Equipment

“When I was 17, I bought a Fender Precision bass fitted with a Jazz Bass neck for £100 and I’ve had that guitar ever since”. 

Pete the Bass
Same guitar 2017
Circa 1978

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a while since I was 17…………..

My collection has increased somewhat since then. I have pretty much retired my 1969 Fender P Bass that I bought as a lad. It’s too precious to be slinging it in and out of the back of vans. Now I just keep it for recording purposes. Instead, I bought a standard black P bass for using on the road

I have a Fender jazz bass, Antigua coloured which is rather revolting, I have no idea why I bought it. I also have  a short scale Gretch bass that I bought coz the bloke out of Royal Blood uses one. His sounds great, mine sounds shit.

My mate has lent me his Fender P Bass while he jaunts off to Australia. It sounds great, it has a 1969 neck but I think the body is a copy.

I use Rotosound strings on all my guitars, they have been very generous in giving me a very good artist discount on all their strings.

I have a couple of other guitars for recording purposes:

 

  • Gretsch electro acoustic.

  • Line 6 Variax guitar modelling acoustic

  • 1981 Tokai Goldstar Strat copy

 

 

Amplification wise I have an artist deal with Ashdown which means I can get their gear at low prices. Primarily I use an ABM 600 Evo IV head through a 4 x 10 cabinet on top of a 1 x 15 cabinet. I have a spare Ashdown EVO 3 head too. Effects pedal wise, I just use a boss tuner, with a Sansamp DI box.

 

I run my small ProTools studio from a MacBook Pro with an Avid Eleven Rack interface. It means I can’t record multiple inputs like you would with drum kits. Everything else I can do. I run Propellerhead’s Reason v10 along side ProTools. The two sync together to give me virtually unlimited tracks to record on with unlimited effects, soft synths and drum loopers etc. I have a pair of Yamaha active speakers to mix on but find I work a lot with my Sennheiser headphones which are damned good.

 

I’m always looking at changing or upgrading gear to make an improvement. You have to keep working at that just the same as everything else. I just wish it would work all the time, every time live!!

Keep on rocking!