"Bi-Amping Is A Terrible Idea for A Bass Rig"

[Stev187]

Not my words. I was browsing through some music books and came across Glenn Letsch's Stuff Good Bass Players Should Know, which contains about a page and a half a page of detailed experience with bi-amping. Quote:

"Bi-amping is a great idea for an audiophile's ultimate home stereo but a terrible idea for a bass rig. Simply put, it does not work for live band applications."

I don't have the rest of the book in front of me, but his experience and analysis was interesting.

Now, I ran a bi-amp rig back in the early 90s and liked it. But the part of Letsch's story that grabbed me is that the rig sounded good to him on stage but got lost in the mix for the rest of the band. I never experimented with bi-amp/full-range with this particular rig.

At any rate, I know there are lots of threads about bi-amping, but I wanted to specifically start out with Letsch's quote and get people's reactions. The rest of the book looked pretty good to me. If I recall, his conclusion is that subs are a better idea than bi-amping. Now, he's a big stadium guy and I will never play places that big. Back in the day I played medium-sized clubs and the occasional festival stage. My bi-amp rig seemed fine to me. What are your thoughts?

--Steve

[BurningSkies]

Its BS.

Its a terrible idea if a bass player is bi-amping and doesn't know enough about cross over usage, but otherwise the notionn that its not good for bass players is ridiculous.

[colcifer]

Biamping is as good as you make it. It's a but outdated now, though.

[JimWasHere]

Like all other things in... Everything. Know what you're trying to accomplish, the learn how to do it, then do it, then see if it really made a difference, or if you're just imagining results.

Rinse. Repeat.

But the part of Letsch's story that grabbed me is that the rig sounded good to him on stage but got lost in the mix for the rest of the band.

A lot of this comes from understanding and being able to work with the other musicians, the PA/engineer, and the room. This is no small thing.

[Alex1984]

Bi-amping should be perfectly legit if you know how to use it properly. Most sound reinforcement should be bi-amped.

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by Stev187

What are your thoughts?

Bi-amping can work very well with the right choice of speakers. But there are no bi-amp engineered speakers offered by the usual sources.

[Alex1984]

To elaborate, I think the most common problem people have is thinking "15s are for lows, and 10s are for highs" and incorrectly using the full-range cabs in a bi-amp setup, and end up not getting the most out of their setup.

[Alex1984]

Bill, do you think the Eminence Kappalite LFs would suffice as a good choice?

[JimWasHere]

Originally Posted by billfitzmaurice

Bi-amping can work very well with the right choice of speakers. But there are no bi-amp engineered speakers offered by the usual sources.

+ a lot

The sound reinforcement stuff that is biamped, at least at the pro sound level, each component has a specific purpose, and a lot of homework goes into making sure everything fits together sonically. It really makes a big difference in that case.

To elaborate, I think the most common problem people have is thinking "15s are for lows, and 10s are for highs" and incorrectly using the full-range cabs in a bi-amp setup, and end up not getting the most out of their setup.

Exactly. Very few bass cabs are engineered for only a part of the frequency spectrum. So you really have to either experiment or understand your cabs and crossover in order to get the most out of the entire endeavor.

[will33]

I biamp all the time using speakers that were designed for it....works great. I also used to try it with regular bass cabs....didn't work out so good. The guy is making such huge generalizations, I don't think he really knows much about biamping. He probably tried it with the wrong type of speakers, didn't like it, and said biamping sucks.

[Munjibunga]

My sound is good enough running full range that bi-amping isn't worth the hassle, even if it sounds "better."

[4Mal]

bi-amping bis a terrible idea for those technically challenged.

[Mr. Foxen]

Pretty sure anyone who DIs is often using biamping at least, PA systems have loads of that going on.

[JetBlackJazz]

That's ludicrous. He probably didn't fiddle with it long enough. Apparently not as much as Geddy, Squire, Sheehan, etc

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by Alex1984

Bill, do you think the Eminence Kappalite LFs would suffice as a good choice?

They're an excellent choice for lows. But AFAIK no commercial cabs exist that are engineered to work only above 1kHz or so where you'd want to cross over from a Kappalite LF driver.

[Mr. Foxen]

Originally Posted by JetBlackJazz

That's ludicrous. He probably didn't fiddle with it long enough. Apparently not as much as Geddy, Squire, Sheehan, etc

Do any of them actually biamp? Pretty sure they mostly just use two amps, not the same thing.

