Leonard Smalls

I've plumbed my new Crown 1502 into its rack along with BBE amp and DBX compressor. Tried it first as a single channel into my Markbass 102 and huge Yamaha/15"Precision Devices cab. Didn't seem any louder than with the Marshall, just noticeably less noisy. Then I tried it bridged into the 2 cabs, very loud, very clean - could hear every nuance of the effects board. Then I tried it as input Y with ch1 to the 102 and ch 2 to the Y/PD15, with high pass on 1 above 100Hz and low pass below 300Hz on 2. Lawks! Bit louder than the Marshall could go, but incredibly clean, almost hifi. And there's virtually no hum at all, even with the Crown turned up to 3/4 on both channels and the BBE on 1/2. The only noise not being produced by the bass was a very slight hiss from the pedals which I could never hear before. I like it...

New Crown power amp and rack - weighs about 1/3 of my Marshall and has about 1500W bridged!

Been working toward this bass tone meself!

You can use one to play jazz...

I've been so excited by this power amp stuff and the relief it'll provide to my poor back that I've just ordered a Crown XLS 1502, complete with flightcase and rack power strip...

Over the years I've had the impression that some bass players think that any bass playing at all, bar roots and occasional fifths, is overplaying and showing off! It's about playing what's right for the song, but there's absolutely nowt wrong in my book with a bassist or any other musician showing their Mad Skillz... Just not necessarily All Of The Notes All Of The Time - only occasionally.

Our idea of a good belch involved enunciating "Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury". A lesser effort would just be "Margaret Thatcher", and a quick better-out-than-in would be "Bulimic" (which we felt in our juvenile way to be quite apt). So Strengths: love a good knob'n'fart gag; quality gear, van, house in the middle of nowhere with large room for rehearsing, like to play all of the notes all of the time, funky as a mother Weaknesses: puerile sense of humour, obsessed with gear, won't lend van to band mates with multiple driving convictions, live miles from anywhere, like to play all of the notes all of the time, will only play funkily

Luckily for you, my laptop is currently being hosed down and cleaned of all the unpleasantness it produced with absolutely no input from me... Perhaps when it's been re-motherboarded and returned to me it'll start to produce music which is a beautiful amalgam of Thomas Arne, Thomas Tallis and Thomas The Tank Engine especially for you! 😎

You don't want to hear what I'd play to that... Wold make Brotzmann or Zorn's Japanese Noisecore sound like a lullaby!

I remember going to a jazz improv workshop a while ago... The organiser produced sheets of paper "just use these and play" she said. They were just multi-coloured Rorsach type ink blots. Needless to say we all played all of the notes possible, or none of the notes at all, all at the same time. I used lots of distortion and wah...

I quite like the overplayed versions... If only they all overplayed all the time!

I learned reading when I was young playing piano. However, since I started playing bass 35 years ago I've never had to read; all the bands I've played in have either improvised or each player has worked out their own parts from a jam. But I'm glad i know a bit of theory - I've taught other band members the rudiments of modal playing which has definitely made the music we play more interesting. But reading itself has been largely irrelevant to me as I've never really played any covers...

Aye - lots of kits available with mixer and large library of real drum loops and fills with the ability to add, delete or completely programme from scratch. I've got the Jabbo Sparks/Clyde Stubblefield add on as well which is proper funky...

1. Listen to Bootsy 2. Have a good time, all of the time

My Wal is sort of made of plywood...

My mum's a piano teacher - her teacher was the pianist Emil von Sauer who was a pupil of Franz Liszt...

I hope I didn't follow through when I slipped that one out

Proper curved ball!

I've still got my 1990 Marshall Jubilee bass head, together with an 80s Yamaha 15" folded horn cab. Over the years I've added a DBX compressor and BBE pre-amp to the mini 4u rack the Marshall came in. I also noticed how heavy the amp (20+kg) and particularly the cab (40+kg) are, so bought a Markbass 2x10 cab weighing in at about 4 grammes - which I use exclusively for smaller gigs or as a stack for bigger ones. So I got to thinking, maybe I should ditch the Marshall head, as I'm only using its power amp anyway, and replace it with something a bit more old man friendly; I know these are special Marshall watts, but anyone got any thoughts about what type of power amp would be best? I was thinking perhaps Crown XLS1502? I was also going to get the matching 15" Markbass cab as a mini-stack option, unless anyone's got brighter ideas? I like the fact that for a change, my speakers will match!

Unfortunately You tube doesn't allow embedding of this vid... But it's Billy Cobham, Stratus. Currently listening to the remastered 80s version on his Warning LP. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_SqtFerjg

I'm always up for new music - anything well-played and/or interesting gets the thumbs up from me...Today I've been listening to Idles, Rolo Tomassi, Magma and Hiromi's SonicBloom. And I'm over 50, but rarely listen to Radio 1; in common with my younger brethren I often discover new (to me!) stuff via the internet or through the medium of modern dance 😜

It's all completely improvised you know!

I've been enjoying a bit of French prog craziness - there's some awesome playing here!