Guitar player here, need amp advice for bassist

[pickles]

In terms of amps, spend most of the money on a great cab. I'm thinking ampeg 610hlf, or something else taller than a 410, and with a good grunty sound. A used 810e would be great. Any old solid state amp will sound great through those. A gk would be great. That give him a nice thick low and lowmid, with some quick assertive but not sizzly top end.

 

[Fingers Freddy]

A. Combo amps have no place in hard rock, at least not on bass.

B. The LH500 is a great, warm, "tubey" sounding amp, but it uses a fender tonestack. If this guy knows nothing about gear, he won't get a good sound out of it. Bass and Treble are boost only, Mid is cut only, therefore, the so-called "flat" setting is 2-10-2, or even 1-10-1. If the guy set all the tone knobs to 5, or in the middle, he'd have a horribly mid-scooped, bass boosted sound that might sound nice in his bedroom, but will result in nothing but mud and getting lost/buried in the band mix with guitars/drums, etc. It's not the amps fault....it's another case of RTFM......Read The F?#$&@! Manual, and again, not having to be a gearhead, but at least knowing how your gear works. Sounds to me like the guy is going to have to take an interest in his own craft to sound any better than he does now. Also, if he learns a little bit, he will get much better performance out of the gear he does have, rather than constantly buying new gear and thinking it sucks too, because he doesn't take the time/put in the effort to learn how to operate it.

I can totally appreciate this...I will be quoting you when I next talk to him...

 

[CL400Peavey]

A ampeg pf-500 into a fEARful 15/6 for starters. Pad the mid, so he can add a fEARful 15sub when he needs more volume.

 

[fingerbun]

From your original list, I would point you to GK or Markbass...but do your research on the individual models. The Ampeg is good but the early ones had an issue with cutting out. Not sure if it is yet resolved. Marshall is more known as a guitar amp, so might be a very good choice but is not an obvious or safe one.

Speaker size...that's a religious war around here. Personally I use 15" but *the* bass cab is arguably the Ampeg SVT with 8x10" speakers. A lot depends on the cab design. I'm using two Ampeg PF 115s and love the sound. No lack of clarity and reasonable price.

His previous trouble hearing himself could be bad eq, his own deafness, or just putting the speakers down low so all he got was mud.

 

[eadg by TC]

larry sold out to samson a while back. truth is most amps are bic pens today unless you go into the hand made traditional style boutique line. go to guitar center and PLAY them because reliability is a hit and miss thing. most things are descent and have a 5 year warranty and electronic problems generally occur rather quickly-(less than 1 year)