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Is it even possible to cut through a drummer with a 90W combo?

J

Jewbass

Apr 30, 2009
129
1
New York, NY
#1
I'm just got the Behringer BXL900 90W amp a month ago, and i love it so far. I'm just a little scared that with my insane drummer, it wont be loud enough at all, and I'm thinking that I'm right, I mean i guess i can yell at him over his earthquake of a drum line to shut the f%^k up, but still...
what do you guys think?
 
#3
Jewbass...lol!

I play with a medium loud drummer and have often used a 25w Ampeg B-15, and never ran out of the volume that I needed. I have also done gigs with a really loud rock band and a 100w Acoustic combo from the 70's and been buried.

So the answer that it depends on the amp and your band. With your story, I'm going to say that you're going to have many times where you struggle. You need to beef up both your wattage and your cab if you want to be competitive.
 
#4
I had a Hartke B90 and went to a jam session. Turned it up to 10 and could not hear a thing. Of course there are the guitarists who make their share of the volume. Since those days the gear has gotten not much larger but more powerful. I usually find that 300 watts and at least a 2x10 cab are needed to be able to play with one guitarist and drummer. Also remember that 'LOUD' is a subjective term so until you try it out then you won't know what your Behringer will do.
 
#5
JimmyM said:
Jewbass...lol!

I play with a medium loud drummer and have often used a 25w Ampeg B-15, and never ran out of the volume that I needed. I have also done gigs with a really loud rock band and a 100w Acoustic combo from the 70's and been buried.

So the answer that it depends on the amp and your band. With your story, I'm going to say that you're going to have many times where you struggle. You need to beef up both your wattage and your cab if you want to be competitive.
Click to expand...

yeah, i completley agree, i mean ive been practicing with this amp almost every day since ive gotten it, and ive put the gain on the amp at about 9, but the volume on my bass at like 2(don't question me, its just the way i like it :D) with the master at 5. today i blasted the volume on my bass, making it 9/10/5, and it rattled the rafters. and i can't even imagine how loud it will be with the master, but i think it sounds louder when practicing alone, with others you gotta turn it up, and with a crazy ass drummer like mine...lol
 
#6
you should have bought the 3600watt behringer then everybody could only hear you !kidding aside I'm playing with a super loud drummer and two extremlly loud guitards my EDEN WT550 has no problems keeping up ! I have never had to turn my gain and master past noon . At 4 ohms its 550 watts. Make sure your eq settings are not sucking the life out of your amp! I'm sure there are plenty O threads covering eq settings.
 
#8
Run your bass on 2? Geez, how do you get any volume at all???

Ya, the reason it blows your head off at home but gets buried with a band is because of frequency response of the other instruments. Other instruments drown out most of the frequencies we hear in the bedroom, so that leaves bass with a narrow band of midrange frequencies that we can hear through everyone else's mess. Might want to learn a little something about EQing for a band. You can find scads of stuff on it on the internet and here. Then you'll understand a lot about why it can blow your head off at home but be totally gone with the band.
 
#10
Wow, maybe I'm just def... but i have a crown XTi 1000 pushing out to an ampeg 4x10 and a peavey 15 and I barely get enough volume to keep up with my drummer and my guitarist's vintage dual showman. In fact it's been an incredibly frustrating experience dumping money I don't have into gear i can't afford to get what seems to be a minimal gain in db. perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
 
#11
I had a Behringer BXL3000A, and honestly, I could barely hear myself. I didn't dare turn it over 3/4 of the way on the volume; I have blown my share of amps and speakers by doing that; But now I run with a Behringer 300 watt head, a Carvin 4x10, and an SWR 1x18, and I've been told many a time to turn it down.
 
#14
If wattage isn't the answer, than how does one get more volume? I'd really like something to try other than dumping cash into another larger amp. I've tried different speaker cab configs, tried different eq settings to gain some higher frequencies, thus greater perceived volume, but nothing seems to work other than going bigger... what am i missing?
 
