[Dixielandjazz] Electric Bass amp position

[James Kashishian]

Gordon wrote:
However, I can understand that when you play bass.... your sound is
coming 
out of a little box (bass amp) in front of you and down at your
feet......

This is something I've discussed with our bassist many times, with no
change in his placing the amp on the floor behind him.  I'm in favour of
raising the amp off the floor a bit (a coke bottle case does fine), and
even angle it upwards a bit by leaning it against the wall).  This
serves the purpose of getting it off of the bandstand floor.  All that
space under the bandstand acts as a resonance box for the bass amp when
the amp is sitting on the floor itself.
I'm afraid, though, that that is exactly what the bassists like about
the positioning.....the boom, boom effect coming from the floor.  

The other problem is that by having the amp on the floor of a medium
height stage means that the amp is directly aimed at the audience, and
the bassist only hears a deflected sound.  Since he is not hearing the
amp directly he will have it turned higher than the person sitting
directly in front would really like.

Jim