School me on bass amps

[Boxbie]

Hey, I only use 4 speakers too.

Haha,....Glad to see we aren't taking ourselves too seriously.

Ha ha! No need to take cover! we're all gentlemen of fortune here!

[Fuzz_Pi]

Haha,....Glad to see we aren't taking ourselves too seriously.

I wouldn't say you are a twat,...sometimes a little militant but I'm sure we all are in one way or another.

FWIW,...I can be an asshole sometimes,...and a little bit of a bitch with the gossip.

Cool, too bad im not actully mark olson

[theavondon]

Also to touch on the Tube vs SS with fuzz,....

There was a fella who shall remain nameless that was militantly adamant about only using Tube amps with Fuzz/Disto/Overdrive (talking with bass guitar here),...to the point of flamage of those that disagreed with him. That fella's mindset caused a lot defensiveness from Fuzz>SS user,....but I like that I'm not seeing any I'm right you are wrong and you dumb for being wrong in this discussion,....so big kudos fellas.

While I think there is some merit to what he who shall remain nameless says about Fuzz into Tube amps,....I think the issue is more a guitar issue then a bass issue. I also think that he who shall remain nameless is a little too set in his ways and I'm not convinced that his particular tone is all that great, well it's a decent tone for dad rock, but that's about it.

Again I'm perfectly happy with my fuzz sound into my SS rig,...but I think the amount of power my rig pumps contributes to that satisfaction, and I definitely want to have a go with a Tube amp just to compare and contrast.

His Psychedelic Jamz also left a lot to be desired, if I'm on the same wavelength as you are.

I'M MARK OLSON FUCK BOTH OF YOU

Oh shit.

Well this is embarrassing but I'm unapologetic as rereading my post,...I don't think I said anything that warranted a cuss out.

Just saying.

[warwick.hoy]

COCK

Haha,....I've been pwned.

[Eric!]

I'm kindof in the camp of wishing hard enough and maybe an old Traynor will magically show up next time I go down to my basement so I can finally blast my fuzz into some TOOBZ.

Been using GK for years, haven't had any problems. I like the clean tone to be..sterile. If I want warm tubey gritshit, I grab an OD.

[Grrface]

COCK

Haha,....I've been pwned.

Yes! Now we alllll know that you gossip!

[warwick.hoy]

like a bitch.

[Zounds Perspex]

lots of watts are required for clean low frequencies. it you just want just big and mean, that may not be necessary.
before you buy a bass head, try your 30-watt guitar amp thru a decent bass cabinet.
I'm a big fan of the old Mesa Boogie Diesel 1x15"s, or any variation of the 15" Thiele cabinet.
you might be suprised at the sound you get from one of these and a 30-watt tube head.
will it work with a loud band? no, but neither will most of these tiny solid-state heads, either.

I know it's been said a million times, too, but V4.

[nad]

I still don't know why the trend has become 20,000 watt bass specific amps that can't keep up with 50+ year old 60 watt tube technology. My main amps are 180 and 220 watts each, and they can literally inflict physical damage. I bent over to adjust something whilst playing one day, and my face came into the direct line of fire from one of my 12" drivers. IT HURT MY HEAD AND IT WAS AWESOME. Yet my 600 watt solid state backup head has barely enough juice to keep up, WTF?!

Honestly I think the weight of the amp is more important. If it's big and heavy, it'll be loud enough, no matter what the wattage rating is. Buddy of mine has some old Peavey thing rated at like 150 watts, solid state. Fucker weighs 50 pounds and will DESTROY THE ELDERLY if they get too close and look at it funny. I think amp companies these days just make up wattage numbers for shits and giggles. If I keep telling her my dick is 10" long she'll eventually believe it!

More fun with made-up math: guitar amp + Bag End cabs =

[warwick.hoy]

lots of watts are required for clean low frequencies. it you just want just big and mean, that may not be necessary.
before you buy a bass head, try your 30-watt guitar amp thru a decent bass cabinet.
I'm a big fan of the old Mesa Boogie Diesel 1x15"s, or any variation of the 15" Thiele cabinet.
you might be suprised at the sound you get from one of these and a 30-watt tube head.
will it work with a loud band? no, but neither will most of these tiny solid-state heads, either.

I definitely advocate for this,....really any bass cab you can find on the cheap would be better than trying to run a bass through Guitar Head + Guitar Cab. As I've said before,...it's not so much the amp as it is that guitar speakers aren't designed to handle bass frequencies.

I know it's been said a million times, too, but V4.

Yes please.



Currently there are two Pignose G40Vs sitting in a pawnshop downtown for like $150 a pops (I could probably snatch em up for $100 a pop). Two of em,....the thought just occurred to me that I should buy both of them and take one and replace the guitar voiced speaker with a bass voiced speaker.



Just secured permission from the wife to move forward on this plan.

EDIT: Friday,...will be new amp day hooray.

