Orange micro rig for a while before returning to Ampeg with a vengeance because I missed it. I do wonder how long it'll last as it is a really heavy rig and I am not getting younger BUT it just sounds fantastic.

[Painy]

When I started out it was literally a case of buying whichever amp had the highest wattage that I could financially afford in an effort to simply be heard over the rest of the band.
So my gear progressed in power (but by no means in quality) from 30W to 60W to 75W to 100W until I got a 150W Trace Elliot 1x15 combo which was the first amp I owned that I actually liked the sound of.
After that I reached the stage where my band was earning me enough money to go out and buy pretty much whatever rig I wanted so I stuck with Trace Elliot and bought an AH400SMX head with 4x10 and 1x15 cabs.
When the head eventually started to get a bit unreliable I replaced it with what I thought was the logical alternative (TE having folded at that point) and bought an Ashdown Evo 500 head. Unfortunately I absolutely hated it. Just couldn't get it to sound any good for me no matter what I did with it so traded my whole rig in against a Line6 Bass Pod XT Pro, a QSC 1450c power amp and Hartke 4x10 and 1x15 XL cabs.
Enjoyed gigging that set up for a good while until our current singer joined the band and mentioned his friend was selling his Ampeg B500 2x10 combo for a stupidly cheap price. Bought that and picked up an Ampeg 1x15 classic cab to go with it. Finally had a rig that I loved as much as my big old Trace set up and gigged that for a few years until the amp in the combo finally gave up the ghost. Unfortunately by then having children had drained my financial resources so I had to once again look to the cheapest solution and bought the Behringer copy of the Ampeg head that my combo had been based on, to run the speakers I already had (I removed the amp from the combo to use as a cab).
Sadly it wasn't loud enough, didn't sound much good either and my back was starting to complain about the weight of it all but it was all I could afford at the time.
Shortly afterwards though my wonderful wife inherited some money and at the start of the year was generous enough to buy me my current Aguilar rig (AG500 into 2 DB112 cabs). I struggled for a good while to get it to sound how I wanted as I prefer a very bright, aggressive tone and I was finding it a bit polite. A couple of weeks ago though I bought an MXR M80 Bass DI+ and a Sterling SUB Ray 5 string and all of a sudden it's all fallen into place.
The sound I had at last night's gig was quite possibly the clearest I've ever heard my bass on stage in over 21 years of gigging and by all accounts it sounded great out front too so right now I'm a very happy bunny. Can't wait for my next gig now to hear it again (got next weekend off though which is always the way).
In the words of Vinnie Jones, "It's been emotional".

[thebrig]

Started off with a Carlsbro Stingray 100w combo which I bought off a mate for £50, and used it for my first ever gig, but I realised that apart from sounding awful, I couldn't be heard either, so that went on eBay.
I then got an [font="Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif"][color="#444444"][size=4]Ashdown ABM 500 EVO II with 1x15 and 2x10 cabs, much more power but it didn't do my back any good, but then I started reading about all the new fangled-tangled new lightweight stuff that was becoming available, so the Ashdown rig ended up on eBay as well and in came a Genz Benz Shuttle 6 with two 2x10 Genz Benz Shuttle cabs which really pleased my back.[/size][/color][/font]
[font="Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif"][color="#444444"][size=4]After a while I thought it was a bit too clean sounding, so traded the head in for a[/size][/color][/font][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4] Genz Benz Streamliner, but this time I found it a bit woolly sounding and realised that I actually prefer the cleaner sound of the Shuttle.[/size][/font][/color]
[color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]So the Streamliner went and this time in came a [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]Genz Benz Shuttle 9.2 and I've never looked back, it's very versatile and cuts through the mix easily, plenty of power and most importantly, it is easy to carry around, the head [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]with all the cables [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]goes in a laptop case which is slung over my shoulder, [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]my bass goes over the other shoulder, [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]and its one cab in each hand.[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4] [/size][/font][/color][color=#444444][font=Ubuntu, arial, sans-serif][size=4]Unfortunately, my back is finally caving in, so I can't manage so well these days. [/size][/font][/color]

[KevB]

Not been regularly gigging as long as some here despite my ago so I'm pretty much still with my original proper set up of TE combo with or without extension cab. Refinements : switching from TE combo which couldnt take an ext cab to basically the same one but which did (ie operates at 4ohm) when some bigger pub gigs came in, then later switching from a 4x10 ext cab to a 2x10 ext cab (saves car space and the surgical truss). Never expected the combo to be still performing so well by now, thought it would have gone pop before now. To some extent I've been influenced by playing lots of other rigs at jam nights and in rehearsal rooms to know what I don't want and it's not all been tat. Played through Markbass, Ampegs, Mesa and Genz Benz among others but I'm still carrying old faithful around and still getting some good feedback on my bass sound. But then I'm not doing jazz and funk gigs so do I need anything too sophisticated?

