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Head and cab pairing across brands

#41
I play keys in a classic rock band and the bass player is constantly mixing and matching amps and cabs. He has Genz Benz, markbass, and ampeg heads, he has 2 ampeg and 1 hartke cab (plus another I'm forgetting I think). He brings a different combination every time and it still sounds like him. The only real difference noticeable to everyone else is when a switches up from one bass to another.

Yes, I'm super jealous of all that cool gear he has.
Mix and match away.
 
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#43
ficelles said:
For a moment there
I thought that was a haiku
But I was quite wrong
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th?id=OIP.ywF4Bqzp4pTCt3X87nuF5QEIEs&pid=15.jpg
 
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#44
I mix and match without regard to branding, mostly but not exclusively.

I ran a Fender SuperBassman with a GK Neo 2x12 for most of last year. Really good combo.

I have a Mesa D800 and the Subway 12 + 15 cabs. Mostly use the 15, great cab.

Recently picked up a GK RB400-IV, and took a guess it would sound great with the Subway 15. Oh yeah, nailed it. The compliments are plenty, and it really fits my ear well too.

Gotta try stuff. I picked up a Fender Rumble V3 4x10 and used it a bit, just to try based on positive reviews, but after doing a couple shows and a bunch of practices with it, that cab wasn't for me, with any of my amps (also have a PV MiniMega). Traded it back off.
 
#46
shlinder said:
Someone told me every head will do well with a Marshal or Fender cab.
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Someone sounds like a fan boy. There are tons of great brands for amps and cabs out there, not just these two big names. Most of the conversations I've seen on amps and cabs eventually break down along two tonal lines. For heads it's baked in tone versus high fidelity/ clean and for cabinets it's baked in tone versus high fidelity/ clean. Some brands (Ampeg, Aguilar) are known for a tonal quality that they have. If you don't like the tone, you're SOL. Other amps have a great reputation for being clean/ high fidelity/ not imparting anything extra to the tone of your instrument (Gallien Kreuger is the first that comes to mind).

For cabinets it's a question of voicing (an inherent frequency response curve from the amp, where some amps emphasize different points along the curve by their nature) or, you guessed it, clean (in theory a totally flat response curve, such that nothing is inherently emphasized by the cab). If you take an amp with a specific tone and put it through a clean cab, you get the amp's tone. If you put a clean amp through a cab with a baked in tone you'll get a rig that needs an EQ tweak to get to flat, if it can get there at all. In my experience, finding a cab that behaves the way you like is the first step, then you can use it to test amps because you know what impact it has. This is easier said than done but for me a GK Neo 112 serves that role nicely.

You haven't really hear your bass until you've heard it through a good amp and cab pair. A bad amp or cab will ruin the tone of a good bass and make an inexpensive bass sound far better. What's your experience with amps and cabs, if you don't mind my asking?
 
#47
GK 800RB into SVT 810e is a thing of freaking beauty. Rock on lovers everywhere!!

Seriously this combination is amazing. The beamy 810 gets a tight dose of fast transients and/or rail-riding grind. The signature growl a deep dig away. Round balls when you play softer. The fridge takes that 300 watts and magnifies it= No flub. No mush. Just a punchfest with superb dynamic response. I sold my unbelievably heavy
SVT II np and grabbed another 800. Its a crazy good mix match.
 
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#48
shlinder said:
And what does that mean: "match well"? How do you know? Is that just subjective?
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You are never going to get your answer by reading words on the internet. Most of us have figured it out by going through amps and cabs at considerable expense. You have to audition them in person one way or another. I've owned at least 20 amps and almost that many cabs. From that experience I've found that if an amp is capable of sounding good at all, it will sound good through a Bergantino cab. All seven of my current amps do.

Further, yes, cab evaluation is subjective. What sounds great to me may sound like barf to you. That's why auditioning the amps and cabs is the only reliable way to get to your answer.
 