#15
ampeg_turtle said:
Wow, maybe I'm just def... but i have a crown XTi 1000 pushing out to an ampeg 4x10 and a peavey 15 and I barely get enough volume to keep up with my drummer and my guitarist's vintage dual showman. In fact it's been an incredibly frustrating experience dumping money I don't have into gear i can't afford to get what seems to be a minimal gain in db. perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
Click to expand...
A 15" won't give you such a huge boost in volume, and can also counteract the large volume you can get with a 410 by causing phasing on some notes. Also, if you scoop your mids, you can kiss your bass goodbye in the mix. If I were you, I'd get a second Ampeg 410 just like yours (you didn't specify which one you had BTW) and if you scoop mids, quit it.
 
#17
ampeg_turtle said:
Wow, maybe I'm just def... but i have a crown XTi 1000 pushing out to an ampeg 4x10 and a peavey 15 and I barely get enough volume to keep up with my drummer and my guitarist's vintage dual showman. In fact it's been an incredibly frustrating experience dumping money I don't have into gear i can't afford to get what seems to be a minimal gain in db. perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you've got something set wrong. Are you getting enough level into the amp to get the clip light to flash?
If everything is set right, and you're still not getting enough volume, you need to add more cones. Or just do a DI to the PA and let the sound engineer handle it.
 
#18
Most likely the wattage rating is peak power (just like other behringer amps)

Which means your really only pushing around 50 watts. Combined with the fact that the cab is loaded with a 70 watt speaker, I would say you basically have a bedroom practice amp only.

It may be able to handle small coffee house gigs with a drummer playing with brushes, but I doubt it fair well against a hard hitting rock drummer.
 
#19
seamonkey said:
Sounds like you've got something set wrong. Are you getting enough level into the amp to get the clip light to flash?
If everything is set right, and you're still not getting enough volume, you need to add more cones. Or just do a DI to the PA and let the sound engineer handle it.
Click to expand...

I turn down just enough to avoid clipping. the xti also has a limiter that i have set to -6db from clip. I've recently been wondering about the setup on the power amp. It pushes 500w per channel @4 ohms in stereo mode. my 410 is 4ohm the 15 is an 8 ohm. I want to try the power amp in bridged mode, but I'm not sure if it's cool to run it at 6 ohms. the manual gives power ratings at 8, 4, and 2. Would bridging at 6 hurt anything?
 
#20
ampeg_turtle said:
Wow, maybe I'm just def... but i have a crown XTi 1000 pushing out to an ampeg 4x10 and a peavey 15 and I barely get enough volume to keep up with my drummer and my guitarist's vintage dual showman. In fact it's been an incredibly frustrating experience dumping money I don't have into gear i can't afford to get what seems to be a minimal gain in db. perhaps I'm doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

And about a half dozen other posts on here.

Vintage Showman = 4 - 6L6GB tubes in there barking up a storm at 85 watts through a couple D130 JBL's if he's got the good stuff. Reach down and hit the BOSS TONE and he's making about 130 DB of screaming real live get loud music maker. Don't ever underestimate the power of a handfull of dual showman heads and cabinets.

We used showmans as PA's when we were done with them as guitar amps.

When I was a kid before our Guitarist got his 100 watt Marshall stack I was having a heck of a time keeping up with him with a 67 Bassman. I did OK but I didn't scare anybody.

Our Drummer had about ten sticks stuffed in a holder on his bass drum if that gives you an indicator of drum volume.

What I needed at the time was an SVT, but I didn't have one.

Yeah Jimmy can play with no power but he's the only bassist on the planet who can. He has magic finesse of something. His B-15 has special MOJO.

As far as your 1000 Watts. When you compare that to a tube bass amp you have about the equivellent power of about 200 Watts... The 410 has poop, but the 15 doesn't necessarily and drags several DB from the 410. If you were powering a single 810 with that head you would probably be OK.

As far as the OP goes with his 90 watts of Solid State power you've got about the equivellent poop as a 20 watt tube amp.

Why does a SS head get rated at 3-4 times the equivellent power as a tube head? They didn't used to back in the early days. BUt they need to be able to handle the transients and peaks where a tube can absorb that stuff.

Personally I think it is a rip off to call an amp 1200 WATTS RMS, when it is more like 1200 WATTS RMS PEAK. Which is a totally bogus conflicting non-existant rating.

In reality you need about 3X the power in equivellent amplifiers to "Keep Up" with the rest of a band. SO if the guitarist has a 1/2 stack Marshall you better have an SVT and 810 rig. Full stack and two...

90 watt behringer combo? Well Marshall mini rig might drown you out.

BOB
 

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