Has anyone here ever built their own bass amp?
- Thread starter Phil02
- Start date
Slackmaster2K
Gone
I've been researching building various things like preamps on and off for a couple years now. One thing I will tell you is that you really won't be saving much money. It is certainly suprising that individual components are cheap, but it's equally as suprising just how many "cheap" components you'll have to buy....not to mention the amount of work that'd go into it. One thing is for certain, amp manufacturers buy their parts in bulk, and get an even better deal than you ever will...markup is less than you might think in many cases.
I'm not trying to be discouraging. One thing you'll hear a lot of is that DIY is not recommended for saving money. At first it doesn't sound right, but after you do some reading and start drawing up some plans...man oh man. You still end up spending a lot of money, and you'll definately spend many many hours...and then the thing might not even work, or you could be electrocuted! Fun though!
Slackmaster 2000
I'm not trying to be discouraging. One thing you'll hear a lot of is that DIY is not recommended for saving money. At first it doesn't sound right, but after you do some reading and start drawing up some plans...man oh man. You still end up spending a lot of money, and you'll definately spend many many hours...and then the thing might not even work, or you could be electrocuted! Fun though!
Slackmaster 2000
Scooter B
New member
I was a DIY guy until I got married and broke. I definitely enjoy it but it is way more expensive as mentioned and there is no resale value unless your name is Rupert Neve (heck he can't afford to buy his own stuff).
I did out of neseccity improvise a cusom set up. I bought an SWR Working Mans series head on e-bay that was under powered for my live needs (160 watts plenty for guitar but wimpy for bass). Great sounding pre though. I added a Carvin 400 watt power amp to my 15" cab but I missed some of the sparkle my previous by-amped rig had.
I built a two 10" cab with a tweeter and crossover with wich I can;
1. Biamp the highs with the 160 watt SWR head and run the 15" for the lows with the 400 watt carvin head but this required the additional purchase of an electronic crossover.
2. Use just the 2-10" cab for smaller coffee house type gigs with either the 160 or 400 watts depending on the need.
3. Use the 2-10" facing me for a stage monitor and run the pre-amp DI to the PA.
After all was said and done option 3 worked best for my regular weekly church gig.
If I knew how much I would eventullay spend it would have been cheaper to buy a better Model SWR amp with more built in power and it would have held its resale value better but I do have some extra flexability this way and it was a fun learning experience.
What started as an under $200 "deal" amp upgrade turned into a $500 project and I built the cabinet myself.
DIY in this area is not a money saver most of the time but it is interesting. I would like to do it more but my expected annual budget for music now is only $100 and that makes each purchase an agonizing evaluation of most bang for the buck and its not in DIY
I did out of neseccity improvise a cusom set up. I bought an SWR Working Mans series head on e-bay that was under powered for my live needs (160 watts plenty for guitar but wimpy for bass). Great sounding pre though. I added a Carvin 400 watt power amp to my 15" cab but I missed some of the sparkle my previous by-amped rig had.
I built a two 10" cab with a tweeter and crossover with wich I can;
1. Biamp the highs with the 160 watt SWR head and run the 15" for the lows with the 400 watt carvin head but this required the additional purchase of an electronic crossover.
2. Use just the 2-10" cab for smaller coffee house type gigs with either the 160 or 400 watts depending on the need.
3. Use the 2-10" facing me for a stage monitor and run the pre-amp DI to the PA.
After all was said and done option 3 worked best for my regular weekly church gig.
If I knew how much I would eventullay spend it would have been cheaper to buy a better Model SWR amp with more built in power and it would have held its resale value better but I do have some extra flexability this way and it was a fun learning experience.
What started as an under $200 "deal" amp upgrade turned into a $500 project and I built the cabinet myself.
DIY in this area is not a money saver most of the time but it is interesting. I would like to do it more but my expected annual budget for music now is only $100 and that makes each purchase an agonizing evaluation of most bang for the buck and its not in DIY