uk_lefty

I have a P bass with flats and often play through my "clean" amp. I sometimes add drive. I like the sound of the flats clean, it has a character that the same bass can't reproduce with rounds. I also like the same bass and amp with nylon wrap strings. The bass sounds OK with rounds but I've got other basses that sound better with rounds, so horses for courses. Though my p bass with flats does sound flipping amazing through an Ampeg SVT and 8x10 I like a clean amp anyway. If I want it to sound like something else I'll use an amp emulator off my multi fx and/ or other effects.

I think that's it but I know nothing of the science...

I use Ashdown RM gear. My favourote multi cab option was two 15" cabs. The Mrs had a bit of a dig about the amount of gear I had so I sold one and instantly regretted it, but then bought a 2x10 just because. I like using the 2x10 on its own as a single cab solution but when I take both, which is very often, I found I preferred having two fifteens. There was just more depth and fullness to the sound. I am toying with the idea of having just a single 4x10 from the Rrotmaster series in the hope that it gives me what I want tone and volume wise but is only a single cab, but I'm reluctant to try. Partly because I like the idea of having a stack of speakers behind me, I feel a bit less of a man when I only take a single cab... Funny enough my drummer says more surface area = more volume... My two fifteens (30 inches of speaker) set up was louder I think than my fifteen plus two x ten (35 inches of speaker). While I understand where he's coming from I think that's not completely true... Anybody know the answer?

I have never and am incredibly unlikely to get any kind of music "endorsement" but I can speak of experience of sports sponsorships. At under 14 County level I was offered a discount on equipment, anywhere from 15-40% depending on the brand. Going up to playing in the men's 1st Division (not Premier) I got one set of free kit for one season only and that was from a minor brand. The point being to try and be as visible as possible, not because of my name but because they wanted to see as many players as possible in the top leagues and junior representative sides in their gear. It went back to big discounts after that. Following a brief stint out the game I got "trade prices" on kit from major brands when playing in the third tier. When a full set of kit costs near £2000 and you can wear out a lot of it in less than a season it's worth doing for the player at least. The big boys in the Premier league got much better support, training sets of kit (recognising they train so often they need at least two of everything and will go through three or four sets of some items of kit). All of this is paid for out of the 'marketing budget' and is therefore an overhead to the trade buyers and end customers. I only know of one person who got paid to endorse kit and they used his name on it and had his design input. I guess with music gear it's different. At the Marcus Miller masterclass where he's plugging Sire basses he openly says his Fender jazz is the best bass he's ever had, it's on every record, etc. You have to be less "on brand" with music gear I think because there's an emotional connection to collectors items from the past. So maybe the cash is only there for a select few with the marketing value, the rest are about tour support for their gain and for the brands its about maximum visibility, e.g. "70% of bassists playing download were using X brand of amps" would be a great ad for a rock image bass amp brand regardless of whether you know who the players are.

You mean Sexy Eyes, Sylvia's Mother, etc didn't provide a suitable interlude? Who'd have thunk it? 😅

I have an early 2000's MIJ Precision and I think its great. Really well built, noticeable step up in quality from the Mexican fender I had, can't comment on how it compares to USA Fender though.

Absolutely for me. I don't have a complex signal chain for it though, sounds best with a clean sound and a bit of a tickle on the dusty end with the sub dial down low.... And mark bass will now rethink endorsements because we have discussed one feature of Ashdon amps more than their coup of recruiting Mark King smash capitalism!!!

I was tempted to get one of those that came up recently but looked like it needed sinking it cillit bang for a month so i decided against enraging the wife for unknown upside. Do they sound any good? I like the look with the black and red colour combo

I lust after basses more but go through amps and used to go through effects regularly. I guess basses are a much more emotive purchase for me that I agonise over for months, years, sometimes forever... I will one day have a Hofner, one day in the future!! And a sandberg 48, an 80s Aria, two jazz basses (again), something custom, a sixer... Amps just make them louder. Effects just disappoint.

Like anything it's down to the user to be tasteful with it. I personally like it, used sparingly as a doubling up effect but its only on the odd phrase. I wouldn't leave it on constantly, but it is use able.

A recent rush of nostalgia I think. They used to be almost given away. Shame because the really nice ones, the two pickup genuine neck through models, go for a heck of a lot!!

