Headphones sound vs. amp sound
 

Hi,

I've been recording a lot of riffs and ideas lately. For this, I use a Radial JDI, a four track tape studio and a Sennheiser HD-558. As I have been doing this, I found out that it was really easy to get my bass to sound exactly the way I want it to (fairly smooth and hi-fi, but not harsh at all). I like this set up so much, that I decided to use it for home practice.

I have had a lot of good amps (valve, digital and solid state), but I could never get them to sound that good.

Anyone else who actually enjoys playing bass with headphones on (I've actually been considering to play live with headphones). Any ways to get sounds like that live without PA-support?

I use a TS pedal into a sansamp to get the sound I want through headphones, then I just hook that into the effects return into my amp during live stuff, and its pretty much the same sound.

running anything through and amp is not going to sound exactly the same though.... there will be nuances in the sound that will make it different than what you hear on a recording. you have to get used to it, and then get good at trying to shape that live sound into what you want. it takes practice and a good ear

Your JDI -->clean channel-strip style preamp-->power amp-->a fairly honest bass or PA cab.

If you chase this studio-monitor style tone as your stage tone, though, what you might find is that it gets a bit lost on stage unless everyone else's tones are as studio-crafted and controlled as yours.

IME, that's (very much) less likely for gigs with no PA support.