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The tone of a guitar amp is far more important imo so a £100 solid state combo from the 90s might not have the desired effect.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
My bass cost me £130.00 in 1983 and when I was gigging I started with a Peavey which was about £100.00, I then moved onto a Trace Elliot combo at around £400.00. The difference in tone and sound was absolutely massive with the same bass guitar.
So ratio was about 3 :1 in the amps favour.
I've only seen one band using the straight DI route and it didn't seem to sound very good to my ears.
While some soundmen do mic or DI the amp as well, many insist on DI'ing at the *input* of the amp - ie what goes through the PA is purely the bass, and any pedals. The bass amp on stage is nothing more than a glorified monitor.
In the past I had arguments about this with soundmen at bigger gigs, but I don't worry about it any more since unless you're actually using the amp for an overdriven sound, they can override your preferred EQ with the desk anyway.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
My personal experience is that I've only had the amp DI'd not the bass.
The last 3 gigs I attended were all small venues Gorilla, Trades Club and the Deaf Institute (Manchester area), so basically close enough to hear the amp & PA. Far and away the best sound was produced by an Ampeg half stack and the worst a DI direct from bass to PA.
Sometimes they do mic the cab, or DI the amp, but you'll almost always find there is a DI from the bass too. The FOH will be a blend of all/some of these, or just the bass DI depending on the soundman… the resulting sound can be either great or crap, again depending on the soundman! But don't think the FOH sound is necessarily anything to do with the bass amp, even if you can see one with a mic in front of it.
I would have said that too, but I had the argument too many times - and as I was never headlining any of these gigs, so I never had the authority to overrule them - I gave up worrying abut it, especially as having heard recordings of a couple of them, the bass sound out front bore no relation to that on stage at all... so if it had been going through the amp, the soundman would change it to his own ends just by twisting a couple of knobs anyway.
In the end I fixed the problem as well as I could by using a preamp pedal between my own pedals and the cable to the amp .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein