AM radio bass tone (Blackstar Fly)

Put a mic on the speaker and send it to the PA.

 

I have both swatted (ahem) and miced a Fly before. Actually did a large room gig this way haha. It was kinda cool and certainly worked but also doesn't sound like a full range signal through a large cab.

 

...yes, and?

 

I agree. I mean, we did a LARGE room with this and the guitar player had the same except the guitar version.

 

You have to be realistic about what to expect from a small speaker. Unfortunately the smaller the design, the less bass you'll get.

 

Yes.

 

This.



Or this.



Or this.



That's just the first few off-my head. There must be a thousand other options.

 

Check Reverb. Used is a good way to go on pedals.

 

Try turning the bass and treble down. Think Lo-Fi - degrade the sound.
The nice thing about pedals is you can push the button to turn it off when you don't want it.
The Lo-Fi effect can be useful when used in contrast in different parts of songs.

 

Phil Jones is rolling over in his grave....AND HE'S NOT EVEN DEAD YET!

 

Ibanez put out the LF7 Low Fi pedal that does this. I haven't played with one in a while, but I used it on a record once to get that "AM Radio" style sound. It worked well.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/ibanez-tone-lok-lf7-lo-fi-filter-pedal

 

That "AM" tone has some pretty neat psychoacoustics (how your brain perceives sound) going on.

I was a disc jockey on Top-40 AM radio stations in the 70's (back when people actually listened to AM radio and there were real music formats). We would frequently get in 45RPM singles that had 2 different mixes on them. A "full range" stereo, and an "AM" mono mix that had the low bass (below about 100 Hz) rolled off. Most AM stations back then were going to roll off the lows in their signal chain for a couple of reasons...you really couldn't hear them on the typical AM radio, and it would cause the modulation transformer in the transmitter to overheat. But I digress.

Peavey bass amps of the 70's had a "Slope" control on them, which rolled off the very low end. The idea was to help the amp cut through better by not chewing up a lot of the available power with the deep tones that, unless you had a great PA system, were just not going to carry very far. So you wind up with this compact tone that you could hear clearly in a band situation.

Now, the neat thing is what your brain does with that sound. If the brain is expecting lower harmonics in a tone and they're not there...they get filled in. Yep...we've got the neurological equivalent of a sub-harmonic synthesizer built into our heads.

And just for the record, this is why an Ampeg SVT 8x10 cabinet works so well. The 10" speakers work above the fundamentals of most of the notes on a bass guitar. The smaller speakers are able to react much more quickly than a 15" or 18" speaker due to less mass. And even though the deep low end really isn't there, it gets filled in by our brains.

Probably more than anyone wanted to know...but I did my thesis on psychoacoustics, so I'll take any opportunity to trot this stuff out

 

LMAO!

When I said speaker design, I meant the entire cabinet man!

Phil Jones is in the camp of small diameter speakers and easily one of the best at it. His designs are well thought out, but his cabinets support the volume needed to reproduce that low end, the price certainly reflects his efforts too.

Unfortunately a small speaker in a small box isn't a recipe for fantastic bass response in-and-of it alone.

Live long Phil, we need you!!!!!

 

Completely cut lows and highs, and anything will sound like AM radio.

 

Without hearing what you want it's impossible to say for sure, but I suspect the contributing factors are as follows (solutions in parenthesis).

1. Natural response of the speaker reduces lows (use a high pass filter, EQ, or get speakers with a similar response)
2. Pushing the speaker with bass probably produces a bit of cone breakup (get the right speakers and push them hard)
3. Pushing the little amp probably produces a bit of overdrive (pedal that emulate the Fly's overdrive characteristics or a bigger amp that produces similar distortion)

I agree with @FerK , a Lo Fi pedal is probably your best solution if you want to keep the cost down. Or spend a ton of money chasing an overdriven tone with an all tube amp and various vintage voiced speaker combinations.

@bassboysam gets a pretty awesome tone that might capture some of the characteristics you are looking for. If you like what you hear in the videos, I am sure he will give you some pointers. See following Quote:

 

This: [sfx]:micro-thumpinator