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bass amp with head room for effects

M

mplsgetscold

Jul 9, 2012
35
0
#1
so i play in this aggressive shoegaze band in mpls where we use a lot of effects in our music. i'm currently running a thunderbired through an mxr dyna comp delay, a boss rv-5 reverb, and a boss od-2 turbo overdrive into an ampeg 350h with an ampeg 70s silver face 8x10.

that's obviously a lot of effects to push through a low wattage solid state amp.

so i'm asking for opinions on amps that can handle the push and retain low end subs. tube power of course.

anyone have any thoughts???

thanks!
 
#2
Put your effects on your highs. Full range effects tend to make the low end muddy. Some guys use a guitar amp for highs and "poorman's biamp" with the eq.

My trace amp has an option to compress the highs separately sending them into the effects loop while the rest stays unaffected.

You can go for guitar amp with a crossover pedal to split the instrument signal.
 
#4
That is not a low power amp, and that is not a lot of effects to run in a low power amp, either.

Anyway, just get an SVT tube amp of some sort and quit monkeying around ;)

No, actually what you have is fine. You could upgrade if you want, but that's not a quiet rig you have by any means.
 
#5
As this is on TB....and in the amp forum....you're going to get a lot of people who don't understand effects just telling you their favorite amps (the two guys who posted above me frequent the FX forum, though, and have some good first hand experience to learn from). My personal experience, I used to run an Eden Nemesis RS700 and it sounded a'ight. Nothing to complain about.

Right now my board is: Swell B-PEG, Dr Scientist The Elements, Iron Ether Polytope, Badger Schism (with an EQD Organizer and Fairfield Circuitry Unpleasant Surprise in the 1st loop and a Mountainking Megalith in the 2nd), Dr Scientist Tremolessence, Strymon Timeline, and I have an Infanem Faye's Her and Robot Factory Brain Freeze Clone on the way......

I'm running that into a Mesa Bass 400+ and fEARful 15/6/1 and it is a FREAKING DREAM. The Mesa is pretty clear and articulate so it doesn't color your pedals sounds, too much, and has a TON of headroom to work with. Like having a nice, huge, relatively unpainted on canvas to paint your sounds. I find other all tube amp brands color the sound too much....like having a slightly painted on canvas to get your vision out (some people prefer that....like having an off white canvas maybe.....?). And with that fEARful, it's low end for DAAAAAAAAYS. None of my pedals really have any low end suck, though, and if they did I would run it through one of the Schisms loops to get a clean blend kicking with it.

Whether I'm doing some shoe gaze stuff with the Tremolessence and Timeline....fuzzing stuff out with the Megalith and phaser....it's just awesome. Best setup I've used for my effects.
 
#6
MSUsousaphone said:
As this is on TB....and in the amp forum....you're going to get a lot of people who don't understand effects just telling you their favorite amps
Click to expand...
Yep, and you'll also get the "Bassists shouldn't use effects" posts as well. So before they start, should I issue a pre-emptive "Nobody cares if you don't like effects on bass" now or should I wait till it happens?
 
#8
MSUsousaphone said:
As this is on TB....and in the amp forum....you're going to get a lot of people who don't understand effects just telling you their favorite amps (the two guys who posted above me frequent the FX forum, though, and have some good first hand experience to learn from). My personal experience, I used to run an Eden Nemesis RS700 and it sounded a'ight. Nothing to complain about.

Right now my board is: Swell B-PEG, Dr Scientist The Elements, Iron Ether Polytope, Badger Schism (with an EQD Organizer and Fairfield Circuitry Unpleasant Surprise in the 1st loop and a Mountainking Megalith in the 2nd), Dr Scientist Tremolessence, Strymon Timeline, and I have an Infanem Faye's Her and Robot Factory Brain Freeze Clone on the way......

I'm running that into a Mesa Bass 400+ and fEARful 15/6/1 and it is a FREAKING DREAM. The Mesa is pretty clear and articulate so it doesn't color your pedals sounds, too much, and has a TON of headroom to work with. Like having a nice, huge, relatively unpainted on canvas to paint your sounds. I find other all tube amp brands color the sound too much....like having a slightly painted on canvas to get your vision out. And with that fEARful, it's low end for DAAAAAAAAYS. None of my pedals really have any low end suck, though, and if they did I would run it through one of the Schisms loops to get a clean blend kicking with it.

Whether I'm doing some shoe gaze stuff with the Tremolessence and Timeline....fuzzing stuff out with the Megalith and phaser....it's just awesome. Best setup I've used for my effects.
Click to expand...

+1

My classic 400 into my 1515/66 or 15/6 is crazy clean bedroom, or amazing tube grit.
Or

A little different set up. I run an ART pro channel II into a Peavey IPR 1600. Use that to drive either cab, and its very transparent clean bedroom. These cabs take to eq and effect very well.
 
#10
Downunderwonder said:
Put your effects on your highs. Full range effects tend to make the low end muddy. Some guys use a guitar amp for highs and "poorman's biamp" with the eq.

My trace amp has an option to compress the highs separately sending them into the effects loop while the rest stays unaffected.

You can go for guitar amp with a crossover pedal to split the instrument signal.
Click to expand...

i posted in effects as was suggested but i'm curious about this.

i'm not sure what you mean by "put your effects on your highs". could you please explain this? thanks for the help.
 
#11
Sounds like he was suggesting doing a two amp system. Get a guitar amp and split your signal to where the bass and mids go to a bass amp and the highs go through your pedals and then into a guitar amp. Sounds kinda interesting for some cool stereo gazey effects.

IMO, if your pedals are muddying up your sound, you just need different pedals. I am ANAL about my clear unaltered tone and none of my pedals lose low end or get muddy when I don't want them to. A parallel looper is also a cheaper alternative to the two amp method. Just my opinion. And my opinion might suck.
 

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