For about the last six or seven years my standard rig has been a Carvin R1000 over top of an SWR Goliath III 4×10 cab. I bought the Carvin simply because it had the most horsepower for the money. The Super Red Head 2×10 combo I had before it just wasn’t loud enough for the bands I was playing in so as a knee-jerk reaction I just went for as many watts as I could afford at the time. While the R1000 has been an absolute tank (4-8 gigs/month for the last 3 years) it isn’t exactly a tone monster. While it has two channels of EQ and a lot of other bells and whistles it just doesn’t have the kinda tone dreams are made of. Lol, my Custom Shop P-Bass makes anything sound decent but it wasn’t exactly butter

Flash to present, we’re either using our own killer PA (which we didn’t always have) or the clubs we play have a killer system which they want us to make the most of because it’s piped all around the joint… They don’t want us blowing it up on stage because we think people in the bathroom need to hear every note directly from our amps. The term “stage volume” kinda takes on new (real?) meaning and suddenly, I’m thinkin’ it’s time to lighten the load… After all, I can’t remember the last time I turned my amp up past 3…

Enter The MarkBass Little Mark II, Marco Limited Edition 08 coupled to the Traveler 102P resting casually in my living room… By no means my first choice as replacement for the Carvin/SWR set up but after playing just one gig with it, now it’s my only choice.

Being a satisfied, existing Line 6 customer (Pod 2.0, Bass Pod XT Live) I was really leaning on the idea of something from The Line 6 “Low Down” LD series bass combos as a replacement for my R1000 but I just couldn’t quite talk myself into the idea anything smaller than the LD300 Pro was going to be able to cut the mustard… I played an LD150 in the store and according to reviews, the LD175 isn’t appreciably louder… Considering the LD300 weighed in at 89lbs, I wouldn’t have been doing myself any favors as that’s the exact same weight as my Goliath 4×10… Yes, I would’ve eliminated having to deal with the 35 or so pounds of the R1000 but we’re still talking about one load in, one load out humping 90lbs in one shot. Don’t want it anymore, thanks…

Anyway, while I’m diddling this LD150 in the store, I see these previously “unknown” (to me anyway) cabs with the yellow drivers and the tiny little heads sitting on them. Hmm… “MarkBass”… Never heard of it, and away I went, empty handed.

Later that evening I’m looking at all kinds of stuff online trying to figure out how to “downsize without compromise” and ultimately decided to look up one of these little yellow things I saw in the store. I was shocked to find rave reviews everywhere… Reviews from people coming off  SVT’s, 5500’s and 400RB’s… Practically anything else you can think of… NOBODY was complaining with the possible exception of the absence of a mute function for tuning. When I found out this little 6 pound booger eater was voted Best Bass Head and Best All Around New Product in Bass Player Magazine’s 08 Readers’ Choice Awards… Back to the store I went.

Right out of the box and with minimal diddling, this thing just punches through like my Carvin never could… I’d say it’s literally the polar opposite of my R1000 in that it’s so simple and small, yet the sound is just huge. What the Carvin did with watts, this thing does with tone. It’s just so punchy and responsive it’s big without being muddy. It just sounds so fucking good… Even my drummer and guitar players were blown away and were like, “Jeez, can ya turn down a bit?” It really is stunning, the sound that comes from a mere combined weight of about 42 lbs between the head and the 2×10 cab…

Less than half the weight, double the fun… I still haven’t run the Little Mark II at 4ohms yet (upping the ante from 300 to 500 watts) but I’m going to run it with my 4×10 Goliath and then with a 1×15 to see what it does at full bore.