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not enough low end- help needed!

Primate

Primate

May 16, 2005
67
0
#1
I had another thread somewhat related to this but I have been doing a lot of thinking and have come up with a few problems and questions and doing something wrong. My problem is that the lows being produced by my bass are not coming out clear and booming enough. I run the current rig of a Fender Bassman 300 into 2 2x12s and 2 4x10s. I use a boss GT-6 for my distortion- which works great and doesnt cut low end, but when running my amp at high volumes, I can't produce a clean low that normally should be able to be felt in the chest. The way I have the eq on my bass are all knobs at 0 and input volume all the way up. On the amp I'm using the maximum master volume, regular volume of about 3 or 4, bass at 1 and no compression. The EQ on the GT-6B is all at about 0 too - I zeroed everything out to maybe find a solution but nothing seems to be working yet. I've seen plenty of guys in other bands only using 1 4x10 and being able to produce lows that I cannot. I'm also pretty sure it isn't the distortion causing it as the same thing happens when i turn the distortion off.

if anyone has any idea at all to what im doing wrong it would be soooooo appreciated, this has been bugging me for quite a while but I haven't really been able to find a solution. Thanks!
 
#2
Let me see if I got this right... You have got 16 10" speakers and 4 12" dito? And you have a puny Fender head to push all these acres of cone area with? :hmm: ;)
Get an amp - a real amp if you need bottom! You'll be amazed, is my guess.

Alexander from Sweden
 
#3
Considering the power of your amp, use LESS cabinets. That's right. Try to balance your setup so you do not split power across your speakers so much they are all underpowered. This often leads to unbalanced sounds - such as an absence of clear lows.

A single 4x10 should be quite enough boom if you are not playing in a stadium or something. I have no clue about the ohm rating of the speakers, but you definately plug too much cabs to not enough power.

Also, the chest shake test only works once you're a few feet away from your amp, facing the FRONT of it. Otherwise you'll most certainly conclude there is not enough power while you are actually drowning a lot of the other instruments.
 
#4
I'm curious as to how that conglomeration is wired. If all the cabs are 8 ohm and parallel wired that's a 1.3 ohm load, and if any are less than 8 ohms the load's going to be lower still. If they're cobbled up with a series/parallel cable rig one mistake in the wiring would put one or more of the cabinets out of phase, and the speakers would be cancelling each other's output.
 
#5
4- 4 10's ? WoW!!! It sounds to me like you may not have enough power to get the sound you need. I use an amp that is bi-amped using a 2-10 cab and a 2-15 cab. It has about 600 watts to the 2-15 cabs and about half that to the 2-10 cab. I can drown out a full blown drum solo in our 1200 square foot practice studio.(my drummer hates that) I also use a sonic maximizer. Those things are great!!! If you have 4 4-10 cabs then you should have more than enough cone surface area to get the sound you need. Also you can never have too much amplifier power. It takes a lot of power to make low tones cleanly and loud. There are also lots of other things that can affect your sound. Speaker type, ohms, Wire size of your speaker cable,cabinet type,ect,ect,ect.Keep searching. Hope this helps a little. Good luck in your quest for the ultimate tone.
 
#6
On the 300 Pro, setting the Bass knob in the middle (5-6) is the flat sending. Setting the bass knob on 1 is essentially cutting all of the low end! It sounds to me, based on your post, that you are probably cutting the EQ on everything. Try setting everything flat first. Flat doesn't nescessarily mean "0".
Also try eliminating the pedal from the signal chain. Of course, with that many cabinets, you may be totally destroying your power amp transformer if the load is less than 2 ohms! My guess is that your load is way too low & you may already have killed your transformer!
 
