Bass is a lot like oxygen: most people only notice it in its absence, but its absence is felt very quickly.
So as a gigging bassist, it’s important to put careful thought into picking the right bass amp for your band's needs.
In my experience, it’s best to find a balance between portability, sound, and volume. There’s always extra features like built-in effects and compatibility with various speaker setups, but the bread and butter of any gigging bass player is, fundamentally, how usable their amp is.
Top 3 - Bass Amps for Gigging
This is why today I’ve rounded up 7 of my all-time favorite bass amps that offer a good balance of tone, price, features, and portability which makes them absolute gigging workhorses for the performing bassist.
Best Bass Amps for Gigging
1. Fender Rumble 200 1x15"
The Fender Rumble 200 was designed to give you that classic, vintage Fender sound while also not being afraid of implementing some newer conveniences that modern-day players will appreciate.
How amps look on stage is always important. Most audiences listen with their eyes, not their ears. It’s why you have to have stage presence, and so does your gear.
The design of this amp is beautifully clean with a simplistic cloth grille that harkens back to the old-school Fender look. I got plenty of compliments on the clean, classic black-and-silver look of the Fender Rumble.
Fender Rumble 200
As you’d expect from a 15” speaker, the Rumble offers plenty of warm, thump-in-your-chest low end, and plenty of volume. I used it to play a wedding to about 200 people and it offered plenty of volume.
But should you find the output not enough for your requirements they offer the Fender Rumble 500 and Fender Rumble 800 which will give you that extra volume and headroom.
I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that it can still be quiet enough for home practice.
Because of this amplifier's lower wattage, when you really crank the volume some of the body seems to disappear from the tone, which means it does struggle for those very large gigs.
But the good news is Fender has put an XLR line out on the back so you can easily pump it straight out to the PA should you wish. You can use the speaker section as a stage monitor, and run the amp into your PA for the audience.
It’s also incredibly light at just 34.5 lbs, so your drummer will have no excuses to not carry it on and off stage for you!
There are a slew of great tone-shaping controls on the top panel including a 4-band EQ with very responsive overlapping low-mid and high-mid controls.
The switchable overdrive, while pleasant sounding, still very much sits within the realm of vintage tone. So you’ll definitely need to keep your favorite distortion pedal to hand if you’re looking for a more modern gritted-up and high-gain style. Most of the gigs I play don’t demand a heavily overdriven bass sound, so the built-in drive is more than enough for me.
The headphone out is also a nice bonus as it allows you to practice at home silently without bothering the neighbors.
2. Gallien-Krueger MB112-II 1x12"
The Gallien-Krueger MB112-II is one of the most convenient bass amps I’ve ever used.
Full disclosure: I love Gallien-Krueger amps. For me, the “neutral” palette is perfect for a gigging player working across multiple genres. Because the amp doesn’t have much of its own personality (compared to, say, a Marshall stack) you can use it for pretty much anything.
This is especially useful for gigging musicians like me who play a variety of cover gigs and need to straddle multiple genres, often in a single night.
Immediately upon grabbing it I noticed its weight, at 30lbs it almost feels like a toy. But you’ll quickly forgive this after effortlessly bringing it on and off stage a few times.
It has a plain all-black design and looks very understated on stage which is helpful if you play in multiple bands that span different genres.
Gallien-Krueger MB112-II
GK has thrown in a few modern conveniences such as an aux in and headphone out which allow it to double out as a silent practice amp.
There’s also an XLR direct out so you can feed it straight to the front of house, which for even medium-sized shows I recommend doing as the single 1x12” speaker does start to suffer at high volumes.
This can create further issues as there is no master volume control here so your gain is directly tied to the output. So when you need to go very loud you’ll have no choice but to contend with distortion.
How I contend with this is by using pedals for most of my tone with the GK. Using the right combination of EQ, preamps, compression and choice effects, I was able to command a few very usable sounds. My favorites were the bright, chorus-forward Guns N’ Roses tone from “You Could Be Mine” and the warm, swirling Thin Lizzy sound of “Waiting for an Alibi.”
The quality of sound from the DI is excellent, too. I’ve actually used the Gallien Krueger straight into a mixing desk for bass tracking in the past. To be honest, I was suspicious of this approach, but the record sounded great in the end, so I’m glad I deferred to the engineer’s expertise.
Gallien-Krueger MB112-II - Controls
Despite its small size, the speaker has a very nice bass presence. But unfortunately does seem to lose some of its low-midrange punch when driven hard. I remedied this with the use of a graphic EQ pedal and a pedal overdrive, but it’s worth looking out for.
