h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good article, good introducion to the bass!
As being such a bass player, I've nothing to add, that appears to be left out.

In fact, learning from your favourite tape, CD etc helps a lot. I did it in the autodidactic way, after 6 years of piano-lessons, I got sick of being tought to play (!) an instrument.

And there's another thing play in a band. Play, play, play... bassists are desperately looked for, always.

To your top ten list I'd like to add a left hander or two:
Colin Hodgkinson, and of course Sir Paul McCartney

good introduction! I started playing the Bass because bands were always looking for Bass players, seems as every guitar player just has to impress us all with being font and center lead players I found that I 1,really enjoy playing Bass and 2, you actually have a little more freedom with what you are doing, its just lugging the cabnets around that I don't relish, I miss the days of one strat and a 4/10
tweed bassman or twin reverb and a couple of pedals, now I have to drag around a 6 space rack and two cabnets

Icerally,

i have no Information about the music You are playing. But: IMHO there's no need to bring 2 cabinets and a 6 space rack to the gig. One of these fine small but powerful combos (GK, SWR, Warwick, and many others) will do most of the jobs.

As I understand it, all of these combos are capable of damaging Your hearing. So what's the use of producing even more volume? Just by the way, most FOH engineers and all of the monitor engineers appreciate a low volume on stage, as it's much easier for them to do their job.

Once I had the opportunity to play a gig over two(!) Ampeg SVT stacks. I have to admit it: Standing in front of these two phone booths and feeling a wall of sound crawling up my spine was an experience i do not want to miss. I had an annoying ringing and histling in my ears afterwards, though.

keep on playing

jfsjbb

I agree about the big boxes - I started off with 2 big stacks etc but recently we played at an open-mic night at a pub; my bass was routed through a box that was a comfortable size and still gave more than enough sound. Although I will miss my Trace-Elliot bass combo. Except for the hernia and bad back!

Well, being good equipped is equal for feeling safe and sound (!) on stage. This means the amp/speaker potential musn't be "too" limited. I'd rather like to turn down the volume than to overload my amp.
I learned from my stage experiences, that the man at the mixing desk usually doesn't put the bass on the monitor. For I don't need it, as have my speakers in my back.

For rehearsals and practice combos are nice and you can leave it at that room.

What convinced me finally is having tubes in your amp's.
As I'm not a pro, I can't effort 'big ones'. So I got a simple tube boost foot-switch box. This one helps me in practice and on stage! Imroves the sound, better feeling while playing, decreases the master volume, because the input is tuned...
Great one!!!

Right on about the man in the mixing desk not putting the bass on the monitor! Handy tip about the tube boost box - I might try one!

This is just it, about what's on the monitors. Of course our 6-string companion needs himself desperately on them. So, with all that guitar flashing the other moment he just comes to say "I can't hear myself..."

Well, if you like, I can give you some advice where to get my (handmade) tube boost.
It's a piece of aprox. $150, and worth every buck!

Just because you have brought along a serious rig doesn't mean you have to use its full potential, I do use a chorusing set up so I use two cabnets one on each side of the stage,and there is always the possibility of leaving the power amp off and sending a pre-amp feed direct to the board good for studio gigs, in my younger and louder days we just couldn't bring enough power to the local club gigs (we actually had to buy a bigger truck) but then it was expected at that point in time,(as was a lot more hair than I have today)and the local clubs here in those days were the whiskey, troubadour, starwood, the central now the viper room, ect I understand some of them are still around.