Rig Complete!!! finally

Its not pretty (in fact it's butt ugly imo) but it all plays nicely with each other and sounds pretty delicious! this has been in the works since May of this year when my markbass 121 combo died. Needed something that can fill a medium/large room but can also get ear splittingly loud for one of my regular bands, needed to be modular cause i also play my fair share of quiet jazz gigs, needed to be able to transport the whole thing on my own, and i am in my early twenties (aka broke). After a few months of scouring FB marketplace, craigslist, and hitting up other local bassists I put this whole rig together well under $500. Hopefully it plays some 500+ shows like my markbass did.

 

The PF500 was $200 even on fb marketplace, that was a lucky find. $200 used price for the hartke and 40 for the Benz. The focusrite is just there for home recording and headphone practice, not a part of the rig per se. just happened to be in the photo.

 

Thanks so much! Happy with the sound personally, not a beautiful mesa rig or svt but it serves me well.

 

Oh yeah, I’m well aware that DONE is a relative term. God I hope I’m not DONE, sheeeesh I hope I have more money than this one day to get something better. But, for now, I think this sounds great, plenty for my needs, I don’t think I’ll have this for 25 years, but maybe I’m done for the next 5. Lol I mean I played a mark bass combo for 10 years.

the drivers are indeed in phase and compliment each other well to my ear. The hartke is scooped like a ***** and the Benz is very mids forward. I’m into it. It handles my low B very well. Tho, like someone mentioned, a HPF might be in my future so as to not blow out my new butt ugly rig. What frequency do you set those to anyway? I play pretty loud and a lot of low B in a couple groups, where do you notch in the filter?

For a while I was using the PF500 with a TON of gain for a this one band and loved the grinding natural tube esque distortion! It’s a really nice sound, not I’m also sticking a DS-1 in front of it for that band. (if you haven’t guessed yet, I play a lot of upright jazz/avant garde, pit gigs, cocktail hours, and some funk/Latin/reggae, but the one band I’m always referring to is a doom metal trio )

ahh yes, the 40 dollar Benz cab, yep it’s fully functional, sounds great! Crystal clear! A friend of mine was using it as a back up for his rumble 500c but just landed a pretty sweet touring gig so he got a new Aguilar rig, made the fender his back up, and just wanted to get the old Benz cab out of the house. There was a rattle in it and he said that’s why it’s so cheap but he suspected it was just a matter of tightening some screws. Well, he was right, I had that rattle gone in all of about 5 minutes.

just returned from doom metal rehearsal and this rig held her own, I’m proud of it! Sounded great. Not quite as fat as the ampeg 410hlf (sold to help pay rent) I had but I can also get this rig up the stairs on my own…