I've seen a bunch of interesting bass rigs from touring artists - mostly in the rock / metal scene where the guys usually send some sort a direct signal to the front of house and use amps on stage.
My question is - why do so many guys spend the money on 800+ watt amps and 8x10" cabs plus go trough the effort of transporting it to gigs, when no one except the bass player actually cares. How many bands do you know that actually mic up their cabs and don't just go trough the DI of the amp in the end?
Here's a recent example, where the guy is sending 2 direct signals to the PA. Why not use the same setup + an IR loader to send the signal directly.
P.s. I don't use an amp, and my band uses an in-ear monitoring system.
I guess I have to chime in here. First of all, I like the sound I get out of my amp/cabs and unless my gear is miked, you won't hear that out of the FOH Mains. And besides that, it is very, VERY,
VERY important to keep the bass player happy.
I have played clubs where they wanted to use their DI boxes and plug us straight into the board. I plugged into my WTDI instead (DI box with built-in Eden preamp and adjustable compressor), and fed them that signal. They liked it fine and I at least got to use my own sound shaping. It didn't sound as good as through my own cabs because my cabs (In my opinion) are the best, but it was fine. And, of course, load-in and load-out were a breeze.
Another big reason is that I was infected with Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) before many of you were born.
The G.A.S. Journey (a novella - with pics! you've been warned!)
First exposure to GAS infections was in 1965 when I got an ugly green Japanese bass but had no amp. I would bump the back of my bass up against a closet door and used that as a soundboard so I could hear what I was playing. That was where the infection started. I got a bad case of GAS for an amp and cab so I could "really" hear what I was playing. Then, as a 16-yr. old kid in 1966, I bought a brand new Fender Bassman amp for $449 of $3,566.31(that would be the equivalent of $3566.31 in 2019 dollars). That was both good and bad. Good because I could actually hear myself, bad because I found out how crappy that Japanese bass sounded.
So now I was GASsing for a new bass. Lo and behold, one almost fell into my lap. I replaced the bass player in a high school group because he decided to play organ for the group. I bought his 1965 Jazz Bass in 1966...no more GASsing for a bass! I seemed to be free of GAS as I finished high school and headed out to college. Quit college after my sophomore year and went to work. Moved down to LA and ended up re-packaging prescription drugs into unit-dosed packs for a pharmacy that was pioneering Unit-Dose Processing. Was interesting for a bit because I got to work with the FDA while we pioneered this.
However, the machinery to automatically pack it after everything had been set up malfunctioned and couldn't be fixed. The answer was to put a tray on the machine and every time I hear the heat seal cycle to push a pill down the throat for the next one. Do 8,000 to 12,000 pills in that manner in a day and you're about to go crazy. Then one day in 1971, I got a phone call from a buddy I played music with in high school asking if I wanted to come join the band he was in and get paid for playing my bass. I took a 2-week vacation just to hedge my bets and drove ~500-miles to where he was in Nevada.
Got to the Golden Nugget in Fallon, Nevada and he introduced me to the band. BL asked if I had my gear with me and did I need any help bringing it in. Set up my gear on stage and played that night. They absolutely were legit and were booked well out, so I called in and quit my job. For the next three years we traveled all over the West and Mid-West playing nightclubs. Typical gig was for 2-weeks, 5-nights a week, 9-PM to 1-AM. Played that schedule for 50-weeks a year. My GAS was under control for less than a year of that.
In late 1971 we were playing the Little Bohemian Club (Little Bo's), a large club (held ~600) in Lincoln Nebraska for 2-weeks and both the guitarist and the keyboardist had just purchased Vox Super Beatle amps because Thomas Organ was clearing them out. In 1971, those 125-watt amps into four 12's were very loud and my 50-watt Fender Bassman just couldn't keep up. GAS hits because I can't be heard and I really need a new amp.
Went to Hospe Music there in downtown Lincoln, tried out everything they had and walked out with a Standel Piggy-Back amp - MCIIB/SAM30B. It had a powered 215 cab with 4 round ports mounted vertically and was easily twice as deep as my Fender amp was. Power was either 200 or 250-watts rms, sorry don't remember which. In any case if I turned it above 9 o'clock on the master playing indoors, I got told to turn down. I could easily bury those Super Beatle amps. GAS was finally gone again.
Here I am in 1972 and you can see part of my Standel amp in the back. And yes that is my 1965 Fender Jazz I'm playing there. That staved off my GAS infection for quite a while:
GAS stayed gone until 1976 when our house was burglarized and all my music gear was stolen. My wife and I had two young kids by then and there was no money in the budget to do anything about it. For Christmas that year my wife bought a Pan 12-string from a next door neighbor for me, since I also play guitar. I really suffered from GAS for my '65 Jazz bass though and would stop in every music store and try out their Jazz Basses.
