Gear Talk

So, here's my latest setup for bass (and one which I'd be willing to endorse officially, should there be any interest):

I have always been a Fender bass man at heart. Although I started out playing OPB (other people's basses), like Hagstroms and Kays and Epiphones, the first bass I purchased (in 1979) was a late '70s short scale Musicmaster (like the Jaguar which is now available), from which I upgraded to a Musicman Cutlass II (the 80s version of the Stingray designed by Leo Fender, with dual pickups and a graphite neck). I had a Kramer acoustic/electric for a while as a novelty, but relied on the Cutlass for over 10 years. I downsized for a few years, however, and ended up buying a standard Fender Precision as my next instrument until I lost it in Hurricane Katrina. The Epiphone EB-01, although pretty cool to play, was a mere stop-gap measure until I could return to Fender bass -- which I did recently, solving my Precision versus Jazz dilemma with a hybrid that does both.

I currently play a maple fretboard Fender Precision Bass Special, which has a P-bass body, a J-bass neck and active P-J pickup combination that's been upgraded with a Badass II Bridge and equipped with Rotosound Swing 66 Strings (which I've used on all my basses from the beginning). Although I love Kustom amps for guitar, and for the longest time relied on both Gallien-Krueger heads and cabinets, and Sunn bass heads, I'm now opting for relative portability and running through a
Behringer BXL3000 Ultrabass Amp.

Effects? I used to run a lot of them. Of all the effects I've used since the mid 80s, the only thing that I've come back to is the Electro-Harmonix Bassballs envelope filter unit. I might add other toys: for wah-wah, I always use Cry Baby. For everything else, I prefer Electro-Harmonix.