Yeah you are right, in thinking about it my mate doing the sound can't be checking everything all the time. I should have at least left a big note on it saying not to raise input volume over half or not to let the vu go in to the red. Or gone over and shouted at him to turn down the input volume or get strangled with his bass strings

I saw a guy play a sixer in a covers band once. He was awesome, playing jamiroquai and some funky stuff really nicely. I see lots more fours and fives, few fretless. I'm happy with it. I don't go round judging guitarists or drummers by what instruments they play, it's their choice, I care more about how they sound. One of my guitarists loves a Squier Bullit guitar he has, they're peanuts on eBay but he sounds awesome with it, why should anyone knock it?

I'll lend out my rig but only to people I know OR if the person running the sound is the guitarist from my band. Though a punk band did decide to max the input volume on my Ashdown head at a festival last year and it was permanently in the red, I wasn't too happy about that but you can't really go up mid set and ask them to be flipping sensible with the gear can you? Was paranoid about the amp for the rest of the night, hadn't had much sleep and during our "headline" set when the smoke machine went off I had kittens!!

I don't mind the black and yellow colour scheme, not keen on this ninja stuff with the lime green though 🤮

Bass related... Around 2006 I was walking dazed around the Liverpool Street area one Sunday morning. I was looking for whichever bass specialist shop was in that area and just couldn't find it even armed with the address and my A-Z so I went in to a newsagent and asked at the counter. A couple walk in. The lady shopkeeper couldn't help so she asked this couple (it was a man and woman, not sure if they were a "couple" but you know...) So I ask them. The lady asks "what are you looking for?" I tell her the bass shop name and she says "not heard of it, sorry". I was feeling very lightheaded and dizzy, something I often suffer from and in my state turned to leave and stood on the chap's foot. On leaving I realised who the lady was. Famous artist, Tracey Emin.

Are they doing this to raise money for a charity? Didn't see anything in the ad but only skimmed through. You can see people paying that if it were for a charity... Meaning self employed types who can write off tax against it as a charitable donation.

About this time last year I bought myself a five string Sire to test a number of things before I invested in a more expensive bass. One of those being whether I wanted a fretted fiver or if I preferred a drop D on a 4. Answer is I prefer the drop D on the 4. I have had a fretless fiver for over seventeen years but I don't necessarily play it as a fiver... It's more a 4 with some extra notes I may use at times if that makes sense. I tried to play the Sire as a fiver and had ok results. I ultimately moved it on, and my Fender jazz with a drop D, to fund a brand new USA Stingray. I quickly had a drop D put on the Stingray. Once you get used to which note is where and playing fifths and octaves without the usual muscle memory I find it easily sufficient. It's rare I'd need to go below D, or Db seeing as we are tuned half a step down from standard across the board.

No, they're a dead easy one handed lift for the 1x15 and the 2x10 so I imagine the 1x12 is lighter still. Ashdown will have the weight of them on their website.

It never used to be, it's just that these days there are lots of lightweight options. In the (very recent) past they just weighed whatever they weighed and you dealt with it.

There's loads in your price range. I'd nearly always go second hand on amps and cabs because the value is there as opposed to new. Trace Elliot, Hartke, Gallien Krueger backline series, Fender Rumble, Ashdown, Peavey... There's loads about and if you are prepared to drive to the bum end of nowhere then you can get some great deals because people don't want to post them and they're the only bassist in their village. Just make sure you can test first if buying from eBay, Gumtree, Facebook (check for hums, rattling speakers, no clean tone available... But a lot of amp issues are quite simple for a tech to solve). If you're playing covers and need something versatile all of those brands (and more) would help, don't forget you can get good effects tools for not much money second hand that can give you amp emulators etc of there is a really specific sound you need... You're on a slippery slope now in to trading through gear in search of a sound you may never find 😀

We have them at our rehearsal room. They're decent, complement both the ABM and RM series heads very well. I'd be tempted to get one if it weren't for the weight. I'm happy with my Rootmasters but if cost and weight were equal I'd go ABM.

Sign your emails "from Mark King"

But you know in fifty years time it could be worth a lot on antiques roadshow if all the bits are kept together... Or a holographic recreation of Fiona Bruce will just say "nah, they were sh!te"

Duff McKagan. The bass, the sound, the attitude, the songwriting. Also comes across as a nice guy (who has learned from his past!). He is everything a bass player should aspire to be. Lines that sound simple but are made complicated by the 'feel' with which they need to be played to recreate. The energy to keep going, keep creating, after all these years. The contribution in bass and songwriting on the greatest rock album ever, Appetite for Destruction. Look no further than Duff!