It was a really disappointing search. 1965 was the last year that Fender USA made that neck that was on mine. I toured for 3-years with that bass and nothing else felt right. Finally in 1985, I had gone back to college pursuing computer science. Ended up singing in the Vocal Jazz Ensemble, but that's another story. During part of that period I worked part-time at Apple Music, a very large independent music store in Portland, OR. They had about 100 Fender Basses on the wall and I tried everyone. None of them had that neck that I wanted so badly, so GAS continued.
Then one day in 1985 this guy comes in with an Olympic White Fender Jazz in mint condition and wants to trade it in for something with active pickups. He walks out with an Aria ProII and this White Jazz goes on the wall. I didn't even bother to pick it up for 4-days. Then I did and it just felt like home. It had the exact same shape to the neck. I asked the owner if he'd sell it to me and he told me that if it didn't sell at retail within a month, he'd make me a deal. It didn't, he did, and that's the bass I still play. At least Bass GAS is gone again. Had a really hard time pulling it out of the family budget, but managed to do it.
So now I was back to the same shape I'd been in back in 1965. I had a bass and no amp. So back to using a closet door as the sound board and putting up with GAS for an amp. Since I didn't have an amp, I wasn't playing in a group.
In 1997 I moved up to the Mt. Shasta area of northern California. I wasn't happy with the action on my bass (still no amp) so I took it into a music shop in Mt. Shasta City to see about getting a good set up done on it or perhaps some neck work. Fellow looked at it and said, "This looks like just a truss rod adjustment and you could do that yourself. Besides, I wouldn't be comfortable doing anything else to this neck (maple neck with white binding)"
He then invited me to come to the Siskiyou Blues Society Jam on Wednesday nights at "The Gold Room" there in Mt. Shasta. Told him I didn't have an amp and he said, "we've got amps there." Told him I didn't even have a cord anymore and he said, "we've cords there too. Just bring your bass and show up." For the next 9-months I did that. Then got asked to play bass for a group in the area and had to borrow an amp from my son to do so. I used a Yamaha B50-15II that my son used in high school. It worked OK as long as you didn't turn it up past noon...really had bad GAS for a good amp.
In 1998, I got transferred for my job back to Vermont and my bass went to sleep for the next 7-years. pulled it out to play by myself, but that was it. I was the webmaster for the Orvis Company there and almost all my time was taken up designing and implementing an e-commerce section putting all the items online that we sold in the millions of catalogs that Orvis sent out each year. Didn't take any time off at all (outside of weekends) for the first 3-years.
Then in 2005 I got transferred down to Roanoke, VA. I found a Sunn B202 (212 cab) at a yard sale for $40 so I snagged it. Not much happened there until early in 2006. I got asked to play bass for a company assembly that the head guys from our Vermont home office were putting on. We got two guitar players and a drum machine (couldn't find a drummer - figures!). We did
Taking Care of Business, and
Boys are Back in Town at the beginning and then did musical clips through the assembly as various folks were brought up.
This was very much "the Tonight Show" style. Played "Voodoo Child" as the marketing guy came up and "Money" as the Chief Financial Officer made an appearance. Had fun time. Ended up using my son's Yamaha 115 combo with my Sunn cab on top of that and then plugged into the sound board (about 600-people in the audience). Was fun but came away from that really wanting a better amp and to play in a group again.
About a month or two later was asked to join the "Mid-Life Crisis" (youngest member was 34). Joined up and promptly ordered a GK Backline 250 with a 115 cab - The Brat Pack!. I'd used a GK amp once before into some JBL FOH speakers and that sounded great. This one, didn't sound so great. It was really boomy, no matter how I adjusted it. I could hook up my Sunn cab with it in series (parallel would have melted that amp) and ran it that way for a while. So, still GASsing for a good amp.
After a few gigs, I took the money and bought an Eden Nemesis RS400 (400-watts rms @ 4 ohms) amp. That amp put out 275-watts into 8 ohms but I had to use it at 12 ohms (serial connection) because the GK cab was 8 ohms and the Sunn cab was 4 ohms. If I hooked them up in parallel like "normal" that would have put a 2.67 ohm load on my 4 ohm minimum amp. Luckily my Sunn cab had both series and parallel outputs on the backplate. So I hooked it up in series and that put a 12 ohm load on the amp. Even with the drop in watts due to the higher ohm load, that power exceeded what my Sunn 100-watt cab could handle and it easily farted out. So I really needed to get another cab...there it IS! GAS again.
