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using PA cabs in a bass rig

#61
BassHappy said:
It seems to happen a lot around here - but I find myself on the other side of conventional wisdom more than I like to admit.

My band, Happy the Man had purchased a couple of powered Yamaha A4115H PA speakers, with large casters, which Kit Watins used as the stage rig for his keyboards for a couple of years. When the band broke up the first time and Kit joined "Camel" in England - as part of the settlement, I inherited the cabinets. I still had a power conditioner, an Ashley SC-40 preamp and a DBX 163 peak limiter in a rack I had built, which also had a road case. I used the DBX only for hard limiting and for speaker protection from my former rig. So for giggles one day at band rehearsal - I plugged it all in, rolled the horn volume off put everything to "flat" on the Ashley preamp and checked them out.

To everyone's amazement - they sounded great, just clean Yamaha power and clean tight low end. No tube grit or anything but they were full, rich, deep and round on the bottom end - just the way I like it. I played around with the horn level, just giving each cabinet a pinch, and they really came alive. The band loved them and I had one for each side of the stage. We always had major PA support so this served only as a stage monitor for me. The cabinets had their own volume control so the guys on the other side could temper the cab to the volume they liked. Sorry, I am not picky at all in that respect. A stage monitor is a stage monitor for me, and as long as the bass is barking in the mains and sounds full and rich with minimal projection on stage, I am fine. The less stage projection you have - the more the bass can be cranked in the PA. The wheels also helped reduce the stage coupling. Worked quite well for me.

We had the original cardboard boxes they shipped in, so we trimmed off the top of the boxes neatly and slipped them over to use as covers. They stayed in perfect condition and we could easily cart them around - they were very light even with the power amps. At that time we were doing 4-7 shows a week and they served me very well for a quite a few years without problem one.

Happily, my ears are still in really good shape too, as I refused over my entire playing career to ever have my rig or even my monitors pointed directly at my ears. I loved the sound to be full but peripheral.

View attachment 889941

You can see the rig behind me here. Of course, there is a disclaimer. PRS #11 sounds incredible though anything you plug it into. So there is that....and of course YMMV.

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I had a pair of these same Yammies for several years. Got 'em basically for free, with blown horns. So, I pulled the horns, blocked off the holes, and bypassed the internal crossover. Used 'em for outdoor/dive bar/craphole gigs where I didn't want to take my "good" gear. Anyhoo, sound was pretty decent, just had to eq around the big boomy ports in the bottom.
 
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#62
Emanuel Apascaritei said:
Did you have a look a
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Downunderwonder said:
different drum, same tune. Very few bass cabs can produce 30hz in significant enough amount to be heard with the rest. More often those rigs get high passed to get rid of the evil murky rumble.

Do us all a favour and play some sinewaves. 60hz sounds like a low B. 30hz sounds like a low B after a night on the whiskey, a mere whisper. If you push it the distortion comes in as overtones.
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I know the difference. I've got a home theater setup with a couple of subs that easily reproduce a 15 hz tone at 105db. You can't hear a thing, but you feel like you're in a plane that suddenly drops 10,000 feet. 30hz can be heard, but it's even more felt and you almost can imagine structural damage happening in the room. My sliding glass doors like to resonate at about 30 hz. 60hz at the same volume is loud and it feels like it can bowl you over.
 
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#63
bryan gibson said:
I had a pair of these same Yammies for several years. Got 'em basically for free, with blown horns. So, I pulled the horns, blocked off the holes, and bypassed the internal crossover. Used 'em for outdoor/dive bar/craphole gigs where I didn't want to take my "good" gear. Anyhoo, sound was pretty decent, just had to eq around the big boomy ports in the bottom.
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Hey Bryan

Sounds like the same story as mine - the price is right when they are free, that is for sure! The DBX and a pinch of the horn really brought them into respectability I thought....But that is just me.

Glad to hear someone else had a time with them!
 
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#64
mojomike001 said:
I know the difference. I've got a home theater setup with a couple of subs that easily reproduce a 15 hz tone at 105db. You can't hear a thing, but you feel like you're in a plane that suddenly drops 10,000 feet. 30hz can be heard, but it's even more felt and you almost can imagine structural damage happening in the room. My sliding glass doors like to resonate at about 30 hz. 60hz at the same volume is loud and it feels like it can bowl you over.
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so plug your bass cab into the home theatre. You'll get a whole lot of nothing at 30hz unless you goose the volume but mind out or you'll blow it up.
 
