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Let's talk about weight

#121
ashtray said:
Heavy gear is fine if you have help - but I've found at gig time no one wants to help you unload your heavy stuff. "Oh yeah man, let me first just set up my gear, do a sound check, get a drink at the bar, THEN I'll give you a hand with that cab..."
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Yep, this is my major obstacle with fridges and some of the more obscene lead sleds, too many of the venues we play are at the other end of a nasty flight of stairs. At that point, what I'm willing to hump isn't the obstacle, it's what my band mates are willing to help hump.

It's also liberating to be able to give the guitar player stink-eye when he needs help getting his 4x12 up or down stairs, something every bass player should enjoy at least once...
 
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#125
Now I have to admit that I went down the lightweight rabbit hole due to sheer GAS and curiosity about the technology. That's never happened to anybody else, has it? ;) But it's also my view that lightweight gear is just what any mainstream engineer would design, given a clean sheet and no marketing pressure.

But now the shoe is on the other foot, and somebody would have to prove to me that heavy gear sounds better.

When people ask about lightweight gear, is it because they have physical problems, or just want to limit their options to contemporary designs? I see no problem with either approach.

Here's an idea: Heavy amp modeling. It's a box that makes your lightweight amp sound just like a heavy amp. Totally analog, no additional batteries or cables required. The solid state version weighs 20 pounds, and the tube version weighs 60 pounds. ;)
 
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#126
FFTT said:
Then the joy of leaving skin from your knuckles on the trim of the too narrow doorway you have to squeeze through
and then playing shortly thereafter cringing with pain from your crushed fingers.
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The doorway to the basement in my parents house still has scars from a Rhodes piano.
 
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#127
Weight emulation :)

mcbrick.jpg
 
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#128
One thing I am often concerned about when playing my lightweight amps is in fact the low weight. They are too light to give me confidence that one could resist a cord pull from a tipsy patron/guitarist/singer, tripping drummer (not the LSD kind). I'm securing the cords to the cab but am considering some kind of velcro restraint thing across the top. This was never a concern with heavier amps. Maybe some irony in there somewhere.
 
#131
Anybody ever play at... What was the name if it, the Russian Lady? It was in Hartford in the late 90s and they used to make you sign a waiver before loading in UP THE FIRE ESCAPE! It was just metal steps, but technically it was the fire escape. 3 flights, helped another band on the bill carry an 8x10 SVT cab up there to share with him. We played for about 30 people and each band got $75. But it sounded fantastic! He said, deliriously.
 
#132
corinpills said:
No, not your tummy, your bass amp. Inspired by hundreds of threads on talkbass about tube heads, I am often struck by how often the weight of an amp seems to be at the top of players' priorities when it comes to amps. As someone who loads in and out a hundred or more times a year, and has done so for 20+ years, I always just consider the weight of my gear part of the much bigger picture. It's not like you have to hold the amp up all night. You just put it on a cart and heft it into place and then do the reverse at the end of the night. Obviously, some people have back problems and I certainly sympathize with that, but without being judgemental at all, I ask: how can an amp's weight really matter? It has just always struck me as totally inconsequential. Explain it to me. I mean, if you wanted a lightweight gig, shouldn't you have become a lead singer instead?
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For the most part, I agree with you 100% and have for the majority of my career.

UNTIL, I recently moved to NYC and every time I play a show in Manhattan, it's impractical to drive a car. Also, it seems like most of the venues here are backlined. For the first time, I'm legitimately trying to figure out how to put together a giggable rig that I can carry on the subway.
 
#134
FFTT said:
Then the joy of leaving skin from your knuckles on the trim of the too narrow doorway you have to squeeze through
and then playing shortly thereafter cringing with pain from your crushed fingers.
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I gave that a like, because I agree, and hate that as well. That and the beer mud filth that gets on hands from unwinding 100s of feet of cords that have been on various bar floors.