[Mugre]

Bi-amping is a tool, just like a tone stack, a compressor or a thumb rest. You either like what it does or you don't. The others are right though, there's a reason 90 percent of all SR systems are multi-amped. On the bass however, the public has spoken and found that bi-amping as built into the average head and speaker set-up is not a tool they feel they need. For that reason I prefer the term "out of favor" instead of "out of date".

Electrical multi-amping in SR adds fidelity/coherence and speaker protection. Bass amps though, are not Hi-fi. They color the sound of the bass by design and it's up to the bassist to find the colors that suit his style/ear/touch/band.

Mugre

[craig.p]

You don't need to biamp if you buy one of those cabs where they cram about four different sized drivers into the same giant box and show some pics on the web site of some metal guys who force the help to haul that type of kit around.

[PersonalTraynor]

Originally Posted by craig.p

You don't need to biamp if you buy one of those cabs where they cram about four different sized drivers into the same giant box and show some pics on the web site of some metal guys who force the help to haul that type of kit around.

Whoa! All the fearful hype IS quite annoying, but take it easy man! lol

[dmrogers]

Here is the portion of the manual that the OP is referring to:

From "Stuff Good Bass Players Should Know"

Bi-amping is a great idea for an audiophile's ultimate home stereo but a terrible idea for a bass rig. Simply put, it does not work for live band applications.

When I was getting ready for a tour with British guitar legend Robin Trower, I decided to give bi-amping a try. During tour preproduction, I asked the soundman to help me dial in a bi-amped bass rig. I had a designer brand electronic crossover, world-class stereo power amp, and the latest and greatest tube bass preamp.

I had two 4x10 cabinets for the low frequencies, and two 4x10s placed directly on top for the high frequencies.

By splitting up the signal, all frequencies below 200 cycles went to the two lower cabinets. All bass note frequencies above 200 cycles went to the two upper cabinets. This way, no one speaker would have to work too hard to create each bass note. Each speaker could concentrate on a more specific and less strenuous task of recreating only part of the total sound. The theory seemed unassailable. Listening to my rig all by itself seemed to support the audiophile theory.

The acid Test:
When it was time to run down the set with the full band, I was really excited to show off my state-of-the-art rig. I dug in and let it fly, but there was in immediate problem; I couldn't hear what I was playing. There was plenty of volume. There was bass coming off the stage. But it was muddy and vague. As I played, my heart (and ears) sank. This was just not happening. Something had disappeared. That something was midrange-- the frequencies that give definition and articulation to each note. Those frequencies supply that karate chop of tone that hits your breastbone. I'm talking about that tone that cuts through the rest of the band like a razor-sharp machete. Your bass does not bury the rest of the band, but it does truly support it.

The great-sounding bass rig might not be the purest of bass tones, but that doesn't matter. You want character and personality jumping out of those speaker cabinets; you don't want sterile purity.

Plan B:
After we ran down the set I sat down with the sound man to regroup. He agreed it sounded awful. He suggested we try a subwoofer system.

This time, we used the electronic crossover to feed only the low frequency cabinets. I had a spare all-tube bass head that we decided to use as the slave power amp to power the frequencies from 200 cycles and down. We bypassed the preamp portion of this bass head. Next, we went full range to what were the high-frequency cabinets sitting on top of the low frequency cabinets. In other words, we fed those upper cabinets the full bass signal. The signal would not be split.

Here again is the signal chain: Bass guitar into the tube preamp. Preamp out using a Y cord. One plug went to the solid-state power amp. That amp went to the upper speaker cabinets. The other plug went to the electronic crossover low-frequency input. The variable crossover control was set to 200 cycles per second. The low-frequency output from the electronic crossover then went into the power amp of the all-tube 300-watt head. The output of the tube head went to the lower speaker cabinets that were on the floor. The upper cabinets were now full range, powered by the solid state amp. The lower cabs were powered by the 300 watt tube head and completed the subwoofer system.

To paraphrase: this setup sounded killer.

I thought I would put the full text up so posters could read the whole article.

He was still using a crossover, this time with two power amps, and he was still splitting the signal. He used the same four 4x10 cabs. He wasn't actually using a sub as we think of subs.

This book has a copyright of 2008, but doesn't mention when Mr. Letsch actually compiled the information in it.

Actually the book has some pretty good information in it.