My first “Real” bass amp, a history.

[Hushnel]

Mom and Dad gave me a 1969 Fender Bassman for my 16th birthday. It was huge. 50 watts and 2X12 cabinet. It was cool to finally have an amplifier. One of the other reasons I chose the Framus over the Hofner was it’s acoustic volume was better. It wasn’t until we moved back to the states that I needed an amp. In Germany our drummers father had a band and lent us equipment for gigs and rehearsal. It was stollen when my buddy and my house got broken into.

I purchased a Fender Bassman 410 a few years later when I got a gig in a blues band in Pittsburgh. I used this Bassman up until 1985. I was really happy getting these two amps, but it didn’t take long to realize how anemic they were for stage work.

Shortly after I got a real job, from which I retired 30 years later, I started looking for a real bass amp. There was a music store in Miami that had some great stuff, he had a new amp deigned by Steve W. Rabe “SWR” named the Studio 220, the SWR labeled speaker cabinet was loaded with 4 David Eden speakers. This was a great amp, I still have it and use it at the rehearsal studio. It developed a problem early on and I had to use my guitarists Acoustic amp head. Steve was very supportive, I loved the amp, he sent me the schematics that allowed me to run the problem down. It was intermittent but it made the amp unreliable. It took some time but eventually I found a cold solder. Never a problem since. I consider this my first true bass amp.

The SWR covered everything I needed, the XLR out handled the big events like the out door River Walk Blues Festival in Ft. Lauderdale.

I was hanging out at a buddies guitar shop and saw this petite little amp and asked him about it. He told me he initially bought it because it was a great amp but it was just sitting around gathering dust. He thought it would sale immediately. He offered it to me at his cost. It had way more head room than I would likely ever need but man was it light, like 4lbs and like the SWR it had a tube pre-amp. This was the Genz Benz Shuttle 9.0, 500 watts into 8 ohms 900 into 4 ohms, Crazy. I use If for gigs along with the SWR Golight 2 by 10” neodymium speakers rated at 400 watts, total weight 42 lbs, amp and speaker. If I ever need the head room of 900 watts I could pair it with the 4X10, the 2X10 or the Hartke 15. It’s nice to have options.

The only venue I didn’t have satisfactorily covered was off grid bass amplification. I purchased A used Roland MICRO CUBE BASS RX on the recommendations of other bassists but never bonded with it. I don’t like the way it sounds, it kind of sucks the tone right out of the instrument. Might be OK for a guitar or harmonic but it’s an amp of last resort for me. I’ve recently added the Phil Jones Double Four battery powered amp and I have to say it covers all acoustic opportunities and low volume rehearsals really well. I’ve used this with the reasonably priced Ibanez PNB14E Parlor Acoustic, 24.75 scale, Bass Guitar with very satisfactory results. Many times when I pack up, I get comments from others that they had no idea I was using an amplifier. I keep the volume just in the mix, so as to not stand out. I also use a wireless link between the bass and the amp. A very natural sound. Even acoustically this Ibanez has better projection than my Guild B50 fretless. Thank D’Adderio for the strings developed for the Taylor GS Mini-e Bass. This new bass string technology is making ABGs viable.

[Pilgrim]

Nice bit of history there!

In 1967, my parents bought me a 1963 P along with a 1967 Bassman amp and a 2x15 Fender cab.  I played them in a white dinner jacket band made up of the music teachers in town. I was one of three bass players in the high school orchestra, but I'm sure I was the only bass player that could play with them. Played a lot of Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, mainly big band stuff. We also played two nights for the state Jr. Miss Pageant every year, and there were plenty of cute girls at that event. 

I still have the '63 P - had it repainted around 1972 because the white paint was all chipped up. The neck's truss rod broke 2 days before one of the Jr Miss Pageants, so I had the neck replaced quickly.

The gear sat at my parents' big country house from 1973-1996, when they moved into a smaller home in town.  Like an idiot I sold my King Mortone white upright bass they ha stored, but I picked up the electric stuff and took it back to Texas where I lived at the time.

Getting that gear back go me interested in playing again.  I still have the Bassman amp, but I sold the 2x15 cab (empty) a few years ago - it had one JBL D140F speaker that I sold on Ebay. i hadn't realized until I opened up the cab that the speaker was a guitar speaker. The other speaker was a Fender with a loose cone, which I dumped.

