Bass Amp for Tone Concious Practice

Man I have a 15 watt crate (guitar not bass) that doesn't sound good at any volume. But it's 20 years old, I bet they make them better now.

I've been using a rumble 15 for recording bass, I like it more than DI. Put an RE20 on it and it doesn't require much volume at all, sounds quieter than a guitar amp at the same recorded level. (Couldn't tell you why.) Curious to hear it through my 12" bassbreaker but I'm too chicken to try.
 
Man I have a 15 watt crate (guitar not bass) that doesn't sound good at any volume. But it's 20 years old, I bet they make them better now.

I've been using a rumble 15 for recording bass, I like it more than DI. Put an RE20 on it and it doesn't require much volume at all, sounds quieter than a guitar amp at the same recorded level. (Couldn't tell you why.) Curious to hear it through my 12" bassbreaker but I'm too chicken to try.

I tried the rumble 15 in the store recently and thought it sounded thin and mid rangy. The shop owner said I'd have to go to the rumble 40 to get nice lows.

Have you had a different experience with it? Which bass are you using?
 
Since I record bass DI almost exclusively...the tone I'm getting is what I hear trough my studio monitors. I can practice like that, and it sounds just like it does when I record the bass...and I can do it a very reasonable levels that wouldn't be a problem even in an apartment. I mean...they are my normal mix levels...so if you can mix in your apartment, it should not be a problem to play that way.

Of course...if it's a question of not wanting to fire up your studio rig just to practice...and you just want to do a bass-into-amp thing...then that's a different thing.

How do you usually record bass...and are you happy with the tone?
 
Since I record bass DI almost exclusively...the tone I'm getting is what I hear trough my studio monitors. I can practice like that, and it sounds just like it does when I record the bass...and I can do it a very reasonable levels that wouldn't be a problem even in an apartment. I mean...they are my normal mix levels...so if you can mix in your apartment, it should not be a problem to play that way.

Of course...if it's a question of not wanting to fire up your studio rig just to practice...and you just want to do a bass-into-amp thing...then that's a different thing.

How do you usually record bass...and are you happy with the tone?

I'm happy recording bass DI and like the tone.

The small practice amp would be mostly to accompany/jam with my girlfriend as she practices her instrument. I'd probably experiment recording with it, too, just to compare it to the DI.

The bass tones that catch my ear are the round/warm bass sounds, like motown era and upright bass with short sustain. Do you know of any small amps that can do that?
 
Weren't almost all of the Motown recordings using a DI bass? I seem to remember reading that somewhere recently. I could be mistaken.
 
I haven't actually compared the rumble 15 to anything else, I'm not a knowledgable bass guy. I originally got it as a practice amp blind off Amazon and just used DI for recording. But then I tried micing the amp one day and liked it better than the DI. So now I just go with it, maybe I'll upgrade in the future when I know better.

I use a deluxe (mim) jazz and while I'm sure there are much better amps, this one I really like, maybe because it's got mid-range, it cuts right through a mix easy. I have no problems hearing it on a cell phone even, that's a place the bass usually just seems to disappear.

For practice though, I guess all that's kind of irrelevant. But if I had to do it over I'd not cheap out with a practice amp, I'd get something with headphone out and a speaker tone I could record if I wanted. That's kind of what I did on accident but 8" speaker, maybe not a good choice for recording.
 
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