With the power amp only outputting 200 watts and the gain being tied to the volume output, I quickly found myself running out of headroom.
The good news is GK offers the MB212 500W which offers an extra speaker and a 500-watt power amp that can adequately make up for this shortcoming.
3. Aguilar Tone Hammer 500 V2
The first thing you’ll notice on the Aguilar Tone Hammer 500 is the rather unusual front layout. It definitely takes a bit more time than usual to wrap your head around. It doesn’t look like other amp front panels. It might just be that the knobs look more like what you’d find on a pedal, or that they lack numbers on the dial.
Fortunately, the usual controls are right there on the front. Input, EQ, gain, drive, and some switches.
Aguilar Tone Hammer 500. This is the generation model.
The mid control on the 3-band EQ also has a frequency sweep function to help hone in on the exact sound you want, and remove any pesky feedback if need be. A decent alternative to having separate hi and lo mid controls, although it takes some getting used to.
I recommend spending a bit of time with this as it’s easy to make the midrange sound honky if you’re not tweaking it carefully. The amp’s natural character is pretty sharp and aggressive, but with some patience I was able to dial in the warm, friendly tone I needed to play a country show. It performed particularly well on songs like “Tennessee Whiskey” with woofy, propulsive bass grooves.
One thing about the front layout that is quite troublesome is that the effects loop and balanced out are on the front, meaning you have to deal with ugly extra cables hanging in front of your amp. I was genuinely concerned about the extra trip hazard on stage. It’s nothing some extra duct tape can’t fix, but there’s good reason that most builders put their cable inputs on the back.
I love how light this amplifier is. It goes into a tote bag with a few cables and sits next to me in the passenger seat on the way to the gig.
In terms of build quality, despite being incredibly like and small it has a tough metal shell and the knobs have a ton of resistance. I’d have zero concerns about it getting damaged in transport.
This has been designed with the intention of pairing it with pedals and there’s a convenient clip indicator to make sure your levels are correct which is extremely convenient.
The XLR output is a useful feature for running the amp into a PA if you like, but I found that with the matching cabinet the Aguilar offered plenty of volume. It was more than enough to fill the barn we were playing in.
4. Hartke KB15 Kickback 1x15"
Hartke has done a great job at creating about as simple of a bass amp as you can get while throwing in just enough unique design features to make it fun and entertaining to use. I’m a huge advocate for the KISS principle: Keep It Simple (and/or) Stupid, and the Hartke Kickback epitomizes that mentality.
The KB15 Kickback has a wedged cabinet design which allows you to place the amp on the floor but angle it up towards your head. It’s clearly meant to be used on stage like a monitor wedge, and I definitely noticed my bass signal much more clearly than at other gigs with standard square forward-facing speaker cabs.
Hartke KB15 Kickback
The intention of this is to give you a more accurate and direct impression of what’s coming out of the speaker.
The single 15” speaker sounded fantastic with a deep bass rumble and adequate brightness which helps things pop. There was enough pick attack on the rock songs through the set to be noticeable without obscuring any of the guitars.
It’s made from a unique paper and aluminum speaker cone and utilizes a neodymium magnet which Hartke call their HyDrive speaker. I don’t know how much this affects the amp’s overall tone, but it sounded good to me. All the rock and country standards in our set sounded great, so maybe Hartke are onto something with this ingenuitive setup.
Another helpful feature is that this speaker can be unplugged from the head allowing you to use a different cabinet should you wish, or to run an extension cabinet.
Between the 500 watts of output and the fan, it’s not great for practicing at home using the speaker. The good news is there is a headphone output for silent late-night jams.
The front layout is very simple with just a single volume and 3-band EQ, despite not having an effects loop it does take pedals in the front very nicely.
Hartke KB15 Kickback - Controls
The one extra front feature it has is a sweepable boost between 100-900 Hz which can be helpful if you have a specific section of a song where the bass just needs to be a bit ‘extra’. I used this for a nice spike during the bass solo in “My Generation” and it sounded great.
5. TC Electronic Thrust BQ500
If budget is a driving factor for you then the Thrust BQ 500 offers a ludicrous amount of bang for your buck. As I’ve come to expect from TC Electronic, this is a highly affordable bass amp that sounds much better than its very competitive price might otherwise imply.
It’s a super light and portable unit with a very pleasing brushed aluminum front panel and rugged metal chassis.
TC Electronic Thrust BQ500
There are also two convenient handles to make loading in and out of bar gigs an absolute breeze. They should also protect the front knobs from getting crushed in case of a fall.
