Switching between bass & synth; two amps/one cabinet?
 

POSSIBLE STUPID QUESTION ALERT :hyper:

I'm thinking about playing a keyboard as well as my P-Bass live, since many of our band's songs are modern dance covers; plus, I love playing keys and it'd be fun!

I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way to do it, without having to bring much more to gigs then I usually do.

Say my rig for a night consists of TWO Little Mark II heads (one for bass and one for synth) and ONE 2x10 cabinet. Could I send the speaker out of both heads into ONE cabinet, without doing any harm?

NEVER plug two amps into one cabinet. It releases the magic smoke and that is a very bad thing indeed!

There are specialized switch-boxes for A/B toggling safely between two solid-state amp heads; however the added cost, versus just adjusting the EQ of ONE amp head for both instruments, is not worth it.

Wouldnt it be easier to DI out to a small mixer, run you synth in to that as well, then drive the power section of your amp with it all?

How about an a/b switch to select amp?

+1 This is how I would do it.

or have an a/b switch between bass and synth going into 1 amp

Little Mark amps have both a balanced line out and a balanced line in. Run one amp to the other using these connections.

Just looking at the Radial site again I see they do make exactly what you're looking for. Radial Headbone TS or Radial Headbone SS

Certainly but at what price? A micro mixer is a few tens of bucks!

All you need is an A/B switch. Bass amps and cabs typically work great for synth. You might want some kind of 2-channel preamp, but there's no reason to run 2 amps.

+1

$39

A cheap, semi-disposable micro mixer is probably not very transparent and it certainly won't inspire the confidence a bombproof piece of pro audio gear will. Your sound and rig reliability are only as good as the weakest link in your signal chain.

This is what I would do.

No, you can't do that.

I use a small mixer and run that into a single head and from there into a single cabinet. Couldn't be much simpler.

Agreed, however even the cheapest µ mixer is cleaner than a lot of bass amps. Such is the revolution we're passing through.

As a bassist/synth player, the idea to use a mixer is good. I use a Mackie 402-VLZ3 in my synth set up, and run it straight into a bass rig. The Mackie has inputs for line level, (the synth), instrument level, (the bass), and mic level, should you need it. Also has a handy 2 band eq on the 1st 2 channels. No need to use 2 amps, and certainly easier and safer than 2 amps into one cab, even with a switcher.

Be careful with synth lows into bass cabs, specialy a single 2x10.

Are you saying take the post-eq DI from the amp, blend that with the synth output, and send that to the power amp return?

Or take the send from the amp to the mixer and blend that with the synth and send that to the power amp return?

Maybe the two signal paths are identical, and I assume that the bass signal in each case will go through the preamp and eq, and the synth signal will obviously directly go to power amp.

I use a $45 Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer (synth and bass into mixer) mixer out into my amp. You only need 1 amp. Also with the Pre and eq on the mixer really makes your sound crystal clear. If you get a chance go to your nearest GC or Sam Ash and try it, everthings already in the store, can't hurt. Good luck
P.S. I've had my mixer since 2007 and no problems despite numerous gigs.