I sometimes get asked for advice on bass amps for beginners and the answer can generally be summed up in two words: it depends. Despite a lot of advances since I was starting out, you still can’t get light, loud and affordable unless you have the budget to count hundreds of pounds as fitting that last option. That does narrow the options somewhat but not all the ones remaining are worth much.

Why does an amp have to be light? It isn’t a prerequisite but humping large, heavy ones around soon feels like a chore. In addition, many new players are young. They might cope with the weight better than some older ones but where to keep it and how to get it to rehearsals and gigs becomes a problem that has to be shared with the family or others.

Why loud? I’m not as obsessed about volume as some bassists and other musicians I know but you need the amp to be able to keep up with the places you use it. My first amp was a tiny and fairly cheap thing rated at about 10W. You could drown it out with an acoustic guitar and it didn’t sound that great even on its own, starting to produce flatulent sounds well before the dials got turned all the way up. I can’t even remember what happened to it but it isn’t on the list of gear I miss. I’d be inclined to suggest that, for bass, about 30W is a sensible minimum and more is better but that starts to push the price up again.

I wonder if one of the very small amps, like the Laney Mini Bass NX or the Blackstar Fly3 might do the job well enough for home practise. I played some modern small amps and they tend to do a better job of sounding okay at home. However, they aren’t going to cope in a band situation. I wonder if the best solution the present time would be a multiFX pedal, like the Zoom B1 Four? Like the tiny amps, you can use it with headphones and that might be the ideal volume level for home practise. However, you also get a wealth of other features including critical ones like a tuner, some handy ones, like a looper and drum patterns, and the chance to try out a range of special effects and even “amp models”.

How would you make a noise with one of those? In my experience, places like schools, churches, gig venues and rehearsal rooms often have a bass amp already in place. Therefore, I’d probably lean towards the multiFX idea as a way to get started and peg getting an actual amp for a little further down the line.