Back in "The Day" -- which is that unknown time that old musicians tell you about when you play at a wedding -- if you were a bass player and wanted to be heard, you had a monster amp, maybe an SVT (or two) or an Acoustic 360 or a double Marshall stack. But technology has improved to the point where bass amps don't have to be massive to deliver good bottom end while remaining clean (or allowing you to overdrive at low volume to sound like you have a stack even if you don't).

I'm interested in hearing what you're using for gigs -- how many watts? How many cabinets? What configuration? Combo or head & cab(s)? Do you use your rig a stage monitor and go direct to the PA, or are you depending on your amp to fill the room? Step up, bassists! Don't let the guitarists have all the fun.

Well I have gigged with (in order) Peavy,Ampeg,GK,Crate,Trace Eliiot, Hartke, and Ashdown. My fav? TRACE!

Its all about surrounding the music with thump. And Trace does this very well. Alot of bassists I know like a high clear sounding slap tone like GK's have. Some like a deep muffled reggae tone like Ampeg. Trace actually Combines both sounds on one amp. I like to blend the two and my 500wt 1x15 combo has a built in tweeter to accomplish this. I gigged at two medium sized clubs over the weekend and the trace was sitting around #6 on the pre gain and around 3 or 4 on the master. And I did NOT need to run through the pa! This amp really gets loud when you add another cab and drop down to 4 ohms at 600wts.

Stay away from peavy and crate and chinese made ashdowns!

I like the old Trace amps when Tony Levin used them. I saw him in Pittsburgh with his band maybe seven years ago -- he used one Trace and a second as a backup. They're supposed to be different now -- as in, not as good. Tony has gone back to Ampeg. I have tickets to see him in Pittsburgh in May with the Stickmen tour. That should be wild. I've used Fender, Kustom, Standel, Acoustic, Peavey, Ampeg and now, Genz Benz. I favored 2x15 cabs. Loved my old Acoustic 450 head with a 405 2x15 cab. I Like my Genz, (two 1x12s, 600 watts) but I wish I had that Acoustic to hear them side by side. I'm betting the Acoustic would sound just as good.

`

I'm blessed, or cursed, to NOT have a "My Sound".

Show me an ax or rig thaz easy to tote or easy to
play and if it produces a few different sounds that
please me, then I can dig it. So I'm blessed in not
having to seek a Holy Grail, but cursed in that I
can all too easily bring home [over time] way too
much cool gear !

When it comes to rigs, all I ask is that the sound
at "all centered" is not bright and harsh, and that
the sounds that please me do not require setting
the controls to extremes. I always want that extra
margin available for "The Unexpected".

Power ? 500W or less, solid state. 100W of tubes
is waaaaay plenty. I can live with 20W from tubes.
Cabs ? One 12" is often enuf. Two of those is all I
EVER need. Obviously a restaurant is a low power
gig. The bigger rooms we play are about 3000 to
5000 sq ft, 20 ft cielings, all hard surfaces. But all
these larger room gigs are events, with multiple
attractions for the guests, which means we don't
hafta play to the whole room. We may hafta play
over the background noise of the whole room, but
only for the 25% to 50% of the room nearest us.

Once I DI'd into the house PA, but no one else in
our trio did that. Ms Diva did NOT like that ! Some
of our large rooms are churches, so again no need
of huge power cuz "crowd noise" is no problem.

-------------------------------

I'm getting the impression that it's not the size of
the room nor the "roar of the crowd" thaz leaving
my brethren feeling underpowered. I think it's the
rest of the [expletive deleted] players in their own
band. No offense intended ... to each their own ...
but I suspect that the majority of my online bro's
are playing in bands that I'd never want to hear. I
mean ... I'll wear ear plugs in the middle of a jazz
room that seats less than 50 ! Thaz just being me.

Whatever, that difference doesn't mean we can't
help each out out with advice and experience.


`

I'm a fan of softness, and I don't mean Charmin bathroom tissue. I've been on this rant before, but when I started playing in 1965, the wattage of my entire band didn't add up to 300. 50 watt bass amp, 50 watt guitar amp, 50 watt keyboard amp and a 100 watt PA. And it was enough. No instrument mics, no vocal monitors. We could hear ourselves from the PA. Within a few years I was up to a 200 watt bass amp turned up to 8 to be heard. Then I went to 300 watts.

I now play primarily in a church band with two guitar amps miced, keyboard taken direct, acoustic drums that are miced and my bass amp with 600 watts & two 1x12 cabs, also DI'd. The monitors are cranked so loud that I hear everything like it was right beside me -- and I don't even have my own monitor. I hear vocals, guitars and keys screaming at me from the wedges 15 feet in front of me. I run my amp about halfway across the board. If I get more than three feet away, I can barely hear it. That's just too stinkin' loud. Oy!

`

I see.

So, He is your Rock ....

and you are His rock ?

I see. But I do NOT 'get it'.


`

Depends on what the meaning of "it" is. I sometimes wonder if anyone who thinks they get "it" really does.

