Planning to buy a bass amp and a bass.........

[Baltar]

http://www.ampeg.com/products/heritage/b-15/index.html

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ampeg-PF-350-Portaflex-and-PF-115HE-Stack-/140636360026?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20be948d5a

[mortlock]

[Isabellacat]

What sort of tone are you going for and what's your budget? There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Something vintage sounding....around $500-600 range...

[Hemisaurus]

What sort of tone are you going for and what's your budget? There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Something vintage sounding....around $500-600 range...

May I recommend you stay away from Ampeg or Crate SS heads, with that budget, SS is probably all you can get, and those are the worst sounding SS bass heads, and not very well built.

SX bass and a Peavey or Behringer head is probably gonna get you well within budget, maybe a GK Backline or something.

[Isabellacat]

What sort of tone are you going for and what's your budget? There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Something vintage sounding....around $500-600 range...

May I recommend you stay away from Ampeg or Crate SS heads, with that budget, SS is probably all you can get, and those are the worst sounding SS bass heads, and not very well built.

SX bass and a Peavey or Behringer head is probably gonna get you well within budget, maybe a GK Backline or something.

I don't know much about the technical side of things,all I know is what sounds good. So what's wrong with the Crate brand? I always hear how much it sucks. Same with Peavey but I used to have a Peavey practice amp for my guitar and it did'nt sound bad. Never really heard of the Behringer brand...I'll look into that. 

Anyways...looks like I need to catch up with this thread a bit.

[Hemisaurus]

Crate and Ampeg have the same parent company, their solid state bass amps are all the same base, and it just sounds awful, flat, lifeless, and they don't get loud or take pedals very well. I like sound of Peavey's alright, my main amp is a Peavey in preference to a lot of other brands. Hartke's sound OK and can probably be found within your budget too.

You said you were switching from guitar? What do you have in the way of amplification for that? You might be able to get a good sound, and save some cash, using a guitar head into a bass cab. Guitar heads give yiu a vintage-y tone, because back in the day that was what people used

[Worthless Willie]

NCHO 2500.

[giantchris]

I cannot stress enough that you should try a P bass when you first start looking for a bass and at the end of your search before making a final decision.  The longer I've played the more I've gravitated toward it.  You can literally play it in almost any kind of music and it ALWAYS sounds good.

[VOLVO)))]

I thought you had a V4, Issy? There's your head...

[Hemisaurus]

I cannot stress enough that you should try a P bass when you first start looking for a bass and at the end of your search before making a final decision.  The longer I've played the more I've gravitated toward it.  You can literally play it in almost any kind of music and it ALWAYS sounds good.

An actual P-Bass or a P-Bass style instrument? An actual P-Bass is going to swallow most of the amp/bass budget and leave very little for amps and speakers.

Grist for the mill, I on the other hand hate the P-Bass, and would steer people away from it, it feels wrong to me, and always sounds blah with it's weird middle pickup. So it's probably best you try one and see if it works for you

I'd actually recommend a jap-style bass, one with a small headstock, and lightweight tuning machines, so that it's unlikely to have a balance problem, and maybe one with twin soapbar pickups, because that gives you more tonal flexibility.

You also might want to give thought to how far your hands can stretch, a 34" scale is a big stretch up top, there are non-beginner basses that have a shorter scale, the SG type basses the Epi's and Gibby's are usually 30" though they do make a 34", I've seen 32" SG basses. Violin basses a la Paul McCartney are usually 30-32" scale as well. The thing to watch with an Epi SG bass is neck dive, those big ass tuners make the headstock head for the floor, even though they moved the strap button to the neck. Some balance better than others.

[Chovie D]

for short scale basses, the 70's fenders are fantastic and can be had for $350. Musicmaster Bass.

I also very much like th gibson short scale basses, they are considerably more expensive tho.
This would be nice for miss isabella...

[liquidsmoke]

P-bass and SS Ampeg no good? That's all new to me. Even the small SS Ampeg combo I had years back had tone for days and the Mexican Fender P I bought from my brother does THE classic bass tone with flats in my opinion.

I had the Epiphone version of that short scale and although I liked it's tone it was neck heavy which was very annoying.

[Mr. Foxen]

Ampeg badges are too expensive and carve a lot of value for money out of amps they are attached to.

[Lumpy]

I cannot stress enough that you should try a P bass when you first start looking for a bass and at the end of your search before making a final decision.  The longer I've played the more I've gravitated toward it.  You can literally play it in almost any kind of music and it ALWAYS sounds good.

+1, there are some nice Squier Precision basses now which are inexpensive, or look for a Fender "MIM" version (made in Mexico) which can be found used on Craigs List for about 250-350 bucks. Probably wanna start by going to your local guitar mall and try a bunch of different ones, and see which ones seem comfortable. Then look on Craigs List for used versions, or the classifieds at Talk Bass dot com.

