Need advice on bass cabs please!

R

rockabilly1955

New member
My band uses an upright bass. We got a pick up on it going into a hartke 250 watt amp head and a 2x10 GK 200 watt cab. I think its time for an upgrade. When we play at full blast the bass is totally getting drowned by our drums and guitars. The loudness seems to be ok but its the low rumble that is totally missing which makes us not "groove" to what we are playing. How can we get a good rumble that we can feel? Would that amp be able to handle our two 10's and maybe one 12 inch? Any ideas? Our budget is prob in the 300 to 400 range. I wanna stay away from behringer though cuz I hear many negative things about them. Thanks guys.
 
IMO 10's can work out great. Lots of cone coverage per cab. Maybe a second 2-10. A single 4-10 gets a lot of milage. Check the total combined cabinet ohms vs the amp rating though.
At some point aren't you going to run into feeback problems?
Talk about rumble! :D
 
I like 10's myself although they might have a hard time with that real deep 'round' sound that an upright gets.
The amp'll handle another cab as long as the impedance is right. 250 watts isn't a lot for bass though and also, personally if you're going after a lot of additional bottom I think I'd look more at a 15 than a 12.
 
I believe the cab we use now is 4 ohm speakers. We tend to get some feedback problems when turning the bass amp up. We might just go for 4x10. Any particular brands that are good in our budget range?
 
Not a lot that is what I would call good in your budget.If your sound is staight stage amplification with nothing out front of house,you need a
lot more than 250 watts to get your point across,unless you have an old
bassman tube or something.a 4-10 with a 1-15 bottom will do the trick for
just about any gig, as long as you have athe power to push them.
 
We don't do any live club/venue gigs. Just our jam sessions in our garage and backyard party type stuff. Would our amp power our two 10's and just one 15? We use our pa only for vocals as its only 100 watts x2.
 
I'd get an extra 15" to company, nicer low end. I had a 1x15" Laney combo, 120watts, and it was enough for jamming and rehealsals.

Especially, if I lifted it on top of a chair or something, even headroom to use the EQ.

Since outdoor gigs became a worry, I upgraded to 2x10"plus1x18" cabs and a 575watt head.
 
With the amp you have, rather than add a 15' cab, I'd replace the 2x10 entirely with a good quality 4x10. Yeah, adding a 15" will work but I've always felt that combo was much better suited to a biampable head which provides individual level and frequency control over what is essentually two very different cabs with thier own frequncy and tonal needs.

A good 4x10 should move just as much air and since each speaker is the same it will be much easier to control with only a mono amp. (I do sound for an 80's metal band that uses your same amp with an SWR 4x10 Golith and its been plenty loud and bottom heavy for every gig so far). An SWR may be a bit pricey, but probably one of the best alternatives out there in your price range is a 4x10 Carvin which uses four 200watt Eminece speakers. In fact I read a 2x10 bass mag shoot out some years back that put Carvin in the top three along with Eden and SWR and was actually reguarded as a good compromise between the two (but at a much cheaper price). Heres thier latest:
http://www.carvin.com/products/single.php?ItemNumber=BR410&CID=BA

P.S. The former Redline series cabs uses the same components and should be just as good if you can find one used for even cheaper.

Also, being this cab would be more a replacement than suppliment, you might then be able to trade up both the GK cab and Hartke for a beefier bass amp if you feel you even need it.
 
Also check out the Gallien Kruger Backline series. I have one of their 2-10 cabs from that line and bought it just to have a cheapo cab to toss around and have been quite surprised at how well it does. I actually use it by nitself for a lot of gigs including outside gigs. And they make a 4-10 in that line so probably less than $400
 
rockabilly1955 said:
My band uses an upright bass. We got a pick up on it going into a hartke 250 watt amp head and a 2x10 GK 200 watt cab. I think its time for an upgrade. When we play at full blast the bass is totally getting drowned by our drums and guitars. The loudness seems to be ok but its the low rumble that is totally missing which makes us not "groove" to what we are playing. How can we get a good rumble that we can feel? Would that amp be able to handle our two 10's and maybe one 12 inch? Any ideas? Our budget is prob in the 300 to 400 range. I wanna stay away from behringer though cuz I hear many negative things about them. Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

Ashdown makes a pretty good single 15 in that price range. I added one to my Ashdown 305 watt 2X10 combo, and it filled out the low end nicely.
 
The 4-10 cabinet is the one you want for youe purpose. The upright is already bass heavy and you're looking for clarity to get it out front. A single 15 is just a little too slow in reacting and really needs a lot more power to tighten up its response time.

In your budget, the aformentioned Backline by GK is a decent cabinet. The Carvin is also a good one . Both very reasonably priced and there always seems to be used ones popping up here and there. The better buy of all in the 4-10 is the Avatar with the neo 10's. At 65lbs its an easy move and it has better and tighter low bass response than an 8-10 cabinet. Its also around $450 delivered with the bedliner finish. Less for the carpet cover or the Tolex. They also make a 2-12 cab that is very very good.
 
