Let's see your guitar and bass gear!

I had been looking for an acoustic/electric bass for a while.  Then realized I had Amazon points to waste.

Ibanez PCBE12HM is on the way. Boom.  Freebie.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

The only ibanez I've ever owned was an acoustic bass. It'll do you well. 

I've been thinking about changing up my bass rig. My current bass combo is one of these: the massive Peavey Combo 115.



While I like it, it takes up a ton of space, which means I have to put it in an extra room and not where my basses are. I was thinking about one of those tiny Class D amplifiers and a small cab. That way, it can fit where my basses are and I can just get a larger cab if I need more volume. Most of the Class D stuff is 200 watts and up, which is nice. A lot of the ones I'm looking at are $200 or less, but the expensive part is the cab. I'm having a hard time finding something small that's cheap. Any ideas?  

Tony Sestito said:

I've been thinking about changing up my bass rig. My current bass combo is one of these: the massive Peavey Combo 115.



While I like it, it takes up a ton of space, which means I have to put it in an extra room and not where my basses are. I was thinking about one of those tiny Class D amplifiers and a small cab. That way, it can fit where my basses are and I can just get a larger cab if I need more volume. Most of the Class D stuff is 200 watts and up, which is nice. A lot of the ones I'm looking at are $200 or less, but the expensive part is the cab. I'm having a hard time finding something small that's cheap. Any ideas?  

Tiny cabs sound horrible for bass imo but I also love my Peavey 215d which is about 200lbs.

You can try building one, eminence for one will give you all the data you need. 

How small are you thinking?

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I agree with Antihero.  A 1x15 combo is about as small as an effective bass amp can be.

Granted... I was just in my old bass players studio where he has two 350 watt Ampeg SVT heads on a pair of 8x10 cabinets and a 150W SVT on a 4x10.  And I've had a 4x12 half-stack since about 1989.  Only now am I trying to embrace the idea of a 2x12 setup. 

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I agree with Antihero.  A 1x15 combo is about as small as an effective bass amp can be.

Granted... I was just in my old bass players studio where he has two 350 watt Ampeg SVT heads on a pair of 8x10 cabinets and a 150W SVT on a 4x10.  And I've had a 4x12 half-stack since about 1989.  Only now am I trying to embrace the idea of a 2x12 setup. 

Try ported 2x12s, gflex especially. I love mine

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I was thinking a 2x10 or a 1x12, but maybe even smaller. I've heard great things about the Phil Jones stuff, and I know Mr. Wallens has one. They make a 2x5" cab that actually sounds pretty good for something so small:


While it's not going to shake the neighborhood like the Combo 115, it would do the job in my office. It's roughly the same size as the cheap 10 watt Marshall combo I've been using as a bass amp in here. With a little 200W Class D, it would be an awesome mini-rig with room for expansion when needed.

Speaking of that Combo 115, I fired it up for the first time in months today. It still sounds great! It's going to be really hard to get rid of it. Gah!

In reply to Tony Sestito :

I have a friend in nyc with some tiny high-end bass rig like that & he absolutely loves it. It wasn't cheap though. 
 

I've been thinking about downsizing too, but haven't really got to the point of figuring what I want. I may need to make a 900-mile pilgrimage to Sweetwater post pandemic & spend a day - and likely way too much money. 

Tony Sestito said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I was thinking a 2x10 or a 1x12, but maybe even smaller. I've heard great things about the Phil Jones stuff, and I know Mr. Wallens has one. They make a 2x5" cab that actually sounds pretty good for something so small:


While it's not going to shake the neighborhood like the Combo 115, it would do the job in my office. It's roughly the same size as the cheap 10 watt Marshall combo I've been using as a bass amp in here. With a little 200W Class D, it would be an awesome mini-rig with room for expansion when needed.

Speaking of that Combo 115, I fired it up for the first time in months today. It still sounds great! It's going to be really hard to get rid of it. Gah!

I've heard good things about pjb stuff, most people I know that like it also go for a higher pitched piano esc sort of sound too.

