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Speaker farting.
- Thread starter Fingerpickingood
- Start date
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
I have the volume knob cranked, both tone knobs cranked, and the blend knob slightly in favor of the bridge pickup. That's on my main bass. My other bass (very recently obtained) is still a work in progress. It has a volume (cranked), blend (again in favor of the bridge pickup), and treble, mid, and bass, all cranked.
In my experience, while they sound pretty good, Acoustic brand's typical consumer cabs don't have what it takes to keep things going at band volume.
scottfeldstein
Roots and fifths and a little extra.
Yeah, are those EQ knobs boost and cut? I thought these were passive basses, though...
Therein lies the problem methinks. that, combined with your gain on the amp up high. Try turning them all to noon. If not enough volume, up the master. If that doesn't work, a 2nd cab may well be in order (or get the band to turn down). Two 4X10's is usually pretty BA. As stated previously, there are better cab brands available..
There's the problem. Set the bass knob on the bass more towards the middle of Its range. You're sending way more LF than the speakers can handle. Some of your farting could also be the amp clipping from that huge LF signal boost.
I'm glad I got up the nerve to ask this question. I never considered the signal from the basses. I'll try cutting the low on the one bass, and turning a little more toward the bridge pickups.
You have active basses. They have a little preamp inside and take a battery. Their "tone knobs" work like the bass and treble knobs on your amp, where "even" is in the middle and "cranked" is usually way too much.
I knew they take a nine volt battery, put I never considered an internal preamp. The more ya know. I never thought for a second that going from guitar to bass was going to be easy, but I'm really starting to see what an entirely different world it truly is.
I'd say the problem is the acoustic cab. Guitar centers house brand acoustic cabs never got loud enough for me. Acoustic control Corp cabs from the 70s rock though. I'd say find yourself anything other than acoustic cabs!
I had one of these cabs that also farted out pretty bad. Took it into an amp tech and he found that one of the cones had ripped ever so slightly. I had taken the thing apart and been unable to find this tear. I had not pushed this cab with anything even close to 400 watts but still managed to tear it. I think maybe they just aren't t he best cones? I'm not sure.
Two more things to check are your bass' battery (when they get low, they cause the bass to distort) and if the preamp has a volume trim pot, turn that down.
Passive basses (don't use a battery) work like guitars, where tone knob cranked Is the "whole tone" and rolling down the tone knob only cuts treble, can't add any.
Active basses (the battery powers an internal preamp located inside the control cavity) work like eq's, where in the middle is "even" and they can boost frequencies as you turn them up, and cut them as you turn them down. Many use a center detent control so you can feel where the middle is.
A lot of these preamps have pretty extreme ranges, like 12 to 18db.
Cranking the bass knob on the bass can ask the amp to put out over 10 times the power in the low frequencies as compared to the mids and highs. This can stress the hell out of speakers (farting), as well as send the amp into clipping as well.
Don't be scared of the knobs, they're there to make different sounds, but it's good to stay away from the extremes. Start with them in the middle, then focus at least as much on turning down tones you don't want to hear as you do cranking tones you do want to hear.
Subtractive EQ is the best EQ!
If the high pass filter is good then a 40hz filter should be good for a 4 or 5 string bass. No reason to cut off your low E string sound with a 5 string bass. On the other hand, if the 40hz filter is no good for the 5 string then I would use the 60 on the 4.
If you do a 40hz HPF on a 5er, your strings will sound uneven because the B is getting only the second harmonic and higher whereas all the other strings are getthing their full range reproduced.
maybe a compressor or limiter ... help squash those extra loud notes a bit ..?? is the Bass cranked up on your active basses ..?? that might make things fart also ..?
