The most disturbing thing about this pic is-
Theyâre all bass guitars!
I only noticed that last night funny fella!
The regular guitars will be in the other room.
A few thoughts occurred to me on reading this thread, though Iâm not sure they amount to a conclusionâŚ
One thing I noticed when playing a variety of venues, even with the same bass, amp and cab, was that every room sounded different. You never knew what you were going to get. One day it would be great, the next an irredeemable mess. A wonderful sound check could be followed by a disastrous gig, or sometimes the other way around.
Similarly, every time we went into a studio it was a process of experiment and exploration. I donât think we ever in our wildest dreams thought we could control the sound, and we didnât want to - the surprises (and input from the producer and engineer) were part of the journey.
My second amplifier was a 100w Marshall Lead and Bass 2195. Other players used to get very sniffy about this because it was a transistor amp. Nowadays, people create glowing YouTube elegies* to it.
It used to amuse me that people paid many thousands to build a stereo to perfectly recreate the sound of, in my case, a set of highly variable heavy duty 12" Fane speakers.
On the other hand, Iâve been known to spend days fine-tuning a synth patch, and much as I love my strat, I cannot find tones that I can happily keep coming back to. One day I think Iâve got it, the next I turn up my nose.
When I later got a single 18" cab we found that one of the best things about it was that five of us could comfortably sit on it in the back of a transit van.
* I might have meant eulogies, Iâm still not sure.
This!
I used to be the sound and lighting guy for some local bands. One venue might be a large hall for a wedding with a proper stage, the next might be a small pub gig with the band in the corner of the room. Every room had different acoustics.
Trying to get the band sounding right, and balanced, was always a challenge, especially with respect to monitoring. The guitar player in the main band I worked with used to have a 100W Marshall amp, which he loved. The trouble was micing it was always a challenge in a small venue, as the amp was often louder than the PA. In some venues I resorted to turning the amp to face the back or side of the stage so it didnât peel the skin off the faces off the people on the front row.
Eventually, he acquired a small load-box/DI setup which made things much easier.
But getting the balance of the room is always tricky. Including trying to find the feedback frequencies (ringing out the monitors).
From a performers point of view, understanding at least how the EQ on your amp works is, IMO, essential if you are gigging (and extremely important even if you are just a bedroom guitar player).
Cheers,
Keith