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Fender Rumble Club

#6,601
It all boils down to a matter of tonality and overall sound quality. What is the most pleasing amp to your ear? That's your tone quest right there. For the gigging musician, reliability is a huge issue. Only highly reliable equipment is road-worthy. Fender Rumbles are among the most reliable, if not the most reliable bass amps on the market, and have been for 12 years now.

Rumbles are louder! One reason is Fender's highly innovative Delta-Comp Limiter.
Fender Rumble Delta-Comp Limiter

Another reason is Fender's honest wattage ratings of clean continuous power. You are actually getting the watts Fender says you have. Other brands not so much, and in many cases just divide their stated ratings in half.
 
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#6,602
20150712_114505.jpg
My Rumble V3 500.. with my new to me EA Wizzy, And driving my BEAST cab, EA Concert CX310
310 w Rumble.png
 
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#6,606
ausbassman said:
Hi All,
Trying to decide if I should make the plunge & get a Rumble 500 or a Hartke LH 1000 head, not sure if the rumble with have enough power??
The Hartke ohm description is confusing ie:
  • Dual Parallel Mode: 2 x 225 watts @ 8 ohms, 2 x 320 watts @ 4 ohms, 2 x 545 watts @ 2 ohms

  • Bridge Mode: 1 x 750 watts @ 8 ohms, 1 x 1100 watts @ 4 ohms

  • Classic 12AX7 High Voltage Class-A tube preamp circuit
not really sure what it all means, I understand the principle of impedence & have grasped what I can & can't do with a rumble 500, but the above info for Hartke has me stumped??? Help....
Click to expand...
Speaker cabs make sound.
Wattage is no substitute for Moving air.
I have an EA 310 (see post above) that CAN get devastatingly loud, BUT because of the design DOESN'T NEED TO BE to cut through a mix and fill a room (or outdoor area) with Clean, Clear sound!
I use this cab with my Rumble 500 V3 head (usually when i'm playing outside I'll use my Mesa Titan)
The Rumble 500 V3 is more than enough, with Speakers to support it :)

I do plan on grabbing a Rumble Cab or 2 as they just look so Vintage cool... But i dig my high tech EA's ---
 
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#6,607
Linnin said:
Prime Rib on a Burger Budget. Rumbles Deliver!
Click to expand...
My Rumble V3 500 head was chosen as a capable backup to my Mesa Titan V12.
this little head has become my more used amp, the tone is really good(i use it almost flat!), the power is there it looks great.
it goes to rehearsals and gigs-- the Mesa has become my "special occasion" amp.

My only gripe is no tuner out -- :(
 
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#6,609
So it's a parallel loop? (i'll try that) if not then there would be no signal pass through without a cable through the tuner and into the effects loop return (hence the name loop)
Even so using it that way I think i would see a signal loss, 1/2 of the loop signal path is not returning to the signal path (depending on design this may or may not be the result)

I will try it and report back.
 
#6,613
Effects loops only effect the sound when the return is used, in all cases, serial, parallel etc.

In reality send is always preamp out and return is power amp in. Different names for the same thing.

My gripe about lack of tuner out was tuner outs are a perfect way to daisy chain amps with each amp getting instrumwnt input, not another amps preamp.

Now that my swr cube is on its way back to me, if I want to use both amps I can. In essence the rumble turn3d out to be a reppacement for the ampeg micro cl I just sold, but originally it was to replace the swr that blew up. A nice forced upgrade because that ampeg could only do small gigs and pretty much one sound.
 
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#6,614
Gravedigger Dav said:
I do plan to get a cover, but mostly for sitting in my garage storage area. It is actually enclose and not open to the garage, but I have a lot of things going on in that little room that creates dust.
Click to expand...
My mother in law was kind enough to make me a killer cover, which I used to store my rumble in the garage too - until a giant spider came out when I picked it up.
fyi: they grow 'em big in Florida. Think "THEM!"
 