Used to have a 10 space PA rack with horrible thin handles, and too deep and short for a handcart that would destroy hands right before playing. not enjoyable after 8 hours hard labor before the gig.
 
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#135
To me there's not much practical difference in weights except for at the border of one hand (comfortably) to 2 hands, and 2 hands (comfortably) to 2 people. But most bass gear is not really designed to be carried one handed. I mean, with some things it's doable, but even though my old 50+ pound 15 cab has a single strap handle on top, I'm not going to carry it like that. I don't go for that he man poser garbage. When I'm going to practice or a show, I don't need to prove to anyone how strong I am. Safety and comfort are a lot more important to me than speed or showing off how much stuff I can carry at once. Like "hey, let me stick 15 pounds of amp, effects, cables, etc... into my gig bag, so all that weight can be sitting on my strings and putting pressure on the neck at all times". No thanks.

Anyway, my total bass rig for live use, if I brought the entire thing (including my full size pedal board, which I also use for guitar and want to eventually get a small one for bass), comes in at around 175-200 pounds. That's a head, 2 cabs, heavy pedal board, bass in a hard case, and a milk crate full of cables and accessories. If I just use one cab, and use my multi-effects unit, that cuts about 80 pounds, but the sound isn't as good and I don't have nearly as much headroom. Would I love it if the whole thing weighed half what it does? Sure, but the weight in and of itself isn't enough to get me to replace things.
 
#136
KramerDon said:
For me the main thing is weight but I'm surprised no one's talked about stage volume.Even in the late 70's we were always trying to get a lower stage volume to help the singers hear better and to avoid feedback but were always limited by drummers and guitar players volume.With my Markbass setup now if I can't get loud enough,then the stage volume is way too loud and I'm not interested in participating.I've already got enough hearing loss(something you youngsters w/your mega stacks will learn about later!) I'm a firm believer that the lower the stage volume,the better!!!
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Yes. Keep up with a drummer? How about playing as a group? Stage volume is an unnecessary battle. I hear about 1,000 watt amps and don't understand why I'd ever need that. In one band I play in for weddings I bring my bass and my "pedalboard," which is a vt bass pedal, 2 small keyboards for bad approximations of synth bass playing, and a mixer for in ears, but no amp. No problem being heard in the PA ever.

I just bought a micro head today and am getting some sort of small cabinet, not that my kickback 12 was huge. But the prospect of loading in a 22 lb rig as opposed to the 32-ish of the kickback is even better. And my 6 lb birdsong is the best sounding bass I've ever owned and now I only hurt for half a day after the gig. ;-)

And corinpills, that 3 mile walk through the ritz Carlton maze? The lighter the load, even on the rock n roller, all the better. Although the singer and I wrote a song called "it only gets better" during that load in. No lie!
 
#137
corinpills said:
Anybody ever play at... What was the name if it, the Russian Lady? It was in Hartford in the late 90s and they used to make you sign a waiver before loading in UP THE FIRE ESCAPE! It was just metal steps, but technically it was the fire escape. 3 flights
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And that was just the wheelchair ramp!

Reminds me of my first gig in a club, studio one in Newark, NJ (was later the Crazy Horse on the Sopranos). 3 flights of steps, carrying the borrowed peavey mark IV with 18-10 cabinet, then breaking my e string on our first note and finishing the set with the borrowed bass (same guy who loaned me the peavey). But the $30 we made as a band was huge when I was 16!
 
#138
FFTT said:
You have not lived, nor earned your stripes proper till you've hauled a Hammond B-3 up two flights of stairs!
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Ah, the "good" old days - not. Keyboard player used to have a Hammond with Leslie, a Rhodes (later replaced by a Yamaha CP-70), Hohner D6 clav, Mini Moog, and Arp sting machine. I remember hauling all of that up the metal fire escape steps to a VFW or something to play a wedding...

I had a Peavey Mark IV with 215 cab.
 

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