Get the amp off the darned floor!

I wasn't sure where to put this post. I guess the moderators will move it if it's in the wrong place...

I play bass in an acoustic/vocal ensemble 2-4 times/month. They have a house amp, an Acoustic Image Bass amp with 2-10' speakers; one on the front and one on the bottom. 600w with removable head. This one is a top-of-the-line one with all sorts of effects that I never use. It's got a lean back bar so the bottom speaker can reflect (presumably off the floor!). I usually drag in my GK MB-112 but it was going to be raining. So as long as they had a good house amp... I keep my amp stand there so I don't have to drag it home.

So this past Friday the Ten-Two was set up for me and on the (oak) floor on stage. As we're doing the sound check I'm just struggling to get my bass (Ibanez BTB675) eq'd to sound good. I tried a whole bunch of stuff and just couldn't get it so it wouldn't sound muddy. Then I realized that I might be hearing was the floor creating the mud. So into the back room I went, dragged out my amp stand and put the amp on it. After a few tweaks of the bass' knobs with the amp flat I got just the right sound. In fact, with the slightly old D'Addrio NYXL strings, it sounded pretty close to an upright bass! But night and day difference elevated than on the floor, even though tilted back.

BTW... I got this stand at MF for all of $20. Probably the best cheap purchase I'd made in a long time.

Just thought I'd share.

 

Thanks for replying. Ok... I get what you're saying about the design. But then why all the onboard effects? It's the house amp and someone was responsible for selecting it. And for the kind of money they paid they could have had a really nice amp. It's funny, because once in awhile we do have an upgright bass playing and the bass is mic'd directly into the house system. The amp isn't even used when the upright is played.

In any case, while it was sitting on the floor I couldn't eq the darn thing to save my life. The overtones were muddy and intuitively I think I recognized that the harmonics of the reflected sound didn't jive with anything I was doing. When I told the leader I was going to fetch the amp stand he looked at me like I was wasting my time to do so... He later made the comment "Yeah, the EQ does sound different". But he wouldn't give me the satisfaction of acknowledging that I figured it out and made it tons better sounding. BTW, I have months old strings on my BTB (NYXL's ) and actually almost got a string bass sound out of it. Lots of folks commented about the sound.