[liquidsmoke]

Ampeg badges are too expensive and carve a lot of value for money out of amps they are attached to.

I generally agree but those PF series amps are a lot of power for the money.

[Lumpy]

Ampeg has made a ton of different products over the years, and had different owners/manufacturing bases, so to dismiss the entire brand is beyond silly. Same as Peavey bashing. It's not all the same just because it was made by the same company.

[moose23]

I cannot stress enough that you should try a P bass when you first start looking for a bass and at the end of your search before making a final decision.  The longer I've played the more I've gravitated toward it.  You can literally play it in almost any kind of music and it ALWAYS sounds good.

An actual P-Bass or a P-Bass style instrument? An actual P-Bass is going to swallow most of the amp/bass budget and leave very little for amps and speakers.

Grist for the mill, I on the other hand hate the P-Bass, and would steer people away from it, it feels wrong to me, and always sounds blah with it's weird middle pickup. So it's probably best you try one and see if it works for you

I'd actually recommend a jap-style bass, one with a small headstock, and lightweight tuning machines, so that it's unlikely to have a balance problem, and maybe one with twin soapbar pickups, because that gives you more tonal flexibility.

You also might want to give thought to how far your hands can stretch, a 34" scale is a big stretch up top, there are non-beginner basses that have a shorter scale, the SG type basses the Epi's and Gibby's are usually 30" though they do make a 34", I've seen 32" SG basses. Violin basses a la Paul McCartney are usually 30-32" scale as well. The thing to watch with an Epi SG bass is neck dive, those big ass tuners make the headstock head for the floor, even though they moved the strap button to the neck. Some balance better than others.

Have to agree with you here, can't stand P basses either, more of a Jazz guy myself.

Perhaps Isabella could post a few vids or tunes where she likes the bass tone, that would give us a good starting point on what gear to recommend. Best advice as always is to try as many different types as possible. Is there a guitar centre with a big bass room nearby? I remember going to NY in 2001 and trying out all that basses in that room til I found the one I liked most for sound, feel and aesthetics. It's still my number one bas to this day. Even if the bass you like is way out of range you ask here for a cheaper bass that'll be similar.

[Mr. Foxen]

Ampeg has made a ton of different products over the years, and had different owners/manufacturing bases, so to dismiss the entire brand is beyond silly. Same as Peavey bashing. It's not all the same just because it was made by the same company.

Peavey budget stuff is really good value for money and massively more so secondhand, Ampeg budget stuff not so much, and second hand stuff retains a lot of value, so doesn't throw up awesome deals. Plus Peavey stuff tends to be made to be serviced, whilst new ampeg stuff is made to be a ballache to service, and the tie their distributors into service contracts meaning stuff needs to be shipped off to a Ampeg tech to replace whole boards rather than letting the store tech fix it. So getting a secondhand Peavey, and serviced provides loads better value from start to finish, with the exception of the price you can resell for.

[Metal and Beer]

Ampeg has made a ton of different products over the years, and had different owners/manufacturing bases, so to dismiss the entire brand is beyond silly. Same as Peavey bashing. It's not all the same just because it was made by the same company.

I know I'm like a freakin' broken record with this shit but it's true, name alone is pretty much meaningless at this point.

[Hemisaurus]

I'm unfortunate enough to live close to St. Louis, so every second piece of gear you work on is Crate or Ampeg. They are, in my opinion, badly designed, overpriced, and poor sounding, when compared to other items available for the same amount of cash.

The bass amps do share a lot of the same circuitry, so it's quite easy to generalise, because they all use the same boards. The SVT's (SS), B and BRE and the Crate BT's are all essentially the same design, in a different chassis, with different levels of power output.

Plus I specified solid-state bass amps, I like the sound of some of Crate's guitar heads, on bass, but again they can be kind of ropey to work on.

Also I stressed the fact I am a hater of P-basses, so again, not everyone loves them, but not everyone hates them either, one exception is the Squier Tele Bass, Vintage whateverthefuck,



but with a $600 budget, I'd spend $200 or less on the bass, and $400 or more on the amp.

[Baltar]

^ Definitely more on the amp, and +1 on a J-Bass.  Sexier curves.

[Lumpy]

but with a $600 budget, I'd spend $200 or less on the bass, and $400 or more on the amp.

Seems like a good plan. You can get a good bass rig on a low budget -- lots of ideas in that 'budget rig' thread

http://stonerrocklives.com/forum/index.php?topic=2737.0

[Worthless Willie]

I also cannot stand P basses.  They don't feel good to me, but they do sound alright.

I like Jazz basses, because of the skinnier neck profile.

[Chovie D]

did y'all know that the Precision Bass was the first bass to feature frets?
precision refers to more or less "precise" intonation made possible by frets.

[VOLVO)))]

^^^^ DATS HISTORY, Y'ALLz