The less well known/publicized art of Bass amps...

[Marcel]

A few beers with a couple of bass player friends made me realise how little is known by so many about bass guitar amps, myself included. The misconceptions, the beliefs, the rumours and whatever ... While there are literally dozens of reviews on YouTube on every model of Hughes & Kettner, Orange, Marshall and Fender guitar amp on the market there is also an apparent near vacuum of info on bass cabs and amps...

While it doesn't take long to find some very basic info like power should be above 250W and a 4x10" cab is the most often considered ideal small venue rig, the "which amp and cab should I get" question seems to the one most often avoided. The comment of 'it doesn't matter for bass, they're all the same and DI is just as good' resulted in heated conversation, to which I have decided to turn to the brains trust of this forum for some opinions...

For reference, brand names like Ampeg, TC Electronic, Hartke, Mark Bass, Laney, Warwick and Gallien Krueger to name a few were all repeatedly mentioned in the heated discussion... on and in good, bad, ugly and beautiful terms.. and for me as primarily a sound Engineer guy it is somewhere between a newer TC Electronic rig for some tones and an Ampeg or a Hartke into a 4x10 for others, and if all else fails the ubiquitous reliable DI into the PA/recording desk.

What say you? Bass players please stand and be counted !!! For various genres of music, or for that pub/club gig, what would be your essential go to bass amp and cab rig ??

[dave.king1]

Being of a certain vintage I should say an effing big double stack with lots of 12s, but I have grown up as well as out.

I really can't speak for the current stuff but broadly speaking my ideal bass rig while gigging was a totally clean solid state head of around 100W RMS into a sealed 4x12 Marshall style quad box loaded with Etones with a BOSS EQ for tone shaping never mic'd live.

The H||H IC-100S served me well both indoors and outdoors, always had the volume and punch to run with a couple of SF Twins and a 1200W per side PA with a mic'd kit ( 600 a side on fold back )

Today I still have the same H||H head but prefer vented 4x10 box loaded with a mix of Eminence speakers and don't need the EQ, probably a combination of the smaller cones and different box design, not gigged with this combo but tone wise it is very satisfying and loud enough to make your ears bleed.

Back in the day when we were in the studio I always wanted the amp mic'd but all of the current stuff is DI for bass and mic for guitar.

Don't know if this helps but it is at least one opinion to take forward.

[Simon Barden]

Most regular giggers will probably prefer something small, powerful and light. Neodymium speakers and class-D amps mean that a small package can pack a really big punch, even if they would prefer to be standing in front of a large cab. But unless you're a well-off touring band with roadies, convenience seems to overtake looks for the semi-pro bands who are gigging once or twice a week.

You may find that the six times a year giggers may prefer the larger cabs as each gig is more of an adventure and worth the extra effort, but from my experience of those doing two or three gigs a week (often with different bands), the ability to get in, set up, gig, break it all down and get out quickly, means that they invariably use something like a 1 x 12" Mark Bass combo or similar.

My bass rig is now (well once I finish putting the cab together again - there were issues with the finish that required a strip down to bare wood), a home-made 1x10" cab with a 300W 4 ohm Celestion neo speaker and a TC BH250 250W head. It's only for messing around on, but it's an easy one-hand job to pick it all up.

[Marcel]

Yeah, the 'heated' and some what enthusiastic discussion came as a result of me recently scoring an old Eminance loaded 4x10 cab as payment for a guitar amp repair I did some weeks ago. My response to the question of what amp I was using with it had both of them rolling on the floor with laughter followed by repeated enthusiastic recommendations of upgrades to my AC18W amp build, which though not powerful enough for serious gigging I thought sounded quite good for practice as a novice bassist like me...

Sad thing is that both these guys are serious Pro gigging working musicians, Two or three gigs a week, so their advice while honest, truthful, reliably great and valuable, it is also way beyond my skill set and leans just a tad more than I'd care to spend on a 'better' amp...

