What is Your Home Rig/Sound

[13bass]

Rumble 40 for home practice. And I can run a line out to headphones when necessary and still get the same great sound/tone. Have used it also for small gigs with a non heavy handed drummer and it is more than adequate. My Rumble 100 could fit your needs for small/medium gigs and/or my Rumble 800 can switch from 100w to 400w with the flip of a switch, so that could be used as well for home practice and probably any gig.

 

[MrLenny1]

Home- Klipsch 2.1 PC speakers with Focusrite interface.
Gigs- MarkBass 1x2 combo. Add 1x12 cab when needed.
5 string basses.

 

[paul traynor]

Ampeg PF50t and 2x 10.ampeg portaflex cab

 

[prndltech]

A fender rumble 100 v3 combo

 

[CallMeAl]

Home is vox amplug or Rumble 25. I keep the volume low, just enough to maintain my typical technique without annoying the family. I find at that volume level “tone” goes out the window and I’m really just focusing on learning my parts.

Gig rig is (Markbass) 500w and a 112. I used to have a second 112 but needed it so rarely it got sold. (i say “needed” loosely, I never actually needed it.) but I have PA when I do need it.

If my position was “small to medium gigs, no PA” I’d stick with the 500w, but switch to 210, leaving the door open for a second 210 if necessary.

oh, genres are rock, blues, country, jazz. Bass is a 4 string P.

 

[JazznFunk]

My 'home rig' is a set of headphones into my DAW - OR - my MarkBass NanoMark head into my ancient SWR Goliath cab from 1991. As long as I can EQ out any trouble spots, any amp will do at home.

 

[yonkrz]

Simple, loud(to loud for home) and awesome sounding

 

[Lovep]

Arkham Zephyr (tube pre) to B173 (preamp) to B172a (compressor) into MOTU M4/DAW. I hate headphones so I mostly play out of my 7inch speaker monitors and 12inch subwoofer (shakes the house!).

 

[shoot-r]

I use the exact same setup I do when playing a job, only difference, I use the master knob to turn it down!

Sounds GREAT at any volume level.

 

[Doug P]

Ampeg mini SVT VR. I’ll also bring my live rack up and hook it to the 2 x 10. It’s a GK 700 RB II and Tech 21 RPM pre-amp. I use a Aguilar 599 compressor too.

 

[Marko 1]

What is your home rig and how do you dial it in?
What model of bass do you play *(mainly is it a 4 or 5er)?
What genres do you typically play?
How valuable is low end extension for playing at home and on stage?

I use what I gig with, amps (strictly solid state) ranging from 750 to 1000 watts, cabs 4x10s, 2x15, 4x12s and 8x10s. Indoors I typically don't use Subs or put bass in the PA, so I don't want it too deep or boomy, I try to keep it clean so it sounds good out in the room.

I play strictly 5ers, various models, but favoring the Yamaha BBs lately.

Wide variety 60s-90s covers.

I kinda let the cabs shine according to their design, they don't all sound just the same and I enjoy a variety, I just try to avoid boominess.

 

[May Cassidy]

If I'm just practicing at home I'll use either my Fender Rumble 25 or run my basses directly into GarageBand. On the rumble, I tend to keep everything flat but have the "contour" button pushed in. As for GarageBand I tend to use either the SVT type model or the Mesa Boogie one, both with the "E-Bass EQ" preset.

I'm a 4-String gal, I tend to rotate through all 5 of them pretty regularly with my Sterling Ray4 w/ EMG's as my number one. Lately though, my new Fender Jazz has been my primary axe. I'll go between slightly different setups on my main basses depending on what I'm doing. Most of them have stainless steel roundwounds at the moment, but that shifts based on what I'm doing.

I tend to operate in alternative rock/ post punk spaces, but I dabble in jazz and metal.

When I'm playing at home, I don't usually have the volume control much past 10 o'clock, so I don't get a ton of low end out of the sound. Even when I do turn up, I'll often look more for low-mids than true bass frequencies.
I don't usually like a massive amount of low end while playing live either as I find it often gets muddy, but I like having the whole tonal spectrum available to accommodate for different spaces. I'll set things totally differently for different locations based on what the space naturally accentuates: the school gymnasium where I'd often play in high school required me to add more mids and treble, but in a proper auditorium I find myself rolling treble back a bit.

 

[pyrat56host]

I cut this in half and just run the Quilter Interbass 45 through one 2x12. It can do whisper quiet all the way to full on street gig and if I do need more *ka-BOOM*, I just line in to the Quilter

BB802. And the tone? whooooo-whee, delicious.

 

[tb-player]

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I'm gearing up to develop a bass combo with the goal of optimizing for playing quietly with a big sound and keeping up with medium/small gigs (no PA support).

