Rig Run Down, a Romping Stomping 5 Watts of Bass Amp...

 If you are a guitar gear head you are probably familiar with the youtube series called rig run down. They look at equipment and talk to a guy about how he gets his guitar sound. One of my favorites was Oliver Wood of the Wood Brothers, who I have seen play live. Oliver said when he listened to records he said to himself "how does that guy get that sound, OK, I'm gonna do something else so I don't sound like that."

See, I have a formula. Take an expensive thing like a guitar, an amp, a pedal, a mic, whatever, they have stuff these days that I don't even know what it is, but you know, things that sound really good and combine it with some cheap thing. The cheap thing could be, guitar, amp or be any part of the sound chain and if you use more that one cheap thing well you suddenly are on the way to not sounding like anybody else. 

Of course you run the danger of sounding like ol mudbelly but if you sign up to cooking with formulas like this you are entering the realm of the righteous, the true believer and probably don't really care about how you sound. 

Here's the cheap thing I have used lately with my Fender acoustic bass guitar. It's a Blackstar Fly 3 mini amp. I have the guitar and bass version and use both for bass. It's about 5watts of bsttery powered amp and when used under the overhead choir mics at church I am very pleased with the sound.  

I think when I bought these they were about $60 bucks each. They have gone up to $75 so maybe not cheap anymore and $75 bucks worth of amp at the local pawn shop can be enough to get the sheriff out after a certain hour of the evening, at least that's what friends tell me. 

The guitar version has  distortion and delay. The delay sounds nice with the acoustic bass pizo pickups. I use the electric with passive pickups for practice around the house but haven't tried them live. Seems like they might not have the punch to carry as much. 

The features on the bass version. I know rule of thumb is if a guitar has a 25-50 watt amp a bass needs 100 to 500 watts. Overhead mic and accompanying acoustic guitars these babies work fine. There are extension cabs available. 

Here's a link if you are on facebook to how they sounded this weekend:

Link. 

There are lots of portable amps out there and some are quite expensive and some will pack some watts. I like these, cheap, different and works for me. 

As a coincidence to writing this blog it popped up in my memories that I had seen Oliver Wood and his brother Chris seven years ago today.   

Don't sound like anyone else. Make up a formula and make it work.