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Double Bass Ampeg PF500 or PF800 for Upright Bass?

Pat C.

Pat C.

Jan 1, 2005
979
871
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
patrickcognitore.com
#1
Anyone using these "Electric bass" heads to amplify their upright?

I'm downsizing and re-configuring my rig to be able to somewhat simply double on upright and electric. Set-up will potentially be as follows:

Electric to A/B box
Upright Pickup (probably K&K Bass Max) to Pre-amp/HP filter (maybe Fdeck?) to A/B box
A/B box to amp
Amp to speaker (custom 12" + 6"MR)

Currently working with two projects.

One is a mostly acoustic trio (no drums) doing old jazz/blues/roots with vocals & acoustic/electric guitar, electric mandolin and me on bass (70% upright, 30% electric). The amp will most be for stage volume, which will probably carry the house most of the time. I will be direct to the PA for additional reinforcement as needed. Pretty low volume situation. Full disclosure, I've been playing this gig using the "SM57 suspended under the bridge" micing technique, going direct to the PA and using the monitors to hear myself (barely). The drastic EQing required to make this work without feedback leads to a quite less than desirable result.

The other will be a bit of a variety trio doing pop/rock, straight-ahead jazz. some classical and likely original jazz-fusion/funk/latin/world with vocals/guitar, hard-hitting drums and bass (70% electric, 30% upright). The amp has to keep up with the hard-hitting drummer. I'm not as concerned here with having totally pristine acoustic sound, just need to get enough volume while minimizing feedback. FOH support will vary greatly.

Any thoughts on these or other EB heads in the 500-800 watt range and at this price point ($400-600) being used for upright?
 
#2
i would think that both of those would be great since you're going to the fdeck first. i like the ampeg sound, and although ive never tried either of those 2 amps, people describe them as "tube like". im having great success playing my upright through tube amps lately. my personal vote though in that style of amp would be the aguilar tone hammer. its fantastic for both instruments
 
#4
Pat C. said:
Anyone using these "Electric bass" heads to amplify their upright?

I'm downsizing and re-configuring my rig to be able to somewhat simply double on upright and electric...........

Currently working with two projects.

One is a mostly acoustic trio (no drums) doing old jazz/blues/roots with vocals & acoustic/electric guitar, electric mandolin and me on bass (70% upright, 30% electric). The amp will most be for stage volume, which will probably carry the house most of the time. I will be direct to the PA for additional reinforcement as needed. Pretty low volume situation. Full disclosure, I've been playing this gig using the "SM57 suspended under the bridge" micing technique, going direct to the PA and using the monitors to hear myself (barely). The drastic EQing required to make this work without feedback leads to a quite less than desirable result.

The other will be a bit of a variety trio doing pop/rock, straight-ahead jazz. some classical and likely original jazz-fusion/funk/latin/world with vocals/guitar, hard-hitting drums and bass (70% electric, 30% upright). The amp has to keep up with the hard-hitting drummer. I'm not as concerned here with having totally pristine acoustic sound, just need to get enough volume while minimizing feedback. FOH support will vary greatly.

Any thoughts on these or other EB heads in the 500-800 watt range and at this price point ($400-600) being used for upright?
Click to expand...

Pat,
Actually, when I compared the PF 350 to the PF 500, to my ears, in store at GC, I felt the EQ on the PF 350 was a perfect match for DB, but It wouldn't do for that second band you're playing in. Just my take, but if you've got the extra cash, I'd spring for the PF 800
since it's virtually the same amp and has a little extra headroom. Not that I'm lazy, but if it's a 70% Electric, then for me it's a 100% Electric gig.You're other option would be to find a used Genz Benz Shuttle. They were very nice amps.

Ric
 
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#5
Thanks for all the input guys.

Ric, good pointsabout the "100%" electric gigs. The truth is, I dont't know exactly how that particular project is going to play out. Right now we are in rehearsals to record an album of original material (almost all electric on that one). At the same time we are building a repertoire to do variety gigs. If those gigs are at least 50/50 upright/slab (and they pay well enough) then it'll be worth doubling on them. If not, then maybe it won't. I also may be doing some duo stuff with the guitarist from the second project which will likely be mostly upright.

