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Want to daisy chain without blowing up my rig. Help.

I

innisbass

Guest
Feb 27, 2012
8
4
49
#1
In this day and age volume is primarily a front of house affair since PAs have ridiculous output levels now. But what can I say... I am old fashioned. As such I am very wary of D.I. boxes. Maybe it's a quirk but I really want the audience to hear the actual sound of my speakers. Still, more often than not, sound folk want to D.I my bass into the mixer board. I often acquiesce which means my cabinet ends up as a glorified stage monitor. It's sad because it's a 70s cab with really sweet drivers and tons of character. So, on the eve of playing a relatively big outdoor festival I have decided to reinforce that cab by daisy chaining a bunch of other stuff to it and insisting on having it all mic'd. If I am not successful in my insistence then I will just turn it all up to 11. Done with D.I. boxes.

Problem here is matching impedance. I am going through a 400W @ 4 ohms head into a 200W @ 8 ohms 2x15 cabinet. That's my tried and true setup. I am aware that I am only outputting 200W because of the different impedance. Ok, so I want to add another 15" cabinet, it's 200W @ 8 ohm which would bring the total impedance of both cabinets to 4 ohm and then I would be outputting the whole 400W right? Up to this point I think I'm safe. Now, here's where it gets tricky. I want to go from the output of that second cabinet into a 100W @ 4 ohm combo amp. I intend to use this combo amp to color my sound a bit more (it has a really sweet overdriven sound... almost tube-like). Is this a good idea or am I asking for trouble here? Should I bring a fire extinguisher?
 
#2
Bad idea, very bad idea, fire X required.

Outdoor festival has 5 or 10,000W of PA. At least 80% of that is going into amping your bass and the kick drum. Your choices are DI or mic your cab.

Depending on the soundman you might get either or both. You are at their mercy, play nice and you may get a mic.

If you turn it all up to 11 you will accomplish nothing more than making your sound muddy.
 
#3
innisbass said:
In this day and age volume is primarily a front of house affair since PAs have ridiculous output levels now. But what can I say... I am old fashioned. As such I am very wary of D.I. boxes. Maybe it's a quirk but I really want the audience to hear the actual sound of my speakers. Still, more often than not, sound folk want to D.I my bass into the mixer board. I often acquiesce which means my cabinet ends up as a glorified stage monitor. It's sad because it's a 70s cab with really sweet drivers and tons of character. So, on the eve of playing a relatively big outdoor festival I have decided to reinforce that cab by daisy chaining a bunch of other stuff to it and insisting on having it all mic'd. If I am not successful in my insistence then I will just turn it all up to 11. Done with D.I. boxes.

Problem here is matching impedance. I am going through a 400W @ 4 ohms head into a 200W @ 8 ohms 2x15 cabinet. That's my tried and true setup. I am aware that I am only outputting 200W because of the different impedance. Ok, so I want to add another 15" cabinet, it's 200W @ 8 ohm which would bring the total impedance of both cabinets to 4 ohm and then I would be outputting the whole 400W right? Up to this point I think I'm safe. Now, here's where it gets tricky. I want to go from the output of that second cabinet into a 100W @ 4 ohm combo amp. I intend to use this combo amp to color my sound a bit more (it has a really sweet overdriven sound... almost tube-like). Is this a good idea or am I asking for trouble here? Should I bring a fire extinguisher?
Click to expand...

Not a good plan.

Better to get a splitter pedal, a Boss LS-2 will do, to split your bass signal between the two amps. Then, as they will both be miked, let the PA deal with balancing the levels.
 
#4
Agree with the above comments. To use another amp you really need to spilt your signal rather than daisy chain.

FWIW, It sound like you're partially doing this to spite the sound man because you're fed up with DI'ing. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but IME of playing multi-band festivals like this, if you're not headlining you may not have any say in the matter. The crew need to turn the stage around as quickly and economically as possible and catering for everybody's needs isn't always possible, so they need to work with what they know works to get you on the stage and playing as quickly as possible and sounding ok.

In the long run if you do insist on being mic'd in the future you will do well to supply your own microphones which may make the sound man more receptive your request. Also, if you have a specific sound that you want to translate to the FOH, talk to the guy. His job is afterall to make you sound good.
 
#5
Downunderwonder said:
Bad idea, very bad idea, fire X required.

Outdoor festival has 5 or 10,000W of PA. At least 80% of that is going into amping your bass and the kick drum. Your choices are DI or mic your cab.

Depending on the soundman you might get either or both. You are at their mercy, play nice and you may get a mic.

