Bass amp

[Scissors61]

Hey guys, I have done a search for this and couldn't find anything, so sorry if this is a stupid question.

I'm playing bass for a band at the moment but only own an incredibly crappy combo bass amp, as I'm more of a guitarist all of my money has really gone into guitar gear.

As far as recording goes, I'm actually fine with using my guitar port and ampeg svx, but I really need either just a head or possibly a head and a cab to play live.

The major draw back is, I don't know much about bass equipment and I don't have very much cash.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what would sound good but not cost very much? I could probably just go for a head and maybe get a cab later on... Or the other thought I had was maybe getting something like a sansamp, or maybe even a bass pod and just run the bass straight into the PA.

Like I said though I'm really not very aware of bass equipment or what's good so any help would be awesome.

And once again sorry if there are loads of other posts like this, I couldn't find any

Cheers.

 

[Sloan]

Stress that you guys need a really awesome PA and say "I'm saving up for a really good bass amp."

Then when they buy a bitchin' PA rig, just plug into it.


MONEY SAVED!

 

[PhilR]

I'd go with the Sansamp, but then I've had mine for nearly 8 years. Couldn't go without it.

 

[everybody's x]

I'd go with the Sansamp, but then I've had mine for nearly 8 years. Couldn't go without it.

yep

 

[StefTD]

Cheap bass head with imho a nice "ampegish" sound is the Ashdown Mag 300, I am going to buy it, costs here around 300 Euros new, 150-200 Euros used in good shape.
I need an amp for playing live and during rehearsals with my new band, gonna buy a cheap 4x10 and that's it (ok actually I want to buy a FMC neodym cabinet because since my elbow broke I am actually not allowed to carry stuff like a 4x10, could fuck up my arm).

 

[RockGuitarX]

You can't go wrong with a Peavey Tour bass head. They are loud and sound pretty damn good.

 

[PhilR]

Ashdown amps sound pretty good and you can pick up their 4x10" cabs for cheap. The build quality of the amps is not great though.

I'll second the Peavey reccomendation. I love the sound of Peavey bass heads. They just seem to have this midrange grunt that I can never get from anything else. My current setup is my Sansamp pedal running directly into a 600w Peavey power amp.

 

[xFkx]

I can add to the Ashdown MAG 300.

Our bassist, has the MAG 600, runs a sansamp rbi unit as a preamp and uses the the ashdown as a poweramp, without the sansamp it sounds crap of course

We've compared the MAG 600 with a Ampeg B2R (both used as poweramps for the sansamp). The ampeg has a bit more punch, but the difference isn't big.

The other question is built quality, my bassist went through 2 of these. Our friend who tours a lot more than we do went through 3 of them in a year, finally sold to some noob and bought an ampeg, case closed

 

[greyskull]

sansamp rbi and a poweramp if you're on the cheap

 

[PhilR]

sansamp rbi and a poweramp if you're on the cheap

I've used a borrowed RBI to do exactly this. Sounds better than amps costing 2-3 times as much.

 

[Scissors61]

Thankyou everyone for your recommendations! On doing a bit more research I like the RBI + poweramp idea! Now my problem is finding a good poweramp... I'm actually having trouble finding any meant for bass guitar, what sort of thing should I be looking for?

Thankyou!

 

[PhilR]

Mine is just a PA amp. Plenty of power for the taking.

This is the same as mine: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Peavey-PV...hash=item150293658649&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177

 

[Joematthews]

Recorded the ashdown today, and it sounds great, but this is the 4th one the bassist has had. They are unbelievably unreliable, hence their nickname crashdown. The 4x10 cabs are pretty good for the price, they record allright.

Joe

 

[Morgan138]

Thankyou everyone for your recommendations! On doing a bit more research I like the RBI + poweramp idea! Now my problem is finding a good poweramp... I'm actually having trouble finding any meant for bass guitar, what sort of thing should I be looking for?

The reason for that is that they aren't meant for bass guitar - once you get to the power amp stage (with solid state gear, at least) they're all pretty much the same. I'd say the biggest question is whether you want to get something that's light, or something that's cheap. If you want light, there are a few companies making super light high power amps - off the top of my head I'd recommend checking out the Stewart amps and QSC's lightweight line, I think they're the PLX models. If you don't mind something heavy, maybe look for an old Crown or Crest?

Either way, you should be able to get something with a ton of power for fairly cheap. I recently picked up a Stewart World 2.1 (something like 1,200+ watts, 2U and easy to lift with one hand) for around $350, and I saw stuff in the same power range (that was twice as heavy, and sometimes bigger) for less. That plus a sansamp should sound awesome, and you can always use the sansamp alone in the meantime.

 

[if6was9]

yeah I'd go with the p.a power amp. If you are only planning on running one cab then get something with high power in bridged mode- basically you can get something that isn't that powerful in stereo but can kick out some serious power running just one channel.

 

[greyskull]

aguilar make nice poweramps

 

[PhilR]

Only downside to my amp is it weighs in at over 18Kg! Not for the weak!