TC Electronic has designed this with a MOSTFET preamp which aims to emulate the warmer tone and higher dynamic response of a tube amplifier. It doesn’t sound exactly like a real tube amp to those of us, like me, raised on rich, warm tube saturation, but it’s a close enough facsimile for most applications.
The front panel has your typical 4-band EQ with separated master and gain switches.
There’s also a controllable compressor TCE calls Thrust which has a nice helpful LED light that shows you when it’s active or not.
This visual indicator can be helpful if you want just a little compression as it’s often difficult to hear this with your ear. The “Thrust” feature is particularly useful for country playing, and I left it on more than off at the country gig where I tried out this amp.
However, a compressor with only 1 knob can be very ambiguous as it’s unclear if it’s affecting the ratio, threshold, or both.
The DI output also has an additional toggle switch that can bypass the front EQ which is very helpful if your sound guy wants to handle the EQ or if you are looking to record and wish to process the signal in post.
There’s a lot to like about this little amp, with its beginner-friendly price and simple control layout.
6. Ampeg Rocket Bass RB-210 2x10"
Originally popularized back in the 1960s, the Ampeg Rocket amps were the pinnacle of bass tone and as a brand still carry a heavy authority in the world of bass guitar. Ampeg amps are often the stuff of dreams for aspiring bass players.
This has a beautiful design with a vintage cloth grille and a unique diamond-wrapped cabinet, just like the originals.
The Rocket Bass RB delivers that classic Ampeg tone and its distortion sounds wonderfully authentic. I was exceptionally impressed with both the saturation and the power of the cabinet. As a huge KISS fan, I was thrilled to run through some classic rumbling Gene Simmons bass lines with this amp. “Strutter” and “Take Me” had all the authority and aggressive, in-your-face attitude of the Demon himself.
Ampeg Rocket Bass RB-210
In addition to the regular drive or grit knob, they have a switchable overdrive that adds a ton of extra distorted overtones and gives it the authentic grunt you’d expect from an Ampeg preamp. You could easily use this as your main amp for heavy music, particularly if you prefer an overdriven bass tone.
Despite the overall vintage vibe of the amp, they’ve worked in a few extra conveniences to help the modern player out.
First is a separate 0db and -15db input jacks, which is going to help if you’re using high-output active pickups to get a bit more headroom back.
There are also separate ultra-hi and lo toggles which give you a sharp frequency boost in the top or low end to help you achieve more of a modern sound.
The 3-band EQ is responsive, but I would have preferred to see a 4-band EQ for more detailed control over the mids.
The phones and aux-in are both 3.5mm jacks which may be troublesome if you don’t have the right adapters and equipment, it’s far easier to downsize ¼’’ than the other way around. In this day and age, 3.5mm jacks aren’t that useful. Most of our phones use lightning or USB-C connectors. Adaptors to connect your phone or music player to the 3.5mm input aren’t that expensive, but a modern update to this amp with a more widely used port would be welcome.
7. Blackstar Unity Bass U500 2x10"
What Blackstar has delivered with the Unity Bass is a really fun amp with a ton of bells and whistles that will keep those who like to constantly tweak and dial in their sound happy for a very long time.
Blackstar’s ethos for amplification seems to be “Marshall plus” and this is no exception.
Between the 3 pre-amp voicings, 3 distortion types, and 3 power amp models I was able to achieve virtually any tone I could think of from the vast pantheon of attention-grabbing rock bass tones.
The amp’s tone is naturally bright, as with many other Blackstar amps, and risks becoming harsh and unpleasant if you don’t keep it in check. It’s nothing some EQing can’t fix, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
This can take a bit of patience as there are so many tweakable options. If you’re not a big tone chaser then the versatility of this amplifier may be more of a hindrance than a benefit. I wouldn’t recommend this amp to a beginner or a “plug and play” enthusiast. You’ll need to spend some time “dating” this amp and getting to know it in order to get the most out of it.
Blackstar Unity Bass U500 - Controls
Something I found super helpful when dialing my tone in was the mid-sweep function, the ability to adjust where your bass’ mids sit between your drummer's kick and guitar is invaluable for achieving clarity in live performances.
The in-built compressor didn’t sound great and just seemed to make the pick attack mushy. Fortunately, it can be toggled off. Most compressor pedals will do the trick better than a built-in compressor anyway.
And the in-built chorus and octave effects are good fun to play with, if a touch unwieldy to use live. As with compression, I found it easier just to run my effects pedals rather than relying on the amp’s built-in effects.