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#50
Old Garage-Bander said:
I'm kind of the same way.
For me, taking off the logos won't help.
I'll always know.
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Maybe completely offtopic, but your transcendental reflections about logos remaind me an obsesion I had: my SWR cab have the logos facing part of the drivers, so I was thinking was loosing part of the sound or punch or anything that comes from the drivers:
 

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#52
NOVAX said:
GK 800RB into SVT 810e is a thing of freaking beauty. Rock on lovers everywhere!!

Seriously this combination is amazing. The beamy 810 gets a tight dose of fast transients and/or rail-riding grind. The signature growl a deep dig away. Round balls when you play softer. The fridge takes that 300 watts and magnifies it= No flub. No mush. Just a punchfest with superb dynamic response. I sold my unbelievably heavy
SVT II np and grabbed another 800. Its a crazy good mix match.
Click to expand...
U just discovered foghat sound!
 
#53
Pumpkin said:
Some brands (Ampeg, Aguilar) are known for a tonal quality that they have. If you don't like the tone, you're SOL.
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There isn't an "Ampeg tone." A V-4B doesn't sound particularly like a tube SVT doesn't sound particularly like an SVT-3PRO doesn't sound particularly like a PF-XXX. Or at least, not any more than any other random selection of bass heads sound like each other.

No idea if Aguilar amps actually have a particular sound to them.
 
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#55
NOVAX said:
GK 800RB into SVT 810e is a thing of freaking beauty. Rock on lovers everywhere!!

Seriously this combination is amazing. The beamy 810 gets a tight dose of fast transients and/or rail-riding grind. The signature growl a deep dig away. Round balls when you play softer. The fridge takes that 300 watts and magnifies it= No flub. No mush. Just a punchfest with superb dynamic response. I sold my unbelievably heavy
SVT II np and grabbed another 800. Its a crazy good mix match.
Click to expand...

Yup, 800rb + SVT810 for me. Love it. And I use 5-strings too. Low B hits like a truck if you want it to.
 
#57
First off, it is entirely subjective. There is no way to absolutely engineer this problem because some people love tube amp overdrive with a sealed cab's low and high end roll offs and others prefer a glassy clear full range response from 40 Hz to 15 or 20K.

Generally I would try to match voiced amps with voiced cabs, and "transparent" amps with "transparent" cabs. Notice transparent in quotes? That's b/c nothing is completely transparent, it is all a continuum (sp sorry) of how heavily voiced a piece of gear is. I will say the person who said anything will work with a Marshall or Fender cab was utterly full of it. I don't think I could find any amp that would work for me with a Marshall cab.

I have had a lot of success with Eden and Markbass amps and Genz Benz cabs, and Genz and Markbass amps with a fearful. But all of these are on the "transparent" side of the spectrum, unlike GK and Ampeg. Just my opinion and frankly no one else can change it. One of my worse gigs ever was using an Ampeg 115 (with a small box, not sure the exact model) under my Eden Metro. It sounded better to me *after I unplugged the Ampeg*. I have always taken this as an epic failure of mixing drivers poorly. Also had a pretty bad experience with the Eden and an SWR BigBen 118.

But mixing drivers can work as the Metro sounded great on top of a Genz UB212T.
 
#59
Pumpkin said:
What's your experience with amps and cabs, if you don't mind my asking?
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Nada. Always been around combos and never paid any mind. Acoustic guitar player. Totally ignorant.

Now in my 40's, I'm finally getting a clue because I am purchasing all new gear for a Rock Band Club and have no fear of asking the most basic questions. This forum has done wonders. You people are awesome. I'm learning so much. I even called Orange HQ and spoke to a tech guy.

For the same reason, I tackled drums earlier this year and learned enough to repair and tune several different kits, and what upgrades I want to make in the next fiscal year. Learned about electric guitar stuff last month. After I finally purchase bass gear, I'll be set. I'll learn about synthesizers if I ever get students interested in those.
 

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