I'm used to hearing bass that's played with an eb-0, mudbuckers, flatwounds, played with rubber picks and with an octave down. Cabs have to be tied down so they don't move and I'm not even sure there is anything happening above 100hz but there sure is a lot going on below it.

If you don't mind not having or don't need super lows a small can could work well. 200w class D isn't quite the same as a traditional SS 200w but it's still decent, especially without using the super lows that eat wattage.

For small affordable bass rigs, especially if you're wanting light weight, it's hard to overstate the fender Rumble line. I had the 40w, 10" combo and it wasn't anything I'd ever try to gig with, but for practice it was fantastic. 
 

An old timer once told me that bass was all about the surface area of a speaker. 2 12s have more surface area than a single 15. Smaller speakers generally are less efficient but are more responsive, tighter and cleaner. Seems to be the best balance for bass is as many 10s as you feel like loading onstage x2. 
Im sure I'm preaching to the choir here though so forgive my ramblings. 

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

The lowest I go is C Standard with the bass. Right now, my Thunderbird is the bass for that. I am not sure if it's the strings on it (roundwounds of some sort), but it sounds thin even on the big amp. I use that for most of my modern metal stuff. Otherwise, most of the stuff I play is Classic Rock, Classic Metal, and Hair Metal with some modern stuff thrown in the mix. I don't really have a "sound", to be honest. I've never given it much thought of what sounds good. Bass has always been a "2nd instrument" to me, but I've been playing a lot more of it in the past year to the point where it's played most out of the three instruments I play. 

If I had room and an unlimited budget, I'd go Ampeg SVT Classic with the 8x10 refrigerator cab. Those things warp time and space! But yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do. If I can keep the Combo 115, that would be great because it's a solid, powerful rig, otherwise I'll save up for a micro rig. 

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

For small affordable bass rigs, especially if you're wanting light weight, it's hard to overstate the fender Rumble line. I had the 40w, 10" combo and it wasn't anything I'd ever try to gig with, but for practice it was fantastic. 
 

An old timer once told me that bass was all about the surface area of a speaker. 2 12s have more surface area than a single 15. Smaller speakers generally are less efficient but are more responsive, tighter and cleaner. Seems to be the best balance for bass is as many 10s as you feel like loading onstage x2. 
Im sure I'm preaching to the choir here though so forgive my ramblings. 

Billy Sheehan has stated a couple times that he runs his 4x10 cab on the bottom for low-end & 1x15 on top for mids. So that seems to follow the same concept. 
 

In the mid-90's I had a Rick split stereo into a Mesa 400+ through a 4x10 cab, and a JCM800 into an old Hi-Watt 4x12. My ears & back don't miss those days. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

If I had the funds I'd have a jcm800. I'm still convinced it's the best bass amp no matter how many lead guitarists use it. Of course, it's great for guitar too, though I generally prefer a 50w jcm2000 personally.  
These days I'm old and boring and I like my orange that can run at .5w. 

I have a Bugera Plexi clone that I've run for bass, it works ok but not as much headroom.

I like big speakers for bass because it doesn't sound hi fi. They distort in a different sort of way that isn't actually distortion if it makes sense

We drove to the coast Sunday just to go see it and stopped at a vintage guitar store to see about a pedal since they were open and it turned out to be Curt Cobain's hometown and he apparently bought his early gear there. So I accidentally did a guitar bucket list thing?

Still don't have a pedal. I need distortion in my life.

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but don't feel like you need to go crazy with a name brand pedal, especially at this early stage. My personal favorite are the cheap knockoff "tube screamer" copy od pedals. I'm not familiar with your amp so I can't say it's the best choice but I often see them for $20-30. And of course you'll need a second cable if you don't already have one.
 

If you're a nirvana fan, having a distortion pedal is a great way to have a ton of fun learning. the second song I ever learned was "come as you are" and "smells like teen spirit" was short after. Being able to switch from clean to distortion on the fly during that intro was a religious experience when I was an early teen. It's so much fun. 

