Bass amps and pedals

[fender3x]

Not just the tweeds. The black tolex ones too. They've been more popular with guitarists than bass players for most of my life.

I had one of the original Sunn bass amps. Sounded great with guitar, but not loud enough for bass.

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[fender3x]

I have personally never seen damage to a power amp or preamp because of a bass playing through it. I have seen speakers destroyed lots of times. When it's a melted down voice coil I have also smelled it. It could be that I did not see tube damage because the speakers died first.

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[fender3x]

I have been thinking more...usually that confuses me.

One thing I see a lot of bass players doing...and I thought about too when I went to a class D amp... is to get a PA amp for power, and run a separate pre for the bass.

The biggest difference between now and when I was a kid is that Watts are now cheap and plentiful. Back in the dark ages most of us played through underpowered equipment that we just kept turning up to keep up with the guitar and drums. I suspect that a lot of equipment failures related to that.

The thing that is the same now, and poorly understood, is that volume is still about moving air. With all the available Wattage, it's easy to reach the maximum SPL (roughly volume) that the speaker+cab can produce. Once that point has been hit it does not matter how many more Watts you push, it's not going to get louder. More distorted, maybe, but not louder. However, nothing about hitting max SPL will keep a bass players from continuing to turn things up if they want more volume. That can kill a speaker, but may not if the voice coil has a high power rating.

All things being equal, what does produce more volume is more speaker cone area (read that more speakers or bigger speakers), and more cone travel (xmax). But in both cases once you get to the maximum air the speakers+cabs can move pushing additional power through them will only serve to heat the voice coil. High watt ratings on the speakers will help protect them from the bass player going crazy with the volume control, so will some of the preamp circuts that have been discussed and anti clipping protection.

Almost any amp/speaker combo can produce bass safely at low volumes. I am sure it has happened but can't think of a time that I have actually seen damage when it was not related to trying to get the equipment run at a higher volume than it could safely produce.

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[dave.king1]

I think that part of the bass player chase for volume is use of the wrong tone settings thinking that fat and low is good which it certainly can be in a power trio but I still used a decent chunk of treble.

Since the early 70s when I was in a prog band I have tended to use fairly treble settings with lightly scooped mids on my bass amps which since the mid 70s are always solid state.

A few years back I went to a Keith Urban concert and although Jerry was all over the neck his sound just mud, not bad when you heard a few notes on his own but totally lost in the mix, just a sub rumble along with the kick

[Marcel]

I was building a ported cab a while back, and the number crunch machine said I needed a 10cm hole for the port, and as you can guess I don't have a 10cm hole saw, so I searched for alternatives. Turns out that the math says Qty 4 x 50mm holes equals a 10 cm hole in area.... and a 50mm hole saw is one I do have

And the reverse math is also true...

In essence a 4 x 10" cab is equal in area to a 1 x 20" cab.... Throw a few hundred watts to compensate for our poorer hearing at those lower frequencies and we can start to get some balance against a 50W 2 x 12" and a drum kit with a 24" bass drum....

And yeah, In +40y fixing gear I've never seen any amp suffer any serious damage by being used on bass, but have seen plenty of speakers of all kinds damaged from over heating and over excursion when used to push the bass just that little bit more ... and just as many dead tweeters due amps (or mixing desks) driven well into clipping...

[Simon Barden]

I think actual guitar valve amp damage was a long time ago with rather underpowered valve amps and less than optimal components.

[PJSprog]

One thing I see a lot of bass players doing...and I thought about too when I went to a class D amp... is to get a PA amp for power, and run a separate pre for the bass.

I did this for years, when I was chasing that Billy Sheehan sound. Ran a compressor into a Pearce BC-1 preamp, and then into a 1600W amp for the clean channel and a 1000W amp for the distortion channel. One 410 and two 1-15 cabs for clean, and one 410 and one 210 for distortion. Monster wall-o-sound ... that I eventually got tired of carting around just to play local club gigs. Eventually went to a 610 for clean and a 210 for distortion. Still a big sound, but fit in a small hatchback car.