Well almost - a lot of people treked out just to see the gig. It was still quiet, but quiet a few of our regulars were there, and quickly noticed the change of equipment. One was the bass player for another local band, who gave it a quick spin, and was obviously impressed as he asked me who did the setup (huh? setup? I just threw something together!), so now I'm setting his bass up some time this week.
Sound wise it worked GREAT. I ran the line out from a baby marshall into one of the power-in's of my bass amp, and then to my 1x12", so I had a dirty channel for the P-pickup. However as the gig progressed I did realise that I was lacking a clean, or even edgy sound - the marshall only had one channel, so I had either the full "sheehan" sound, or just the EB, which is barely usable on it's own, as it's pretty much all bottom end - even mids are non-existant.
So, the bass itself was a great sucsess, but I need to figure out a decent amplification system. That was always the plan - the rig last week was just to get by.
My immediate idea was to replace the Marshall with something more flexable - I've got an old ART rackmount guitar fx unit that I'm definatly going to try, which would give me some fx on the P pickup, and channel switching on the distortion.
Plan B should work fine (and will make a nice mini-rig), but it's not the "FULL" solution, so I spent a couple of days trying to figure out an ultimate rig that I could put together with the minimum of new gear. I considered stuff like the Marshall 9004 pre amp, as I remember they were cheap when they came out, but apparently they're "vintage" now, and very rare.
Then it finally clicked!!! I'd been approaching it all wrong. I'd been considering the EB pickup, as "bass", and looking for ways of processing the new "lead" P pickup. In fact the P pickup is where the regular bass sound comes from, and the EB is what's new.
With that cracked I realised I already have a bass rig that can drive the P pickup - my Blue Thunder should be able to handle all the distorting I need, and it's fully programmable, so I can go clean, edgy or whatever I need. It also means that my main rig remains unchanged (handy for gigs with a different bass), and I just run the P through it. The trick is what to do with the EB!
Well all the EB really needs is a simple pre so it can feed into a power amp. A little compression would be nice, and maybe some EQ. Looking around the SM Audio TB101 and TC01 look great (one has better compression, one has better EQ), though I don't know what they sound like. They're cheap, and have instrument inputs on the front! They also come in dual formats which might be nice (and makes racking them easier!). I've got an ART TubePac (in another rack - not used much, but I do like it there) which I'll use to try out the concept at the next gig, and if it works, them I'll grab something to use permanently.
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