Re-evaluating amp watts I need at live shows

[Jim Carr]

I am just glad that the "you only need 'x' watts folks into an 'abc,' are not passing amp legislation any time soon.

All you guys can get by with what you can get by with, and that's great.
I trust your judgement of your situation.

I have been a bassist since 1963. I trust my own judgement for my situation, not yours.
Play what you like, but don't act like what I need is not what I need, OK?

 

[Stumbo]

. Some company needs to make a bass specific wedge that can handle some power and has NEO speakers in it. Home run if the wedge is powered.

Check out Revsound's 1x10 and 1x12 neo bass wedges.

 

[40Hz]

maybe we should all turn down?

Oh man! If you’re going to confuse the issue with logic we might as well abandon this thread right now.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I have been playing bass for many years and have owned all types of bass amp/cabinet combinations.
Currently own three 500-800 watt class D amps and one SVT head and a Tech 21 RBI in a rack with a 1000 watt crown power amp. I have multiple cabinets, SVT 8x10, SWR 8x10, GK Neo 2x12, Eden 4x10,
EA Whizzy 10 and Trace Elliot 2x8, I play in 4 different bands playing different styles of music and use whatever gear I feel is appropriate for the gig for each band.

Last week at one of my band's rehearsal I was in a rush and grabbed my pedalboard case (which also houses one of my D class heads) and headed out to rehearsal. Open up the pedalboard case and the class D head isn't in the case. I had played a gig a few nights before at a venue that has an excellent backlne,(brand new SVT full rig as the backline) so I had taken my class D head out of my pedalboard case. So I'm screwed. At this particular band's rehearsal there are two guitarist who both use tube amps, Orange head/cabinet, PRS combo amp. The drummer is a ROCK drummer and the band plays guitar based rock music, Its loud but not crushing.

One of the guitarists says he has something I can use. He hands me a 50 watt 4 channel PA head. I'm thinking this is going to suck but it's better than nothing because the PA at the rehearsal space is really only for vocals. There are two Peavey 2x10 bass cabinets at the rehearsal space I stack vertically and I connect the no-name PA head to the speakers and proceed. The PA head only had bass and treble controls for each channel as well as a gain knob (no clip light on the channel to set the gain). No master eq just a master volume.

I turn the bass and treble halfway up and and the gain halfway up too. I use my preamp pedals on my pedalboard to shape my bass sound so wasn't looking to use the PA tone controls. Next I turn up the master volume up hoping for the best. I tell the band to play a song while I make some adjustments.
So... with the master volume turned up to the 1 o'clock position I'm amazed that the bass fit in the mix just fine with this low wattage head! At rehearsal my bandmates do not play quiet. The rehearsal room is 20x40 which is a decent size and not dampened in any way.

Now I'm thinking it's time to completely re-evaluate my amplifier needs. I wish there was a commercially available class D power amp in a super compact form I could just mount to my pedalboard. I think something in the 200-300 watt range would be able to address most of the gigs I do. If playing an outdoor show I could use one of my higher powered heads.

There's the Ant. It looks dope. I think it's 200 watts. It's a pedal. It's an amp. Its looks like an ant compared to the elf.

The Ant

Yeah, 200w

 

[wyleeboxer]

I think there is a difference between “loud “ and “headroom “ and loud to me is more for rock and roll heavy guitars etc.. I like headroom for clean lows and I let my jazz bass do my dirty work. Right now I’m using my backup bq500 after I sold my BB800. The BB800 had headroom to spare but the bq500 gets loud and has some headroom too, but all depending on speaker choices for each gig. Jury is still out until my outdoor gig in few weeks if the bq500 watts is enough? But for now it gives me my clean lows for bar gigs before power amp clipping hell kicks in!

 

[bordinco90]

The markbass blackline 250 is a really nice amp. I love mine. I also had the nano mark 300 and really liked it.

 

[bordinco90]

I also bought a Harbinger Vari 2312 12 inch PA speaker. I've played a few gigs with it (plugged straight in) and have been impressed with the volume and tone of the speaker. I bought it for $200 new.

 

[iiipopes]

THIS
No amp needed. No speakers on stage. Just clutters things up.

Thanks.

 

[byacey]

In a test setup, I think many people would be shocked at how loud an efficient speaker box is at 1 watt RMS of power.

 

[TinIndian]

I think a 100 watt tube amp is enough to cover 95% of my gigs. I even have one thats around 70 watts I am going to try.

 

[juancaminos]

My years of experience tells me that I am good between 200 and 400 watts and a 410 minimum. That is with the equipment available to me. Of course everyone is different as this thread shows.