I moved to lightweight gear a few years ago, when I discovered Genz-Benz. The Shuttle series is really impressive; I have a 6.2 docked on a T12 cab, with a spare 2x10 Shuttle cab that I can connect to go to 4 ohms.  I also have a 4 ohm 2x12 Genz Neox cab that weighs about 50 pounds, but it's overkill for about 99% of everything I play.

It's kind of an an odyssey, isn't it?

Here's my P-bass...

https://www.talkbass.com/attachments/p-bass-jpg.2460744/

[Hushnel]

‘It's kind of an an odyssey, isn't it?

Yes it is, I guess if you live long enough it all becomes stories “o) There have been a few seasons when I didn’t play the bass, but those times were filled with guitar. I soon discovered that I understood the bass in a way I would never understand the guitar. It’s like the guitar is 90% what you do with your fingers where as the bass is more like 40% fingers and 60% corralling all the other instruments into a cohesive sound. It’s almost unexplainable.

Nice looking P, they are amazing instruments.

My old P-Special could stand a new coat of paint and polishing of all the brass hardware, but the miles and years of blood, sweat and tears, as well as magic would be erased from it’s story. I think I’ll let the next owner worry about that “o) I’m probably and inch shorter from playing that bass for so many years.

[slinkp]

Oh man that candy-apple Precision of yours gives me SUCH a rush of nostalgic feelings - because my first real bass was basically Ibanez's attempt at the same thing - it was a 1981 or 82 Blazer in candy apple red, maple neck, white pickguard, heavy and built like a tank.  Brass knobs (which I stupidly lost at some point!!), heavy brass bridge that looks almost exactly like the one on that Fender.
Passive tone, though. And they didn't paint the front of the headstock. And the stock pickup was black.

I have much modified it over the years (since about 1997 it has looked like my avatar photo because I was young and reckless). I kinda regret painting it now. Oh well.

This one isn't mine, but it looked like this when new:

[Hushnel]

Nice looking bass. Now a days instead of screwing up my instruments I just slap one together, if I’m looking for something different.

I had to replace the active circuit when it crapped out on me sometime in the 90s. It’s a great bass but a freakin’ boat anchor. I have flats on it now but I may go back to roundwounds. I’ve got flats on my three fretless basses, all are home made. Who needs three freaking fretless’ “o)

For the last couple of years I’ve been mostly using the Guild Starfire. These are the two I use when I’ve got any studio stuff going on. Between these two the sound guy can get what he’s looking for.

[ilan]

a 1967 Bassman amp and a 2x15 Fender cab

I had one of those too! The cab was unbelievably heavy and didn't fit in most cars, and the amp clipped at about 50% volume.

[Pilgrim]

I had one of those too! The cab was unbelievably heavy and didn't fit in most cars, and the amp clipped at about 50% volume.

Yes, I still have that amp and by a 50% turn of the volume knob you're getting all the oomph it has.

When I got that cab back after 23 years, I swore some SOB had installed 20 pounds of lead inside it.  Sure didn't seem as heavy at age 23 as it did at age 46.

[Stjofön Big]

I don't know how much my 2x15" cabinet weighted. But it was heavy. Too heavy for me, though it of course didn't seem that way 40 years ago... So I gave it to my son, who's still just 37 years of age. At the same time I gave him my Ampeg V-4. I still have my Fender Dual Showman and two 1x15" cabinets. That's about what I manage to handle, these days.
I'm fully satisfied, and my son is glad. What more can one ask for?

[Dave W]

If I were in good enough health to gig again, I'd need a roadie to handle my Boogie rig.

[ilan]

If I were in good enough health to gig again, I'd need a roadie to handle my Boogie rig.

My rig there days: GK MB150S-112 combo that had its head cut off, with either a GK MB² 500 or a Markbass NanoMark 300 head (each 3.5 lbs / 1.6 Kg). As light as it gets. Last week for a concert with the big band I took my son's MicroMark 601 combo (9.26 lbs / 4.2 kg) as a stage monitor - worked great. I'm compensating now for the Bassman+2x15" years.