Bass amps for Live work

Chili

Chili

Site Moderator
We got the kid a bass and practice amp for christmas. He's into it and practicing and coming up to speed. He will be playing in the school jazz band which means school auditoriums and gyms. On top of that, a friend of mine wants to do EJ covers and asked if I'd play bass. I think that would be way cool. (Of course, doing EJ covers in Austin is probably blasphemous, but...)

Now I'm starting to look at bass amps for the kid and myself to gig with. I saw a Hartke amp head and 4x10 on CL for a great price, any opinions? Would it hold up in a school auditorium? Medium size bar? Is Hartke locked into any one kind of tonal niche?? I know next to nothing about bass amps.

thanks ya'll
 
How much do you wanna spend? It will take him a long time to outgrow a mid-level Ampeg head like a B2RE (What I use).

ampeg b2re | eBay

Then he can work his way on up the SVT-PRO chain.

You'll be looking at higher wattages than what cuts it with a guitar head. You can compete with a drummer with a 50 watt tube guitar head. Bass, not so much. You'll want at least 300 watts for most modern musics.
 
The Ampeg PF350 is the same output in 250watt/8ohm as the B2RE, on clearance at $254 brand new, $299 LIST. A lot of good reviews. PF350 in 4ohm/350watt, B2R is 450@4ohm. Has a nice limiter and eq, and audio headphone & stereo in 1/8". Enough for smaller gigs, has line out for the larger gigs.
 
CoolCat said:
The Ampeg PF350 is the same output in 250watt/8ohm as the B2RE, on clearance at $254 brand new, $299 LIST. A lot of good reviews. PF350 in 4ohm/350watt, B2R is 450@4ohm. Has a nice limiter and eq, and audio headphone & stereo in 1/8". Enough for smaller gigs, has line out for the larger gigs.
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250 isn't enough in my opinion. The B2R would be a better choice but you'll want to make sure you get a 4 ohm cab.
I use a SWR SM400S that I got on the bay for 250 bucks.
It sounds meh into 8 ohms .... much less power .... but bridged it does 500 watts at 4 ohms and it freakin' roars.
The difference is night and day. It's one of the best bass amps I've ever used into 4 ohms but blah when it's an 8ohm load.

ummmm .... there's this new thing I just read a review on ..... looks interesting and cheap.
Overton Flyweight 500 Micro Amp Review - Premier Guitar
$375 street for 500 watts!

Oh ..... and I like Hartke bass amps. They pretty much kick ass ..... especially the older ones. If you can get a great deal on one I'd snap it up as long as it's enough wattage .......350 at least.
 
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I need to get an amp and cab and would like to stay under $500. Pretty sure that means used, but I'm okay with that.

I was at GC today exploring. I tried a few different amps. The GK combo was pretty nice. I think it was 2x10. Would it fill an auditorium? I also looked at an Ampeg combo and wasn't impressed. Hard to say that, because I know Ampeg sets the bar, but this one was a B115 (200 watts) and it didn't project at all.

I'm not limiting myself to Hartke, it's just that I saw the HA4000 with a 4x10 cab on CL for about $350. It looks like a good deal. Was wondering what you guys knew about them.

Maybe a combo would be okay, but I just have this feeling that a 4x10 is needed. Gear lust??
 
Im all ears too... I was asking similar questions a year or so ago. Lt. Bob and others a had great responses.

Re-reading that info, performing live I think 400watt was minimum starters, and I can attest that the Fender 100Rumble did not work for live. I tried a 200watt and it didnt work either.
So the unit you mention seems to hit this point.

I grabbed a old combo-mixer amp head 400watt, took the Line Out of the Rumble, ran into the Amp line In, of the combo-mixerPA head (400watts) into a Ampeg 1x15" cabinet and it worked. The bare minimum was obtained anyway, alignning to what was suggested.(it looked like crap and a hassle carrying around extra units for a small band traveling in cars.. ). For bigger gigs where there are house sound guys the bass goes to the board.

Many suggest getting a SVT pro line and be done with it, I agree if you can afford it. $500 isnt going to get there.
 