Edited October 30, 2016 by KevB

[NancyJohnson]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1477852389' post='3164848']
Years and years of trying stuff and refining things.
[/quote]

This.

You read, you listen, you try, you buy, you sell on. And repeat. I guess you really need to be happy with what you're plugging into it it first.

[CamdenRob]

My setup is driven entirely by what I can get to gigs on the tube / bus, so essentially the smallest/lightest possible gigable rig.

I've arrived at a pair of Barefaced One10s and an Epifani Piccollo (16kg in total) and I think that's about as small as I can go whilst still managing to sound like I'm playing a bass. The whole lot fits on a trolley and getting it to gigs is a breeze

I did have Glockenklang class D before the Eipfani which to be honest sounded miles better, but it was more than twice the weight ... It's all about convenience for me.

[ead]

In my case pretty quickly. First attempt was a pre-loved Hartke 500W head and 2x15 cab. All very heavy and not that great for what I was playing. This was followed by an Ashdown set up with a 1x15 and 2x10; and then I discovered Barefaced cabs. Had my Compact and Midget (Gen 2) for around 6 years I think now, possibly longer. I started off powering them with an GK MB500 head, but after a few years discovered the GB Streamliner which is now my gigging head with an Ampeg Portaflex backup/for variety.

[gafbass02]

I wrote this ages ago, but I'm still with the same rig
http://basschat.co.uk/topic/165022-new-amp-momark-plus-amp-historyreviewpics-lots-of-pics/

[Dad3353]

In the late '60s, the only real options for cash-strapped apprentices was home-built trannie amps (100w..! 'Gulp'...) or the Linear Concord, a 30w valve amp. Home-made cabs, with 4 x 30w Fane speakers. Happy daze...
I started drumming, but had the use of a Fender Bassman 100, and a Hiwatt 200w PA, so lacked for nothing for bass or guitar.
I took up bass (and guitar...) again later on, using an excellent Fender Bassman 50w into a 2 x 15 cab. When our youngest took over the bass, we added a Hartke 3500 and an Ampeg 4 x 10 cab, and have added, since, a Hiwatt PA 200w PA head and an HH 2 x 15 horn-loaded cab. Heavy..? Yes, indeed. Old school..? Yes, indeed. Satisfactory..? Yes, indeed; we're not looking to change anything, as it does exactly what we want.

[Japhet]

Evolutionary process originally constrained by finance but later powered by GAS.

[Marc S]

As has already been said, trying out new or different (often other peoples') gear.
Also, my tastes have changed as well, and almost come around full circle - I'm back playing Fender basses now; a Jazz and a Precision (P/J). But my amp rig is flexible and I "tweak" it to suit the band I'm playing with and the venue.

I also play Double Bass - though these days I don't tend to double up (i.e. swap between DB and BG during a gig)
But my main drive to change gear has been to create a flexible rig, with a choice of amp head, a choice of a few different cabs,
and most of all, the need to have as lightweight and portable a rig as possible

Heads include TC Electronic 550W. Orange Terror 500
Speakers incl Markbass Traveler 102 cab, and two Epifani UL110's

Edited October 31, 2016 by Marc S

[mcnach]

... a LOT of trial and error, and a LOT of £££ thrown in. I didn't have to spend as much cash as I have, but I could afford it at the time so why not. It's been a trip of compromising tone with power and weight/size. I'm at the point where I am pretty satisfied, but it's a journey where you never fully arrive: your taste/requirements may change a bit over time, perhaps even your instrument too which could affect your preferences...

So, in my case, I'm a big fan of the Stingray, but I also use Precision and to a lesser extent Jazz and P/JJ instruments. Amplifier... the MarkBass LMIII never fails to satisfy. I have tried others that I may have liked more in punctual occasions, but the LMIII seems to consistently give me a pretty decent sound in any situation. So much so that I'm considering getting a second one so that I can slave one for louder gigs and as a perfect backup. Cabs... I was pretty much set with a pair of TKS S112s, which sound great even if they won't do *very* loud. However, recently I've been playing with a Barefaced Two10 (4ohm) and I'm really enjoying it... so I'm considering a couple of Two10 at 4ohm and a couple of LMIII as my 'final' (ha!) rig. But we're not there yet.

[LewisK1975]

At the moment I don't have any backline for gigs. I own amps and cabs but don't gig with them right now.

