Turn Amp Backwards On Stage

[Bassquest]

I remember years ago seeing a band that had the bass amp turned to the back of the stage. I assume this was to take advantage of the acoustics of the wall at the back to get a louder or fuller sound. I think he was using one of the old Ampeg B12's or B15's fliptop amps with an Ampeg scroll bass. I played for the inmates at a jail once and had to use their 25 watt amp so I turned it around facing the concrete wall behind. I think it helped to make the bass sounder louder. Anyone have thoughts or experiences doing this?

 

[MrBKerth]

Just tried this today, seemed to fill the room better (or at least where I was standing)

 

[seamonkey]

The upper mids beam out of the typical bass speaker an pummel a few people in the audience who happen to be in it's path.
Turning it around allows the mids to disperse

 

[jaywa]

My lead guitarist does this all the time... by our request.

He's one of these guys who feels he needs volume to "get his tone" so this way he can turn his arena stack up to where he feels it needs to be and not kill the rest of the band (or the audience) with volume.

It looks a little weird but I'm a lot more about saving my hearing and protecting our FOH mix than how a guitar amp looks onstage.

 

[claudel]

I saw Roy Buchanan in an all ages matinee at the Silver Dollar in Georgetown 50 years ago and he pointed his amp towards the back of the stage to spare those up front...

 

[JimmyM]

I don't see the point when it comes to bass. I've never been drilled by high end with a bass amp the way I've been drilled with guitar amps.

 

[T-Bird]

Hi.

I don't see the point when it comes to bass.

+1, me neither.

If You can position the cab in a way it faces a corner to make a horn, you may gain some SPL and distortion reduction on certain frequencies, but other than that, making he bass amp harder for the musicians to hear and turning it up because of that just creates more problems on-stage than it is supposed to solve.

Guitar cabs, about as opposite of that as can be .

Regards
Sam

 

[mccartneyman]

This was a common trick when I started playing in 1965. Most all the local guys faced their cabs toward the wall at an angle, usually toward the drummer. It did improve sound. I was using a 215 cab with JBLs, but lots of guys with the old Bassman 212 cab did the same. Bear in mind that this was when bands played at reasonable a volume without mics on instruments or drums and usualy without vocal monitors.

 

[will33]

I don't see much benefit to this with a bass rig either. On bass, it's not so much getting blasted with highs on center, it's losing them off center. This is why it can be hard to hear definition your sound with something like a 410 when you're standing close to it and your ears are above it. The uppermid/definition portion of your tone hits you in the knees. Tiltbacks, stands, or taller cabs can all help with this.

On guitar on the other hand it can have benefits, help bounce the sound around instead of pinning the ears back of the poor soul who's stuck in front of the cabs and losing highs/having muddy tone off to the sides. It's why openback guitar cabs can work better in smaller rooms. Gets a wall bounce off the back side and the sound is more "all around" instead of blasting in one spot.

 

[rtslinger]

I have not turn a bass amp but I have turned Subs to face a solid wall

 

[gareth dunster]

The backside of a closed back speaker generally sounds pretty muddy. If that's your sound already its not such a problem but bouncing sound off walls is usually a recipe for phase issues.

 

[will33]

I have not turn a bass amp but I have turned Subs to face a solid wall

Wall or corner loading subs has output benefits that are pretty well proven and pretty much can't be argued.

 

[will33]

The backside of a closed back speaker generally sounds pretty muddy. If that's your sound already its not such a problem but bouncing sound off walls is usually a recipe for phase issues.

Depends.....

This gets into the fact that the further away from a sound source (in a room, not outdoors with no boundries), the more you hear reflected, ambient room sound and the less you hear directly off the the speakers with no reflections between speaker and ear. The sealed guitar cab, has more of a hotspot out in the audience that "overpowers" the reflected sound at a further distance away.

For an easy-to-hear example of this, setup a guitar 412, turn it up to proper rock-n-roll volume, then get out in front of it as long as a typical guitar cord will let you (10-15ft.) and walk back and forth while playing. The hotspot on axis will be glaringly apparent. Then do the same with a 112 or vertically aligned 212. Then do the same with an openback cab placed a little ways in front of the back wall.

Experiments like this can be pretty enlightening. Of course, one must listen to this from the positions their audience is in, not the position the player is in, 6ft. in front of the speakers.

 

[Sheffield]

I've seen several pictures of Jah Wobble where he's done this with his SVT. If you're looking for a really, really dark dub bass sound, I'd guess this would assist with that; however, I can't imagine it being useful for normal applications.

 

[will33]

This of course is more apparent with instruments with higher frequency content (like guitar), and of course changes again once you put a mic on said speaker setup and send it to other speakers that are designed to take what they're fed and spread it widely, and of course changes yet again when you take said sound source and crank it to level that has sound blasting all over the room, both direct and indirect.


Most of what we hear at any performance is "out of phase", whether it be and acoustic duo at a coffeehouse with 2 speakers, or a Monsters of Rock concert, unless you happen to be equidistant from all the sound sources in the venue....a formidable task indeed.

 

[all_grown_up]

I have a recollection that Jack Casady did this when playing with the Jefferson Airplane. but why he would have done it at an out door gig I couldn't say. Haven't seen anyone else do it.

 

[fjadams]

This was fairly common when I was in bands in the mid/late 60s. I used to face it towards the wall so I cold turn it up louder, back then I believed the best tone came when it was running full.

Also,helped as back then stage monitors were few and far between.

 

[Ric5]

About 10 years ago I went to an open jam and there was an SVT bass amp turned backwards ... It totally sucked ...

 

[Steve Dallman]

It was done in the mid-late 60's to try to get more bass from marginal bass amps. It wasn't to deal with high end as bass players didn't use any high end...yet. By using the room as a horn, we hoped to be heard as we struggled with underpowered bass amps.

 

[alembicguy]

Years ago when ACDC played on Saturday Night Live they had all of the guitar amps turned backwards so not to kill the studio audience but I personally have never played a situation that it would have benefited me or the audience.