Using bass cab as monitor???

Ok, this is a bit weird. We are playing a going away gig for the small brew-pub where we hosted an open mic night for them on Friday nights for about 3-years or so. Covid-19 has put them out of business and that's the last day they will be open.

We are going to be playing outside for this one from 4 pm to 8 pm. We will not have all our PA gear with us that we normally do. Normally we have 5 monitors besides the mains, and it looks like we'll only have 3. That means I'll probably have to share a monitor with the guitarist who will be standing at least 6-feet and maybe 8-feet away on the other side of the drums. Nobody will be close to me.

I have a couple of 4 ohm Eden EX112 cabs that I used to use for small and medium gigs. It is of course un-powered and our PA set up only uses powered speakers. I can take one of either two different amps - one is 225-watts rms @4 ohms and the other is 400-watts @4 ohms to drive it. Plan on running an instrument cord or a speaker cord from the board to the effects-return of my amps, effectively by-passing the preamp of my amp and just using the power section. The cab itself will handle 350-watts rms, so I could use either amp.

Since we are going to be outside on Saturday (June 27th) the only wall the sound has a chance of bouncing off will be about 20-ft from the right side of the stage (I'll be on the left) and at 90° to it. Will my single Eden EX-112 do the trick for a monitor? And how much power do I need to use? I don't want to take it if it's not going to help.

The 225-watt amp is a class D Eden amp but I'm not sure 225-watts rms is going to be enough. I'm sure the 400-watt Eden amp will do the trick but it's 19-lbs instead of 4.7-pounds and the amp I'll use for my bass is ~36-lbs in its rack. So I'd rather use the light one if it's enough. I have an amp stand that will hold it OK. It's going to be about a foot off the ground and angled at 45°, but I think that's OK.

So...what do you guys think? If you're reading this after June 27, the gig has already happened. I'm posting it on the 24th.

Thanks!
Dan

 

Thanks for that @Wasnex. I don't think I'm going to get a chance to try it because the board is at the guitarists house and nobody is visiting each other's houses at this point.

The EX-112 cabs don't have an adjustable tweeter. They use a whizzer cone that I was highly suspect of until I played and gigged with it for bass. It actually has a very smooth and nice upper mid and high frequency response. It also has a flat response curve in comparison to the XLT cabs you've used. The XLT cabs have a mid-hump that is specifically there to get the bass heard with good definition. These don't have that and I specifically dial in a little boost (up to about 1:30) at ~250Hz to approximate the sound of the XLT cabs. These EX-112 cabs are much more like the Eden XST cab designs.

I was/am leary of inputting the signal from the board into the instrument input of either amp because I didn't want to screw up the volume or sound of the mix coming from the board. Stacking preamp signal into more preamp signals can really muck up the sound. It would give me the ability to adjust the mix though as I'll have at least one semi-parametric control on each amp. The 400-watt amp's semi-parametric across all frequencies and the 225-watt one has two semi-parametrics, but they top out at 2KHz.

Basically the 225-watt one has one semi-parametric for low-mid frequencies and one for hi-mids with a little bit of overlap at the junction. No idea where the treble frequency is defined. The treble is a shelving EQ. Unlike Eden when David was still there, Marshall does a very abbreviated manual with surprisingly little specific information and doesn't define it for me.

You know I do have a WTDI which is a dead quiet DI with a built-in Eden preamp that can be toggled on or off (pass through with no preamp). It has a 1/4" unbalanced in and then both a balanced amphenol connector out and a 1/4" unbalanced out. Not sure is would actually work turned around backwards. Since I don't have a balanced input on it, would it do any good to run an instrument cord from the board to my WTDI and then a patch cord into the amp input?

Other speaker options I have are an acoustic B410, a GK115bpx (very boomy cab), a Sunn B202 (212 cab which will only handles 100-watts rms). Actually, I could also grab my DNS210 which is the clearest sounding and flattest frequency response across the board. I hesitate to use any of these because that are big, heavy, and I'll have to put them on an amp stand in front of me facing me at a 45° angle. My DNS-210 is a good 3" or more taller than most 210's because of its flared and textured shelf porting. Also even my smallest amp could easily blow out that Sunn cab. The EX112 has a very small footprint, will handle 300-watts rms, and is the lightest of the bunch by far if I could get that to work OK.

I actually have the WT500/800 amp I'm going to use over at the other bands studio right now and will have to pick that up for the gig. I might be better off asking my buddy there if I can borrow one of his JBL 12" with horn powered monitors for the day. It would eliminate my otherwise questionable connections. I just hate to do that because we haven't been practicing since the pandemic hit and it's pretty presumptuous of me to ask to use one band's gear for another band's gig. He knows the rest of the band because he's subbed for our normal drummer before, and he'd probably do it. He's a helluva nice guy, even though he is a drummer

 

Thanks @musicman7722. Don't have the stands to do that. The stands will be used for the mains. That was a good thought but I doubt if the guitarist will let his personally owned monitor go anywhere except right in front of him.

 

Thanks @two fingers. I have run through the PA before, but I'm actually going to use my DNS-410 cab with my 800-watt WT500/800 for this gig. I don't get much chance to use it anymore because my DNS-210 will handle any indoor venues. It's also a crazy loud cab. So I primarily pull out my DNS-410 when we are playing outside and we are playing outside for this one. So, I'll be using that. Won't be taking the 5-string though because won't need it for this gig.

 

I'd actually be afraid to use my Sunn 212 because it only handles 100watts, and I've driven it into farting noises before. I do have two of the Eden EX112 cabs, but both are 4 ohms, so I can't use both in either of my two lower wattage amps (225-watts and 400-watts). The only amp I can plug both into is my WT500/800 because its a dual powerblock amp and can do 4 ohms in each power channel...but I'm using that in bridged mode to power my normal bass cab. I think I'll give the single 112 a try though if I can't borrow a monitor from the drummer of my other band.