How many watts needed?

  • Thread starter Thread starter elenore19
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elenore19

elenore19

Slowing becoming un-noob.
My friend is looking for a bass amp. (Tube) How many watts are needed to gig?

I know the wattage doesn't mean much for how loud an amp gets. But is there a certain amount that I should at least have. like 100 watts minimum? or?

Thanks!


-Elliot
 
i've heard its supposed to be twice the wattage of the guitar amp, but i dont know what the fuck i'm talking about.
 
tom18222 said:
i've heard its supposed to be twice the wattage of the guitar amp, but i dont know what the fuck i'm talking about.
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Yeah, that would sort of make sense I guess. The thing is, I see a bunch of 100 watt bass amps, and some of them I read that they don't get loud enough for small gigs. Which I just have a hard time believing. Especially since my little 15 watt amp is plenty loud for gigging with.
 
Look for some 200-300w combos, those will usually do alright most of the time. I usually run a line out from them to the mains and monitors too.
 
Sloan said:
Look for some 200-300w combos, those will usually do alright most of the time. I usually run a line out from them to the mains and monitors too.
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Alright. Thanks.
 
Not bad advice. Also, since bass amps almost invariably have SS power sections, and thrive on clean headroom, it's impossible to get too much amp. On the other hand, running a too small amp flat out to compete for volume will ruin at least a speaker, if not the transformer. Nothing wrong with a 500w bass amp for rock. My SWR Basic Black combo (160w) is hanging on, but I'd be a lot more comfortable with a hundred or two extra watts.
 
There is some alien formula, like half the frequency requires 4 times the power to make the same loudness? Something like that....

So bass amps need to be 2-4 times more powerful than guitar amps, IF you want to "compete" at the gig without taking years off of the life of your amp.

I've noticed a LOT of Ampeg bass amps out there on stages everywhere, from little people to huge rock and country acts......Ampeg every one of them.
 
One of my bass amps is an old Peavey Musician. I believe it is around 200W and it is plenty loud for club gigs and fire halls. If you want clean bass sound you need (for many reasons ) four times the power that you require with a guitar amp. I also use a my Fender 25B in church and it too is plenty loud.
 
ermghoti said:
...since bass amps almost invariably have SS power sections...
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There are plenty of all-tube bass amps out there. The Ampeg SVT, for example, which is considered by many to be the gold standard of bass amps, is an all-tube design. Its power section has three pairs of 6550's that generate 300w of power.
 
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for a small gig you don't need any more than a 300watt bass amp
but most of the time i just run threw the pa so i don't have to drag around an amp.
 
If I were younger and still playing full time first my choice for a bass amp would be the SVT. IMHO it is one of the best stock bass amps that there is. All you need is two elephants with cast iron balls to carry the amp and speakers around.
 
Henry Mars said:
If I were younger and still playing full time first my choice for a bass amp would be the SVT. IMHO it is one of the best stock bass amps that there is. All you need is two elephants with cast iron balls to carry the amp and speakers around.
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I have one, but since I don't have an elephant, it rarely leaves my studio. ;^)
 
ggunn said:
There are plenty of all-tube bass amps out there. The Ampeg SVT, for example, which is considered by many to be the gold standard of bass amps, is an all-tube design. Its power section has three pairs of 6550's that generate 300w of power.
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X2 I've gigged extensively with this amp, and it's always done great.
 
I've owned and gigged with SVT's and they are indeed awesome.
But unless you've got a bunch 'o' money and a strong back they don't make a lot of sense for a local gigging musician when there are so many great SS amps out there like Edens or SWR or Ampeg SS bass amps.
SS in a bass rig is just easier to deal with, especially when you want to get enough power.
I second the advice that you want at least 200 watts and really, I'd personally prefer at least 300 and only the biggest, heaviest and most expensive tubed bass amps do that.
Also, bass isn't so dependent on getting tube distortion for its' sound like guitar is so SS isn't as much of a liability for bass as it is for git.
 
Lt. Bob said:
I've owned and gigged with SVT's and they are indeed awesome.
But unless you've got a bunch 'o' money and a strong back they don't make a lot of sense for a local gigging musician when there are so many great SS amps out there like Edens or SWR or Ampeg SS bass amps.
SS in a bass rig is just easier to deal with, especially when you want to get enough power.
I second the advice that you want at least 200 watts and really, I'd personally prefer at least 300 and only the biggest, heaviest and most expensive tubed bass amps do that.
Also, bass isn't so dependent on getting tube distortion for its' sound like guitar is so SS isn't as much of a liability for bass as it is for git.
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+1 I sincerely love my SVT, but it rarely leaves my studio; I gig with an Ashdown SS 210 combo with a 115 extension cab. 307 watts, less than 1/4 the weight of the SVT, and an acceptable compromise on the sound.
 
elenore19 said:
Yeah, that would sort of make sense I guess. The thing is, I see a bunch of 100 watt bass amps, and some of them I read that they don't get loud enough for small gigs. Which I just have a hard time believing. Especially since my little 15 watt amp is plenty loud for gigging with.
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Bass is a whole 'nother deal. It's hard for an amp.speaker combination to put out those low notes and they are also very power hungry. It's just not the same thing at all. Also, guitar frequencies are right in the area that your ears are most sensitive to so they'll always seem a LOT louder for a certain wattage than bass will.
Also ..... don't forget that to double your volume requires ten times the power.
So for your guitar amp to be twice as loud will take 150 watts. Play a bass thru a 15 watt amp and you get almost nothing in terms of volume. Go 150 watts and you get double almost nothing which isn't enough for me.
better to have too much power, you can always turn it down.
Plus .... on git you want distortion ..... on bass you don't or maybe just a little bit to give it some punch.
For lower power bass amps ..... tubes don't do so good.
A Fender Bassman was a POS for gigging with because the same thing that made it a great guitar amp (loads of distortion) made it a terrible bass amp.
 
I think the speaker and speaker cabinet design is really important with bass amps to get the most from the power. I have this Fender 25B that is used in church and in a fairly large one at that. It seems to be loud enough. Now I am not playing with a miked drummer or anything like that, but it does the job and I think that it has something to do with the speaker and cabinet design.
 
Henry Mars said:
I think the speaker and speaker cabinet design is really important with bass amps to get the most from the power. I have this Fender 25B that is used in church and in a fairly large one at that. It seems to be loud enough. Now I am not playing with a miked drummer or anything like that, but it does the job and I think that it has something to do with the speaker and cabinet design.
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Absolutely!
Different speakers can have dramatically different output levels with the same wattage and cab design is usually a much bigger factor with bass than they are for gits.
But am I correct in assuming that 25B is 25 watts?
If so, I've played a very long time in a very large number of situations and 25 watts for a bass will only make it in church (where it's ALWAYS extremely quiet even if the church guys think they're rocking out :)) and for practice and actually, I've done practices where it wouldn't be heard.
For small gigs I use my Gallien Kruger 400B which is around 200 watts and it struggles having enough headroom for anything but moderate volume levels. when I get in gigs where the drummer's really pounding, it'll keep up but it has no headroom left which means it's basically distorted to some degree all the time.
I'm sure it does well for church , but as a piano tuner for a Christian music store for 30 years before moving to Fl., I went in an enormous number of churches and the volume level was never comparable to a band outside of church except for a few full-gospel black churches and those guys used full fledged bass rigs.
 
I don't think that it will cut a club gig .... but it seems to do the job for me in church.
Some times I play fund raisers for the church with a regular 5 pc. band. It will not handle that, but in the right room it works.
 
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