This subject comes up fairly regularly on these forums , so I apologise if this is not the solution for you .
I play with an acoustic group of folk musicians on occasion and normally use a small Markbass combo or PJB briefcase . We had a once a year event before covid that restarted a few week ago . The event is only reachable by foot or bicycle and is a few hours walking to get there . I never found a solution that would allow me to play amplified bass up there . Even the briefcase is a hell of a heavy lump to carry that far and battery is only good for an hour . So I set my brain to thinking of a solution .
Tried a resonator guitar strung with 4 strings tuned up a fifth from regular bass i.e BEAD but the jury is still out on that one . Nice sounding instrument but not sure where it fits in . So BG and amp it is . I have a PJB C2 , which is small and light and also a PJB Bighead headphone amp . So I thought that by using the bighead as a preamp , I need a small battery powered power amp .
This is what I came up with .
A 18v drill battery 2Ah with a home made connector
A 30W mono class D amp board from ebay for a fiver . Connections for 3.5mm jack input from preamp , 1/4in out for cabinet and power in from battery were attached to the board .
Stick it all in a box ,
Connect it up with the wireless from bass and off we go .
This was only done yesterday as I am still waiting for a Hotone nano bass thunder to be delivered but I think that may be surplus to requirements now . First impressions are good . Plenty of volume for my purposes and a nice neutral tone . Battery should be good for at least an hour , maybe 2 and can be changed in seconds . I have plenty of them in the garage . Obviously this ain't gonna blow the windows out but that was never the idea . I have other amps for that . The plan was to make it possible to accompany a few folk players out in the sticks , as the option was playing nothing , as I did this year .
The Bighead is quite a powerful headphone amp so I have to be careful with the output levels into the new power amp , cos distortion from a class D amp is not nice . By upping the gain and rolling off the volume on the bighead , you can get a slightly overdriven tone if needed .
Early days in its development but I will have a play with it over the next few weeks and let you know how it works out , if anyone is interested .
I would like to try it out on my 112 as it is a lot more sensitive than the C2 but not exactly portable which kind of defeats the object . And it will be interesting to compare it to the Hotone bass thunder when it arrives .
At least it kept me out of the pub yesterday
I play with an acoustic group of folk musicians on occasion and normally use a small Markbass combo or PJB briefcase . We had a once a year event before covid that restarted a few week ago . The event is only reachable by foot or bicycle and is a few hours walking to get there . I never found a solution that would allow me to play amplified bass up there . Even the briefcase is a hell of a heavy lump to carry that far and battery is only good for an hour . So I set my brain to thinking of a solution .
Tried a resonator guitar strung with 4 strings tuned up a fifth from regular bass i.e BEAD but the jury is still out on that one . Nice sounding instrument but not sure where it fits in . So BG and amp it is . I have a PJB C2 , which is small and light and also a PJB Bighead headphone amp . So I thought that by using the bighead as a preamp , I need a small battery powered power amp .
This is what I came up with .
A 18v drill battery 2Ah with a home made connector
A 30W mono class D amp board from ebay for a fiver . Connections for 3.5mm jack input from preamp , 1/4in out for cabinet and power in from battery were attached to the board .
Stick it all in a box ,
Connect it up with the wireless from bass and off we go .
This was only done yesterday as I am still waiting for a Hotone nano bass thunder to be delivered but I think that may be surplus to requirements now . First impressions are good . Plenty of volume for my purposes and a nice neutral tone . Battery should be good for at least an hour , maybe 2 and can be changed in seconds . I have plenty of them in the garage . Obviously this ain't gonna blow the windows out but that was never the idea . I have other amps for that . The plan was to make it possible to accompany a few folk players out in the sticks , as the option was playing nothing , as I did this year .
The Bighead is quite a powerful headphone amp so I have to be careful with the output levels into the new power amp , cos distortion from a class D amp is not nice . By upping the gain and rolling off the volume on the bighead , you can get a slightly overdriven tone if needed .
Early days in its development but I will have a play with it over the next few weeks and let you know how it works out , if anyone is interested .
I would like to try it out on my 112 as it is a lot more sensitive than the C2 but not exactly portable which kind of defeats the object . And it will be interesting to compare it to the Hotone bass thunder when it arrives .
At least it kept me out of the pub yesterday
If you've had the chance to ever play a PJB Double-four, how does this solution compare to that? I gather that the C2 cab should be a bit louder, but size-wise perhaps the two are comparable?
