Our regular bass player was out of town during a recent gig, so we had to hire a sub come in to play the job.The guy we got to fill in has - like the rest of us - been around the musical block many times, so there was no apprehension about him pulling off the gig, he's a pro.
However, if we all hadn't known him for many years, our apprehension level may have shot through the roof when he arrived at the gig rolling in an Ampeg SVT amp with an 8-10 cabinet!
For anyone unfamiliar with it, this was the standard set up for bass players back in the late 60's and early 70's. If you didn't have an "SVT rig", you weren't s***t!
The popularity stemmed from the pure tone of the amp, coupled with enough wattage to fill a small arena.
I stood there glaring at the rig in awe. The head was packed with boat anchor transformers, an endless array of knobs, a small fortune in glass (tubes), resting on a towering, well worn cabinet with 8 - yes eight! - 10" speakers. My middle-aged back automatically started aching just looking at it.
After all, it's the SVT's, B-3's, A-7's, and Leslie cabs of the world that have kept the chiropractors of our generation in business.
But the weight of the amp was not the concern. It was the sheer amount of volume that this rig can produce.
The gig we were playing was for high school reunion from the class of 1964. This crowd was even older than us - and it was obviously going to be a "low volume" affair.
But, as stated earlier, this guy was a pro, and from the first note, he dialed in the perfect tone at just the right volume level, and the gig went off without a hitch.
The point is, even though your amp may have capacity to blow the roof off the Super Dome, it doesn't mean you have to.
One nice thing about guitar amps built nowadays is that most of them are built with "master" volume controls. These allow you to adjust the guitar channel with all the grit and distortion you like - then tweak the master volume control to the level appropriate for the venue you're playing.
It's great to have a guitar amp that's capable of filling up a large room if need be. Having a little extra head room is always a good thing.
But one mark of a true professional, and something that will score a lot of brownie points with your fellow band mates (as well as your audience), is developing the ability to exercise restraint.
Sometimes at a gig you need to release all the horsepower you have available. But other times keep in mind that "bigger" doesn't have to be "louder". In these moments - to paraphrase an old commercial - "a little dab'll do ya".