The tiny in physical size TC BH250 is probably the cheapest of the bunch at about AU$450, and prices only go up rather quickly from there. A doubling of price gets into the feature set of things like built in compression and multiband EQ and an FX loop, and another doubling of price brings LPF and HPF ability in addition to a doubling or more of power. So despite only a modest growth in physical size and weight the options up are almost limitless ... A nice Mark Bass 800W unit with HPF & LPF and tube emulation and compressor sits around AU$1400, a quite pricey investment for mostly novice practice.

As they both knew I'm primarily a sound engineer/repair guy that likes decent gear (that they might be able to hire/borrow) and not a gigging musician you can only imagine what my two bassist friends were convincingly recommending I should get, and why I should get it, (Think Aguilar AG-700)

[Dedman]

I have a little Ampeg Micro CL with a 2x10 cab, only 100w but enough to shake the man cave.

[Simon Barden]

The BH250 has the tone print facility (the current mk 2 can store 2 tone prints to my Mk1's single print), so that can add a built in compressor (I use the multiband version) or chorus or phaser or distortion or trem.

[Marcel]

As one does I spent a few hours late last night and quite a few hours this morning researching the subject on valuable info sources like YouTube, Ebay and Google... and then needed a little grandpa rest, so I headed into my shed for that moment of me time...

There is a lot to consider. Hours of demo videos. Data and spec sheets. Comments from trusted individuals..... Power.?.. Toneprint .?.. Eq .?.. Compression .?.. and what do I really need.... and most of all the Tone vs Cost issue...

It seems I've been down this road before, although this time I have at hand a quite reasonable 4x10" cab. On previous journeys things tended to hover around a small combo to start with, and then migrate up to a bigger setup. And at some stage I must have had ideas of building some kind of rig or another guitar amp as hiding in the back corner of the shed was a new chassis with some bits in it, being a transformer and a solid state 200W power module.... Hmmm....

As much as getting a BH250 is very tempting, For the moment I'm thinking a build my own bass amp (possibly stereo) for next to nix is for me a more appealing temptation.... A quick survey around the shed had me most of the other required parts... 3 band EQ, compressor/limiter, input gain amp, IEC socket, a Speakon connector, knobs and pots, just need to sort out a DC power supply for the pre-amp...

[wazkelly]

Last century I was doing 3-4 nights a week with a Marshall 100w super bass into a slant front 4x12" with celestion 25w green backs and signal running through 2 Boss DI's to the desk for when I played a Ric 4001 in stereo. Also wired up my Yammy fretless in stereo too to make it easier when swapping axes during a set.

When I was down sizing I sold the Marshall setup and bought an Ampeg and fed that into some etone 15" speakers. It was a pig. Big and heavy and sounded crap, and really lacked the warmth of the Marshall valves and 12" speakers. As a result I am not a fan of Ampeg and find them quite bland.

A bit over a year ago was wanting to buy a decent more portable bass setup, preferably combo, and the slant backed Ampegs were tempting but I ended up with a Hartke HD75w with a 12" speaker and 7 band EQ for $399 delivered. Quite a big cabinet that looks like it could be hiding a 15" speaker in there and has a fair bit of weight too. Sounds great as I tend to like a bright sound as that cuts through and provides a better stage sound, and if gigging would run through a DI and let the sound guy muddy things up for FOH.

The separate TC's and a small single speaker cabinet were tempting but combined cost was a fair bit more than a complete setup for less than $400. If money was no object, that would be the way to go as the newer heads are so small and light it is ridiculous.

[corsair5517]

Crikey; you blokes have some exotic gear, eh! My bass amp for many years has been - and still is! - an old ELFA 100W combo bought in Dunedin, NZ and which has served me well on the odd occasion I've been called in to do the thump'n'bump. It's a Made in Australia bit of kit, solid-state with a 15" Etone speaker and which doesn't weigh as much as the moon... a major consideration these days but also a consideration when I was young and fit; I didn't have roadies most of the time!!

[wazkelly]

Do they still make etone speakers? JBL was too dear and reckon most emerging pub rock bands from 70's & 80's can thank etone for providing well priced pa gear to use at the time.

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