Good bass head for heavy music ?

[xFkx]

Hi !

I'm in the market for a good bass head (rack) to power a 8x10 ampeg cab, and driven by a fender p-bass and sansamp rbi.

It's meant for bone-crushing-heavy-breakdownz-core-drop-tuned music

Preferable it woulbe more cheap, than more expensive (svt-3 is max price, but i don't know if that would be the best option)

Any suggestions ?

 

[Torniojaws]

Stretch a little and you could find a used SVT CL or SVT2 Pro for a little bit more.

 

[greyskull]

svt classic. the cheaper ampegs are shit

 

[Metaltastic]

svt classic. the cheaper ampegs are shit

You know, I always wondered whether this was the case, or whether Ampeg could do no wrong - guess now I have a good idea!

 

[wishtheend]

Go for a used SVT-2 or Mesa 400+

 

[xFkx]

Any ideas on the cheaper side of the scale ?

 

[Metaltastic]

But in all seriousness, I have no clue

 

[Joematthews]

^ hahaha

Joe

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I'm going to go ahead and say anything by David Eden.

The SVT3 pro is not a shit head though (although I won't dispute the classic being better), the BR-6 is a pretty sweet head, but doesn't seem to have the bite the SVT classic has.

Markbass is another company that I thought sounded good.

 

[RockGuitarX]

I think the SVT3 is a bad ass bass head and you can get them used off of ebay for pretty cheap.

 

[xFkx]

Any thoughts on this -> http://www.swrsound.com/products//search.php?partno=4405500000 ?

It seems like a fina solution, as my bass player already has a sansamp rbi preamp...

 

[RockGuitarX]

Hey I don't know if you checked out some of Bugera's new gear for this year, but I saw they had a SVT-3 and SVT-4 copy model. You might be interested in checking that out? I saw them in the NAMM 2009 thread.

 

[xFkx]

Hey I don't know if you checked out some of Bugera's new gear for this year, but I saw they had a SVT-3 and SVT-4 copy model. You might be interested in checking that out? I saw them in the NAMM 2009 thread.

Well, my bass player went through a behringer rack tuner, and says he will never ever buy anything by behringer again, and i second this opinion... too much risk of breaking halfway down a tour

 

[Sly]

Gallien Krueger amps sound killer !

 

[John_C]

markbass kicks ass, although perhaps not as great for metal........

 

[mondocane]

Any ideas on the cheaper side of the scale ?

used ashdown abm 500 evo I [the latest versions are made in China, I believe...]

add overdrive / distortion pedal and you're in brutal down tuned business.

 

[Morgan138]

If you like the Sansamp's tone, just get a power amp. If you want something relatively lightweight, $300-400 will buy you 1000+ watts of solid state power (look for a Stewart amp, or QSC's lightweight line); if you don't mind carrying something pretty massive you could probably get the same 1000+ watts for like $200-300 (look for an old Crown or Crest amp, or one of QSC's regular ones). If you decide you want to upgrade the preamp down the line, you'll be able to get something nice for a few hundred and the result will be louder and better sounding (and more customizable) than an off-the-rack solid state Ampeg/GK/Markbass head.

 

[Exocaster]

I think the SVT3 is a bad ass bass head and you can get them used off of ebay for pretty cheap.

The SVT-3 Pro sounds very nice. The bass player from one of my old bands always got compliments on his tone with that thing.

...granted the uber-nice Conklin bass he played helped too. Great clarity, even from low B-Ab. But they're nice sounding heads regardless.

 

[ahjteam]

I assume from the OP that we are talking about playing style that is mainly metal. I would have to say that there are few things that matter:

- How fast (tempo and notes) and what kind of tone (distorted or clean sound) you play for the majority of the time (go tube if you play eight notes only upto tempo ~170, and solidstate for better attack transients for anything faster than that)
- Do you play with fingers or pick and what bass with what pickups and do you use any pedals (affects the tonechoises a lot)
- How many guitars your band have (if you have 2 or more, I would go for clean or only mildly distorted sound so you wont lose separation, and slightly more distorted sound for deathmetal variants and single guitar bands)
- How much is your budget. I think this one shouldn't affect your choises, but sometimes it does. Take your 8x10 and a CD player with some of your bands songs without bass, go to the store and test different heads out. Sometimes you might be surprised that the $500 solidstate head might just suit better for your music and playing style than the top of the line $2000 tube head.

 

[xFkx]

Yeah, we're kind off geared towards the SWR Power 750 power amp... anyone had experience with it ?

- the music you can find here: http://www.myspace.com/angelreich
- the instrument is like i said, a fender p-bass deluxe, with active pickups, played with a pick
- budget is 900 euro

We're pretty far away from any major music store, when we've made our selection will just hunt down a shop in Berlin and drive there with intention of buying