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Suggest an amp for a P-bass...

#21
Sure, the Ampeg SVT rig is a classic with a P-bass, but one big advantage of the P-bass is its plug-and-play nature -- it will sound great through any reasonable rig, and will adapt to all sorts of material. I've played P-basses through lots of stuff, and love my G-K rig with Neo112 cabs, and I've also been mightily impressed with Genz Benz heads through their NeoX 212 cab.

Also, I think P-basses sound great through 15" speakers, more so that J-basses.
 
#26
I used my P originally through an Ashdown ABM and now an LMII, boths amps eqs are run almost flat. I think that any good amp without too much of it's own characteristic tone would be fine. So that's pretty much any good amp head, cabs? Well that's another story.
 
#27
i like to combine my precision bass with a very neutral sounding amp and big speakers. sure, SVT is the classic choice, but in my ears it compromises the sound of the bass rather than supporting it. thus, i like rigs that have less "sound" than the SVT+fridge.
my HIWATT 200 clone and 2/15 cab do a good job.

i once tied out the GLOCKENKLANG "heart rock" amp and "take five neo" 410 cab and was absolutely paralyzed - my p never sounded that good. unfortunately i don't have the bucks to buy that rig.... :crying:
 
#28
Truth is, this bass, as so many do, will sound great with so many amps.
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I agree with this. I use a pbass primarily, and I run it through a Genz Benz GBE600. I use the tube side of the amplifier and set the gain of the tubes at about 10 o'clock. I can get a very warm, fat, yet articulate tone. I believe the pbass will sound just wonderfully through many amps with proper EQing. Good luck!
 
#29
Energy said:
i like to combine my precision bass with a very neutral sounding amp and big speakers. sure, SVT is the classic choice, but in my ears it compromises the sound of the bass rather than supporting it.
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Didn't used to. Something has gone wrong with the cabs, though. They're still good, but for some reason they get boomy.
 
#30
SVTs are great and all, but man, if you're a serious gigging player, I can't imagine moving around town with that all-tube set up so frequently. Also, really, such large setups are unrealistic in most situations locally. Sonically, an 8x10 would be overkill for a lot of places. Does anyone really enjoy carrying a 80 lbs head around?

Agreed that most amps would work fine since the quality of amps these days have really jumped up in my opinion.

With that, again, an older Ashdown is my pick for my P-Bass setup. I have an Aguilar AG500 and a Markbass LMII as well, but for the P, my Ashdown's color and warmth plus the P-bass have a sound that's greater than the sum of its parts. I firmly stick by that. I think it has a more responsive and organic feel than most similarly priced Ampeg amps out there.
 
#32
drnknmstr said:
SVTs are great and all, but man, if you're a serious gigging player, I can't imagine moving around town with that all-tube set up so frequently. Also, really, such large setups are unrealistic in most situations locally. Sonically, an 8x10 would be overkill for a lot of places. Does anyone really enjoy carrying a 80 lbs head around?
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Apparently they do because it's still as big a seller as it ever was. If I was doing 6 one-nighters every week, I'd think twice about one, but for some people, downsizing isn't cutting it. I went through a downsizing period myself, but I finally decided I like a bigger rig and now I'll suck up the extra weight in order to get the big sound onstage. Who knows? Next year I may find it all a futile waste of time, but at this point, I'm enjoying bigging up.

The 810 is overkill, but you get a good one and you're in tonal Nirvana! Plus most amps have volume controls, so that's not usually an issue.
 
#33
Has anyone read Mike Visceglia's article on over-amplifying on stage? He really argues a great point about not using so many speakers in a realistic situation. I know it sounds great and huge, but from the context of a stage setup, it'd really cause some problems. Though really, I rarely do see 8x10s in most regular gigs, anyway.

I personally try to have everything in one trip from the car to the stage.

I guess it depends on what city you live in anyway. A guy in San Francisco will have different needs to say a guy in Nashville.

But yeah, the Mike Visceglia essay on sound setup really changed the way I set up my rig. I met him at Bass Player Live and we had a great chat about it.

Some bands of mine have minimized the clutter on stage and it really made a huge difference in our FOH sound and now everyone can hear the vocals and finally get a good mix.

But I do concur that there is nothing quite like feeling that air move a la SVT :) Unfortunately, it's something I've given up in terms of my personal big picture as a local Los Angeles gigging player.
 
#36
Abe Laboriel also mentioned this experience he had once. As an experiment, he gradually shut off his amp to see what would happen. The sound guy didn't know about it, but after the set he goes, "Man, you've never sounded better!", and from that point on Abe made it a point to make it as easy for the sound guy as possible to get a better balanced mix.

I think a lot of people agree on the problematic nature of too much stage volume and placing the vocal mics right in front of the drummer which would cause too much bleed, etc.

It's mostly for the practical nature of mixing in a live setup.

Of course, it's often scary to leave your sound at the mercy of another person, but overall, as much as I hate it, I've come to believe it's for the better good.

But yeah, I DO LOVE nice loud stage volume for my own pleasure.

I picked up the minimal gear ethic as well from LA session drummer Voyce McGinley since the gigs 3 times a night. He has to move quickly and never brings too much stuff.

For me, my LMII, 1 or 2 Aguilar GS112s, and my Nordy can cut 95% of any gig out there, any style.

Another plus of the Ashdown is that it's not super heavy either (but sounds so thick!), so I'll bring that for other gigs as well, ones requiring my exclusive use of the P-bass, which is what the OP wanted to know :)
 
#37
If an amp doesn't sound good with a P-Bass running through it, it's probably a pretty crappy amp. I love it through a tube head, but I generally don't want to lug a tube amp around, so I use my Shuttle 6.0 and I'm happy with it.

In short, it depends on what kind of music you're playing. Many argue that despite it's reputation as a "one trick pony", the P-Bass is the most versatile bass out there because it sounds good in most any context, both in terms of amplification and musical genre's.

KO
 
#39
drnknmstr said:
Abe Laboriel also mentioned this experience he had once. As an experiment, he gradually shut off his amp to see what would happen. The sound guy didn't know about it, but after the set he goes, "Man, you've never sounded better!", and from that point on Abe made it a point to make it as easy for the sound guy as possible to get a better balanced mix.

I think a lot of people agree on the problematic nature of too much stage volume and placing the vocal mics right in front of the drummer which would cause too much bleed, etc.

It's mostly for the practical nature of mixing in a live setup.

Of course, it's often scary to leave your sound at the mercy of another person, but overall, as much as I hate it, I've come to believe it's for the better good.

But yeah, I DO LOVE nice loud stage volume for my own pleasure.

I picked up the minimal gear ethic as well from LA session drummer Voyce McGinley since the gigs 3 times a night. He has to move quickly and never brings too much stuff.

For me, my LMII, 1 or 2 Aguilar GS112s, and my Nordy can cut 95% of any gig out there, any style.

Another plus of the Ashdown is that it's not super heavy either (but sounds so thick!), so I'll bring that for other gigs as well, ones requiring my exclusive use of the P-bass, which is what the OP wanted to know :)
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It would be impossible to dispute any of that with logic. But still, I love a big cab rig that spreads the sound out all over me, even if it's at a low volume. I did the Markbass 12" combo by itself for a while and really liked it. But in the end, the tall stack with more than one driver won me over again. Of course, I'm old, so the SVT got replaced with a B-15 stack (powered by an LMII when I need more than 25w, which is rare), but I'm looking forward to trotting out my 69 SVT once in a while (if I can ever get it fixed and stay fixed!).
 

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