I have had something of a gear epiphany the past few days. I have been kicking around the idea of a new bass amp lately. You read a lot online about what someone says is great, another guy says is junk, etc-very easy to get caught up in whether you mean to or not, especially if you live somewhere that there isn't a lot of places to try different gear out. Last night I saw a band using all off-the-shelf kind of stuff-the bass player was using two Peavey T40s, a few pedals you could get at generic big box music store, an old Peavey Mace head, and an Ampeg 810...thick, nasty tone that drove the whole band. All the members of both of these bands were using stuff like that-pretty plain gear and sounded incredible. Friday I saw a band and the bassist had a standard Jazz bass, 4 pedals (Boss and one Maxon), the solid state SVT head and the really basic Ampeg 4x10...his tone was killer also-articulate, warm, all the things people look for. I look at the stuff I have and think, I am not anywhere close to what these dudes are writing and playing, I am going to make the most with what I've got already and not worry about gear. Granted there is something to be said for knowing how you like your sound to be, and to have functioning stuff that won't break on you, but I am pretty far off from sniffing cork for the time being.