`

Yeah, the "it" as in "get it" can be
a pretty broad concept. But in the
case of you "Rockin for your Rock"
all I meant was "I don't get it, I
can't figger how music needs to
be THAT loud in a church".

I am NOT thinking along "quiet as
a churchmouse" lines, not saying a
church can't be kinda rowdy. And I
find it elevating when it IS rowdy.
No waaay am I suggesting church
ought to be "solemn and somber" !

But ... since the audience is NOT
there to do multi-tasking like in a
bar, where you got folks shouting
to converse, to order up, and just
a whole lotta general brewhawhaw,
I don't get why the band cranks it
up to stoopid. IOW since even the
rowdiest portions of a church gig
involve the audience/congregation
in league with you and not against
you or in-spite-of you, I don't get
it why the band is cranked to such
a "competitive" level.


`

In that case, I don't get it, either. But I'm on the losing end of a battle against guitarists who think they need to be loud to get "my sound." And believe me, I like it loud -- there's nothing quite like being able to "feel" the music. But in a relatively small room -- it holds a max of 500 -- Rolling Stones SPL is not necessary. I get the impression that the SPL onstage from the monitorsis louder than the FOH sound, and still the main singer/guitarist says "I can't hear my vocals." The players in the band range from 10 to 45 years younger than I am and they have been raised in the era of loud bands. I think all bands hould be forced to play without sound system support until they have developled the skill of actually listening to each other onstage and achieving a good balance and volume. I suppose those days are over, though, especially in band using IEMs which means the players usually have no idea how loud things are onstage.

Laklander, I think you should take up jazz bass for a while. You never get a sound system, and you have to learn to not need one. I'm good friends with some of the guys in "The Hide and Seek Effect" a pretty decent new pop punk outfit coming out of southern West Virginia. They're sound on videos and live is pretty darn good, but when they played a benefit show with us in a small theater usually used for plays and started miking the drums and vocals, it just turned into a loud garbled mess of nonsense. They hardly even got any applause because nobody knew what was happening. We went on without a PA system. The pianist played an acoustic grand piano without a mic. I played through my 50 watt tube bassman, right next to the drummer, and we ran the singer through the house sound system speakers that were hanging from the ceiling.

All we did was listen and it sounded absolutely great. I still think it's one of the best shows we've ever played, and we've gotten asked to do plenty of other gigs because of it.

It's that "ear" that so many musicians lack. The ability to feel what you're doing onstage and listen to and fit in with everyone else there. That finesse, I call it. People say it takes work, but I think it just takes people who are willing to listen for themselves in the mix instead of just turning knobs louder.

Learning to listen to the other players in a group, no matter its size, is something that elementary school band diretors need to enforce ruthlessly. Being a trombonist as well as a bassist, I learned early becasue I was thrown into a section with 10 other trombone players who all had their own opinions of exactly where slide positions are. Look at a pro trombone sectioon and you'll see slides being adjusted minutely on every song. Also with unfretted strings.

The same principle applies to any group, and not just to intonation. Really good bands of any genre adapt to what's being played by every member. The church where I play has a 19-piece orchestra in their "blended" service (Contemporary Christian [CC] and traditional songs), and about half the players read written parts. Most of t5he rhythm section play from chord charts. Ironically, when there's a screwup, the rhythm guys are the ones who adapt. The ones reading are lost. I suspect that's because the rhythm players have all played in rock bands.

I now play in a CC-only band at the same church with between five and seven players. No one reads from a chart and tha band is actually tighter. We rotate players and we have one combination that is very good at adapting and responding to what others play. We have a 15-year-old drummer who plays full throttle and is incapable of holding down tempo or volume. Another drummer is great for tempo but stomps the crap out of the kick drun even on laid back tunes. The third drummer is classically trained and plays very lightly -- he's the champ.
Unfortunately the drummer had played with for 10 years in the 19-piece band wasn't asked to play in the new service. He's also trained but has been playing rock for 35 years. We can go to a session without having played the song previously and come up with a tight bass-drum part after the first run through.

I'd love to just go out with three acoustic guitars, an upright bass and a djmebe. That's when you get to hear who is really listening.

As I've repeatedly said, whn I started playing, volume wasso low that there was no need for monitors. The blessing and the curse of the Beatles inventing stadium rock is that bands had to get louder to fill the venues. Because PA technology was behind guitar amp technology, the easiset solution was to buy bigger amps. Now that PA tech has caught up, many of the pros have gone back to smaller amps. That's agood thing.

`
"Players" is spelled with a
"P", not with an "M".

That "ear" you mentioned
may be lacking in so many
Players, but it's one of the
defining attributes of any
Musician ... even solo acts.

Tru dat!

Hahahahaha, touche Golem.

It's that ear that so many PLAYERS lack, but musicians have.

Better? =)

`

OK, can I play "editor" ?

As editor, I'd suggest a smoother
wording, perhaps something like:

"Far too many players utterly lack
a musician's ear."

And I can offer that pearl not cuz
I'm a music teacher [no waayy !]
but just as an ordinary person in
the paying audience !


`