Scott Ambush

I was born April 28th, in the not too distant past, in Frederick, Maryland to Webster and Jeanette Lofton Ambush. I was preceded by my sister Cassandra, and followed by brother Peter and sister Tracy. Since my sister is two years older, and my brother five years younger, I guess I'd be considered the middle child. A psychological profile I think, would confirm this.

I attended Ubana Elementary School in Ubana, MD, West Frederick Middle, and Frederick High School. Although I managed above average grades, my mom was constantly bombarded with the dreaded "talks too much in class" notes. I played in the jazz ensemble, ran track, and play on the football team.

I started playing the bass at twelve when my buddies decided to start a band. Since one of them already had a drum set, I became the bass player (I've been a frustrated drummer ever since). We began playing rock and roll by such artists as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Led Zepellin, Black Sabbath, Sly and the Family Stone, The Isley Brothers, Parliament/Funkadelic, and others.

A few years later, my cousin Allen turned me on to Return to Forever and Stanley Clarke. I was never the same. We formed a band playing "fusion" and straight ahead jazz, while also playing funk and r&b in other bands. Incidentally, my mother was a gospel singer, so there was also a lot of spiritual music in my household. This made for a very diverse musical development. After high school, I attended the University of MD at College Park. While studying psychology during the day, I was introduced to the Washington, D.C. music scene at night.

Eventually I was spending more time playing than studying, and left school to pursue music. I played (and still often do) with a wide variety of musicians and bands in the area. This exposure led to gigs with regional and national acts both locally and on the road (see partial performance list). Through word of mouth, I was recommended for the bass job with Spyro Gyra. After auditioning, I got the gig (obviously). The past five years touring with the band has been a great experience. We get to see the world, meet new people, and have our music appreciated by thousands of fans. What more could a middle child ask for?

Equipment List:

My stage setup is pretty straight forward. It starts with an Ambush Custom five-string bass. The signal goes into a Whirlwind Selector A/B box, where it is split. One side of the box feeds a Korg tuner, while the other feeds a Countryman direct box. This allows me to tune silently while on stage. The signal is split again at the direct box. One side feeding the house and monitor consoles the other side is fed into my stage rig. On stage I use an Eden Navigator preamp, fed into a QSC 3500 power amp, driving an Eden 4x10 cabinet. The cabinet is mic'd and fed to the house and monitor desks as well. We use an in-ear monitoring system, so a combination of the direct and miked signals are mixed in the monitors. As for effects, I sometimes use a TC Electronics chorus pedal and an EBS Octave pedal.

In addition to the Ambush basses, I sometimes use an Athlete acoustic bass guitar or a custom Jazz Bass with a Moses composite neck. In the studio, the bass goes direct to the console, and is combined with signal from either a mic'd Eden cabinet or the Navigator preamp.

My home studio is a basic writer/project affair with Alesis ADAT, Mackie Board, Yamaha NS10 and KRK KROC monitors, various keyboards, Alesis DM5 drum module, Hart Dynamics Miltipad and kick drum triggers, a Power Computing CPU, MOTU Digital Preformer sequencing software, and soon, Pro Tools.