Here's that Nemesis RS400, my first "real" amp since my Standel:
I carefully gigged with that set up for a few months and ended up buying an acoustic B410 when GC brought the acoustic brand back out. Now I had an 8 ohm 410 and an 8 ohm 115 for a combined load of 4 ohms. My RS400 put out 400-watts into that load, so that sent 200-watts to each. Suddenly I was much louder than previous combinations AND sounded a lot better too. But that darn GK115bpx cab was still boomy. I had to drop the bass EQ on the amp to clear it up.
I'm selling this stack. Price reduced to $350 in the classifieds.
Local Pick up - cash only. Use link below for more pics and info
For Sale - acoustic B410+GK115bpx Bass Stack - first 5 cash takes it.
That combination worked and I gigged until 2010 using that set-up. Having been introduced to Eden amps in their "mid-range" and spending way too much time on the Eden amps forum (Marshall killed that forum a couple of months ago), I was constantly looking through E-bay postings for deals on gold-faced Eden amps (WT-series).
David Nordschow, the founder of Eden, had sold Eden to USM in ~2008 but stayed on to continue designing Eden amps and cabs. Then in 2010 he left Eden to start DNA. A WT500 amp (dual-powerblock, 250 watts per channel/500-watts bridged) showed up on E-bay that had reputedly been upgraded to the WT800 power - 400-watts @4 ohms per channel and 800-watts bridged at 8 ohm.
The listing further said the amp had belonged to the founder of Eden. I checked with Lane Baldwin from the Eden forum since he worked with David and asked if this was legit. He said he's check with David and let me know. Lane came back and said it was legit. That was David's amp. So I put a bid on it but was quickly outbid. However, the amp had a reserve on it and that wasn't met so he hadn't actually sold the amp at this point.
A couple of days later, Lane asked if I'd won the E-bay auction. I told him no, but that it hadn't sold because the reserve on it wasn't met. So he asked what the most was that I could pay for that. I gave him the same number as my bid because that was the most I could do and he said he'd talk to David. Next day he got back to me and said that David agreed to sell it to me for that price and he gave me the e-mail address to Paypal the money to him. He also said that not only was it David's personal amp, but it was the amp that David had used since 1999 on his test bench to develop Eden cabs.
I sent the $$ by Paypal and about 4 days later I had the amp. David signed the amp as David Nordschow instead of the "David Eden" signature he used to sign amps with and also noted the 800-watt upgrade and initialed that note on the amp too. This took care of my GAS for a while. It certainly solved my GAS for an amp.
Surprising thing is that there's not a huge difference in the sound of this amp from my RS400. It definitely produces a warmer sound because of the hybird preamp in it instead of the FET preamp in my RS400. It also has a lot more flexibility with three semi-parametric controls in the EQ besides the Bass and Treble EQ's, which are shelving EQ's. Add to that the flexibility of having two discrete power channels that don't care what you plug into the other power channel.
Outside of the warmth that it adds to the sound, the biggest difference it made to me was the ability to control the blend of the two power channels. The "Balance" knob on the front adjusts the mix of power going to the two channels so you can blend in just the right amount of one cab with the other. I plugged my acoustic 410 into one channel and my GK115bpx into the other channel and then just turned the "balance" knob on the front of the amp a few clicks towards the 410 and the boominess from that GK cab disappeared without the need to drop the Bass EQ that the acoustic B410 really needed to sound better. So my sound was both warmer and fuller with this new-to-me amp. GAS was under control again.
This set-up worked well me for the next 5-years:
And then of course David had to come out with his new DNA cabs. I really thought that getting two of his 112 cabs would be the best choice because it was getting rave reviews, but the darn 112's were almost as much as the 410. Since Lane Baldwin moved over to DNA in 2010, I contacted him for some recommendations.
I told Lane I was thinking about getting the DNS-112's but my amp only bridges into 8 ohms getting two of the 112's was prohibitively expensive for me. Asked if David was going to come out with a 212. He checked with David and answer was no, not coming out with a 212 cab. Didn't sell enough of the Eden 212's to make him want to come out with a DNS-212. Lane said that I should just get the DNS-410 in 8 ohms, bridge into that with my WT500/800 and call it done. So, I GASsed on that until April of 2015 when I finally took delivery of my DNS-410 just two days before I left Virginia to move to Washington state.
That was the be-all, end-all of cabs for me. I expected to use it everywhere. The sound is amazing! It is so clear and full. It's a very sensitive cab (takes few watts to drive it) and crazy loud. Max SPL is 137db and you don't want to be anywhere near it at those levels.
Then one day, after I first joined a new band, I had gig at a small local brew pub and the owners eyes looked like a deer in headlights when I rolled my DNS-410 in. He said, "that's way too big for here, use that." He pointed to a little Peavey 112 combo. So I used that and it worked OK there, but I just couldn't get a good sound.
