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Help to achieve stereo sound

#21
Passinwind said:
I've seen Michael use wider spacing (IIRC) and it still sounded fantastic. I've also used vertically stacked stereo cabs myself and it worked very well. One possibly counterintuitive tip I can give you is to try using a variable high pass filter on just one side. Even if you do that just for educational purposes, it'll give you a better understanding of how destructive interference works. You'll often find that as you cut bass on one side, overall bass increases. As far as combing, I embrace that and stereo chorusing or flanging moves the higher frequency nulls and peaks around the room and creates a nice ambience in many rooms IME.

I love stereo rigs, but as Bassmec says, you may want to keep in mind that overall volume may not be any greater than just using one side of the rig. I don't care, loud is not what I'm shooting for at all. YMMV.
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Great advice, thank you soo much
 
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#22
benchpress11782 said:
Forgive me but I am confused. If I get 2 combo amps, and go through my pedal chain, and left out goes to left amp and right out goes to right amp. That is bad idea?
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Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. You will hear a lot of people complaining about mixing cabinets and speaker sizes on these pages, but until you actually tried a particular combination together, you simply can't be sure. If you're using two of the same kind of combo, right next to each other or stacked, you should be able to avoid speaker phase and time alignment issues. I think it's a very logical way of going to stereo.
 
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#23
I play standard and extended range bass. The ERB is mostly solo work now. I have a pedal board that sends a stereo signal to my 2 SWR Grand Prix preamps. I use an SWR Stereo 800 for power. I generally like to spread the speakers out about 8-10 ft apart. I use the same speakers for each side. "Same-ness" for preamps, power amps and speakers is the rule I use and recommend for stereo operation.
 
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#24
I think your ideal setup for this would be either:
  1. a preamp, running into your stereo effects and then back into a stereo power amp with two identical cabinets, or
  2. two identical rigs
#1 will make it easier to adjust your sound on the fly, but #2 will let you play around with adding or subtracting frequencies from just one side (like Passinwind said).
 
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#26
mark roberts said:
I play standard and extended range bass. The ERB is mostly solo work now. I have a pedal board that sends a stereo signal to my 2 SWR Grand Prix preamps. I use an SWR Stereo 800 for power. I generally like to spread the speakers out about 8-10 ft apart. I use the same speakers for each side. "Same-ness" for preamps, power amps and speakers is the rule I use and recommend for stereo operation.
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Awesome thanks
 
#27
Not cheap, but killer Wayne jones stereo bass rig... 2,000 watts :)
Edit: This isn't my rig, but I do own a WJ stereo preamp & plan on buying one of his powered cabs
 

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#28
no matter how you might wanna try ... it can only be ' pseudo stereo ' .... as in fake stereo ...

bass is mono ... low freqs are fairly mono , as in they don't have a lot of high end info for directionality ... which is perceived by a sound striking 1 ear before the other ... that slight time delay gives you the direction of where the sound is coming from ..

you could aim another cab in a slightly different direction to spread the sound out ... as each would be bouncing around the room differently ...

to make more spread , it take 2 amps/speakers ... if you use another combo , i would only pan the source maybe 40% left/right ... i've noticed when you spread things 100% far left/right you lose the impact ... to me , it sounds like you just want more space for the sound to move about , using your FX to create that spread into 2 amps .. !?

but remember , there is usually one very small spot where the stereo imaging is perfect .. !! to me , going true stereo ( from a mono source ) is more trouble than it's worth ...

why ... because people on one side of the room will hear mainly the info directed at them ... then they don't hear the info that's aimed at the other side of the room ... = dual mono ,... basically .

my main instrument is keyboards ... so i use/hear/work with lots of mono or stereo sampled sounds ...
i usually prefer the stereo samples , but with very little panning .. i like to use the effects ( rev , chorus , etc ) for the panned spatial simulation ... the sound has good detail and impact , the fx give depth/space.
 
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#29
Yeah no reason you can't do this at home. I do it regularly using my Rumble 15 bass combo and my guitar amp, whilst playing guitar (usually) with stereo outputs from Boss ME70 multi effect.

There will be no phase of cancellation problems doing it at home at low volume.

If you want to take it live, I assume the band would be using a PA with stereo capability, so there's one way to achieve it on stage.
 
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#31
For using the dual output of genuine stereo effects boxes ( not the Ric-O-Sound "split the highs from the lows thing" ) , yes I would get an identical amp setup for each stereo channel. I've been dying to hear the output of Markbass' Multiamp S when rigged for using it's huge array of built in, genuine stereo effects but have never found a place where you can demo it. Not even at NAMM! Shame on Markbass for that.
 
