chris_b

The only GB amp I've heard was the 9.2 through a Barefaced BB2 and it sounded huge. It filled the room with full, fat, warm, clear, well defined bass. It's what made me buy my BB2 and now I'm saving up for GB 9.2.

Get an Aguilar TH500 right now, then start saving for some good cabs (a 212, 2 112's or 2 210's).

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1414245777' post='2587458'] ....I can never quantify this feeling but I get it with various drummers.... [/quote] +1 I'm doing some gigs with a great drummer, but it's taken me a long time to feel comfortable playing with him. He doesn't seem to vary the beat at all. It feels mechanical but when I listen to the recordings his playing is spot on. I play with other guys who are all over the place but playing with them just feels "right".

Bad, bad news. . . . . Saw Cream many times and he never failed to give a thundering performance. I also saw Jack Bruce excelling in Tony Williams Lifetime and the John L Walters band.

My toes still curl up when I think about it! So I'm not telling. On another occasion; we had a girl in the audience of a residency we did who fancied the drummer. She used to get up and dance on stage. Not very pretty but lively. One night she got carried away and got her tits out. Big. Nice. Then even more carried away and flashed at the drummer. . . displaying a perfect "meat and 2 veg"!! Apparently she/he was saving up for the rest of the change over!

Just check out the music that came out of Stax, American Sound Studio, Muscle Shoals, Hi, Fame and Malaco in the 60's and 70's.

[quote name='lojo' timestamp='1414155247' post='2586508'] ...valve amps don't sound good below 2 or 3 on the dial... [/quote] If that's the case then the guitarist's using the wrong amp.

I don't think there is a one size fits all answer. I spent nearly all my formative years playing with drummers of varying abilities, so I tried to hit the beat exactly but feel like I was leaning into it. Keeping time and pushing the number along. I've been playing with very good drummers for years now and I my preference is to hit the beat whilst leaning backwards, but how I actually play will be decided by the drummer, the band and the number, as they all need different approaches.

In my opinion you have moved up a rung with the new amp, so you should be checking out better cabs. Are you looking at a 410 and 115 for volume, tone or looks? More volume doesn't always get you heard on stage, but better tone and definition will. With my LM2 I used a Mesa Boogie EV 115, 2 Aguilar GS112's and then an Epifani UL410, all of which went pretty loud while making a great sound. Now I'm using a 700 watt 212 cab that will go much louder and (IMO) sound a lot better than your current 2 cab rig. I'd look at using smaller, better designed cabs with your new amp.

Over the years guitarists have done for my ears, but it was my fault. I should have bought my ACS plugs a lot earlier than I did. They're not all bad, but these days most of the guitarists I play with run the band so I just turn up and play as loud as they do. I usually don't play with "wall of sound/half stack" merchants and while I'd rather be playing with less volume, my rig does sound good when I turn up.

If you run the amp flat out, then you might damage the 250 watt cab, but I never had my LM2 over half and it was loud enough for me. If you want more volume don't turn it up just add the second cab. I always daisy chain cabs but you can do either. Why do you need new cabs? The ones you have might sound great. Play this rig for awhile before you look to change it. If you buy good cabs then you don't need a 15 for the low end. That might have been the case 30 years ago when bass cabs generally weren't as well designed, but you'll get more bass out of a modern 410 than any 15.

The modular approach works for me.

Yeah, sorry. . . I meant rock as a generic term covering everything electric since the 50's.

The real question is what do you want to do with your bass playing. If you only want a hobby and a knock around with your mates then you don't need to know much. If you want to take your playing as far as you can then education should be very important to you. Every aspect you don't know is a limitation that can "hurt" you. I know guys who like my playing but won't book me because I don't sing, another because I don't play double bass. I don't see why electric bass won't work in a Rock-a-Billy band, but decisions made by others always affect and limit your life in music. Don't give them a stick to beat you. If you're in any way serious you have to be able to play by ear and you have to understand music as it relates to your instrument. Reading the dots can be very helpful, but tab isn't a thing you have to learn to be a complete player. My heroes Pino, Duck Dunn and John McVie can't read music, but Jamerson, Nathan East and Wilton Felder can. The great thing about rock is that you can do a little, all or none of this and still be a good bass player, but whatever you do you'll do it better with a good ear.

My Lull is set up low. That's the way I got it. No interest in what the numbers are. I've just had the Lakland fret stoned and set up low by the Gallery. I'm sure both basses could go lower but they are easy to play and sound fine just as they are. If the action is high I'll play harder which I'd rather not do, so, to save my hands and wrists, I play a low action as lightly as I can. This style seems to improve the quality of the tone with the rig I'm using these days.

We all wear black. The second guitarist wears black, with brown shoes!!!

A 5 string bass has worked for everything I've been asked, or wanted, to play for the last 25 years. From originals through covers, blues, soul, rock, folk etc. IME a good 5 will excel at any genre you want to play. I find a 5 much more flexible, convenient to play and it just sounds better.

I put the cab where it sounds best, even if that's in the middle of the stage and you're stuck on the other side.

There are several small and light high quality cabs that will sound huge and punchy. From the reviews Baer cabs sound good and haven't been mentioned yet. Most of the high end cabs are just different flavours of great. My opinion and experience is that Bergantino AE112 cabs are [i]the[/i] best cabs I've played since 2007, when Mark first brought them in to Bassdirect. I replaced mine with a CN212 but if I went back to the AE's I would be just as happy.

The boom you hear might be localised to your corner of the stage and won't be heard out front. The problem with EQing out of it is that by the time you get a sound on stage you'll have changed the sound out front to the point that it might not be what you want. Do the rest of the band hear this boom? Can you live with it? If not keep the cab in the middle of the stage. Shift the drums over to the side (lots of bands do this, The Crusaders Levon Helm etc). What's wrong with you standing in front of it in the middle?

I've seen RC quite a few times, mostly in the early days, and the best (IMO) was the original line up. Richard Cousins, what a player. I saw those guys a lot. I've played many of his numbers and we opened with Phone Booth for longer than I care to remember. I last saw him at Shepherds Bush a couple of years ago, and was very disappointed. He played efficiently, did 60mins to the second, no chat, hardly acknowledged the audience and no encore. He just looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1413639564' post='2580425'] ....I was wondering when the British motorcycle industry would come up.... [/quote] Happy to oblige..... Fender have lost the plot. Bono on the board? wtf! What problem was that move supposed to fix!! Where's Jeff Genzler? Buried in an office counting widgets? They need the likes of Jeff or Dan Lakin on the board with the power to get things done!

Fender has no God given right to exist. Ask Pan Am, the British motor cycle industry and the French aristocracy about that. But they will continue in the short term because they owe too much to be shut down. Their business model has been wrong for years. If they don't get that right they'll be split up and sold off.

I get blank looks on deps when I question the keys. Guitarists are the main culprits.

Tastes change. I wonder how many Trombones, Clarinets and Saxes are sold these days in comparison to the 20's? And the bottom seems to have fallen right out of the Hurdy Gurdy market in the last 500 years. Sales are down and from the classifieds on BC and Talkbass people seem to be selling their "collections". So multiple ownership is decreasing. The relative cost of a Fender bass in the 60's was pretty close to the custom shop prices these days. Fender have been too good at reducing the cost of a bass and with it the magic that was being an owner. The last I read FMIC was in debt to the tune of about $250 million and their biggest single customer, Guitar Center, is also in financial trouble. An investment company owns about 50% of Fender and wants out but no one wants the stock so they couldn't float on the stock market. That only leaves the Chinese as the easy way out. But the thing that is really killing Fender is that, these days, the competition is just too good.