#7
Primate said:
I had another thread somewhat related to this but I have been doing a lot of thinking and have come up with a few problems and questions and doing something wrong. My problem is that the lows being produced by my bass are not coming out clear and booming enough. I run the current rig of a Fender Bassman 300 into 2 2x12s and 4 4x10s. I use a boss GT-6 for my distortion- which works great and doesnt cut low end, but when running my amp at high volumes, I can't produce a clean low that normally should be able to be felt in the chest. The way I have the eq on my bass are all knobs at 0 and input volume all the way up. On the amp I'm using the maximum master volume, regular volume of about 3 or 4, bass at 1 and no compression. The EQ on the GT-6B is all at about 0 too - I zeroed everything out to maybe find a solution but nothing seems to be working yet. I've seen plenty of guys in other bands only using 1 4x10 and being able to produce lows that I cannot. I'm also pretty sure it isn't the distortion causing it as the same thing happens when i turn the distortion off.

if anyone has any idea at all to what im doing wrong it would be soooooo appreciated, this has been bugging me for quite a while but I haven't really been able to find a solution. Thanks!
Click to expand...
:eek: 2 2X12s AND 4 4X10s? Are you playing football stadiums with no PA support?
 
#13
I'm with Bill. If you have that much cone area and no low end it's probably a phase problem. Get a 9v battery and touch the terminals across the end of the speaker lead. Make sure that all the speakers in all the cabs all move the same way when you put the +ve terminal on the tip of the speaker lead. Doesn't matter if they all move inwards or all move out, just as long as they all move the same way.
 
#14
its not exactly like im not getting any low end... its kind of hard to explain, it is kind of like when you plug into a practice amp turn it up all the way and let loose with an open low B string, how it comes out distorted, but not like a gain distortion but like, the speakers can't handle it type of distortion if that makes sense. I know that these speakers should be able to handle some low end.
 
#16
^well i assumed since the speakers seemed overpowerd by bass, that I would try cutting it on the Fenders preamp and keeping it flat on the gt6b and my bass but that didnt seem to work, ive tried a few other things but i never really had enough time to fool around with it at practice.

I'm almost positive it isn't a technical problem, and that I'm just doing something wrong, but i can't quite put my finger on it.
 
#18
Primate said:
its not exactly like im not getting any low end... its kind of hard to explain, it is kind of like when you plug into a practice amp turn it up all the way and let loose with an open low B string, how it comes out distorted, but not like a gain distortion but like, the speakers can't handle it type of distortion if that makes sense. I know that these speakers should be able to handle some low end.
Click to expand...

Ok. That sound to like you're almost certainly running out of steam with your amp. Although those 300w tube amps go loud the manufacturer rates them at 300w because they are 300w, ie you get 300 reasonably clean watts and then things are going to get loose and dirty. Those low notes are asking the amp for everything it's got and then some. If you want loud and deep, clean and tight bass you're probably looking for a solid state amp. Can you get hold of a big power amp (rent one, try one in a shop?) and maybe use your fender as a preamp via the effects loop to drive it? Then you'll know for sure if that's the issue.
 
#19
The 0x said:
Get a second amp (possibly a solid state amp), use it for just lows only through the 2x12s, and run it CLEAN. Then use the 300T as your high amp, cut the lows, and boost the mids & treble. Use this amp for effects and distortion.

You'll thank me later.
Click to expand...

I was doing that with an Ampeg B2RE, but that crapped out on me so now I have to fix it, so my options for amps are pretty much limited to 1.

edit:

I've only been practicing with 2 cabinets and experiencing the same problems, so unless 300 watts tube isnt enough to power 8 ohm cabs then it probably is something else im guessing, but im not going to overlook that possiblilty.,

i appreciate everyone responding to this, thank you for taking the time to help me out.
 
#20
Primate said:
I I've only been practicing with 2 cabinets and experiencing the same problems, so unless 300 watts tube isnt enough to power 8 ohm cabs then it probably is something else im guessing, but im not going to overlook that possiblilty.
Click to expand...


Not meaning to be pedantic but it doesn't sound like you've quite got it nailed. If you're running two eight ohm cabs that will give you a 4 ohm load. I imagine the bassman has an impedance selector on the back that you would then set to 4 ohms. You want to make sure you have this straight as you can damage the ouput transformer, the most expensive component in the amp, if you get it wrong. When the impedance is correctly set (ie matches the cabs) the amp will put out 300w into either load (4 ohms or 8 ohms).

300w isn't much power. The difference is that with a solid state amp you can't push them too hard because it will sound awful as it starts clipping. The 300w tube amp sounds louder as it clips/compresses much more gracefully and still sounds nice as you push it. But for serious low end, 300w isn't much.
 

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