With that in mind, I wanted to do some "research" here first:

What is your home rig and how do you dial it in?
What model of bass do you play *(mainly is it a 4 or 5er)?
What genres do you typically play?
How valuable is low end extension for playing at home and on stage?

Feel free to deviate with any other thoughts and suggestions. I appreciate any and all feedback, the more the merrier.

WD-800 powering an Eden D-210-XST. I dial it in just the way I play live, only quieter with the wife is home. I use both a 4 and 5 string basses. I mostly play mostly Motown, Stax and Muscle Shoals, but venture into rock music from time to time.

I’m not so sure what you mean by low end extension, but Eden’s cabs are full range and highly efficient and have no problem achieving as much low end as you want . this Mesa integrated head has a lot more tonal control than most integrated heads on the market.

I mostly play in venues mostly in the 500 seat range along with an occasional outdoor concert. Since we are a 11 members multi vocal horn band, we always have FOH support. That said, my rig can put out up to 129 dBs and can cover a lot of our venues without FOH support however in an ensemble this size, it’s best not to give our sound company a lot of problems.

I also like to use a second cab when playing out doors. For that situation I have a stereo rack rig to use when playing with a second cab. In my case, the second cab (D-210-XLT) is rated at 150 watts less that the D-210-XST. Using the Mesa WD-800 would power both cabs with 400 watts each and potentially could ruin the the drivers of the XLT cab. With the rack I can blend the volume output between each cabs as well as limit any potential damage to the lower rated cab.

Another consideration is I don’t like running my cabs at max capacity for the same reason I don’t run my cars floored. Speakers are mechanical as well, and the less abused they are, the longer they will last. I haven’t blown up a speaker since the 70’s and have no intention of doing that now.

To your question about low end extension, I’m of a bent that more cabs operating at a lower percentage of the potential RMS rating will give you better results more so that one cab maxed out.

Best wishes.

 

[Aledal]

I live in a 2 bedroom condo in NYC and am surrounded by neighbors and poorly insulated walls, my home rig is about as scaled down as I can get it to be and still get a 'decent' sound that's not too far off my rehearsal/live/tour rig.

The Phil Jones Double Four cranks out an incredibly clear reproduction of what's going into it and alongside taking up the same space as a shoebox, it has enough dynamism available within the 4" speakers to hear subtlety in the dirt and any modulation that goes in but hasn't got the boom you'd expect from larger cabs/speakers. Also has a handy aux-in which i use to bluetooth demo's from my dropbox to rehearse to.

The bass that spends its days there is a FrankenFender that is the body of a 91 P Bass, Warmoth Jazz Bass neck and some Aguilar 4P60s, Emerson wiring and wearing some La Bella heavy gauge flats (I find the flats really help keep the neighbors complaints to a minimum).

 

[ThinCrappyTone2]

What is your home rig and how do you dial it in?
95% of the time, a Genz Benz Shuttle 9.0 or Ampeg PF 20T head into a recording interface, played through phones or studio monitors.
5% of the time, a Genz Benz Shuttle 3.0 10T

What model of bass do you play *(mainly is it a 4 or 5er)?
Mostly 4 strings these days

What genres do you typically play?
Rock, metal, folk, progressive, experimental

How valuable is low end extension for playing at home and on stage?
Extremely valuable. "No butt" is my #1 complaint with small combos. It's no fun to play through a midrangy combo, ime.

Other nice-to-haves
• Lightweight
• Nice sounding headphone output for silent practice
• Nice sounding, full-featured DI for silent recording
• Sounds good enough that you might want to mic up the amplified sound
• Not noisy or hissy in the high end

 

[dsteinschneider]

A vintage Ampeg B-15. I dial it in according to which bass I'm playing, but usually it's not too far from flat.

I have an IK Multimedia Axe I/0 which has a special input for guitar and bass. There is an FET switch I turn on, plus an active/passive switch that's helpful and a rotary control called Z-Tone that changes the impedance of the input. I run this into a VST plugin by Nembrini called B15N and listen either through DT 770 Pro headphones or my nearfield monitors. It responds much like the amp its modeled on.

I also have a Fender Rad Bass 25 with a 10" speaker that sounds very good - a predecessor to the Rumble.

 

[jw23mind]

I would want the following features, minimum: HPF around 50 Hz, LPF around 5kHz, some type of midrange control centered around 500Hz, and a power amp beefy enough to add an extension cabinet if needed.

 

[SAlcott]

What is your home rig and how do you dial it in?
Ampeg SB12. I turn it on, let it warm up, and play. Tone controls straight up, volume as necessary.
What model of bass do you play *(mainly is it a 4 or 5er)?
Serek Midwestern 2
What genres do you typically play?
Many
How valuable is low end extension for playing at home and on stage?
Not.