Arrived at that by having frequent complaints from our singer about stage volume being too loud. The band has an excellent FOH PA so after a chat we made the decision to just DI the bass, and I use good in-ears and get my own personal mix without bothering anyone else. Lovely. For now.

[bassjim]

early years it was all about the Trace Elliot. It was the must have and became the one of the industry standards. So I had one too. Then came Hartke followed by any expensive fashionable new amp/cab on the block that came along with as well as basses that my young impressionable mind fell for every time. To be fair all the new stuff amp wise had a little something that the previous didn't have which was enough to make it more betterer enough to warrant wallet emptying.

It all promises to make you sound better so experience lets you know somewhere down the line quality over preference.

I've recently (5 years?) stopped at EBS. I use a Jazz bass (Sadowsky Pre Amp Pedal) and it just works really well with it. It might not be as good with certain basses ? I wouldnt know but it really likes Jazz basses and Jazz basses like it.

Bar the boomy rooms which no amp or cab is going to save you from (If someone actually manages to make one I will buy it) it is very consistent and easy to use. I hate mindless twiddling in the hope of the right result so this stuff pretty much straight forward in its logical layout. It allows me to say to my self in difficult rooms
" Either the sound is there or it is not".

I think I have worked out that some heads dont go well with some cabs. Keeping the same brand head and cab may be better than mixing and matching. Not always but most of the time. Also a good sounding stage/ room will make most reasonably priced gear give you the impression you are on the right track. A bad sounding room or stage and the best stuff has you all GASed up.

If you rehearse a lot more than gig in a horrible concrete box you might think what you already have is rubbish but in fact its all ok.

Sound wise I'm going for three basic sounds with the Jazz = Jaco on the back pickup. Marcus on both pickups. Something deep and dirty on the front pick up. Then every thing else is in between these three go to sounds. They work and band and audience alike accept them as something that sounds like " Bass". Which is what for my intense and purposes is a "result".

Edited October 31, 2016 by bassjim

[Leonard Smalls]

I started with a Marshall lead/bass 100w tranny amp and 4x12 no name cab back in 1986. The amp was a bit rubbish - wouldn't go loud cleanly and the distorted sound was not very good either.
So I went and bought a Marshall Jubilee 300W head in about 1991, and someone gave me an enormous 1x15 Yamaha cab. Then I had a 4x12 stacked on top of the 1x15 with the Marshall in flight case on top of them - I could just about reach the knobs!
Then I got sick of the 4x12, and kept the 1x15 but replaced the speaker with an EV, and later a Precision Devices. And most importantly, put some huge industrial castors on the cab.
Still sounds great in an old-skool sort of way though there is top end.
But recently I bought a Markbass 2x10 for smaller gigs (it's the same size as my flighcased Marshall and weighs half as much!), but it also works as part of a stack for showing off with.

[grayn]

I started out, in the mid-70s. Did my first gig at 13.
I had a home made 30 watt, valve amp head, care of the guitarist's much older brother.
With a 2X12 cab, with Goodmans speakers in it.
It was quite a loud set-up but tended to buzz and rattle, on hitting certain notes.

I now use a Galien-Krueger head, with a Mark bass 2X10.
Great volume, tone and penetration.
Much lighter than any previous gear and no buzzes and rattles.

[Basszilla]

I started out with a borrowed fender bxr combo in about 98.

Then I bought my first proper rig in 1999 a trace ah300 & 1x15.

After that blew up I then used a fender bassman 135 and 410 for a bit which was real nice.

Decided valves were the tone so got a mesa 400+ and used it with my trace 115 and fender 410.

Eventually got tired of the weight and went over to markbass with the original yellow little mark and traveler 410 & 115.

Got bored of that sound and the amp blew up so then I got my final rig - a Matamp gt200 + 610 in 2009. Can't see me changing anytime soon now.

[Monkey Steve]

way back when God was a boy and dinosaurs roamed the earth I had just started playing bass and walked into Macaris and asked them for a Marshall bass head - all my guitarist mates had old Marshall valve heads and so i was definitely getting one too. They had piles of Marshall heads stacked up in front of the counter and whatever you wanted was £200. They found me a 100w bass one, plugged it in to make sure it worked and sent me away happy.

That was a 1977 Super Bass II, the one with the two channels and four inputs so you had to connect two of the four inputs to each other to get both the bass and treble options working properly. It also had a boost channel that someone had installed, so you pulled out the Middle knob and it responded with an overdriven roar. Paired it with a Marshall 8 x 10 from Rokas - I went in to ask if they had a bass 4 x 12 to be told that they didn't but they'd do me the 8 x 10 for the same price.

