• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Do I hate my amp?

#24
wow you guys in the amps section sure know how to make a guy feel belittled. I don't know if you meant to and I should have been more clear in my first post but it's safe to say I worked the amps eq from all subtle variations to completely cutting and boostin the frequency bands to try and coax some articulation from it for the whole 3 hour duration of the practice to no avail, just mud

I was only seaking some advice as to whether this is a common 1x15 experience or if for instance a cab with smaller speakers would sound tighter.

Sorry for thinking you guys might genuinely want to help out someone who doesn't know verything about amps.
 
#25
We do, we just get the same stuff over and over again.


Anyway, no, you can't really generalize sound based on speaker size alone, there are a lot of other factors that affect the sound more than speaker size itself.

I play through 15"s and have never encountered a boominess problem with mine.
 
#26
I think you choose to misinterpret what all the joking was about. At least as far as I am concerned it was not about your post. But maybe you felt neglected at that point. Stick around long enough to understand what's what.

Summary? EQing some bass out or maybe more importantly, getting more midrange to your ears rather than your knees will be a big aid. One problem with combos is they often have too small a box compared to what the speakers inside them would really like to see. This usually forces a big hump in the upper bass response, making them boomy. That's often true whether dealing with a 15 or with 12 or 10s. But some tilting the combo upward or getting it up on a stand, and some EQ smarts, and you can often combat these tendencies.

So the advice was there in the start of the thread, though it kind of got hidden by the jokes once it had been dealt with.
 
#27
Hi

There's nothing inherently problematic about 15 inch speakers. Though as you know each speaker and enclosure will have their own characteristic.

The suggestions to stand the amp on a milk crate and stand further out from it are good suggestions.

Other suggestions in case you haven't thought of them.

Without knowing your amp I would play with gain and any other preamplifier features as well as EQ.

If your amp will drive another cabinet you could experiment with that. This is again subject to personal preference. I like to combine 1x15 with 2x10 and that's fairly common but others will tell you it is rubbish.

You can look at pedals. Either an EQ or something like a Sansamp.

Hope this all helps.
 
#28
BarkerBass said:
The amp seems to rumble and boom but I couldn't find a pleasing punchy tone for the life of me.
Click to expand...

Has it always sounded this way? When did the problem start? Maybe the speaker is on the way out? Can you try it with another speaker cab? (borrowed or take it to a store to try out some extension cabs)

Maybe one of these might help: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
#29
greenboy said:
I think you choose to misinterpret what all the joking was about. At least as far as I am concerned it was not about your post. But maybe you felt neglected at that point. Stick around long enough to understand what's what.

Summary? EQing some bass out or maybe more importantly, getting more midrange to your ears rather than your knees will be a big aid. One problem with combos is they often have too small a box compared to what the speakers inside them would really like to see. This usually forces a big hump in the upper bass response, making them boomy. That's often true whether dealing with a 15 or with 12 or 10s. But some tilting the combo upward or getting it up on a stand, and some EQ smarts, and you can often combat these tendencies.

So the advice was there in the start of the thread, though it kind of got hidden by the jokes once it had been dealt with.
Click to expand...

Greenie can be a bugger, but I think he means well (;)), and even if he doesn't, the advice is always good.

I'm not sure if the "turn the cab towards the wall" post was meant in jest or not (I hope it was, but you can't always tell here), but you can safely ignore that one.

Take what you can from these guys, dole out at least as much sh!t as you get, and enjoy the repartee.

BTW, I wonder what would happen if you put a drop of that liquid in the bottle of magic stones .....
 
#30
GrowlerBox said:
{...} I wonder what would happen if you put a drop of that liquid in the bottle of magic stones .....
Click to expand...

The stones get bigger and the rest uh, reacts to the cold dampness.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

george_costanza019.jpg
 
#31
Try switching or turning off the TE "Pre-Shape" button. If you're not familiar with it's function, it engages a factory preset EQ curve. There are two varieties which you can switch between (EDIT: the newer versions only have one pre-shape): one is the "classic Trace" sound which notches out some lo-mids to give it more of a scooped sound and the other has a more mid-based tone where the lows and highs are somewhat attenuated. The scooped sound is super cool but it carves out a substantial amount of lo-mid content leaving you with the boom you're struggling with.

You can approximate the tone of the pre-shape but to a lesser degree by using your graphic eq to dial out a little 250 and 500Hz and slightly boosting 50Hz and 5KHz.
 
#34
testing1two said:
Try switching or turning off the TE "Pre-Shape" button. If you're not familiar with it's function, it engages a factory preset EQ curve. There are two varieties which you can switch between (EDIT: the newer versions only have one pre-shape): one is the "classic Trace" sound which notches out some lo-mids to give it more of a scooped sound and the other has a more mid-based tone where the lows and highs are somewhat attenuated. The scooped sound is super cool but it carves out a substantial amount of lo-mid content leaving you with the boom you're struggling with.

