Heartbreaker

Lots of Basses, amps & cabs over the past 44 years & still going strong. Throughout the many years I have had many basses, amps & cab changes giving so much more potential to the overall sound & also my ear for what I like changing. I started in bands in the mid 60's with an Egmond Bass followed by a Burns London Bass. As money came in I moved up to a Hofner Violin & Fender P basses. Amps were Vox AC30 heads with various cabs, Selmer T&B 60 & Marshall 50. Music style varied from John Mayhall, Duster Bennett etc style blues. Late 60's was probable the best moving era I've lived through, I had a Gibson EB3 (ie Andy Frazer, Free & Jack Bruce, Cream) style music, I also had my first Jazz & loved playing early Zep & other new Rock with much more clarity & power. My Amp & cab was then upgraded to an Acoustic. To my mind, this amp (at the time) moved the bar a lot higher regarding sound potential & quality, the first amp I ever had with a good eq & I could realy move air & hear what I was playing for a change. As the 60's moved into the 70's, prog rock was huge & everyone seemed to be using Rick basses, me too. I got my first s/h Rick 4001 from Top Gear in Denmark St, London which cost £350. It was black, had a checker board binding on the body, had a toaster neck pickup & gave the purcussive clang that Squire made popular, looking back I wish I'd kept her but these were just the norm at the time. The likes of Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Genesis, Floyd, Yes & Rush were all getting into the Rick sound & clarity, at the time I thought there could never be anything better. Despite my feelings for the Acoustic gear, it was a time that I moved through many amps & cabs to look for the holy grail of sound in my head or so I thought. Using Sound City, Hi Watt, more Marshall, Carsboro, even had a go with Wem but that didn't last long. Through the late 70's to early 90's I gave up playing live but kept my faithfull old P bass & had various small cobo's from H&H to Peavy TNT150's just to keep my hand in. The bug got hold of me again at the begining of the 90's when I got another old 4001 Rick, just for the hell of it. Unfortunatly my ear & style had changed a lot so moved the Rick on for a Musicman. That was ok but way too much middle & not enough bottom end for me so then came my first Warwick. It was a Streamer std, certainly had a new crisp (round wound) sound & I stayed with this untill I tried a Stage 1 out so moved up to that. I kept this beautiful AAAAA flame, French Violet Stage 1 up untill a few years ago, cracking bass & certainly the best Warwick I've owned. I also had a Stage 2 5 & Thumb 5, too absorbed tone but nice neck. Also a stunning Infinity Limited Eddition 5 string with bur maple top & flame maple body, again in French Violet. This instrament was absolutly stunning in fell & build but with all the body wood removed with the F holes & the big Musiman style pick up had way too much body mass removed & therfore had very little sustain, such a shame for such a beautifully crafted instrament. Now I'm back playing live again in a Free & Zep tribute band & have gone back to a mint 62 Gibson EB3 for the Free stuff & a Fender Custom Shop Jazz with a realy powerfull EQ & a pair of special 4 pole (Mark King style pickups) that realy punches the tone. I had a superb Lakland 55-94 American Delux 5 string that I wish I had kept but moved that on for a realy tasty 73 Jazz but this hardly gets a look in. I was using a Hartke 5000 bi-amp with a 1x15 & 4x10 trace cabs a few years ago but I now need a lot more power so have been using an Ampeg SVT4 pro head with 4 Markbass cabs for the past 2 years & yet again cant think of anything better to give me the tone & volume I now require. So whats next? Munk, (Heartbreaker).