Greatest bassists in rock history... Used Marshall amps?

[mikel]

On 3/6/2018 at 10:43, BigRedX said:

All it really shows is that when it comes to developing bass amplification, Marshall haven't been able to keep up with the competition.

Possibly, but a lot of it comes down to fashion. Yes, they were the go to amps and cabs in the late 60s early 70s, but they were still good. They have moved on (On?) to solid state for guitar and bass, but they are primarily valve amp designers/producers. Fashion has moved on, from Trace ect, to the plethora of smaller boutique makers that are in vogue today.

A Marshall bass amp with two 4 x 12s was a beast to behold, and to hear.  The sheer amount of air being moved made a wonderful noise. Not like the piddling 1000 watt amps and multi 8" speaker setups today. No heft you see?

[dmccombe7]

I guess that's why Ampeg 810 cabs were and still are very popular amongst those with roadies or fit enough to lift 

[EssentialTension]

On 06/03/2018 at 12:17, dudewheresmybass said:

Didn't geezer use Marshall before he switched to ampeg?

Early Black Sabbath were also associated with Laney ... and Iommi still is.

Edited March 7, 2018 by EssentialTension

[EssentialTension]

Geezer Butler stacked up with Laney.

 

 

[el borracho]

14 hours ago, dishwallascot said:

That's interesting to me because both Bruce Foxton and Lemmy rolled the low end totally off!

I did  - it was still all bottom end.   tbh it didn't make much difference!

[4000]

I used an old Superbass for a couple of years in the '80s, 'til it was stolen along with a lot of other gear in Hendon in '86. Great amp. I got another, an even earlier one, later ('90s?) but stupidly sold it for £150 after about a year. That really did sound great. Weirdly the 2 amps I've got on best with have been old valve Marshalls and the early Trace Elliots, which you would think are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Never got on with Ampeg. Sadly never got to try a HiWatt, although I did nearly buy one once before shelling out for a Marshall 2001 375W valve head that was in the same shop. Look it up. Sadly it sounded pants, weighed approximately 100lbs and blew up every five minutes. One of my worse buys. 

To be honest, most of my favourite famous bass tones have been produced by Marshall or Hiwatt (old stacks that is), I was only thinking this the other day. 

 

 

[bertbass]

Don't forget me!  

 

2 x 60s Superbass 100 heads and 4 x Sound City 4 x 12s.  Just glorious.  I preferred the Sound City cabs to the Marshall because they distorted less.  I also used the heads with 4 x Vox Foundation cabs, 1 x 18s, and they sounded great as well.  No roadies either!

 

Had Hiwatt, Sound City, Selmer, Simms Watts, Impact and Fender to name but a few.  All valve of course.  Tried the early transistor heads but they were all a bit lacking in volume and sounded pretty crap!

Edited March 7, 2018 by bertbass
Auto correct spell check changed Superbass to superbness

[drTStingray]

You missed out lots of great bass players - if we're talking early 70s:-

John Paul Jones

Andy Fraser 

Leo Lyons*

Larry Taylor

Greg Lake

Paul McCartney (with Wings)

* definitely used Marshall - 2 X 100 watt stacks including 4 X 4x12s. Also used Acoustic sometimes. 

Live bass sound wasn't great at this time and certainly would not get anywhere near a recorded sound - my personal view was Andy Fraser got relatively close although this was with a Gibson and a very R and B style of playing. The whole emphasis moved from valve amps to solid state and Acoustic was a big player - J P Jones used these - this was to do with getting cleaner bass sound at high volumes. At the same time bass playing was moving on and many players required greater clarity of sound reproduction than the hitherto tendency for 'woofy fart' sounds - moving stacks of air but not giving clarity. 18" speakers were pretty common in the 70s also, although my experience with an Acoustic 301 was that it gave quite a clear sound. 

Had anyone seen or heard of Ampeg in the UK at that time - I don't recall seeing them - I know they famously provided The Stones with equipment on one of their early 70s US tours - I can't remember why though. 

Edited March 8, 2018 by drTStingray

[MacDaddy]

there's a Marshall bass amp, and the casing is like a cage so you can see inside. On a dark stage with the valves glowing, it don't get much sexier 

Can't find a pic though...

[bassbiscuits]

Bloke from Kasabian - Chris Edwards - also uses a pair of VBA400s and 8x10 cabinets onstage.

I got a gawp at them close up a few years ago before their big outdoor gig in Leicester.

Great sounding amps but weigh as much as my entire house unfortunately.

[Russ]

On 3/6/2018 at 18:00, skidder652003 said:

eh?  what about the vba 400?

Not sure they do still make the VBA, it's not on their website any more. They might still do it on a custom order-only basis, but that's going to make it astronomically expensive (as if the VBA wasn't expensive enough to begin with). 

[Monkey Steve]

Me, aged 19, walking into a Denmark Street shop to buy my first non-practice amp:  I want a bass amp please

Salesman:  you'll want a 100w Marshall then *points to pile of second hand Marshall heads* one of these must be for bass, have a look.

That's my experience of buying a bass head in 1988 in London - stacks of used Marshall valve heads for about £200.  I left the shop with a 1977 Super Bass II head (and had to return to Denmark St the next week to get a cab - a Marshall 8x10 that cost me about £150 - the same as they would have charged me for the 4x12 that I was asking for, if they had one in stock).  All my guitarist mates played old Marshall valve heads too, and it never occurred to us to look for anything else.

Lasted me for years but took a lot of tweaking.  It was one with separate "bass" and "treble" channels with four inputs which you had to daisy chain together to use both channels at the same time, and balancing the eq was far more about getting the volumes for the two channels right than using the eq knobs.  Also found that someone had modded it so if you pulled out the Middle knob it added a bit of growl.

Loved the sound, but not the most reliable bass ever.  It blew up the week before a gig - the second time I'd had to replace the transformer - so got a Hartke in a hurry, and flogged off the Marshall.  Since gone to Ampeg, which sounds much better than the Marshall ever did and has so much more control

[NancyJohnson]

1 hour ago, Monkey Steve said:

All my guitarist mates played old Marshall valve heads too, and it never occurred to us to look for anything else.

In general, I believe this is the cult of Marshall pretty much in a nutshell.  It's like that line in Bad News, where Nigel Planer says something like, 'Cor, look Den, it's a Marshall!'

 

[Gillett Guitars]

On 3/6/2018 at 21:02, Lozz196 said:

I think Marshalls bass gear suffered as a result of their guitar ear being so good, almost a "well they can`t be any good for bass can they, they`re a guitar amp maker" sort of thing. I`ve had a few Marshall bass amps, and one set-up in particular, the DBS7400 with VBC412 cab was a great set-up. Cab weighed a ton but I still look fondly back to that half-stack with a smile.

I gigged the same 4 x 12" cab for years with TE heads and TE 1 x 15" - very nice too!

Scrumpymike (replied from Gillett Guitars account by mistake )

Edited March 10, 2018 by Gillett Guitars