#65
Back in the mid-late 70s the was a local band in the NJ/NY area, Rat Race Choir. Their bassist used a PA type double 15 scoop cabinet with a HF horn on top. He had the separate power amp and preamp setup, sounded decent. Similar to the one in this photo. I was using an Ashley preamp and crossover with a Yamaha stereo power amp driving two Bag End S18s for the lows and a Bag End D12 for the Mids/Highs. These were the older stained birch ply cabs. They were LOUD.
Scoop Bin.jpg
 
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#71
Cirk said:
Ok, this is probably going to cause some strong opinions, but here goes: I'm kicking around the idea of using a PA cab or two as cabs for my bass rig. I spoke with a gentleman named Vinny from zzounds yesterday, and he did not recommend this. Specifically, I was looking at the Mackie Thump 15" powered speakers. Another possible avenue is to use passive speakers with a power amp. For this rig, I'd use my trusty SansAmp RPM. What are your thoughts? Good idea, or would it not sound right? Thanks
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I'm running a Zoom B3 into a Presonus BlueTube into a EV ZLX15P powered speaker. I could even add a second one, since the B3 as well as the BlueTube are two channel each, so this would be 2x250W RMS. Bought the ZLX at something about 400 €. Weighs 19kg and goes down to 40Hz. Great value for the money, sounds great.

Downside is, you have to fiddle with volume controls on the back of the speaker, plus you have to take care of how much volume you sent into the speaker, as the clip protection is rather sensitive. That's one reason, why I'm using the Presonus: the inbuilt VU meters allow me to control the volume.

While I'm still very much a FRFR guy, I would, based on my experience, go with a power amp and passive speakers. Greenboy or Barefaced for example.
 
#73
Ron Johnson said:
It could work but it won't sound well. Once I was too lazy to bring my amp up three flights of stairs and I just plugged into the PA and it worked, but not the best tone. Just get a bass amp unless you don't care about efficiency or tone. This brings me back to a thread a long time ago that I wrote; I sold a 115 combo bass amp to some kid and then he told me he was going to use it for vocals...
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What was the PA? Have you ever done it with a decent PA cab?
 
#74
modulusman said:
What was the PA? Have you ever done it with a decent PA cab?
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I think it was one of those little harbinger PA's that a lot of people have. I don't remember much because I've only jammed with those guys a few times but it sounded decent as long as it was at low volumes. I would not recommend anything like that for gigging though. It only worked with this group's practice because they were smooth soul/r&b and the drummer used brushes. I'm sure a large PA used for venues would sound alright since a lot of people DI their heads to those already, but I'm assuming the OP is talking about a small rehearsal PA.

Edit: I just looked up the PA that the OP was talking about and it is pretty similar compared to what I used a few times. I would definitely not recommend that as a rig. For the same price he could have a good 115 combo at the least. I would understand if the situation was that he already owned said PA and didn't have the money for a rig. Then it would be alright to be thrifty and use the PA for a while until he could acquire a rig, but I don't think that's the situation.
 
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#75
mojomike001 said:
I know the difference. I've got a home theater setup with a couple of subs that easily reproduce a 15 hz tone at 105db. You can't hear a thing, but you feel like you're in a plane that suddenly drops 10,000 feet. 30hz can be heard, but it's even more felt and you almost can imagine structural damage happening in the room. My sliding glass doors like to resonate at about 30 hz. 60hz at the same volume is loud and it feels like it can bowl you over.
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Cool, but most people may find an experience like that uncomfortable. For us bassists, it's easy to assume everyone wants a gut thumping visceral brown note experience, but in reality, most audiences prefer something a bit less intense.

Regarding all this lust for 30Hz content, remember, the lower the frequency the longer the wave, and the longer the wave, the more problems with room resonances. That's one of the reasons PA guys high pass in the 60~80 Hz range.
 
#77
Emanuel Apascaritei said:
Sorry I have only read the first page and I'm really impressed about the negativity of using pa cabs for bass.

I did use them and never had a problem. It's like any other bass cab, if it's a bad speaker it will sound crap, of it's good it'll sound good. Same thing with bass cab.

Actually till now I only used pa speakers, active pa speakers for bass and bought my now rig (Tc electronic bh550 + PJB c4) cause I wanted a bass rig. And guess what, I have chosen my amp and cab because of their clean tone, most likely a good PA system.

And a 12" Mackey active can handle that low B without stress.
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Not all PAs are created equal. Some can, some won't. And don't forget that PAs are designed to cover all frequencies and make all instruments sound equally presented to as many seats in the house as possible, meaning there will be some compromises unless it's Danley or other high end system. A bass cab can be optimized for a specific tone, such as what one gets with the 'fridge.
 
#78
I have done it out of necessity once or twice and with appropriate PA speakers and some (particularly when there were no subs) reasonable control via high pass filtering/selective EQing it can work fine. I find that bass cabinets are at least an equal element in my sound equation with the bass and head, so "just any PA speaker" probably isn't going to be a first choice for me.

That having been said, I have played a number of large outdoor shows (e.g. Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival) where the monitors and FOH system were more than adequate for me with just a bass and BDDI, VT Bass V2 into a Radial JDI/Countryman 85 or Tone Hammer. In my opinion it just depends on the system you've got to work with and what your baseline for comparison is - some folks may hear a real improvement over their current bass rig while others may be sorely disappointed. YMMV!
 
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