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1. What amp is it? 2. What kind of sound are you trying to achieve? 3. What EQ does the amp have?

...indeed.

Depends entirely on the circuitry of the pre-amp and power-amp sections. For solid state amps generally you want the gain as high as possible without introducing distortion and then adjust the master volume to give you the overall level you need. For amps with a valve pre-amp and solid state (or Class D) power amp the gain control will usually also act as a drive control. To get the right balance you really need to set it up in the band context as IME bass guitar can nearly always do with a bit more dirt in the mix than you would be comfortable with when playing solo. Have a listen to some isolated bass tracks to see what I mean. They are always more distorted than you would imagine from the overall mix. For all valve amps it's almost entirely down to taste, provided that you haven't got the settings introducing too much noise. Use your ears to get a sound you like not the numbers on the controls.

The foam has long since rotted and I can’t remember what it sounded like before. This bass has been in my brothers wardrobe for the last 20 odd years 😂. And Headlessbassist made me realise that it WAS Marcus Miller that I saw resting on the pup cover! Saw him at Koko in London last month! 😂

I saw Lita Ford at KK's Steel Mill in Wolverhampton two weeks ago. She did her cover of the duet she did with Ozzy back in the day called If I Close My Eyes Forever the day after Ozzy died to a mainly West Midlands audience, that was emotional. Overall Lita still rocks and she rocks her red leather catsuit but he superpower seems to be spinning about 50 minutes of material out to 90 minutes. The highlight of the evening was her being joined on stage by Vixen to perform an all girls rendition of an old Runaways number. Vixen as a support band were very impressive and Ms Julia Lage (Mr R Kotzen's "other 'alf") on bass is quite the performer. Vixen is one of those bands from back in the day that has just one original member (the drummer) but it was good entertainment executed very well indeed.

Yep that`s how I ran my ABMs and my current RM500, I find it`s a much better, fuller, more dynamic tone this way.

I push my preamp gain until the clip light briefly comes on when hitting strings the hardest. Then use the master volume as appropriate for the situation.

this is a problem and pubs change hands a lot, get a good crowd, management changes, don't like your style of music and don't book you, mind you that type of manager doesn't tend to last long, on the other hand we sometimes keep getting asked back when hardly anybody turns up, to the point where we make an excuse not to play there

Gain is your tone, Master is your volume. My SVT3PRO User Guide said, dial the master as loud as it will go and balance your volume on the gain. Maybe that was because it had a valve preamp. On my D class amps I prefer the gain to be pushed and using the master to balance the volume.

Have we done "$hitney Houston"?

Mockney Rejects Swell Paps Boy Division

This is very true. However, the guv'nor of one place my then band played in gave me an interesting slant on why he favoured certain styles of music. I had asked him for a return booking and he declined, saying he thought we were good, but not for his venue. I asked why and he explained that he tried to book bands that women liked and would come to see, his reasoning being that if the place was full of women, plenty of blokes would turn up. He had a point. We played tricky proggy stuff (this was quite a few years ago) that you couldn't exactly dance to and our audience was always predominantly blokes.

...and how many did you have to buy, 5, 10?

Meat Load

Katrina and the Daves

this is a great book - well written and thought provoking

It's funny, listening to the original track, I would also presume fretless StingRay, but isolated it sounds more like a fretted two pickup bass (the Alembic he used around that time perhaps). The high levels of compression and (I presume solid state rather than tube) distortion really kill the tonal nuances of whatever bass it is, but it still sounds great in the final mix. I also have to say, if it is fretless, his intonation is really quite good.

Looks nice, hope sounds nice too. Happy You !!!

Nob Zombie

Back in the early 90s my old band had a bunch of followers called The Bromley Boys... They'd dress up like the Monty Python housewives and leap about in rather a crazed but generally peaceful fashion. We'd played a couple of times at The Joshua Tavern in Oxford, one of them supporting Gaye Bykers On Acid, and were offered a headline there. The Bromley Boys came as usual but just before we played there must have been some argy-bargy with locals - I saw the biggest of the BBs chasing this bloke with an iron bar shouting "we're from faackin Laaahnden!". We played the gig and all was fine, but they never asked us back...

I doubt they do many checks. There was a pair of Foderas at one a couple of years ago, up for sale at about £2K. IIRC they were top of the line - £25K new. There was no way they weren't stolen.

That was quite unusual. I stopped and started again with a different mindset as my first attempt just made me think Vic is a bit of an old hippy!