In between I sold bits of coin to buy myself a nice Gallien-Kruger bass amp and a Honda generator to back up the unreliable power grid in my village in Mexico.
The GK stuff is nice, but are you hip to the Phil Jones amps Jimbo? It is counterintuitive, they are based on a 4" ported cell, you want louder/bigger, they just parallel a bunch of them up. I played with a guy a while back that had the 2x4" shoebox. I was understandably dubious, but that thing was unbelievable! Give them a look for portable, seriously.
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.
For the present, my GK serves me just fine for my electric basses. For my rubber string Goldtone acoustic Microbass, I use a little battery-powered Roland modeling bass amp with 4x4" speakers to add a little bottom end and make it really sound like a stand-up bull fiddle. Use it mostly in "flip-top" (Ampeg B15) mode.
My GK is the 150 watt alloy model with a single 12" speaker and solid alloy chassis. I've used it in small clubs, larger 400-500 seat rooms and even outdoor open-air gigs without having to turn it up anywhere close to all the way. It has a sound and presence that absolutely rocks.
Perhaps I should mention I prefer a clean undistorted sound with lots of bottom end, minimal mid-range and just enough treble for some pick snap when I use a pick.
Flat wound strings of course. In fact I'll rub cigarette ashes and butter into new strings to get rid of the annoying treble. No Rotosounds for me thanks. My bass guitar heroes are Carol Kay, James Jamerson and Duck Dunn, not Jaco Pastorius or Flea.