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#32
Benchpress, Not sure how appropriate, but I do a "stereo" setup and have for years. I have an Alembic Series bass, that can either be run "stereo" or mono. What I have been doing again not sure how appropriate to your needs, is this. In the chain is an Alembic F2B 2 channel preamp, going to a QSC 2 channel power amp, in separate channels. I send the neck PU through 1 channel to a fEarful 15/6/1 cab, and the bridge PU through the other channel to a fEarful 12/6/1 cab. What this does for me is to allow me to EQ each PU separate to achieve the sound I want. I can put effects on either PU/channel etc. In days gone by I put a Roland stereo flanger in the circuit, that would actually make the sound go in circles around the room. At that time I had 2X18 cabs for the neck PU, and 2 4X12 cabs on opposite side of the stage. Man that was quite a sound! But these days, I just stack the 2 fEarful cabs on top of each other, 15/6/1 on the bottom, 12/6/1 on top. I still get to dial for specific sounds. The 15/6/1 on the neck PU provides the ground shaking bass, and the bridge PU through the 12/6/1 gives amazing definition. It all works really well, again not sure if it appropriate to your goal. FWIW
Jon
 
#35
morgan138 said:
Not sure what you mean, but the OP is talking about using stereo effects. There are plenty of reverb, chorus, etc. effects that will make a single mono signal into a stereo pair!
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Stereo FX requires directionality of the sound source, so as loudspeakers producing frequencies below 400Hz are essentially non directional, the only bit of your bass signal that will be stereo is the mid and top.
Frequencies below 400Hz, as has been mentioned by DavC in this thread, will be disturbed by the time delay at 1.1 ms a foot, so the further you move the speakers apart the more holes in your low frequency response you will find appearing in different parts of the room. This is called comb filtering.
So if you high pass one bass amp at about 400Hz thus making it produce only mid and top you will have the best of both amps and cabs.
Look in the mirror are you a goaty bearded limp wristed Jazzer with a bass guitar with far too many strings on it, that only lives to annoy the feck out of professional PA and Studio engineers?.
If not get a rig that stands as tightly as possible in the same spot stacked vertically, I don't mind having a dual mono/wet/dry/quasi stereo pair of DI's or if you use different loudspeaker sizes in your cabs.
Let the Engineer decide how to produce a solid stereo spread. Because what works well in your bedroom will not work well live. Guaranteed.
 
#36
You can well use another Mark combo bass amp. Preferably the same. Otherwise stereo delays and reverbs will suffer quite a great deal. I would buy a little PA instead, so one spreads the "post-processing" a bit cleaner into the PA subwoofer and speaker system. I particularly don't like anything stereo chorus on the bass, because the bass and low end seems to disappear, and gets muddy. It just ends up in phase inconsistencies and so on. If there's anything to it, I want just one speaker source and amp source for bass, i e mono. But if you do a complete solo show without backing band, it's only you on stage, and your sound doesn't get drowned out by drummers, or loud gtrds. Then you might well get away with stereo effects, but I would rather keep a small PA to spread that thing. It would turn out expensive and elaborate but so be it.

I understood is that you don't want one amp for clean and one for dirt. Distortion. You want stereo all the way, regardless of that you play distorted solos or clean ones and anything in between.
 
#37
I found that running stereo always leaves one channel sounding weak. Probably due to them being out of phase. What you want is a radial aby box with the series/paralell switch. I tried going 2 amps for a while but ended up dropping it. I liked having 2 channels (one clean one dirty) for recording but it was too much work hauling 2 large cabs and 2 tube amps.
 
#39
morgan138 said:
Not sure what you mean, but the OP is talking about using stereo effects. There are plenty of reverb, chorus, etc. effects that will make a single mono signal into a stereo pair!
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yes ... i've been using those types of devices since my studio days in the 70's ... but a regular bass is not a dual sound source , not like something recorded with left/right mics for various panned instruments .. the fx are simulating stereo = pseudo ... electronic reverbs simulate what happens to a sound in a certain space/time ... and yes even a mono sound will bounce around a room and get to each ear at different times ... i guess that's kinda stereo ..? does that require 2 amps ..? no , it requires 2 ears .. !

i understand making more space/separation ... within many various applications ... seems the OP wants more Spread/Space without being in a huge room ..?!!? reverb does just that ... i like to slightly detune and offset my delay for a little more spread ... mono speaker on stage , spread fx left/right thru PA ( or another set of speakers )

food for thought ... Stereophonic sound - Wikipedia
 
#40
benchpress11782 said:
Hello friends. I wonder if you can help me with some ideas on what i can do. I play solo bass using reverbs,delays, etc. I have one Markbass CMD 102P combo amp and wondering if I should get the same? Can I get away with maybe just a cabinet using combo head? Or how about a different markbass cabinet but with a 12" instead of the 10" any ideas will help. Thanks as always.
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buy a Ric 4003. easy peasy.
 

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