You can approximate the tone of the pre-shape but to a lesser degree by using your graphic eq to dial out a little 250 and 500Hz and slightly boosting 50Hz and 5KHz.
Click to expand...

thanks, I never use the preset tone shape button as it tends to make the boominess worse and I will give your frequency suggestions a try.

And to everyone else, sorry if I took jokes the worng way and I understand talkbass' capacity for banter, had this been a bass guitar related topic and not amps I'd have known who to expect it from but not knowing meant that some sarcasm and whit can be misinterpretted as patronising and unhelpful at best. Sorry and thanks for the help, much appreciated. BB
 
#35
Now we should ask you a few questions about your rehearsal conditions:

  1. Are you tilting your amp back? If not, you should. In fact, getting your amp off the ground entirely can do wonders (use a sturdy chair or a milk crate to test this).
  2. Is the floor in your rehearsal space carpeted or a hard surface? Oftentimes putting a rug in front of your amp will help lessen some of the early sound reflections coming off the floor.
  3. Have you done any sort of acoustic treatment in your rehearsal room? Bass trapping in all the corners will clean things up dramatically. Do a google search for "superchunk bass trap" for a cost effective DIY solution.

I once had an Eden rig that I thought was way too boomy until I played it in a treated rehearsal studio.
 
#36
testing1two said:
Now we should ask you a few questions about your rehearsal conditions:

  1. Are you tilting your amp back? If not, you should. In fact, getting your amp off the ground entirely can do wonders (use a sturdy chair or a milk crate to test this).
  2. Is the floor in your rehearsal space carpeted or a hard surface? Oftentimes putting a rug in front of your amp will help lessen some of the early sound reflections coming off the floor.
  3. Have you done any sort of acoustic treatment in your rehearsal room? Bass trapping in all the corners will clean things up dramatically. Do a google search for "superchunk bass trap" for a cost effective DIY solution.

I once had an Eden rig that I thought was way too boomy until I played it in a treated rehearsal studio.
Click to expand...

the space we were rehearsing in is renowned for having great acoustics, it's often used for TV recordings of bands etc because of this, but we all know that doesn't necesserily make it perfect. It was carpetted but no soundproofing or damping in sight.

My amp was off the floor (I stacked it ontop of something hard, can't quite recall if it was a step or some bricks) but it defintely wasn't tilted back, something to try for sure next week and moving it slightly further away might help?

Just out of interest what are these"early reflections" you mentioned?

Thanks
 
#37
BarkerBass said:
wow you guys in the amps section sure know how to make a guy feel belittled. I don't know if you meant to and I should have been more clear in my first post but it's safe to say I worked the amps eq from all subtle variations to completely cutting and boostin the frequency bands to try and coax some articulation from it for the whole 3 hour duration of the practice to no avail, just mud

I was only seaking some advice as to whether this is a common 1x15 experience or if for instance a cab with smaller speakers would sound tighter.

Sorry for thinking you guys might genuinely want to help out someone who doesn't know verything about amps.
Click to expand...

Hey BB, none of our comments were really aimed at you, but at some of the other posters, and its always best to take it all with a grain of salt (the jokes come from love, of course!).

The real answer is that maybe there's a sound in it you like, maybe not. Not all amps are going to provide what we like. In many cases it's worth it to move on rather than second guessing and modding and changing parts out (that usually ends in tears unless you know a lot about speakers and amps).

The reality is that speaker size has nothing to do with how 'tight' it sounds, and small equals tight, big equals boomy is just a popular misconception.More likely as a combo, that speaker is just not in the sized box it needs to work well.
 
#39
The EQ section (preshape plus graphic) is really darned powerful. If you can't get it done with that - maybe you're working with the wrong amp... for me to get happy in most rooms it is a matter of

. keeping away from side walls and corners
. cutting low mids
. getting away from my rig as far as I possible can when making my settings
. dealing with less than perfect tone up close in favor of having it sound good out front ( I gotta get me some wireless.)

As a gross generalization - combo's generally suck. Designed by committtee. The marketing representative usually wins over the engineering rep. If as a fluke engineering wins, it's usally the EE guy and not the slob designing the cabinet... I'm sure there are some good ones out there, I have yet to experience it though.
 
#40
The problem you are experiencing is directly related to the way that the TE preamp is 'voiced' when all the controls are at the default settings (blue curve on graph). Notice that there's a huge bump around 160Hz and the high frequencies are rolled off substantially above 1kHz. This will sound very boomy and undefined, unless of course your cabinet is scooped out in the low mids. That does not appear to be the case here though.

TraceElliotPreamp.jpg


Fortunately, the EQ section on TE amps is very powerful and you can flatten the preamp response using the settings shown above. Give that a try and then get back to us here if you feel that further EQ tweaking is required.

Cheers,
Duff2
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back