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#6,615
I have a question: as far as I understand, if XLR out is used into a mixing table the "Master" knob now controls the power of the signal being sent, while still controlling the volume of the Rumble speakers. So we can easily make the speakers quiet by plugging something to the "Phones Out" but what I wonder is why isn't there an additional knob for controlling the XLR output signal allowing us to control the speakers volume independently?
 
#6,617
Rumbles only SOUND like pro amps, when push comes to shove, they are really just over achieving mid/low end amps. Then again even with my "pro" amps I preferred to carry my own mic and mini stand, rather than go direct. Sound guys frequently balked at the idea and wanted to use di, but would always be converted by the end of the set. Besides, unless there is a really good cab simulator built in, bass di only sounds good on "clean".

I don't do "clean".

It is an audix d4 in case anyone was wondering.
 
#6,618
J.Nuno said:
I have a question: as far as I understand, if XLR out is used into a mixing table the "Master" knob now controls the power of the signal being sent, while still controlling the volume of the Rumble speakers. So we can easily make the speakers quiet by plugging something to the "Phones Out" but what I wonder is why isn't there an additional knob for controlling the XLR output signal allowing us to control the speakers volume independently?
Click to expand...
I was one of the original doubters about the XLR, so I wanted to comment that it seems to work fine. I've now sent it to several mixing boards, and no sound men have said anything about it, so I guess it works fine out there. Probably not in the mix anyway.

I have also been in the studio lately, and at first I took in the 500 head and 112 cab; as usual, the engineer squawked about bleedthrough, so I unplugged the cab and made him take a direct feed from the 500 head's XLR. I know that heads aren't supposed be run without a load, but the heads seems fine after several sessions, and I had very specific reasons why I did this:

I HATE HATE HATE direct bass. It just has no soul, and to me sounds "rubbery." I know the 500 head's XLR out is supposed to have some degree of speaker emulation. I actually didn't hear any of that in the track, but I did retain some element of control and tone shaping. It worked great. The engineers seem to like it too. What they don't know is that the drummer and I were calling most of the session for more bass in the mix, so I just leaned over and tweaked the head - vol up a little, bass down a little, high down a little. Defined the bass better and brought the tone right into where I want it to be. I assume they were watching the meters, that's what they get paid for. anyway, let the engineer take credit, I got what i wanted without them futzing in ProTools for a long time.
 
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#6,619
I used the XLR out on my 500 combo on Saturday for the first time, to record some tracks for a demo recording. Plugged directly into the multitrack recorder. It sounded fine, bearing in mind the songs I was recording required some overdrive so my tone was really dirty throughout. We’ll see how it works out once it’s mixed. It was a very seat of the pants thing.

bdplaid said:
I HATE HATE HATE direct bass. It just has no soul, and to me sounds "rubbery." I know the 500 head's XLR out is supposed to have some degree of speaker emulation. I actually didn't hear any of that in the track, but I did retain some element of control and tone shaping. It worked great. The engineers seem to like it too. What they don't know is that the drummer and I were calling most of the session for more bass in the mix, so I just leaned over and tweaked the head - vol up a little, bass down a little, high down a little. Defined the bass better and brought the tone right into where I want it to be. I assume they were watching the meters, that's what they get paid for. anyway, let the engineer take credit, I got what i wanted without them futzing in ProTools for a long time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I’m not normally a fan of direct out, either. Best to have air moving past a mic any day, or a combo of the two.
 
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#6,620
ubernator said:
Rumbles only SOUND like pro amps, when push comes to shove, they are really just over achieving mid/low end amps. Then again even with my "pro" amps I preferred to carry my own mic and mini stand, rather than go direct. Sound guys frequently balked at the idea and wanted to use di, but would always be converted by the end of the set. Besides, unless there is a really good cab simulator built in, bass di only sounds good on "clean".

I don't do "clean".

It is an audix d4 in case anyone was wondering.
Click to expand...

I like the sound of a mic on the cab as well, i use one of three different mics Audix D6, Heil PR-40 or Sennheiser MD-421-II. If I use a DI I use my Radial Pro 48 through it back to the Rumble and if not using house sound (our PA) I also mic the cab for the blend.
 

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