Best Amp For Low/Sub Bass Tones

[howlin]

In the last year I've been sipping the octave pedal kool-aid and have really found some interesting sounds when practicing at home. But, of course, once I go to rehearsal or live situations it all goes out the window - even at a recent jam session running into SVT head with an 8x10 bottom I could hardly hear any of the effect. This has made me wonder what rigs people out there in TB land are using with good/decent results when running sub octave tones. I keep coming back to running a preamp into a powered sub cabinet but am not sure where that might lead. Any help/insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Linnin]

I keep coming back to running a preamp into a powered sub cabinet but am not sure where that might lead. Any help/insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You are thinking in the right direction. Most bass drivers can not go down to a low B fundamental, and those that can cost many $$$ and require a ton of watts. Even the best 18" 1,000+ watt powered sub-woofs only go down to 25Hz at best and cost $1,000+. Moral of the story is: Low Costs Dough

 

[And I]

If you run a sub-woofer, make sure it's not your only speaker. You will have nothing over 200hz or so and you will sound like a mud bath.

I've not played through one but erryone sez the Ampeg 410 HLF goes very low. The Acme Low-B cabs do the very low thing too. The 8x10 fridges are not ported and I believe they roll off pretty significantly below 60hz.

Keep in mind humans can't hear anything below 20hz. Also most rooms will make anything below 40hz sound like complete dookie. The more your speaker cabs push down that low, pretty much the worse your whole band will sound in most cases. If you are going through a PA, most FOH engineers will cut you at 40 or thereabouts anyway. Like you said, they sound "interesting" at home but in most cases won't translate to a live band situation. Too many overtones in a bass guitar to do ultra low stuff cleanly. If your music calls for a pitch that low, a synth is usually better suited to produce it.

 

[BassmanPaul]

Subwoofers do not a bass cabinet make. Many speaker cabinets out there will fail with prolonged use of an 8VE pedal. A lot of them won’t even reproduce the fundamental of a B string.

 

[Downunderwonder]

A lot of them don't make audible low E fundamental. Like an SVT 810.

If you play a 80hz sine from your computer through a bass rig you hear it. If you change frequency to 40hz and keep the levels the same you hear a whole lot less and a lot of what you do hear is distortion coming through an octave up.