I use a cheap GK 2x10 neo cab driven by an 800RB at 8 ohms. It's probably running something like 200 watts at that load - it's 300 at 4 ohms. The cab isn't the best thing on the planet but there's no shortage of power and plenty of flexability for dialing in a sound. For small clubs there's power to spare and it's light. Fits in the trunk of the Jetta. For bigger rooms I'm sure the head would be fine, but through a better cab. The cheap neos don't seem to take overly high volumes well.

I picked up the head used for $250.00.

Chili said:
I'm not limiting myself to Hartke, it's just that I saw the HA4000 with a 4x10 cab on CL for about $350. It looks like a good deal. Was wondering what you guys knew about them.
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I haven't seen a Hartke rig for around 20 years or so and that would go back to when I worked in a second hand music store. Sounds like a good deal if it all works. Aluminum cones! Maybe do a search for reliability issues or general reviews.
 
I use an Ampeg BA210 - Very versatile on the sounds you can get and very loud. It's played everything from pubs to festivals. The direct out is clean as a whistle and the Amp itself is perfect for on stage monitoring.
 
2x10's will NOT fill an auditorium.
They won't even fill a smallish club with a moderately loud drumber unless you have the baddest 2x10 in the world.
I just got thru doing a buncha nights up in St. Augustine and since it was a low paying gig I used my SWR and a GK 2x10 cab I use sometimes for softer gigs. Simply didn't cut it at ALL!

I knew it wouldn't ....... I've used it for smaller gigs for quite a while and always had a problem if it got beyong soft levels but I didn't want to haul my largish SVT410HLF cab (which sounds wonderful) so I tried it for a few weeks. Just didn't cut it and eventually, as I pushed it harder and harder trying to get enough output the speakers suddenly just quit!
Opened the voice coils! :D

Let that be a lesson to me.
:laughings:
I'll replace them with drivers that'll handle high wattage so I don't eat the drivers again but that small of a cab and that small of speaker square inches will only do so much.
If you want something that'll handle any gig you want 4x10 or a 15 and a couple of 10s or a couple 15s.
 
Another thing to consider....are these gigs gonna be mic'd up? If so, a small combo with a direct out is all you'll need.
 
Lt. Bob said:
2x10's will NOT fill an auditorium.
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Most amps WILL NOT fill an auditorium. A combo with a line into the P.A. with fill anything and your boots ;) As long as it's a proper P.A. system and not 2 JBL's on stands.

Greg_L said:
Another thing to consider....are these gigs gonna be mic'd up? If so, a small combo with a direct out is all you'll need.
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My point exactly.
 
Greg_L said:
Another thing to consider....are these gigs gonna be mic'd up? If so, a small combo with a direct out is all you'll need.
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not unless it's a good PA and good monitors.
As MrClean says below ... it can't be just some EONs or something. If there isn't a substantial monitoring system you're just not gonna get any thump .... not gonna be able to feel your bass properly and, I at least, need that when playing bass.

And MrClean ..... my SWR thru the SVT410HLF will absolutely do an auditorium gig with no PA reinforcement.
If it's some sorta high volume gig it wouldn't keep up but up to a decent volume level it'll fill a medium size auditorium.i
 
Right it has to be a decent PA. I forget how hokey some of the venues in Austin are. On the plus side, they're pretty small. An Ampeg SVT w/ 8x10 would blow some of those places to bits. :laughings:

I would guess a 4x10 cab with a few hundred watts pushing it would be plenty. Right now my bassist uses a 500w Orange Bass Terror head with an Ampeg 4x10 cab for medium size gigs. It's plenty powerful enough to easily hold up against two 100w tube amps and my maniacal drumming. I'll put it this way...I don't need him in my drum monitor whatsoever when we play live. Not one bit. At practice with nothing mic'd, he's plenty loud enough. Not that Chili needs that much power and it's definitely over his budget, but if 500w hybrid watts of bass into a 4x10 is enough for my band, he could probably get by with half of that to play Elton John covers. :D
 
Greg_L said:
Right now my bassist uses a 500w Orange Bass Terror head with an Ampeg 4x10 cab for medium size gigs. It's plenty powerful enough to easily hold up against two 100w tube amps and my maniacal drumming.
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I've wondered about that thing.
 
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