Brothers -
I'm not an amp expert. At my church, we have a GK head, a 15" cab, and we play through the house so I never really had to care much about it but my situation has changed.
I just joined a group - a Gospel Quartet. A good group of very talented Brothers and I'm happy to be down with them. The instrumentation is a drummer, a guitarist, an organ/keyboard player plus the vocalists and me on bass. The key is that they gig a lot -- in a lot of different churches. You know what that means -- three things:
1) Playing in a bunch of churches over with potentially strange acoustics.
2) Playing in places where you don't know what the sound system is going to be like.
3) A lot of lifting/loading as well as playing in cramped quarters.
I know you know all about ALL of those.
I think it's time to upgrade my amp. Right now, my "gigging" amp is a Yorkville XM200 but I've only had to take it on the road a few times. It's really about 130 watts but you can get to a full 200 if you add an extension cab. It is quite loud but it also gets boomy. It's also heavy -- almost 70Lbs. At 50 years old, my back doesn't like all of that heavy lifting anymore. I'd like to move to something lighter and more powerful but truthfully, I don't have a lot of money to spend right now.
I have been looking at the GK lightweight stuff:
* MB210 ($599 / 33 lbs, 350 watts -- 500 with extension cab)
* MB212 ($699 / 37lbs, full 500 watts )
The reviews seem to be good and I love the transportability and weight. It would be great to get something like the Markbass high-powered stuff but I don' t have a Grand to spend right now.
What is your take on the suitability of the GK rigs to perform in the venues I mentioned?
