Lozz196

A mate of mine had some form of Behringer amp head, coupled with one of their 410s. He put his 70s Jazz through it and it sounded amazing. Sometimes science, design and cost don`t measure up to what just sounds great.At the SE Bash a few years back we did a cab shoot out, a couple of very inexpensive Maplin PA speakers being very surprising in their performance.

Play the instrument that feels most comfortable, if you`re already noticing the difference in your playing due to changing to the 5 string I`d look to get one of those exact basses. You might not be as comfortable on other 5 string basses, likewise you may find other 4 string basses easier to play than your I banez, but for now your hands are telling you that Jazz fiver is what they prefer.

Yeah, I keep considering going back to one of these as my backup amp and offloading my ABM1000. If I`m honest it`s purely the looks of the ABM that make me keep it, I like the sound of both amps but the RM is more practical as a backup, plus as an amp to rehearse with. Oh well, this thread has done me no good then, more gear evaluation to go on.

Nice bass, they really are very good, I had one for a while and it was just a great instrument all round, not just great for the money.

I`ve found that with Ashdown you have to work to get your sound, they`re not a plug in and play amp, you need to take some time to find what you`re looking for. But once you do find it, well from there it`s all great. My ABM600 is a cracking amp, much more flexible on the eq than the ABM500s I`ve had, and much louder too.

FUGLY ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats, they are great amps. I`ve had loads of the Class D small amps but the RM is the only one that has the same weight and feel to the sound as larger amps, in my experience.

Well one may well be being put up on here over the weekend, watch this space.......................

This looks like a serious bargain, am so tempted, so am letting you all know about it so one of you buy it to remove said temptation: https://www.gumtree.com/p/guitar-instrument/fender-mexican-jazz-bass/1292516762

Quite agree, I happened on Ashdown by accident, and found that I liked the combination of my Precision & Para Driver with their amps & cabs more than anything else I`d had previously, with my ABM600/ABM1000 amps & ABM410/ABM210 cabs costing only just a bit more than the high-end speaker cab that I had before. It`s the ears that make the best decisions on gear sometimes.

Hi Blue Well I wouldn`t say we`re a pro band - def hobbyists, though a great hobby it is. My reply was more along the lines that originals bands might think they`re not seeing any money, but could look at the overall picture and might realise that their band is actually driving business pretty good. I think the challenge is still the same, crowd size and bar takings, after all venues want those bar takings, whether it`s covers or originals, that`s what they`re in the business for. For us originallers we then have another challenge, getting the product out there, but in all honesty to me it doesn`t matter how good your product is if people don`t come to see you, which comes back to the bums on seats/drinks across the bar aspect of your query.

Not sure about crowd sizes or alcohol sales as mostly we play supporting bigger bands, but our gig fees and merch sales pay for hotels/flights/tourbus & driver/more merch/recording etc, we stopped having to chip in ourselves a good while back, so I`d say yes, we are driving business. We just don`t take any money out ourselves, it all goes back into the band. We all prefer it that way, rather than take a sum from gigs and sales but then have to book own hotels, put hands in pockets for recording sessions etc.

Yeah no worries - assume they just need to be 2 inches longer than for my Precision?

Just checked those vid-clips out, very VT like, sounded great with the Precision

And what was really interesting on that one Chris was those cheap Maplin PA cabs that were brought along. About a tenth (maybe twentieth) of the price of some of the cabs there, yet sounded very nice in comparison to their wealthier cousins.

Yeah good call, or choose flats that are known more for their mids than lows, such as TIs. Maybe Ernie Ball Cobalt Flats, as they`re quite near in sound to roundwounds.

I`ve just swapped string allegiance to Warwick Red Label steel rounds. Found a place in Germany doing them at about £7.90 a set, plus delivery, so buy 6 packs at a time, comes to under £55. Which is nice.

I`m very practical, so the only love I have for any of my gear is down to how it sounds or plays. Yes I buy my basses in certain colours, but it`s not that I specifically love those ones, more that there are some colour schemes that I really don`t like.

Just the one, apart from once. First off was a Markbass 212, gigged that on its own. Progressed to Barefaced Super 12Ts - I had two, but only ever dragged both out for one gig, and in honesty didn`t need the pair, it was more for "show", all other gigs done with just one. I then had a Barefaced Big Twin 2. Again gigged on its own. In all cases a single 212 was plenty for my needs.

Yep, I have done, and my gigging backup is a Squier Precision so if anything happens to my main bass at a gig I`ll have to. I`ve seen a few pros using cheap Squiers - maybe they prefer them, or maybe it`s down to the huge amounts of beer that get slung in their general direction so they don`t want to ruin their more expensive basses. Who knows, but whatever, they sound fine. My backup is an Affinity, I bought it from Grangur on here and it plays fantastic, in fact I had to raise the action a good bit to suit my ham-fisted way of playing, it was set up so nice, not a fret-buzz or rattle at all, if played "properly".

Yep, both can effect the tone mahoosively, so I keep the settings on the Para Driver the same so I know FOH gets what I want going there - I then tinker on the amps eq itself to get what I want on-stage. Great if I can get it, if not, well at least the audience hear the band as it`s meant to sound.

I gigged with 212s for a while, never found any of them not up to the job.