Which amp heads are the top pedals platform

[dbflats]

Kinda the reverse of what OP is after, I routinely use my old Hartke Mosfet 7000 as a very fine "pedal platform" for guitar.

But back to bass, in all my decades of playing, one thing I'd never have considered is whether or not whatever amp I was using at the time would accept pedals. Was never a thing.

 

[Golgo13]

As a generality, amps that are heavily voiced typically don't make great pedal platforms with pedals that are also heavily voiced. Most overdrives are heavily voiced, the cascaded voicing elements often conflict and don't sound great.

This has been my experience with many different players and rigs over many years.

This is probably my problem cause i play on a fender rumble 500 v3 combo and my 2 main effects Aguilar Agro and Aguilar Fuzzistor sound realy bad . The Agro i can tweek something not that bad but the Fuzz sound like crap. I though it was because of the Digital thing and tubes be better but you telling me it's more about the voicing. Thanks lot !

 

[agedhorse]

This is probably my problem cause i play on a fender rumble 500 v3 combo and my 2 main effects Aguilar Agro and Aguilar Fuzzistor sound realy bad . The Agro i can tweek something not that bad but the Fuzz sound like crap. I though it was because of the Digital thing and tubes be better but you telling me it's more about the voicing. Thanks lot !

Probably nothing to do with "digital".

Try your pedal into the effects return and see if that gets you closer to the tone you are looking for.

 

[dannylectro]

For me since I've been using it for many years, the Aguilar TH 500 has been very collaborative with whatever I have thrown at it pedal wise.

Seconded. I use a Mesa TT for my "straight" bands (country & top 100) with a minimal board. For a dark alternative original band, I use a large & extensive pedal board into a TH 500 set for some grit and it sounds great with heavy distortion, flange, OC5, etc. pedals

 

[el murdoque]

One that comes to mind for a Frenchie:
GSS Baby Sumo. It's a simple, 600W poweramp, made in France.
No preamp, no color, just takes a signal and makes it loud.

I personally came to prefer an amp with a simple EQ. Actually, all I need in 99% of all cases is one parametric band. The sound for FOH is set on my pedalboard, and when I go out to the amp, I often need a little adjustment to marry the cabinet to the room, and that is very often either a little cut in the low mids or a little boost in the upper mids. Some tonal correction that is needed because of speaker placement and room layout and nothing I want to send to FOH.

Any amp head with sufficient power rating and neutral voicing will do for me.

 

[el murdoque]

This is probably my problem cause i play on a fender rumble 500 v3 combo and my 2 main effects Aguilar Agro and Aguilar Fuzzistor sound realy bad . The Agro i can tweek something not that bad but the Fuzz sound like crap. I though it was because of the Digital thing and tubes be better but you telling me it's more about the voicing. Thanks lot !

Between your Rumble, your Agro and your Fuzzistor you have exactly 0 digital components.

Class-D amplifiers are not called Class-D because they are digital. They are called Class D because at the time of invention, the letters A, B and C were already taken and the D was next in the alphabet. The class D concept was invented in the 50's, and the first commercial class D amplifiers were produced in the late seventies. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is an analog kind of ON/OFF thing that looks a lot like digital, but it's not.

 

[Grahams Groove]

As someone who uses a fair amount of effects, I'm in the camp that a relatively clean, dynamic, and neutral starting point is best. The easiest way for me to test that while trying different heads over the years was to dial in a head for my main bass (Jazz) first, and then run my P-bass and EBMM Sterling at those same settings. I know how my main jazz needs to sound for me to like an amp, and then the Sterling and P give me a sense of how neutral or transparent the amp is. If I plug either of those in and feel like the amp is fighting or masking their natural 'voices', it typically means the same will happen with my effects.

There's obviously subjectivity here, but my favorite class D pedal platforms are the Bergantino Forte HP and the Mesa D-800+.

 

[Golgo13]

As someone who uses a fair amount of effects, I'm in the camp that a relatively clean, dynamic, and neutral starting point is best. The easiest way for me to test that while trying different heads over the years was to dial in a head for my main bass (Jazz) first, and then run my P-bass and EBMM Sterling at those same settings. I know how my main jazz needs to sound for me to like an amp, and then the Sterling and P give me a sense of how neutral or transparent the amp is. If I plug either of those in and feel like the amp is fighting or masking their natural 'voices', it typically means the same will happen with my effects.

There's obviously subjectivity here, but my favorite class D pedal platforms are the Bergantino Forte HP and the Mesa D-800+.

thanks a lot great tip