YellowLedBetterBass

Adjacent to these Squier Sonic P Basses, I've been playing my new Sonic Bronco almost all day today. This too feels really well built - in fact a massive step up from the Bullet series guitars I've tried and owned. It does also have some rather stabby fret ends. Still very much happy with it though. Incredible vfm.

Got back off holiday to find my Squier Sonic Bronco waiting for me. Haven't had a chance to plug it in yet, what with it being late and the neighbours likely in bed, but had a quick noodle unplugged and am very happy with it for the cash. A couple of sprouty frets, but nothing a sanding block and 5 minutes of my day can't fix. Looking forward to giving it an out-loud go tomorrow.

For us the decision to go "ampless" was more out of convenience than anything. Getting a consistent sound through a modeller for the guitarists without thinking of mic placement, pedalboard set up, how warm the amps were, etc, is incredibly useful. That's not even mentioning it the task of setting up physical amps and mics and pedalboards (often in a space that's half as big as you'd need to do all that comfortably) when you're on the clock at some local pub and just want to get in, get on, get done, get paid and get gone. Does it sound worse than amps? I don't think so. Different maybe. But more consistent and a whole lot easier to mix properly in a shorter space of time.The quality of more affordable modellers and profilers is increasing seemingly every year, to the point where you're not longer saying "your average punter wouldn't be able to tell a difference" but instead a lot of musicians wouldn't be able to tell a difference on a recording or through a PA speaker what's a real amp and what's a model/profile. The only big loss imo is the "feel" of real amps, but if you're running IEMs or have a good monitoring setup through wedges/foldbacks/sidefills/whatever, then a lot of the time you'd be hearing that instead of the amp itself anyway.

I packed up bass about 5 years ago because I was bored of it. Started learning guitar, joined a band as their guitarist, and now after some rejigging I am the bass player. The first time I have played bass in half a decade and also the most excited I've ever been to play music. Maybe, like with me, it's a new outlet that you need to start enjoying it again.

I've been using a Tonex One for ampless guitar in a covers band for a few months and have absolutely loved it. I'll use it either straight into the desk or into the FX return of a house amp (if there is one) with the IRs turned off. So long as the monitoring is ok, no complaints (and if the monitoring is crap, I have a Behringer P2 and in ears and will just take a line from whatever wedge is nearest). Now I'm playing bass for that same covers band, I'm going to give it a go again for ampless bass tones.

Yeah so our rig revolves around a 12-channel Behringer Mixer, 2x 1500w tops and 4 wedges. The mixer allows for us two send out two independent mixes to the wedges, so we usually have one mix for guitars/bass, and one for singer and drummer (singer occasionally just takes house mix). I wanted to go ampless mostly because I'm the only person in the band who doesn't drive a little hatchback, so all of that gear is my responsibility to lug around. There's not much room left in the car after that for an amp.

After playing mostly guitar for a few years I am now the bass player of a band following a lineup change. As a guitarist, I would go ampless wherever I could. The band has it's own PA system and in scenarios where we'd use other people's PAs they could always handle both guitarists in the band being ampless - most of these gigs were at bigger clubs where we'd have a promoter-supplied PA and soundman. But now I'm not sure what to do. The same equipment (Tonex One and DI box) can be used to go ampless for bass, but seeing as our own PA doesn't have a woofer or anything, will I regret not having a bass amp to add some proper low end?

Any love here for the Squier Bronco bass? I'm very tempted by the pink one, they look excellent.

We have recently been informed our bassist will be leaving us in a few months to attend University. Which is a real ball buster because we had a good thing going and we're hoping to start gigging soon. So now we're looking for a new one. We're aged between 26-32, are made up of both male and a female members and play a bunch of pop punk, indie, grunge and alt rock numbers, with a crowd pleaser or two thrown in. Everything from Blink182 to Pixies to Cyndi Lauper. We'd be willing to put our gigging ambitions on hold for a little while to allow any new bassist to get settled in properly. There's no expectation on anyone being Les Claypool or Geddy Lee straight away, we'll take anyone as long as their attitude is right and they turn up and enjoy themselves. If it sounds like something you might be interested in, drop me a line.

Luck permitting, I'll have pictures of one of the fancy Fusion models on Monday. Although I wish it would have been here sooner - I ordered it 3 weeks ago (and it was in stock).

I've picked this bass up for the first time in a few months (been playing the geetar recently) and instantly remembered why I loved it so much. Naturally I had to come back and look through the build thread again. Still made up with it.