That was my back line for years, though the 8 x 10 proved a little less than practical for someone who's never learned to drive and was intermittently replaced by first a 2 x 12 PA cab and then a 1 x 15 Marshall cab that I still use. The 8 x 10 is sadly long gone.

The Marshall then died at rehearsal the week before a gig (it was subsequently resurrected and flogged...it wasn't the first time the output stage had blown up) and as I worked a short stagger from Denmark Street I went to the bass shop there (possibly the Bass Cellar?) the next day and got a Hartke HA2000, purely because I needed one that day and it was the best option in my price range of the three or four that I tried.

Great head, and about a quarter of the weight of the old Marshall. I added a Warwick 2 x 10 cab to the set up for gigs where I could blag enough space in the van for two cabs.

Then I started using an assortment of amp modellers in front of the Hartke (Sansamp Bass DI and then on to a Tech 21 VT Bass) and was basically getting my amp to pretend to be an Ampeg SVT. So when I had the cash I went and bought an SVT 2 Pro.

So on a good day I play through my SVT 2 Pro into the Marshall 1 x 15 and Warwick 2 x 10. Good days rarely happen so mostly I'll play through my Tech 21 or now my Ampeg SCR DI, into whatever amp is in the studio/provided at the gig, or just into the DI box and through the PA.

I still have the Hartke at the back of the cupboard just in case the Ampeg blows up, or as is more likely, I need a head that weighs less than an airliner.

[EliasMooseblaster]

Looking back, it's quite evident how my backline has correlated with the amount of disposable I had to hand! I started out plugging my very first bass into a Squier SP-10 - a little 10W guitar practice amp that definitely couldn't cope with the low frequencies I was putting into it. Fortunately the music shop I bought my old Squier Bronco from had promised to keep an eye out for any cheap bass amps that came their way, and it was only a few weeks before they put me in touch with a chap who was trying to shift a Laney Session 40 Bassman. This began a long dalliance with Laney, mainly due to the fact that their amps were relatively cheap - in fact, I still have the Bassman.

A couple of years later, I started rehearsing regularly with a rock band and realised that a 40W solid state combo, with a single 12" speaker, was not going to cut the mustard against two guitars and an exuberant drummer. Looking through mail order listings in a guitar magazine, it became apparent that very few brands of amplifier were within my budget - Laney were one of them, and having had a good experience with the Bassman, I invested in an HCM-120B.

That amp must have served me well for a good seven or eight years before it started to fail - I even got the chance to push those 120W to their limits, when we played the Covent Garden Arts Theatre. (I have no idea whether anyone could hear me at the back.) As often seems to be the case with these things, it started to give up the ghost shortly before a gig, but fortuitously I stumbled across a very good deal on another Laney - an RB8 - as I frantically took to Fleabay.

By this stage, however, I'd had the luxury of playing through a few valve bass amps. In particular, when we recorded our first album we discovered that the studio had an old Fender Bassman. I'd also become aware of a growth in the market for low-wattage valve guitar amps. Fender Blues Juniors seemed to be increasingly popular among the guitarists I knew, and I started sniffing around for a valve amp I might be able to afford, which ideally would also not be an absolute back-breaker to move around.

I was a little disappointed to discover that Laney's only valve series was the Nexus, a bulky 400W beast that was difficult to track down and far beyond my budget. After some research, it became apparent that Ashdown offered a better answer to my search. In the first instance, I bought a CTM-15, and connected this to the single 15" speaker in my old HCM-120B. After one rehearsal I took it back to Guitar Guitar and took them up on their kind offer to trade it in for a Little Bastard 30. I know all too well that it's not a suitable amp for big gigs, but it fared surprisingly well against our guitarist's Blues Junior. I still kept the RB8 around for outdoor gigs, though.

Trouble was, he got his hands on a Blackstar Artisan. Same wattage as the Fender, but a much bigger sound. Suddenly my warm valve tone was being drowned out, and when I saw a CTM-100 for sale on here, I pounced. Once again, we were more evenly matched. So confident was I in this setup that I decided to sell the Laney RB8.

There's always something though, isn't there? At a gig in Bracknell last year, with no PA support, I found the sound wasn't carrying all that well. I began to suspect the speaker might be the problem - just the one 15" cone, which had come with a fairly inexpensive amp. I asked the collective oracle of Basschat, and an excellent offer on a Bergantino 2 x 12 fell into my lap.

Problem solved, it seems. The modular nature of it is quite nice as well - at one of the smaller gigs over the summer, I found the LB30 was ample to drive the new cab, whilst at bigger gigs I can bring the bigger head and put it through its paces a bit more.