In reply to barefootskater (Shaun) :

Dude thank you!!

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

Full disclosure: I'm not a pedal guy. I don't own any currently and rarely ever used them when I was gigging regularly. That said, a bunch of players I look up to swear by them. As you learn and grow as a player you'll develop your own tastes and style, and you'll learn what roads to take to get where you want tone-wise. 
A quick search on Reverb shows the always popular Boss DS-1 readily available for $40. And the cheap Joyo pedals are reviewed very well. Or if you're feeling adventurous there are a bunch of diy kits out there to build your own, though I'm not sure I'd recommend that route if you're just starting. 

Check out the Amazon Basics pedals. They are simply repackaged versions of some of the low dollar pedals sold on there, but should be easier to return if defective since they are backed by Amazon. They are right smack in that $20-30 range; I think the most expensive one is sub $50.

If you want to spend a little more (around $120 once you add the AC adapter), check out the Zoom MS-50G. It is a pretty old (2013 or so) multi-effects unit that still gets support from the company and can have new effects loaded onto it. Pretty easy to use, decent sound, built well enough. I'm running the MS-50G (compression, modulation and distortion) on the input side and the MS-70 (chorus, delays, and reverb) in the effects loop. So far it is a decent, relatively inexpensive setup that has a fair amount of flexibility. Out of the box, the 50 has all of the choruses, delays, and reverbs loaded onto it if you just want to plug into the input and go.

Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:

We drove to the coast Sunday just to go see it and stopped at a vintage guitar store to see about a pedal since they were open and it turned out to be Curt Cobain's hometown and he apparently bought his early gear there. So I accidentally did a guitar bucket list thing?

Still don't have a pedal. I need distortion in my life.

Right now Sweetwater has most of the Behringer pedals for 19 bucks each.  If you dont mind waiting 4-6 weeks (What I was told when I placed my order for a couple) they are a cheap way to experiment with some sounds. Linky Link

JHS did a video on them

In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :

Since you are starting out, you don't have to go nuts with pedals, as others have said. A few of the cheap ones to get your feet wet might be a good idea. A simple distortion or overdrive pedal and maybe a delay or looper would be cool.

Another option is a multi-effects processor. There are tons of them out there, and they are fun to mess with. I picked up one of these a couple years back used for under $100:


It basically has a bunch of tone profiles that it gets from having a set of virtual pedals, amps, and cabs for each setting. What's cool about it is that you can not only edit every one of them to your liking by adjusting levels of the pedals and amps, you can also download new profiles for free. You can also get a PC app that lets you edit things with a GUI:


 You can also hook headphones and an external music source up to it and play along with stuff direct to your eardrums, which is nice.

It's not the greatest pedal in the world, but I like it. Only drawback is that it could be overwhelming for someone starting out. I've been playing guitar terribly for over 20 years now and I am still trying to figure out what sounds good!

Speaking of my Digitech RP360, I was messing with it today, looking to create the heaviest, fattest, dirtiest, and downright CHONKIEST tone possible for playing some Stoner riffs. Basically, it's a virtual Boss "orange" Distortion cranked to the max, running through a Marshall JCM800 through a 4x12 cab, with a volume pedal maxed and a gate to slightly hold it back from self-immolating. 

I named the setting appropriately.


On the bridge pickup of my Les Paul, it is sublime. 

In reply to Tony Sestito :

The best chunk does indeed from a sealed 4x12 (ideally loaded with eminence swamp thangs) being fed by an overdriven jcm800. And a guitar with much mahogany. Run the master at noon and bask in it. As the kids say these days, "thicc"
 

I really need another 800 in my life, but they're $2k these days or more. 

I need to play around some more with the Spark Amp I bought. It's a cool little amp, I've just been too lazy to play around with the app and different tones vs just jamming out on the Charvel and the Flying V. 

Been keeping an eye on Reverb for a few more guitars to pick up. Seeing good deals on Schecter's and they are actually still made in S. Korea vs Indonesia.

But I also really want to buy either the Demonology or White Zombie Kirk Hammett guitar.