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More important - bass or amp?

Which is more important?

  • The bass

    Votes: 114 33.6%

  • The amp

    Votes: 133 39.2%

  • They are equally important

    Votes: 92 27.1%
  • Total voters
    339
#102
Starting out, you need an adequate bass and a decent practice amp. As soon as you have the $$ upgrade the amp so you have the power, tone, and headroom you need to play live. An inexpensive bass, say Squier quality or better (plays well and sounds decent to good), will sound better through a great amp than a great bass, such as a MIA Fender, Spector, Warwick, Alembic, Lakland, etc. will through a mediocre amp.

You need that good amp to be able to reasonably perform live so you can earn some more money to put into a better bass (the GAS never ends!). But getting a top-quality bass through an inadequate bedroom practice amp gets you nothing. So, presuming you have an adequate bass, upgrade the amp first.
 
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#103
The ol' bass version of chicken or egg.

I'll say this. I don't know the answer. But when I started out I had a Squier P bass and a Peavey 112. It was a perfect setup for a bedroom warrior. One day I blew the 112 and had to get an amp quickly because I was playing a pretty big show in a few month's time. A month later my guitarist got a half stack for Christmas, and I was forced to go big ampwise. I was scouring craigslist for a few months and I found the perfect rig; my Ampeg 410 HLF with an Ampeg SVT350. I was a broke college kid so I asked for a price lower than was listed and the guy agreed, he just wanted it off of his hands. It was all pretty serendipitous.

I still use the Squier (heavily modded) and I still use the Ampeg stack after all of these years. While any bass sounds good through my Ampeg, my Squier doesn't sound that great on any amp. It's inconvenient to haul my whole rig over to the house of my guitarist now who lives a short drive away, and I don't want to leave it there because we only play once every two weeks (I want to be able to play myself). So I use his old bassist's crappy amp and it makes my bass, which usually sounds killer on better amps, sound like poo. I remedy that by bringing my head over to run my bass through first but it still doesn't sound as great as I want it to. But I'm sure a bass that doesn't sound as good as mine would sound even worse on that poo amp.

Long story short, I don't really know!
 
#104
The reason why the bass is in your hands on any particular day will determine which is more important.

If I'm alone down in my music room, I don't even need an amp to noodle around on my bass or evaluate if my setup needs tweaking.

But as soon as I get up in front of people to perform, I need a good way to transmit that sound to those people.

So, IMHO, if you're playing for an audience, your amp is what they hear and should be the priority.
But there has to be a balance, and a "minimum usable quality" standard applied.
 
#105
My amp setup is purposefully very neutral...Radial JDI into a Crest power amp into a fEARful cab, with a second JDI set up for a DI...so if I could go DI in this situation I'd say bass. I want my gear-influenced-tone to all about my bass and the pedals I use.

But...if I can't DI than 100% amp. I can play any bass, but if my amp isn't loud enough and doesn't have enough EQ options to compensate for the sound of the cheap bass I'll be stuck.
 
#106
jwilson67 said:
Many of you are missing the point of the OP's post. Of course most shows you play you will have the ability to run direct. BUT if you were in a situation where you had to use your amp to provide all your volume from the stage then without a doubt it would be the most important component.
Click to expand...
Not missing the point actually . I understand the question. An unrealistic scenario was created in order to get the desired answer. And I simply said it's an unrealistic scenario. The reality for me at least is that we don't book shows at venues without PA support and I can use a DI. So because the question was worded to create an unrealistic scenario to get a certain answer it's really not a question of which is more important. I could do the exact same thing and make up an unrealistic scenario for any comparison to get everyone to give the same answer.
 
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#108
I play bar gigs all the time with no bass in the FOH. An "unrealistic scenario" for one person is somebody else's day-to-day. With that said, the post does seem like it was leading us to a desired answer. With the scenario given, the amp will always be more important than the instrument for the simple fact that it has to be loud enough for you and the rest of the room to hear the bass.
 
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#112
I said bass because if you have a bad playing, sounding or uncomfortable bass then you will not advance enough to where you should be talent wise.
Other musicians can tell if you are a good player and have a good quality guitar.
Also you can have a cheap amp that sounds VERY good...IF you look around and due your due diligence on trying them out.
(yeah the same can be said of the cheaper bass...but I prefer to have the bass that makes me improve faster)

Bottom line is it is a self preference...
 
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#113
Reference "The Color of Money" when Tom Cruise gets told to use a house cue.
As long as I know how the table rolls, I can find a straight enough cue around the weight I can deal with.

Cue and table, bass and amp.
Perfect stuff will change unless you are always in a perfectly controlled environment, and change doesn't interfere with my output.

Also I grew up with a full size Brunswick Royal at my parents house, they change just like a house settles and changes. I could zero the table, but it's not going to help me hold my concentration and flow for 15 racks of straight pool.
 
#114
I might add that the first thing I got was a crap Japanese bass, but there wasn't a lot of bass choices in 1965. I used the door to a closet as a sounding board so I could hear what I was playing because I didn't have an amp. In 1966 I bought a Fender Bassman amp, which was pretty much the top shelf at the time - (OK, Dual Showman was better). Then I started playing with a group. Next thing you know a group asks me to join them (this is all high-school) and a 1965 Fender Jazz Bass falls into my hands. Their bass player decided to play the organ and he sold me that bass on payments. Was perfect - I took over his spot and got to use his bass immediately. In about 1972, the Fender Bassman amp was no longer sufficient to keep up with the group I was touring with and I upgraded the amp to a Standel MCIIB/SAM30B which was about the best out at the time. I preferred it to both the Ampeg SVT 810 and the acoustic 360/361.

So I went from crap bass with no amp, to crap bass with nice amp, to top of the line bass with nice amp. Then the "nice amp" was no longer good enough and I went from nice amp to top of the line amp. Then in 1976 everything but one microphone stand was stolen when the house I was staying in was burglarized.

In 1985 I snagged the White MIA Jazz in my avatar but wasn't until 1997 that I started the old get an amp that works - get an amp that works better - upgrade path again. At least the second time around, I already had the great bass. Was a long road, but I'm where I want to be with bass, amp, and speaker cabs right now.
 
#115
The bass! Who cares what amp you're playing thru if you can't play the instrument itself?

You could have your dream rig behind you but you're playing a bass with an awful setup, with a neck that causes your hand to cramp and the frets are ripping them apart... Would anyone still choose the amp?
 

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