SO then I started GASsing for an Eden WTDI (DI box with built-in Eden preamp and adjustable compressor). With that pedal, I could plug my bass into and then plug the WTDI into that Peavey's effects-return to bypass the Peavey preamp and just use the Peavey power section. Got that, did that, sounded like an Eden amp, and stopped my GAS again. We played there a lot. We hosted the open-mic night there on Friday nights at least 3 and sometimes as many as 5 Fridays each month.
Then one day I came in and the amp was gone. Owner said it belonged to one of the guys who "used to work there" and he came and got it. No worries took out my WTDI and ran it through the PA for the night and the following week too. Then I decided, since I had some gig money hanging around we played this small venue so often, I should probably get something for it.
A friend of mine from the UK has gone on and on over the years about the Eden EX-112's that he has. So I thought, that would perfect for this little place and I bought one in 4 ohm. I used my RS400 to run it which can put out 100-watts more than that 112 can handle, but didn't need to run it anywhere close to that and it sounded good. In fact, it sounded so good I bought a second one and figured I'd use both of them at medium-sized clubs. Cabs were less than $300 each, so that worked out well and inside of another week I had two. Had to use my WT500/800 with them though because both are 4 ohm cabs.
Another friend from the Eden forum was selling his Eden TN226, which is a class D 225-watt amp. I figured that would be fine for the small club and he offered it with the shoulder bag at a good price so I got that. Now I could take the cab in one hand, my bass in the other, and my 4.7-lb. amp over my shoulder in its shoulder bag and bring everything in all at once. Worked great!
AND THEN...We played outdoors at the brew pub and I was able to bring out my DNS-410. Man...it sounded so good and so much better than a 112 that I used inside. I started wishing I could get that same sound inside that I got out here but of course the 410 was too big to use inside. Next thing you know I started looking at the DNS-210 and GAS struck me once more.
Supposedly, the DNS-210 had the same sound characteristics that my DNS-410 did but in a smaller size with fewer speakers. It wouldn't make the owner's eyes bug out inside and I could use it for any small or medium sized venues. It also is a very sensitive cab, will handle 700-watts rms both thermally and mechanically, and has a Max SPL of 134db. Of course, it's another "spendy" cab and street price seems to be between $799 and $899 with Neos going up ~$980. Didn't have enough money for that yet, but a few more gig's would do it. GAS...GAS...GAS!
Then, I thought, I wonder if I could get onto DNA's Endorser program. So I wrote to David and asked about it and he had John Vitale, who is in charge of Artist Relations contact me. After a short e-mail correspondence he said he would be happy to have me join as a DNA Endorser and yes, he could get me a deal on that DNS-210. DNA doesn't give away gear to endorsers but they do offer a price a bit below street price. I just needed one more gig (coming up the next Saturday) to have the $$ needed. Did the gig, got the $$ and sent it off to JV. About 4-days later, my DNS-210 arrived. and yes it does have the same sound characteristics as my DNS=410 So GAS was cured for a bit there although now I needed to sell my two 112's...oh well, I can do that.
So here's what I'm using now for medium venues. It's my Eden WT500/800 amp running bridged at 800-watts into my DNS-210 that will handle 700-watts. I'm currently using my Eden TN226 with my DNS-210 at our rehearsal studio and will use that same set-up for small venue gigs.
Here's my DNS-410 with my WT500/800 that I will continue to use for large, outdoor, and Festival gigs:
So here are my both my DNA cabs with my WT500/800 driving them.
In actuality, I probably will only run them like this once just to say I did. I run my DNS-410 at outdoor Festivals and if I run the master on my 800-watt Eden amp up to 10:30, I get told to turn down. So I run it at 10 PM on outdoor Festivals. I typically set it at 9:30 indoors or small outdoor locations, so there's really no need to bring all of this along at once. Still...it looks pretty cool!
So I thought I was done with GAS after getting to this point and then JV, the Artist Relations guy for DNA, asked me, "So when when do you want me to get a DNA-800 for you?
And there it is...GAS has hit me again. It will probably be at least 6 months before I get this fellow:
or maybe his big brother:
AAAArrrrrgggghhhh....G.A.S...will it ever end???
The stage was too small for 5 dudes. The bass and drums are in the corner, so for me to be able to move, I had to stand away from it quite a bit. Didn't see any use of the amp if I can't here it, so I used only the DI signal. I've played with a 8x10" on stage and have been inable to control neither my volume, neither the quality of my playing. Nothing compares to the feeling of a powerful bass rig on stage, but as far as monitoring and overall sound control - it's not your best option.
) P-bass, couple it with an 8-10 cab and a bazillion watt amp --- and whatta' you got? a star! 