There are also a few more conveniences thrown in including a -10db pad switch for those with active pickups, and even a USB output which is a very welcome addition if you like to record or demo songs at home.
Key Features on a Gigging-ready Bass Amp
As a buyer, you’re spoiled for choice these days as there is a plethora of budget-friendly bass amplifiers to fit any kind of style.
But all the gimmicks and marketing lingo companies use can make it hard to hone in on what really matters.
So here are a few features I find essential for a good gigging bass amplifier that you may wish to consider for yourself.
3 or 4-band EQ
Unless you’re a pedal fiend and are doing your EQ’ing elsewhere (like me), the majority of your tonal shaping is going to be done using the onboard EQ controls.
These usually consist of 3 bands called bass, middle, and treble. But what you’ll often find on bass amplifiers they will split the middle band into two separate controls called mid-high and mid-low.
This can be very helpful when it comes to really dialing in your sound to work with your band. Midrange is typically the area dominated by guitars and vocals, so the ability to sculpt your midrange tone is very valuable live.
While having a 4-band EQ isn’t an absolute necessity, if you find yourself unable to achieve the tone you want on a 3-band EQ, you may wish to consider using an EQ pedal to give your further options to sculpt your sound.
DI Out
Live sound engineers like to receive a DI (direct input) out from your amplifier so they can either blend it in with the mic’d sound of your speaker cabinet, or sometimes pipe it straight out to the PA.
It’s an essential part of keeping control and managing the bass sound in a live setting, and these days the overwhelming majority of modern bass amps have some kind of DI out.
But the problem is not all DI outputs are made equal, and on cheaper amplifiers sometimes the DI sound can be pretty poor.
So getting an amp with a nice sounding DI output is going to dramatically improve how good you sound live. It’s going to make you very popular with the sound technicians in your local scene to have this option rather than the full-power bass stack of yesteryear.
Separate Gain and Master
Something that was particularly prevalent on older amplifiers was that the gain control often doubled up as the volume control which meant the louder you went, the more distortion was introduced.
This prompted manufacturers to introduce a master volume at the end of the power amp section which allowed you to control your overall volume and your distortion amounts independently.
While this feature is widely found on most amplifiers, there are a few out there that still blend these functions together as a homage to vintage amplifiers. In some guitar amps, like old single-channel Marshalls, this is a feature of the amp. However, most bass players want independent control over their respective gain and volume levels, particularly if you’re running your amp straight into the PA.
Why So Many Watts?
If you’ve ever used a guitar and felt the skin peeling from your face while standing in front of a measly 100-watt amplifier, you’ll no doubt be apprehensive about bringing a 500-watt behemoth back home.
Don’t worry! Bass amplifiers require this much more power to drive the speaker and produce bass frequencies that are loud enough to keep up with the guitars and drums.
Doubling the wattage of an amplifier only results in a 3db increase in perceived loudness.
A good general rule of thumb is that your bass amplifier should be double that of your combined guitarist's wattage. This way, you won’t be louder than them, but you’ll be audible in the mix.
So let’s say you have 2 guitarists each using 100-watt amplifiers for a total of 200 watts, then your bass amplifier should be at least 400 watts.
Now it’s ok to have more than this as the more watts you have, the more headroom your bass will have and the less it will need to work to achieve the desired volume level. Higher wattage also offers more volume without distortion, key to a clean, useful bass tone.
While 500 watts is often too loud for home use, most modern amplifiers integrate a headphone input so you can practice at home without angering your significant other. You could also run a higher-wattage amp through an attenuator, or into a smaller speaker cabinet.
The Modern Bassist
Portability and reliability are the most important features for any working musician’s gear. A great bass amp for a gigging bassist needs to be able to withstand the rigors of live performance and touring life while delivering great tones night after night.
If your amp of choice is easy enough to load in and out of the venues you’re playing (assuming that, like me, you don’t have roadies to do that for you), that’s probably the perfect amp for you.
So having a bass amp that has all the features you need while remaining both portable and affordable is really important.
All the amplifiers presented today aim to present a good balance between price, affordability, and functionality and will serve any gigging bassist well for their live performances.
You don’t need a big bass amp. I play live with a fender rumble 40. I do quite well with a 200 watt Yorkville at the jam space. You do not need a 500 watt amp to “keep up” with anything.
Thanks to musicstrive and Liam Plowman for this helpful information and advice. Im a guitar player that just has begun his journey with the bass. The two instruments and the equipment are very different so having read this article was helpful to understand the bass side better.