Remember when I used to do this with photography equipment?

Onward! My bass rig now includes of only one guitar: the Ibanez Soundgear SR505 5-string electric bass: mahogany body, rosewood fretboard, passive Bartolini pickups and an active EQ. It’s light, gorgeous and has a terrific modern sound.

For amplification, things are in flux. I’m still using and loving the Gallien-Krueger MB500 amplifier. I got rid of my big cab, though, the GK 410MBX. Sold it to a nice kid from Madison last week. It was just too big and too heavy. I risked injury every time I moved it. I’m keeping the Neo 212. Great cabinet. I’d get a second one, but for the fact that it’s still 50.5 pounds and I desperately want a lighter option. Later this winter perhaps I’ll pick up a Neo 115 (40 lbs!) to sit on top of the 212. Mis-matching like this is not ideal, but it does have advantages. For one thing I’ll have three rigs: small (the 15), medium (the 212) and large (both).

The pedal board. I’m very pleased with the TC Electronic PolyTune tuner. I’m very pleased with the MXR M87 compressor. Neither one are going anywhere, probably ever. Likewise with my Source Audio distortion and envelope filter pedals. Not only are they good at their primary functions, they are so flexible that together they nearly obviate the need for a synthesizer. I think I’ll ditch the Moog expression pedal, though. For a time I used it to morph between distortion pedal presets, but It’s really not necessary and it takes up a lot of real-estate I could use for other things. Besides which, I have the Hot Hand wireless ring controller for that stuff now.

I ditched the SansAmp a while back–and I sort of regret it. It’s true that I struggled to make its overdrive usable and that the built-in EQ was rather inflexible, but it did give me something important: a retro, tubey rock sound that the digital Source Audio distortion unit can’t muster. In light of this, I have been looking at various products to fill that niche and will probably go with the MXR M-80 Bass Driver DI+. It’s everything the SansAmp was but with a more musical overdrive and a somewhat more flexible EQ.

I have a few other music-related do-dads. The Behringer mixer and the Sony headphones I use for practice and recording; The M-Audio keyboard synth controller; Garageband on the Macbook Pro. But these are incidental and not in line for changes or upgrades anytime in the foreseeable future.

So basically I need me an analog overdrive/preamp/DI and a Neo 115 cab.

After the holidays.