 

[nomadh]

It's interesting how this has drifted over the years. Used to be you could comfortably fill a high school gymnasium with just 100W of tube bass amp, and that was up against two 50W marshalls and/or hiwatts, and a drummer hitting just as hard as they possibly could...

I have not played a good 50 w tube bass amp but I can picture it possibly working. And my rule of thumb I've found is it can take 200+ solid state watts to replace 50 tube watts.

 

[DJ Bebop]

To the OP: By the way, I don't know how old you are, but when the guitarist Leslie West was with Mountain (late '60s-mid '70s), I believe he used a Sunn PA head for his amp.

Yep!

“Mountain's first gig was at Fillmore West in 1969,” remembers Leslie West. “I had been using Marshall amps, and that’s what I expected to find when I opened a bunch of cartons that had arrived from the airport, but instead I got a Sunn - and it wasn’t even a guitar amp. The cartons contained a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 cabinets, and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can get a good tone out of this thing.’ But the head had four microphone inputs and a master volume control, and when I plugged in and turned it up I got this amazing tone, which became my sound.

"And remember, this was years before amps had master volume controls. The head had huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears even with the treble all the way up. That’s the amp I used on Mountain Climbing, which included ‘Mississippi Queen.’”

https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/leslie-west-decodes-his-mississippi-queen-tone

 

[whero]

... Used to be you could comfortably fill a high scho ol gymnasium with just 100W of tube bass amp ...

Yep. I remember the late 1970s when I upgrading a 100W tube amp head (that I had used in bars, school halls and even for a show in the Auckland town hall) to a 200W head (with a massive 2x15 cabinet) and thinking: "Wow, I'll never need all this power".

 

[andrus108]

I have two amps, Ampeg B25 (ca. 50W) and old GK 400RB (up to 200W). I've gigged both, and I didn't feel like I need more volume. Also I recently switched my cab from a 2x10 with Deltas to 2x12 with Basslites, and now even on the Ampeg I still have volume to spare.

 

[Zbysek]

I wish there was a commercially available class D power amp in a super compact form I could just mount to my pedalboard. I think something in the 200-300 watt range would be able to address most of the gigs I do. If playing an outdoor show I could use one of my higher powered heads.

There are some which haven't been mentioned yet:

• GSS Baby Sumo
• SWR Amplite

 

[retslock]

I’m puzzled by the watts race myself. I’ve been playing since the ‘60s and for the early years I used a Music Man HD130 head with 2 x JBL 15s then later a MM Solid State 115B with an EV TL cab. I’ve never run either of those set-ups higher than 5 and usually I run it around 3. I’ve never had a problem. Never drowned out, ever and I’ve worked with some loud guitar players. I don’t get it. I still have the 115B and the TL cab and nobody gets over that ever.

 

[Wadge]

What you stated is exactly my thinking now. Almost every show I do my amp/cabinet is basically a stage monitor. The FOH is doing the heavy lifting, that's why I'm interested in a smaller, lower wattage class D head I could pair with whatever cabinet I choose. I used to have an Eden 2x10 wedge cabinet I really liked except for how much it weighed. I used it at the front of the stage next to my vocal monitor and it sounded great. Some company needs to make a bass specific wedge that can handle some power and has NEO speakers in it. Home run if the wedge is powered.

When I was still using amps and cabs prior to going IEM I had gone from multiple cabs to a GX 2x10 which you could tilt back:

Gallien-Krueger - Lightweight 400-Watt 2x10-inch Bass Cab

I would put it in front of me, firing away from the audience and up towards my face. Being a NEO loaded cab it was pretty light (I could just about curl it with one arm). It was powered by a class D GK MB-500 amp. Small, portable and loud enough.

 

[Zbysek]

When I was still using amps and cabs prior to going IEM I had gone from multiple cabs to a GX 2x10 which you could tilt back:

Gallien-Krueger - Lightweight 400-Watt 2x10-inch Bass Cab

I would put it in front of me, firing away from the audience and up towards my face. Being a NEO loaded cab it was pretty light (I could just about curl it with one arm). It was powered by a class D GK MB-500 amp. Small, portable and loud enough.

I had this cab too. I really liked it...

 

[dwade]

Thanks.

It's the best way. Except out guitar player flipped out last year & started using a 112 again. Buy his volume is super quiet & he's IEM. He didn't like the modelers he was using but I think it's all in his head.

Buy seriously, even the arena acts have by & large gotten away from live amps onstage.