Is there a bass amp for Reggae ?

[DrumsAndBass]

Hi Everybody,
What is your experience with amps used for Reggae ? What amp would suit Reggae music well ? I'm asking all of you. Thanks in advance for your input.

[Mushroo]

A loud amp with plenty of headroom and bottom end. Specific brand/wattage/speaker configuration doesn't matter, in my opinion.

To answer your question with a question: What amp do you have now? Do you like its sound for reggae? Why or why not?

[MuthaFunk]

I have a SWR Big Ben 18" cab that is simply delightful for Reggae. It naturally produces such a deep tone without eating tonnes of power yet has all the ability to let the mids through to define each note.

I would think plenty of headroom is required to really sound nice with all that low end being produced so go with an amp that has at least 400 watts and probably more if you can.

When I think of high power bass amp and Reagge I can't help thinking Ampeg but you could be fine with a VT Bass pedal and a nice transparent power amp. Perhaps a Class D ultra light... Just thinking out loud.

[bongomania]

Almost anything loud will do; IIRC, Family Man uses an Eden stack.

[BurningSkies]

Reggae isn't all sub lows . There are as many reggae tones as there are rock tones. I've played and seen just about every amp brand as backline over the years.

[bass12]

Originally Posted by BurningSkies

Reggae isn't all sub lows . There are as many reggae tones as there are rock tones.

Very true, and you need to be able to make out the notes. If you can't make out the notes of the bass line then half of what distinguishes that particular song from another is going to be missing!

[okcrum]

Same best amp as for metal

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by okcrum

Same best amp as for metal

Good Clean Power.

[s_mcsleazy]

i use valve jr with a 1x15

gets the floor moving. but still has a bit of clarity

[IWishIWasBlank]

I don't play any reggae, but I listen to a lot, and what makes a big difference to me as a listener is

this:

Originally Posted by Mushroo

A ... amp with plenty of headroom and bottom end.

and this:

Originally Posted by MuthaFunk

a deep tone without eating tonnes of power yet has all the ability to let the mids through to define each note.

I would think plenty of headroom is required to really sound nice with all that low end being produced .

and this:

Originally Posted by BurningSkies

Reggae isn't all sub lows . There are as many reggae tones as there are rock tones.

[Femto]

I play a bit of reggae and I get exactly what's need from my Marshall VBA400 and Ampeg 8x10. Tons of bottom but with a good heap of punch and clarity too.

[Matt Dean]

I play in a couple of reggae bands (well, one's more dub than reggae), but none the less, I play a lot of reggae and I use a Mesa Boogie M6/Carbine, which totally kills!

Tons of headroom, kilotons of deep (it even has a deep switch).

Anyway, here's a pic of my rig at a reggae in the redwoods show I recently did.

[pacojas]

(he's joking i hope)

[Never_grew_up]

Well obviously you'll need hemp speakers...

[TheSuzie]

Go to the local used gear emporium. Usually the turn of the month when the rent is due or overdue is best to find the stuff that has just come in. Dig around until you find the rig that most absolutely reeks of ganja. Frequently it will be a skanky old Peavey wit 15" or 18" speakers. Take it home and duct tape up the tears in the speakers. You will be good to go.

[Sartori]

Originally Posted by Bassmec

Good Clean Power.

I dunno, that's what I'd want for reggae, lots of clean power and low end, but definitely NOT what I'd want for metal.

[dbhokie]

THere are no amps for Reggae, only other genres.

[dbhokie]

Originally Posted by TheSuzie

Go to the local used gear emporium. Usually the turn of the month when the rent is due or overdue is best to find the stuff that has just come in. Dig around until you find the rig that most absolutely reeks of ganja. Frequently it will be a skanky old Peavey wit 15" or 18" speakers. Take it home and duct tape up the tears in the speakers. You will be good to go.

+1

[DrumsAndBass]

At first, I was using an Aguilar rig - AG 500s with 2 - GS210 cabinets. Those particular cabinets go pretty low for 10's. It's too bad that they no longer make them. I think those cabs were over engineered for the market/price. They sounded good for Roots Reggae & Dub but lacked low end. The keyboardist, drummer and rhythm guitarist in the band commented that my rig needed more low end on stage. It turned out I was finished saving up for a major purchase anyway - for my rig. So I told them, "oh yeah, I getting ready to get some new speakers to make more low end on stage..." I'm glad to have those guys in my corner. Well, for all of the difficulties that lows can cause on stage I decided to make a drastic addition to my Reggae bass rig. I had been reading about and trying out equipment at stores for about 4 months prior. I also use an old Ashley BP-41 bass preamp (solid state). It's quiet and clean. This preamp has a built in electronic crossover and a balance knob for the low and high sends. So my signal path is bass(passive)>Ashley low send jack>Aguilar AG500s to the 210 cabs and the Ashley high send jack>powered 18"sub. Overall, it's just a bi-amped system which is nothing fancy. But I went the whole 9 yards+ on the powered sub because it's a JBL PRX 18s XLF. I sold 2 basses to muster up the $ for it. It's got two voice coils with two corresponding built-in power amps on the same 18" neo speaker. This gives it great transient response and each voice coils run cooler. It weighs 80 pounds-my 210's each weigh 65 pounds. The 210 cabs give me the definition for the notes and the sub is really, and I mean really clean and full and punchy and warm and etc. The band members are all happy-actually the soundmen like it too. It's not loud, it's clean and clear. The shaping of the lows is fully adjustable. And there are no doubt other configurations for a powered sub too. I can use one or two of my Aguilar GS 210's. It's not a particularly tall rig - but the sub cab is quite deep in size. The quality of this particular powered sub is absolutely excellent. JBL really knows what they are doing when it comes to designing enclosures and low freq. drivers. I wish I would have done this years ago for my Roots sound. Naturally, this set up requires management of both the extent and the amount of lows but that's adjustable in several places in the signal path. It's never easy to manage extended lows from a bass rig ANYWAY for all of the reasons that we already understand. This rig can present extra challenges for the overall sound though but what else is new. For my part, I've pretty much found my own perfect rig for Roots music. For me, it's been a seemingly endless quest for the low end in my rig. JBL did all of the hard work when they designed this powered sub. I just had to connect the patch cables and fork out the $. The sound of the bass through the rig is very clean and very clear and beautiful. I wanted to get this idea out to you all. It's not the be-all, end-all to bass rigs. It's subject to improvement like everything else. It's Irie.

[PWV]

*Hey, where's all the cool photoshop mock-ups in this thread?