Bright Bass amp - please recommend!

[darwin-bass]

Not Fender Rumble.
Not Aguilar Tone Hammer TH-350

Yes to Genz-Benz
Yes to Genzler.
Yes to G-K

And the biggest YES of all to picking the right cabinet. Good response and good dispersion in the frequencies of about 1 Khz to say 8 Khz are important. I've hear good thing about Greenboy. Also Acme but they're power hungry. I never tried either.

 

[murphy]

What is going on?

 

[bigdaddybass12]

You may have a better chance getting a bright tone from the cab. I use a Hartke HD210. I can’t say it’s bright but it is clean.

 

[TomB]

Agree re GK in general, also consider the new Quilter 800v3 - very clear and clean presentation, with choices for more vintage sounds with the flick of a switch.

 

[Parzival]

GK Fusion S

 

[LowEndOperative]

This works for me, especially with the bright and deep switches. Very extensive EQ as well.

I was admonished by a fellow TB denizen to engage the bright switch on my D800+…as long as I dial down the treble, so far, so good!

 

[thebassgrognard]

I bought a Fuchs FBS that I've been very happy with. It gives a clear representation of the instrument's tone. What others have said about cabs is key though. I have it through a MB 2x10 cab which I think gives it more of a mid-heavy tone than an Eich or Barefaced would.

 

[Freight Train]

From an engineer’s perspective, I’m going to guess that you are scooping your mids and boosting your highs and maybe cutting bass. You’re likely doing that too much. You need contrast for “bright” to mean anything. Bright doesn’t mean just highs, it means more highs than mids and lows. You might try dialing some mids and lows back in and reducing the high boost so the highs have something to contrast to. Also give your ears a rest as you make eq changes. They will quickly normalize to the hyped top end and any immediate change from that will likely sound dull, even if it’s right.

 

[jeffb28451]

Hi-watt emulators are my favorite bright tone. Have some on my Quad Cortex that are pretty good.

 

[Sid the Kid]

I’d go straight to GK.

 

[abarson]

Also Acme but they're power hungry. I never tried either.

As an owner of an Acme B2, I wouldn't include it in the bright camp. Of course, with appropriate EQ it will pretty much do anything.

 

[DWBass]

GK

 

[bassbooty]

• Eich T-1000
• Demeter VTBP-M-800D

I use both of them because I like a crisp tone with clarity.

 

[John D Harris]

The title says it all - I'm looking for a bass head, lightweight, that has a bright natural tone. Hit me!

GK (of course) and EBS (I have no exposure to the newer models, but they used to be known for their bright, cut-through tone - Marcus Miller used to use EBS gear).

 

[logdrum]

Get an amp with a tube preamp but do not crank the gain. But of course if the gain is to low it won't work. The way i set the gain on atube preamp is listen for the whoosh and backoff, you need to listen close to the speaker at first Then plug in the bass and backoff some if the loudest notes break.

That lowish gain range will naturally give sparkle. This is how many guitar tube amps operate. They go darker as you saturate the gain., specially if they have passive tone stack For solid state amp, and specially if they offer boost cut just look at the specs and although it is counter intuitive, the lower the frequency where the high shelf starts, the brighter it will sound up to a point. IME 6-7Khz will be noticeably be brighter than one at 10KHz. Because we are not dogs , so when the shelf is higher the effect is less. James/Baxandall tone stacks seem to be brighter as well.

The more hi-fi the amp, my experience is that it will not be overly bright in the neutral positions but may have enough boost to get your there. AI amps behave like this.

Also voicing controls help, but IMO tube preamps at lower gain seem to bring out the highs in a natural way. Any of aged horses deigns with a tube preamp with Genz Benz, Genzler and Mesa will be my recommendation. GK, Trickfish and Even an SVT can be bright if you are using a Hifi cab like an Berg.

Edit: So I borrowed my friend's fusion-S and that is definitely a brighter amp - I recorded my noodling. According to GK the high shelf +/-14dB @ 7KHz, compared to the compound shelf in the Streamliner +8/-12dB of effective cut/boost at 4K Hz and approximately +/- 12 db at 12.5K Hz (which is not easy to hear ) The GK even gets brighter due to the Contour +2dB @ 50Hz/ -10dB @ 500Hz/ +3dB @ 7 KHz. when I had the 150MB combo, I always had that on and I think many GK users do.

About the streamliner not sure what the slope on that lower treble , but it is useful but also a little quirky which makes it a very interesting amp. The EQ is using the tubes, 1 tube for the bass and treble and the other tube for the mid and the first one for the gain stages. Not sure how the GK Fusion tube use is. No block diagram in the manual. I would imagine it is similar because they also use 3 tubes.

 

[Thunderthumbs73]

The title says it all - I'm looking for a bass head, lightweight, that has a bright natural tone. Hit me!

Brightness comes from a lot of factors. The cleanliness of strings (new or boiled/cleaned) make a HUGE difference. Also having a speaker cabinet with a tweeter makes a HUGE difference. The head is one factor, but if you don't have these other things, the head, alone, is just a possible solution, waiting for those other factors to present and resolve towards that end tonal goal.

 

[agedhorse]

Just note that shelving tone controls can be measured in a variety of ways, exactly the same tone control’s HF section can be measured 2kHz, 4kHz or 8kHz (and everywhere in between) depending on how it’s specified

 

[JFlo]

I also think the cab makes more of a difference than the amp. I love a bright tone, usually play with a pick and stainless steel roundwound strings and I have never maxed out the treble controls on an amp and still wished for more. Almost any modern cab with a tweeter or HF driver should get you where you want.

 

[MaxSpinrun]

This combination of either head combined with this game changer cab is very balanced and not over exaggerated in any portion of the frequency spectrum.

 

[FrenchBassQC]

Gallien Krueger MB500 Fusion