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noob question...PA as a bass amp

B

boogiechillen

Apr 12, 2012
15
0
#1
So im loving playing the bass and im really getting a handle on the chopper style bass (a.la. Larry Graham). Im kinda broke after building my bass (and old american standard jazz body with a warmoth neck and SD pickups).
I want to do some recording so im looking at direct boxes such as the sansamp or mxr, but my question is this:
If i go thru the front of house at gigs, why is it a bad idea to use my own (1600w) PA as my bass amp?
Id like to buy a bass amp soon...but in the short term are there any linitations to using a PA instead?
Next stage would maybe be running a nice hartke 500 watt amp thru my PA (pair of 15s with tweeters) speakers....or is that a crap idea also?
Thanks for your help folks!
 
#4
I wanted to go this route a few weeks ago. Went out tried a powered PA cabs only found one that really could handle the low end but volume was not so good and it cost as much if not more than my new Markbass head and 5 times the size and weight. I went markbass head and 210 cab and love it.
I also wanted to go DI to board/mains then to a powered monitor for stage but could not find a decent powered monitor to do it that was small and cheap enough vs buying a rig. It was too much hassle finding eveything and all the extra trouble of patch cords etc so like I said I bought a small head and cab.
 
#6
this is great info fellas. My PA can put out 1600 watts bridged at 4 ohms, but im running it at 8 ohms a side, so im getting 2 x 400 watts. Each of the 15 inch bins are 500 watts. It sounds okay. Obviouly id rather have a sexy bass amp but its gonna have to wait for a while.
 
#7
boogiechillen said:
this is great info fellas. My PA can put out 1600 watts bridged at 4 ohms, but im running it at 8 ohms a side, so im getting 2 x 400 watts. Each of the 15 inch bins are 500 watts. It sounds okay. Obviouly id rather have a sexy bass amp but its gonna have to wait for a while.
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Its not the power section that would be a limiting point for me. What kind of PA cabs are you using? For me 15" fronts wouldnt cover the lows I want. This is why I like my fEARful, its kind of like having a great PA cab set up for bass. It has subs and mid range drivers and a horn. They have ridiculous power handling and volume output. There are fEARful users on this form that hit their cabs with multiple kilo watt PA amps. They are tuned pretty flat and will produce what you send to them.

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This is a 100 pound cab that will easily handle over a kilowatt of power, will go as low as PA subs, has very present mids and highs as well. Would it make a great PA cab? yes and you wouldnt have to add subs to it. There are great PA cabs out there, but most of them wont go as low as this cab, and need a sub woofer to reinforce the low end.
 
#9
One of the bands I play in is a Invalid Link Removed - keys, guitar and me (bass). Drums and anything else are on backing tracks. We do mainly small rooms, and the synth, 3 vocals and backing tracks go through two Bose L1 systems with double subs. I also plug my P-bass straight into one of the Bose "sticks" - no bass amp. We often get comments on how clear our sound is. It took a while getting used to not having a 15" speaker vibrating my trouser legs, but I love it. I must admit the rig is not quite loud enough to keep up with a heavy hitting drummer - I've tried it in another lineup.
 
#11
Helldad said:
One of the bands I play in is a Invalid Link Removed - keys, guitar and me (bass). Drums and anything else are on backing tracks. We do mainly small rooms, and the synth, 3 vocals and backing tracks go through two Bose L1 systems with double subs. I also plug my P-bass straight into one of the Bose "sticks" - no bass amp. We often get comments on how clear our sound is. It took a while getting used to not having a 15" speaker vibrating my trouser legs, but I love it. I must admit the rig is not quite loud enough to keep up with a heavy hitting drummer - I've tried it in another lineup.
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At practice I run bass, keys, and vocals through my cab. It is easier to run my pre-amp through the board and mix it all there and send it to the power amp for my cab, than to set up the whole PA. I might consider running the keys through my cab live depending on which head I want to use, but not vocals.
 
#12
nick98338 said:
You may have gathered, by now, that going through a sansamp type device into a PA type amplifier (the electronics part) works just fine. It's the PA speaker cabinets that may be questionable. If the PA speakers can reproduce low freqs well, then you're OK.
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Agreed. In my case my bands mains could not handle the lows even thou We don't play at a real high volume. I needed powered mains to get what I needed. After pricing them a new head and cab were as much if not cheaper and easier to get around with.I would also of been limited to using my bands PA which sometimes we dont need when we have house sound.
 
#13
I'm going to disagree with everyone else.....to a certain extent.

For years I didn't own a bass amp. I used a Zoom 503 amp simulator into a Behringer powered PA speaker. It sounded better than a lot of combo amps. It worked fine for acoustic type gigs and projected surprisingly well. But it did lack a little bit of low end, and didn't have enough power to keep up with a drummer, even a fairly quiet one. I used the same setup as an electric guitar and acoustic guitar amp too.

For use as a stage monitor, it works fairly well. It will give you a slightly more accurate representation of your FOH sound than a bass amp (if you are DI'd too). But since you won't hear your tone with subs in it...it still lacks a little low end.
 
#14
I went without a rig for years, and only used my pa for FOH, and sent the bass to the monitors for stage volume. It works fine. Now, it will change the way you play a little, and sometimes for the better. Bass, directly into a mixer, has no effects, or compression on it. You have to even things out in your playing. If your FOH cabs will produce a reasonable sound, you'll sound just fine out front. The stage monitors usually are limited quite a bit (regular bar band stuff, not superstar gear) in their capability to reproduce bass guitar, especially the low end. If you can do without that on stage, no problem. The good news: you can use that same power amp, with a bass pre-amp when you get the funds. Mix it with a good bass cab and have good tone onstage, and off. For practice, and at low volumes, playing direct into the pa is fine.
 

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