I'll avoid the gear specific questions, but here's some thoughts I had from reading this thread.

1. If you are playing in your garage/backyard parties, why the hell do you guys need to be that loud?? feel free to skip this if it seems a dumb question.

2. I know a lot of guitar players hate hearing this, but you need to think of how your guitar tone fits in with the context of the band and not just by itself, out front. Try EQ'ing the guitars so they aren't competing for the same sonic space as the bass.

3. Make sure the bass cabinet is sitting directly on the ground, preferably against a wall, and preferably in a corner, and you will add decibals in volume (especially in the low end).

4. 250 watts into a 2x10 isn't a lot of power if you want high volume, but it should be enough for the small stuff it sounds like you are doing.
 
The volume isn't the problem. It seems the cab we use picks up the loudness and the slaps pretty good but we can't "feel" the bass line. If we eq some more low end, the speakers start sounding distorted. We just need a boost in the low rumble factor. These are our specs on the bass gear: a hartke amp head that is giving 180 watts to our 8 ohm 2x10 GK 200 watt rms cab( I'm guessing that's both speakers combined?). The amp can give 250 watts at 4ohms. It does have 2 speaker outputs (we are only using one output currently) so that's why we are looking to add maybe a 15 cab along with our 2x10 and if our amp can't push that, then we'll upgrade the amp head. I'm not too sure on the technical aspects of combining all the speaker ohms though?
 
You said earlier that your cab was 4 ohm, now you say it's 8. Be careful and make sure before you add another cab. If it's 8 ohm (which it most likely is), you can safely add another 8 ohm cab which will total a 4 ohm load. I believe your amp is only rated to go to 4 ohms - do not go lower than the rating.

Also, be wary of a weight issue. A lot of 4x10" cabs are heavy...I know because I use one and have been shopping for a lighter one. (Mine's a Trace Elliot at about 100lbs). You could maybe add one more 2x10" cab and have two matching and easier to transport. Ideally I'd keep the cab you have and add a 1x15" for lower end (check the frequency specs though...speaker size can be deceiving).

I have the Harke head you have and it seems plenty loud for my purposes - classic rock - through the single 4x10, so it should be loud enough for your purposes. I admit, this is only my backup rig but it's still enough when needed.

One more thing...if you're encountering feedback problems, could it be you need to change the position of your pickup? That could create an issue. If not, maybe change the placement of your instrument and amp.

I probably just added to the confusion. Do some reading, read reviews of gear that people have purchased and do what you think is right. My .02.
 
Getting a good sound amplifying the double bass takes way more than speaker selection. The problem could involve the player's technique, the strings, the set-up of the bass, the health or quality of the bass, the type of pickup, or any combination of those things and more.

Find out some more info, especially the brand of strings and pickup. Also, post this issue on talkbass.com in the DB forum. There you will hear from people who play the instrument and deal with the same problems you are having.
 
punkin said:
I have to say that Avatar Speakers http://www.avatarspeakers.com/ is worth a look. I own several of their cabs and Dave is a great guy to work with.
Click to expand...

You might watch out for Avatar, sometimes their cabs resonate at very unfriendly frequencies. I've run across this on three separate occasions, not to mention they hold little to no resale value.
Also, I'd look into a 2x15. I know it's crazy talk, but I've got a Pine Traynor 2x15 that pushes a lot of air. In my opinion, the bass' job is to have a lot of bottom end. I've played 4x10s, 1x10s, 1x15s, 2x18s and I found the 2x15 to be the magic combination.
 
You really get into a personal taste issue with that and also, the amp they're paired with. I find 15's to be too 'mushy' with not enough definition.
I had a friend who used 12's and they kinda walked a good middle ground but you don't see many 12 bass cabs.
 
hungovermorning said:
You might watch out for Avatar, sometimes their cabs resonate at very unfriendly frequencies. I've run across this on three separate occasions, not to mention they hold little to no resale value.
Also, I'd look into a 2x15. I know it's crazy talk, but I've got a Pine Traynor 2x15 that pushes a lot of air. In my opinion, the bass' job is to have a lot of bottom end. I've played 4x10s, 1x10s, 1x15s, 2x18s and I found the 2x15 to be the magic combination.
Click to expand...


Love moving those 2-15" cabinets around. I still have two.....Ya want em???

Its funny that the used Avatars showing up on ebay these days go for almost the same price as the new ones. Cant comment of the problems of resonance but I would think that they would take care of a problem like this.
 
We ended up getting an 8ohm 200 watt GK 1x15 cab. I think that's gonna do the trick. Our amp obviously aint powering it to its capability but we'll upgrade the amp soon. Thanks for the advice.
 
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