Bass Canceling?

[wld3]

I was recently introduced to the idea of using a Tascam Bass Trainer (MP-BT1) for practice; particularly for the ability to play silently and to play along with MP3 songs. This unit has a feature called "bass canceling" which, in essence, removes the bass from the song.

This got me to thinking... couldn't you do this yourself? That is, if I play back an MP3 through my computer, I have a Turtle Beach sound card with a 10-band EQ and can pretty much remove or cancel the bass out by sliding some bars.

Isn't it possible, lets say with an inexpensive practice amp, that I could playback any MP3 on my computer, through a line-in to the amp, with the bass missing or drastically reduced so that I could play along in the same manner I could with the Bass Trainer?

Would that accomplish essentially what the Tascam does or does the Tascam do something dramatic that does more than what I am talking about?

I prefer this idea to just having the Tascam because I could then choose to play with headphones or could just play through the amp, whichever was suitable at the time, and would bypass the need for the Tascam at all.

Any thoughts?

[wld3]

By the way, I understand that the Tascam has many other features that make it worthwhile. I am just asking about the idea of bass canceling, apart from a unit like this, for playback/playing along with MP3 songs.

[Out_of_Toon]

Originally Posted by wld3

Isn't it possible, lets say with an inexpensive practice amp, that I could playback any MP3 on my computer, through a line-in to the amp, with the bass missing or drastically reduced so that I could play along in the same manner I could with the Bass Trainer?

My Marshall MB 15 has a dedicated ''CD in'' jack. I play music through it from my PC and I completely cut the bass in Winamp's through it's EQ and that's pretty much it.
Or if you have Guitar Rig II or III you just plug the bass into the PC and do the same thing with Winamp.
I know that Boss' BR digital recorder series have the feature of completely cutting of certain frequencies, but the BR 900 that I have cuts only the mids - i.e. for singing along or soloing over the original recording, not a very bass oriented gadget that one.
The more powerful 1600 series could have the low cut feature, but it's too expensive a toy for just cutting off the bass.
Anyway, look up the MB 15 or MB 30 (same thing, different strength + the 30 has 4-band EQ). They're pretty decent though mine is Chinese so I had to replace the phones input jack because it got stuck on and no sound could be heard except on the phones.
I'm sure there are other quality amps in this price range (I payed some 120 euros for mine but i guess it's cheaper in the States) with the same feature. And Winamp has tons of plug-ins that could do exactly what you're looking for.

Hope this helps.