If you turn it all up to 11 you will accomplish nothing more than making your sound muddy.
Click to expand...
+1, though the average outdoor festival will run more like 30Kw of PA. Use your normal rig, mic it if you don't like DI. Even then you are at the mercy of the soundman, as what comes out of the PA is what he wants it to be, mic or not. The only cure for that is if the soundman works for you and knows how your tone should be presented.
 
#6
Thanks everyone for your replies. I will definitely refrain from setting the stage on fire (...and not in a good way). I'll cross my fingers and ask the soundman for a mic'd situation.
Just to get this straight: it is ok for me to setup that extra 15" right? It's just the combo amp that would be an issue right? But yeah, I am definitely not gonna mess around with that.
 
#7
innisbass said:
Thanks everyone for your replies. I will definitely refrain from setting the stage on fire (...and not in a good way). I'll cross my fingers and ask the soundman for a mic'd situation.
Just to get this straight: it is ok for me to setup that extra 15" right? It's just the combo amp that would be an issue right? But yeah, I am definitely not gonna mess around with that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, adding the extra cab won't be a problem and will get you your full 400w. And +1 for the mic/DI situation, if you're really wanting to reproduce the tone that comes out of your cabs and have it throught FOH, just get a really good mic (though as mentioned above, your tone is at the mercy of the guy manning the mixer). AKG and Audix, among others, make some killer mics for micing bass cabs.
 
#8
You can run whatever adds up to 4ohms but no more than that.

And +1 to all the above. It really doesn't matter how much rig you bring or how loud you crank it up, that PA can just plain bulldoze it if it wants to. Be cordial with the soundman and he might return the favor.
 
#9
I would use the single 15 and the guitar amp with splitter in "poorman's biamp" using the eq on each amp to lessen the blur in the middle for yourself. Sound guy should have filters to do a real biamp in the front, if he can be bothered, so it's in your interest to be friendly.

Less is more when you have a front system, just enough to hear each other with drumset being the moderator, unless monitors are crap and you need to play down to let singer hear himself. Less gives sound guy something to work with out front instead of fight with.
 
#11
Dual 15" has all the goods. Incredible cab. 1971 Kasino with original CTS speakers. Extra 15" is an aluminum cone Hartke (not my favorite, I sort of inherited it). I think I'll use those 2. The combo amp is an Ampeg BA115, so it's not a guitar amp. I love the tone on that little thing. It overdrives beautifully with very warm, tube-sounding harmonics.

There is no singer to worry about (THANK GOD). We're an instrumental stoney psych band... hence my obsession with vintage tone.

Ah... gone are the days when Jack Bruce filled the Royal Albert Hall with sound using 3 Marshall stacks (2 working, 1 as backup) and no FOH.
 
#14
"stoney instrumental" music?

that gives you some leeway as to appropriateness here. there's no reason for you to be louder than the drummer, and you very much do want to be in the PA, but multiple cabs, clean + dirty, stuff like that can be cool.

i like the idea of the one 2x15 rig, then send a signal (not from the cab, good god!) to the combo set up with a different sound, maybe even with pedals in front of it for overdrive.

your main amp should have a "line out" or "preamp out" or "slave out" on the back, which is not for speakers but is for running into the front of other amps. use that to go into the combo safely.

the amps should have XLR outs on the back; if you use those to go direct to the PA, you'll get "your tone" out front. you could also go direct from the cleaner stack (or even from the bass) for the fundamental lows and mic the combo for the character and effects.

the sound guy should be a little more amenable to all this because it'll still be easy to mix you guys, since he won't have to try and get vocals over top of all the racket.
 
#15
oh, and work this all out in the practice room ahead of time, including running it all to a PA; you don't want to discover a bunch of ground loop buzzes and non-working line out jacks on stage with the clock ticking!
 
#16
Hmmm... let me see if I got this right. I can run a line from my effects send jack on the back of my head (which acts as a line level output, I checked the manual) into the ampeg combo without worry? That sounds great! I'll experiment with that.
 
#17
innisbass said:
Hmmm... let me see if I got this right. I can run a line from my effects send jack on the back of my head (which acts as a line level output, I checked the manual) into the ampeg combo without worry? That sounds great! I'll experiment with that.
Click to expand...

Line level is going to be pretty hot running in the front end. Use the input pad and bring the gain up slowly. I'd be more inclined to split the instrument signal into each amp, or if one amp has 2 input jacks, plug your bass in one and run a cord from the 2nd jack over to the other amp. That'd act the same as jumpering the channels on the old bassmans and marshall amps.
 
#20
that line out from the one amp could go to a "power amp in" or "effects return" or "aux in" on the other; you won't get the controls on the second amp (except maybe volume) but if the signal is too loud to go in the front, it can work.
 

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