New potential amp in the mix: Mesa Boogie Walkabout. I've actually never read anything bad about this amp, either for electric or upright. Not everybody's cup of tea, but no amp is, I guess.

My current rig is a Demeter VTBP201s powered by a Crown Macrotech 2402. I'm looking do downsize and I just don't need that much power any more. If my new amp can give me most of the volume that half that Crown amp give me then I should be good. The Walkabout is pretty low power, but everyone raves about how loud it is. I've never tried it so I'm not sure how well it'll drive my fairly inefficient cabinets for the higher volume electric and upright stuff.
 
#6
I highly recommend the Walkabout Scout for both EB and DB and actually prefer its tone to my Headway & QSC K10 combo - very smooth and natural with killer DI. The input impedance is 1 meg and onboard semi-parametric EQ is second to none. The only things it doesn't have are phase and dedicated HPF.

Volume's not an issue - at least with upright gigs. You will be limited by your ability to control feedback.
For electric - volume with the Walkabout will depend on how much speaker cone cardboard you are pushing and also the kind of tone you want to achieve at high volumes. It starts getting pretty rock-n-roll at high levels - some people like this, some people don't - hence why some say its underpowered and some don't. Its one of those rare amps that sounds good when it "hits the rails" - so don't be decieved by the low power rating.

Personally - I've had a 4 ohm 15" scout cab for a while and it's been more than adequate for any gigs I've thrown at it (EB & DB) - even in non-PA assisted venues. I've recently scored an 8 ohm 12" cab (rare in Australia) and initial impressions are that it will still do the job nicely. Jury's still out on whether it will replace my QSC for regular upright gigging duties. I like the form factor on the QSC - and am liking the idea of having it at ear level with a speaker stand.

What cabs are you using?
 
#7
Thanks for all the input.

The cabs are Carl Weber MW112s. They have a 12" McCauley B1240 crossed over (around 600 or 800Hz, I forget) to a 6" Audax PR170M0 mid driver. They have a smooth midrange and even lows, and go pretty deep. At the time these were the only cabs I found that had decent, smooth high frequency production without the terrible (IMO) tweeter sound that was prevelent in the 90's. The modern cabs they are most similar to on the market are probably the Fearful or Fearless 12" cabs.

OneWeber.jpg


These cabs are fairly inefficient. I use one side of the Crown to power one (500 watts) or two (750 watts) cabs. The amp gets bridged and I run the 4 cabs series/parallel to get 1500 watts into 8 ohms.

Here's a basement pic of the whole rig. With my current projects I'd be using 1 cab about 95% of the time. And maybe 2 cabs on the occasional electric only gig. And as you said, with the upright I'll hit a feedback threshold before I run out of horsepower, even with one cab. The question for me is will the Walkabout have a enough juice to drive two of my cabs on the louder electric gigs. Maybe I need to drop that question over on the EB side.

829616344_photobucket_2886_.jpg


vin*tone said:
I highly recommend the Walkabout Scout for both EB and DB and actually prefer its tone to my Headway & QSC K10 combo - very smooth and natural with killer DI. The input impedance is 1 meg and onboard semi-parametric EQ is second to none. The only things it doesn't have are phase and dedicated HPF.

Volume's not an issue - at least with upright gigs. You will be limited by your ability to control feedback.
For electric - volume with the Walkabout will depend on how much speaker cone cardboard you are pushing and also the kind of tone you want to achieve at high volumes. It starts getting pretty rock-n-roll at high levels - some people like this, some people don't - hence why some say its underpowered and some don't. Its one of those rare amps that sounds good when it "hits the rails" - so don't be decieved by the low power rating.

Personally - I've had a 4 ohm 15" scout cab for a while and it's been more than adequate for any gigs I've thrown at it (EB & DB) - even in non-PA assisted venues. I've recently scored an 8 ohm 12" cab (rare in Australia) and initial impressions are that it will still do the job nicely. Jury's still out on whether it will replace my QSC for regular upright gigging duties. I like the form factor on the QSC - and am liking the idea of having it at ear level with a speaker stand.

What cabs are you using?
Click to expand...
 
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#8
Yeah the old "will it be loud enough" question is a tricky one. It depends a lot on your tonal goals and your band. And also... I doubt a lot of people would have had a heap of experiance with those cabs.

If in doubt - go for something like an Aguilar TH500 or GK MB800 which will probably cover the EB gig easily.
 
