Your thoughts on amp/cabinet setup

[grogh]

Hello good people!

I have two equal 450W bass amplifiers, and I have 3 cabinets. One is a 650W 1x15", one 550W 2x10" and one 650W 4x10". All cabinets have tweeters that can be switched on or off.

I'm thinking of combining these items into one bass rigg by splitting the sound from my bass through my BOSS-10B pedal into each amplifier.

The reason for this is that I need some power to handle the new bass I have ordered. A Warwick Streamer 6 str fretless intonated for Vampire Dark Lord strings. The thickest string has a .175" gauge and sounds at low F# (about 23 Hz). At this low tone I think I need some power and some surface to even get close to getting a nice sound.

My question for you is how to combine the amps and cabinets?
Should I do:
1) [Amp1 + 1x15"] and [Amp2 + 2x10" + 4x10"] to tweak the amps to fit a special speaker size?
or
2) [Amp1 + 1x15" + 2x10"] and [Amp2 + 4x10"] to keep as equal load on the amps as possible?

And what about the tweeters?

Your thoughts are appriciated! Thanks!

[brandondrury]

At this low tone I think I need some power and some surface to even get close to getting a nice sound.

I read once that a 35Hz signal needed to be 110Hz just to feel it. I'd guess no one under 20 can hear 23Hz. For all practical purpose 23Hz is barely within the range we call "sound". It's not too far from DC (direct current). It's good for shaking walls and stuff. If you can hear anything playing at that note, you are most likely hiring harmonics of the fundamental....the same can be said for Low E on a bass if played unamplified, actually.

If you've ever been a fancy car stereo where they played a bass cd, you'll hear the subs going crazy and there will be a point where everything gets extremely quiet and you can talk to your buddy like the strereo is off and then your balls begin to shake....and usually the dash, ash tray, and everything else. That's the frequency range we are talking.

So, with that background let's talk cabinets.

It's impossible to say what any of these cabinets will do based on their speaker size. While generally bigger means deeper, that doesn't always hold true these days. A really high end 8" woofer designed by the right guy may surprise you. An 8x10" rig may not go nearly as deep as you think.

So if this is what you've got to work with, I say the only way to know what you've got is to play with it. You are gonna have to use your ears on this one. The tech side isn't going to help much. The math says anything under 50Hz isn't of much use in a real mix. The real meat of the bass is between 80-140Hz...give or take.

I hope this helps.

Brandon

[garageband]

2) [Amp1 + 1x15" + 2x10"] and [Amp2 + 4x10"] to keep as equal load on the amps as possible?

What sort of jobs are you playing that makes moving this amount of stuff feasible/desirable to you? What sort of band are you playing in/music are you doing where it's helpful to have these very low frequencies so forcefully represented? I know you don't get paid to play, you get paid to schlep but this would be pushing it for me. Each of these set-ups has a certain sound and feel and will interact differently with you playing the bass itself. Tailor one that best fits your band and the music. Otherwise it's a lot of number juggling nobody can get their head around.

[grogh]

Thank you for the reply, Brandon!

I know the human ear is limited to the range of 20Hz to 20kHz, and most people are even more limited, and some have 'holes' in the range. I remember when I had Sound Engineering at school, we did a test with sinus tones on an oscillinator. In my case the sound dissappeared at around 16kHz and reappeared at 17kHz to 19kHz. An interesting project!

I play rather often on my B string (.135") these days, and sometimes need to tune down a bit because of the riffs my guitar players make. I'm not a very big fan of tuned down guitars, but guitar players are often known to be stubborn... They also tend to boost the bass eq a lot so it all just sound like rumble. It's also hard to mix when you have bass guitar, guitar and bass drum all in the same frequency range and nothing much in the good listening range. But that's another discussion... I am getting off topic now, sorry! Just a bit frustrated.

I guess I won't use the F# string that often, but I just hope my amp can handle it without destroying the speakers. I'm fetching the rest of my amps/cabinets today and will test different combinations with my 5 stringer.

And by the way: Thank you for a great forum! Hope there will be another Mix This challange soon. It's been 17 years since last time I did any sound engineering, and I just started buying new recording gear this summer. So this forum is a great place to suck in new or forgotten knowledge.

Cheers!

[grogh]

Originally Posted by garageband

What sort of jobs are you playing that makes moving this amount of stuff feasible/desirable to you? What sort of band are you playing in/music are you doing where it's helpful to have these very low frequencies so forcefully represented? I know you don't get paid to play, you get paid to schlep but this would be pushing it for me. Each of these set-ups has a certain sound and feel and will interact differently with you playing the bass itself. Tailor one that best fits your band and the music. Otherwise it's a lot of number juggling nobody can get their head around.

Hi Garageband

This is just for my rehersal studio setup. When playing jobs I'm bringing just what is necessary. Some times (like on festivals) I only need the top, because there are cabinets allready set up that all bands must use (to ease the job for the engineer I guess). Other times I need to bring more stuff.

These days I mostly play metal. One band is progressive metal, while the other is more like grunge/punk/metal.

I see that my question was a bit stupid. Sorry for that!

There are no such thing as stupid questions, only stupid people.

[garww]

Hee !! A mind bender for me. Interesting to see that these frequencies do to your studio !!!

[grogh]

Hi garww,

When I get my new bass in about 4-6 weeks, I can try to track some of the deep tones, with both DI and mic. Thought I should try a SM57 + bass drum mic. And then I can share an URL to the wav files if you want.

Cheers

[garww]

Originally Posted by grogh

Hi garww,

When I get my new bass in about 4-6 weeks, I can try to track some of the deep tones, with both DI and mic. Thought I should try a SM57 + bass drum mic. And then I can share an URL to the wav files if you want.

Cheers

I mean no disrespect and I do find this very, very interesting. At the same time, I don't think a Light Sabre would stand a chance against this awesome weapon : )

I would really like to hear what the new guitar sounds like - for sure !! I'll have to rig up some kind of detector for low bass. Maybe a barometer.

[garww]

I never guessed this equipment existed - so, that's why I act like a dumb-ass !! Ha !!