Back up Amp - or nothing ?

[Paul S]

Can't you just twiddle the knobs until it sounds right?

[PaulWarning]

I always take 2 Trace Elliot's to gigs, I've needed the backup about twice, once our guitarist had to use one when his amp packed up, he was really p1ssed off when someone told he sounded really good that night 🤣

[Aliwobble]

On 20/02/2021 at 10:44, machinehead said:

 

I take a spare for everything now.  The spare bass is a Steinberger XT2 so very compact.

Frank.

Excellent !  This is the justification I needed for buying a headless bass. And maybe a backup for it too, just in case.

[Supernaut]

I've ditched my amps and only use a DI box now... much easier to haul around! 

[DGBass]

When I was a bit younger and gigging a lot more, I only ever had one amp(thats all I could afford) and it was an old Marshall superbass head. What I did have was a comprehensive toolkit with me at all times which included a soldering iron, screwdrivers, pliers, wire snippers and a box of spare valves, jack sockets, and various guitar parts including string sets.  In recent times, gigging before lockdown comprised of a main and a backup amp. Years of playing have taught me that a dead amp midway through a gig is something you need to be able to remedy quickly. The only spares I carry nowadays are a box of fuses, one set of spare bass strings and a few extra leads. Experience has taught me that as long as you know your amplifiers are in tip top condition, there's very little to worry about. I gig with a fairly modern( last twenty years) high power Class A/B transistor head and in the gig bag I have a class D back up amp. So far so good and the class D has never had to back up the OLD IRON. If we ever get back to gigging, I'll stay with the same philosophy. I've also never had one of my cabs fail in all the years I've gigged( fingers crossed) or one of my basses fail. There's a certain amount of risk of something failing at every gig. But for me at least, I don't thrash or neglect amps and I'm always checking/maintaining my amps/cabs and improving/servicing anything I think might be a potential weakness to avoid a gig failure. 

For a main I prefer to use an Ashdown ABM or either a Trace Elliot Series6 AH200 GP12 / MK5 AH250 GP11 depending on the venue and how my back is feeling,  The class D backup is always a Markbass LMIII