#9
Ah, Vin, we meet again!

Amplifying upright is an enigmatic subject....ultimately, most players - myself included - try to get the sound of the wood as much as possible. I find most amps lose that. I notice a few players are using powered wedges, which is my personal preference if I'm doing a smaller gig, otherwise I go all out and just use the magnetic pickup through whatever rig is there.

I personally hate to put too much in between the instrument and the amp....I used to have a tuner, buffer pre, para eq, compressor and filter before my amp, but I was always tweaking to each room. Now I just use a para and a powered wedge. Done.
 
#12
I use a mesa walkabout scout to do this. In the past I've used a thunderfunk 550. Both worked well. Recently I've come to appreciate the Mesa more than I thought I would even with double bass. Never use it without an exernal preamp though. Ought to give that a shot sometime soon.

My tactic was to use two differing pedal preamps so that I had a two seperate DI's when needed before going to the a/b box.

My pedal setup....

elec. slab > Boss tuner > Tech 21 Paradriver >

Big bass > Fishman pro plat EQ > Boss tuner > Radial DI >

Both of these into a Boss LS a/b box...


Looks needlessly complex but after trying simpler setups this is what worked best for what I needed. It all lives on a pedal board that stays wired up, so it isn't anymore difficult to setup than a single pedal really. Just a slightly larger case to move in. Other adavntage is that using backlined rigs is less of a hassle. I set the dang thing flat and use the pedal board for all amp related what have you.
 
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#14
Which ever amp you decide to use, you may not have to go through all of the trouble of A/B boxes + preamps. There are a few preamps on the market now that have two channels to do exactly what you need. Radial makes some nice stuff designed to double with separate channels for BG and UB. EA Also makes heads designed for doubling with multiple channels. Jump over to Gollihur music and you'll find a bunch of options to research.

As far as the amps go, like always it's matter of taste. There are plenty of high watt / cheap price combos these days that a lot of guys find suitable.
 
#15
Some of the issue here is I'm trying to keep the expense down. I've got a line on used units of the Ampeg and Boogie amps. The new price of something like the Aguilar eats into my my budget for a DB pickup, pre-amp, A/B box, etc. I like the idea of having a 2 channel amp (a la Acoustic Image Clarus or EA Doubler) but they are a little out of my current budget and I'm not sure they have the tone I going to want on the electric. I also like idea of having a more extensive floor-based preamp/A/B unit like the Radial Tonebone, or separate paths and DI's for EB/DB. But again, budget is a concern at this time. I'm trying to get this all in place before the summer gig season hits full swing, otherwise I could take more time to save up. Hence the hunt for used amps.
 
#16
Pat C. said:
Some of the issue here is I'm trying to keep the expense down. I've got a line on used units of the Ampeg and Boogie amps. The new price of something like the Aguilar eats into my my budget for a DB pickup, pre-amp, A/B box, etc. I like the idea of having a 2 channel amp (a la Acoustic Image Clarus or EA Doubler) but they are a little out of my current budget and I'm not sure they have the tone I going to want on the electric. I also like idea of having a more extensive floor-based preamp/A/B unit like the Radial Tonebone, or separate paths and DI's for EB/DB. But again, budget is a concern at this time. I'm trying to get this all in place before the summer gig season hits full swing, otherwise I could take more time to save up. Hence the hunt for used amps.
Click to expand...
there are tone hammers in the classifieds all the time. i think there is one in there now
 
#18
I use a Tonehammer 500 and a Radial Bassbone OD pre (I don't use the OD part but it does have some nice features for DB, or in my case EUB). There are cheaper alternatives to the Bassbone but I have been very happy with mine and it makes doubling much easier than the AB switch I used to use. I think the pre and the speakers are more important than the amp head itself and it looks like you've got the speakers covered. I did demo a GK MB500 which was also very nice and a few less dollars but I don't think you can go wrong with a Tonehammer, to me it has a nice warmer sound.
 
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#19
FWIW, the Tonehammer has been at the top of my list. I have few doubts that it would suit my needs. But even used it's more expensive than the Ampeg options that I found so that's why I posted this thread up. Any purchase I make is contingent on me selling my current gear, and that's in process.

Thanks again for all the input. I'll keep you posted.
 

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