[Zounds Perspex]

I still don't know why the trend has become 20,000 watt bass specific amps that can't keep up with 50+ year old 60 watt tube technology. My main amps are 180 and 220 watts each, and they can literally inflict physical damage. I bent over to adjust something whilst playing one day, and my face came into the direct line of fire from one of my 12" drivers. IT HURT MY HEAD AND IT WAS AWESOME. Yet my 600 watt solid state backup head has barely enough juice to keep up, WTF?!

Honestly I think the weight of the amp is more important. If it's big and heavy, it'll be loud enough, no matter what the wattage rating is. Buddy of mine has some old Peavey thing rated at like 150 watts, solid state. Fucker weighs 50 pounds and will DESTROY THE ELDERLY if they get too close and look at it funny. I think amp companies these days just make up wattage numbers for shits and giggles. If I keep telling her my dick is 10" long she'll eventually believe it!

More fun with made-up math: guitar amp + Bag End cabs =

yep. my 180-watt Electric with 2 15" Thiele cabs will make the whole goddamn world shake.

[Grrface]

Currently there are two Pignose G40Vs sitting in a pawnshop downtown for like $150 a pops (I could probably snatch em up for $100 a pop). Two of em,....the thought just occurred to me that I should buy both of them and take one and replace the guitar voiced speaker with a bass voiced speaker.



Just secured permission from the wife to move forward on this plan.

EDIT: Friday,...will be new amp day hooray.

I enjoy the fact that I could watch your thought process as it occurred.

[warwick.hoy]

Like a bitch.

I'm actually quite stoked on the idea.

I've been wanting to got the all tube route for a while and obviously I won't be gigging on bass with the G40V modded or unmodded,...but it seems the have the power push low freqs through a bass voiced speaker (at lowish volumes). Will be good for demoing fuzzes and shit and getting my compare and contrast on and just to have a sweet tube practice amp to run my fuzzes through. Might even go so far as to gut the chassis out and turn it into a head and use it with a 2x10 bass cab.

Oh yeah,...I'm gonna buy one of those vinyl adhesive lettering kits and stick a "B" in front of the "G40V",...that way I can tell the difference.

[Moustache_Bash]

I don't mean to shit in your cereal Warwick, but I asked around on two different bass forums if I could swap the speaker in my Ampeg J20 for a bass speaker and they said it was a bad idea. People claimed that guitar cabinets aren't made to handle bass frequencies well enough, well at least open back cabs (which the G40V is, maybe?). They said it'll still sound like poop cranked, but others said that may not be the case. Of course, the naysayers were TB dudes. And they think about shit I would never want to consider, and play 2lbs., 800watt, scooped mids amps.

I don't know, I just thought you should know.

EDIT: Ignore me, I'm a dunce, sounds like you're just using them for practice stuff and may go the head route.

[warwick.hoy]

At M_B;...yeah just practicing and demoing purposes. I might be able to get away with gigging a G40V on Guitar but I know better for bass. Considering I have a perfectly serviceable bass amp for gigging,...the only use for the pignose would be in determining if I really want a tube amp for gigging on bass. It would definitely have to be able to run down to two ohms as both of my cabs are 4ohms and I'm a little unsure if there are tube amps that will run on such a low impedance.

I also realize that cabs are typically designed for the drivers that are intended to be used with them and that is probably the crux of the issue with the responses you got from bassists. I think it's only a huge issue if you are trying to get the best efficiency from the speakers and are driving the fuck out of them,...which is not the case in my situation.

At Maz. With my stereo poweramp (an Ampeg SVP1500 for the curious) I did indeed run a shitty 4x12 guitar cab before I picked up my 2x15. I actually loved how good my fuzz sounded through the guitar voiced speakers,...but I was handicapped in that I could not push the cab at full volume with my poweramp. Eventually I blew on of the drivers,...but I think that was carelessness with the EQ and volume on my part. Typically you'll find that Guitar speakers are not nearly as high rated on the peak as bass speakers.

As far as your impedance issues,....I couldn't tell you as I don't know what amp you are using (I know it's an Orange ),...what impedance it's rated at and if you plug two 8ohm speakers into the parallel outputs if that drops the amp down to 4ohms etc etc etc. The 16ohm out throws another variable into the game (I'm assuming that amp is intended to use only the 2 8ohm outputs or the single 16ohm output at a time).

To be honest,...if it's a 30watt tube guitar amp and you are looking to gig with it,...probably not going to produce satisfactory results anyway and I'd move to a more powerful rig + a wall o cabs. I particularly like my stereo poweramp setup since both channels can be run down to 2ohms,...this gives me a lot of options with running cabs.

I'll echo the sentiment that more speaker surface area is pretty key to pumping volume. All the power in the world isn't going to amount to a hill of beans if you are just pumping it through a single 4x10 cab.

EDIT;,...please don't take what I say as scripture,...if it's one thing I'm not fully abreast on amp usage outside of my own experiences which is very limited on guitar. I'm capable of admitting that I am no amp guru,...so if I'm wrong or misunderstanding of any of this; I'd caution to wait on confirmation of correctness.