Anybody in here ever play through a keyboard amp?

I haven't, but I asked this question some time ago & was told it was not such a brainstorm. I had thought a combo intended to reproduce a broad range of sound might work well, particulary for 6+ strings, but many(who admittedly had also not tried this)seemed to think it was *wrong*. Almost seemed like one of those...





...religious threads...

 

Full range hi-fi amps and cabs, like for Keyboards or PA work great for Bass. Especially if you have a good sounding bass sound in the first place. Or if you do modeling. More people should try all the amps and cabs in a store, not just the ones in the bass section.

 

+1 Good keyboard cab are really over kill for bass; keyboards have a much broader range. But they sound great!

 

I regularly play though a Roland 15" combo keyboard amp, and it sounds quite decent for stage monitoring.

 

I have a Roland 12" keyboard amp I use for practicing (when I don't feel like hauling the Eden home after a gig). It sounds really good.

 

ive played through my friends carving keyboard combo. it really makes the bass's sound come out, whether good or bad.

 

I used to be a dealer for Barbettas back in the late eighties and early/mid nineties. The models they had at that time were a pretty good bang-for-buck room-distributed PA, or bass or keyboard rig, but they had their limits in excursion and useful low end.

Tony Barbetta was sometimes good and sometimes not so hot at providing service, which for a few issues was definitely needed back then. And about three years ago, one of my remaining pair of Barbettas blew the woofer side of the bi-amp plate amp. He quoted me a price, than sat on my RA'd amp for months, and tried to hold it ransom for twice what he quoted.

Well, Tony, sound at that price has come a long way since your earlier days at NAMM shows, so I told him to ship it back unfixed, took the plate amp out of the back and scavenged it for parts, filled the hole in with a chunk of 1/2" plywood and a speaker connector cup, and sold it to another bass player.

I recently took the plate amp out of its still-functional twin and put it into a Carvin 210 Kickback cab, biamped of course with the 225 watt amp feeding the two Tens, and the 75 watt going to the tweeter, and it made more bass than the original too-small 115/tweeter cab ever did (I'm thinking of making anew face baffle for a 12" driver for that box now since it's really more appropriate in size).

Anyway, the new/old 50-pound biamped 210 Cavin wedge is pretty cool and pretty darned loud. But wow, the pro power amps you can buy nowdays for similar money sure have better specs and sound... So that self-powered 210 is merely kept in my van for impromptu jams or used at gigs for drummers' floor monitor, since it can handle a fair amount of kick drum in the monitor mix.

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Nothing all that different in what many "modern" bassists want and what keyboardists want in a combo though: a modicum of low end extension and power handling in a portable package, a nice fairly flat midrange and treble blend, and some SPL.

 

I play on a Peavey Keyboard amp at school with my jazz and pep bands... It really has a pretty good sound...

 

Right... Peaveys are pretty versatile amps. Also, in a pinch, PA cabs (smaller ones) can be very effective bass cabs. I've done this with some good results.

 

My iAMP is also a keyboard amp, so I guess you could argue yes

 

im pretty sure my peavey musician head is meant for keys (and everything else)

 

+1, last weekend I used my Roland KC-300 with excellent results. I tried using this amp awhile back and it didn't work out for me. I thought it was too clean for a rock setting. The amp also doesn't have a gain, only channel volume and master volume. The difference this time was I used a M-80 and BBE Boosta Grande with the amp....and what a difference it made! This amp was cranking! It was pushing out some impresive low end. The band members and musician friends were in total shock. Two of the gigs were outdoor shows, and the amp still delivered the goods. I may be using this amp more often!

 

I have.

 

When you look at the low end of a keyboard frequency wise, the lowest note is 27.5 Hz. If you can do that reasonably well, then bass guitar is no problem.

 

Low A or A0
Look at a tuner - it'll have a reference point of A=440
An octave is just doubling of frequency

(((440 / 2) / 2) / 2) / 2 = 27.5

 

Yes.

When I first went from "bass combo's" to a rack(SansAmpRBI->dbx166xL->QSC2402) the ACME B2's were not received yet so.....my daughter's Behringer keyboard amp got "borrowed" from her room and the line out of the dbx got plugged into the Behringer's line in(put my bass signal into the Behringer power amp). Sounded VERY nice...the cab's a 15" woofer + 5" mid + tweeter. http://www.behringer.com/KX1200/index.cfm?lang=ENG

Would I use it at a gig?
Only if nothing else was available. The one mentioned above gets used for keyboard in a High School jazz band.

 

Take a look at this one

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Traynor-K4-Keyboard-Amp?sku=702649

lots of features, power etc. But for me the thing I'm looking for is being able to have 2 basses up and eq'd and ready to go. Also the full range thing seems cool.

Anythoughts on this amp???