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Help. Having trouble keeping up with my band.

S

sickwindsor

Jun 12, 2008
7
0
#1
Hey guys, as you can see I am new to the forum. I am currently in a modern rock band with my self and two other guitar players and a fairly loud drummer. Our jam room is 11x16 with a 12ft ceiling. My current rig consists of a Ampeg B2R head into a B410 and B115 Cabinet. I have both horns disabled since I prefer a fairly dark and classic ampeg bass tone.

The problem is that when the whole band is playing my bass tone gets almost totaly swallowed up. The guitar players and my self tend to crowd around my cabinet to feel whats going on for a sense of foundation of the song. I have tried various eq settings and brought up the mids and highs to have a little more cut however this results is a kinda thin metalic bass tone I am not a fan of. Bottom line I am just plain under powered for this group and I need a new rig.

I need some suggestions based on what I need tonaly and loud. Atleast 125dB program and 130dB peak. I have played the Ampeg 810e,svt215,410hlf,410he and have not like any of them for various tonal reasons and they would be under powered for what I need any how. Ive played thru the Basson 810 and that is an option since I dig the tone and they seem loud enough to carry what my band mates need from me. I tune down to C so being 3db +/- FLAT is a must at 30hz.

From what Ive seen I only have three options.
Basson 810B
Ampeg PR410HLF
or..............?

I was also thinking of a bi amped rig with retaining my 410 for midbass drivers and using a 18" sub to cover some of the highs. However, last thing I want is it to be too low end heavy and not balanced. Please reply back with your suggestions.

Luke
 
#2
yikes... hope y'all wear earplugs!

maybe your guitards need to reevaluate their tone? all of that low end sounds great and all, but it is obviously killing you and your amp. 130 dB in an 11x16 room sounds just brutal to me. not terribly unlike target practice with a small caliber machine gun.....

only suggestion i can make for that is a biiig power amp, and as many cabinets as is feasible (or you can afford). 130dB at 30hz is going to take a lot of juice and speaker area. than again, 11x16 shouldnt be too hard to pressurize, so there is always that. dont expect the same thing in a bigger room.
 
#3
Well trust me its not as loud as you think. The room has a lot of frequency nodes thats cause standing wave problems. There is a lot of sound being soaked up by the room below 100hz so I am really going to over power the room to balance the spectrum. The guitar players are putting out 120dB between the both of them. The Fletcher-Munson curve states I need at least 130 at 30hz to carry an even balance.

Now there are some subs out there like the ls808 or ev,eaw that do 135db peak and and 130db program however they are designed to go from 30-150hz. If I am going to push that much load end I will need a lot of midbass to make the bass guitar spectrum balanced. Maybe a 810e and a big 18" sub. I dunno I am open to suggestions.

Luke
 
#5
the specs on the PR410hlf are (-3dB): 33Hz - 18kHz so thats similar to what I am looking for. However I can't afford to buy 4 of them so I am looking for something that would work similar but more cost effective. In most live situations Ive seen is that a 8x10 per guitar player 4x12 is a nice equal balance. Unless its a really ballsy 810 like the hpc or basson then you can get away with a 810 per guitar stack.

Options:
1 basson 810
2 Ampeg PR410hlf's
1 610hlf & 1 18" sub
etc.......
 
#11
My advice is to forget about cab specs like frequency response. Numbers on a marketing brochure or website usually don't translate into anything meaningful. Just because you're bass is tuned to a note with a low fundamental frequency doesn't mean that your cab has to go that low for you to hear it. There is soooooo much more to it then that.

It sounds like what you need is something that cuts through a tough mix. The cut comes from the mids. You also need more power. The B2R is 350 Watts RMS @ 4 ohm load, and 200 Watts RMS @ ohm load. That's enough power to make you loud if you crank the amp, but you have no headroom. The extra headroom helps you cut through a mix as well.

I use a B2R and Ampeg 410 at my rehearsal complex every week and find it very lacking. When I gig I'm using a GK1001RB (~700W @ 4ohms) into a Schroeder 1212R. That combo cuts like a hot knife through butter.

Everyone has their thing, so I'm not recommending you go out and get the gear that I have. But you ought to look at a more powerful head, and a cab that has strong mids or low mids to help you cut. I would say 500W @ 4ohms should be a minimum for a head. For cabs you might want to look into Eden or Schroeder. IME they both cut very well.

In the meantime you might want to just try out a more powerful head with your cabs, and EQ in more mids.
 
#13
You are not underpowered, you guys are jsut plain too loud for the room. Everyone do that at a time or another, guitar playes have nice 100w half-stack like to crank it. but the bands jams in a very small room.

Try that, go to your bedroom install a full pa then crank every knob on your sound system to 10 and tell me how it sounds.

you have to adjust the bands overall volume depending on the room.
I certainly hope that you don't play at the same volume in a room for 50 people than when playing in a room made for 500.

If you guys keep getting louder and louder, you'll keep hearing less music and more of a wall of noise.

There is one thing you must remember, a big guitar half-stack will never get drowned, it can be louder than everthing in the band including the drums. A lot of guitarists don't think in term of the sound of the band they just want to hear themselves.
 
#15
how can you hear the drummer?.... unless he's mic-ed ...in which case you need everyone to turn down very far... as far as you can go as still hear... then you bring up the bass to balance with the drums. then you bring up one guitar at a time just loud enough where they can hear themselves...

The other trick is to set up your amps across from you. Crowding around an amp thats pumping out low Cs you wont be able to hear anything.. So set up each amp at least 5-10 feet in FRONT of the person playing through it. You'll find you don't need that much power. at least not for practice
 
#16
An option to consider - Throw the deep bass tone under the bus and pump up the mids. A lot. Assuming a 4 band EQ - Try setting the Bass knob to 9:00, Low mids to 3:00, High mids to 3:30, and Highs to around noon. If needed increase the amount of mids until you cut like a knife. Change to round wounds if you haven't already. If your bass is active, pump up the mids there too. If not, tone pot all the way up, just like the volume. Put in the ear plugs and crank it up until the drummer notices.

Good luck.
 
#19
People's ears just don't work that way. You're going to need MASSIVE power if you plan to compensate for the fact that the peak of the audible spectrum is in the 1khz -3khz range. Consider Acme Low B cabinets and a poweramp/preamp rig with like 1500W. And plan on a very muddy, boomy tone.
 
#20
sickwindsor said:
Well trust me its not as loud as you think. The room has a lot of frequency nodes thats cause standing wave problems. There is a lot of sound being soaked up by the room below 100hz so I am really going to over power the room to balance the spectrum. The guitar players are putting out 120dB between the both of them. The Fletcher-Munson curve states I need at least 130 at 30hz to carry an even balance.

Luke
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I think that's insane. I don't know how much power your Ampeg puts out, but say it's 200 watts. To get a 10 db increase you'll need to up your power to 2000 watts. Of course your speakers won't be able to handle it. If you got two 8x10 cabinets that could handle 1000 watts each and 2000 watts to drive them, then you'd probably be able to do what you say you need to do. But, you could play stadiums with a rig that big and loud.

Are you actually just trying to have some fun at our expense?
 

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