This is exactly what Stephen Jay, bass player for Weird Al Yankovic, has found in his trusted and well-used Mackie SR1530 Active loudspeakers. For years, he's been using them as his primary bass rig for live shows.
"My bass set-up consists of four Mackie SR1530's, a Mackie 1202 VLZ-Pro mixer, and a Mackie CFX•12 mixer," commented Jay. "The great thing about using the SR1530's is that when I want to get deeper into the groove, I run a little kick and snare through them to punch up their overall impact. And the 1530's allow me to do this without losing any of the original tone of my bass. This would be virtually impossible if I was using a dedicated bass cabinet."
Jay continued, "Since I also double on several other instruments. The Mackie mixers provide me with a separate channel for each one, allowing me to switch fast and get a great tone for each individual instrument."
Jay also gives the Mackie speakers high marks in sound quality. "The Mackie's simply give me an incredible range of bass tone possibilities from the roundest to the most pointed. And because they have an incredibly solid low end and great mid-and high dispersion, I can easily hear them from most locations on stage, reducing the need for "in-ear" monitors."
Jay loves the Mackie SR1530s so much so that he never performs a gig without them. "The fact that the Mackie's are self powered is of course very convenient, and their physical beauty and sturdy reliability make them irreplaceable in my set up. Thanks for making 'em Mackie!"
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
