Hi all,
Used to be that (some at least) gear for bass worked well for electric guitars as well - witness Fender bassman, Marshall lead and bass, etc. I'm wondering to what extent this is still true of todays bass gear...
What's in my mind is this: I'm sorely tempted to get a Barefaced ONE 10 cabinet (because of it's minimal size/weight and also its rep), together with a suitable solid state amp head, for home practice with my bass and the occasional small jazzy gig. But I'm strictly a part time bass player and so feel a bit uneasy about forking out for these. I would feel a lot more relaxed about the outlay if I thought such a rig might do well for electric guitar as well. I gig (mainly smallish gigs) both rock/pop and jazz/GASB stuff on the guitar, and if a ONE 10 based bass rig sounded good for one or other or both of these I'd be well chuffed.
If you think there might be something in this, I'd also be very interested in what you might suggest as promising amp heads to try with the ONE 10. Thanks...
Comments
First, it would help to know the wattage that you anticipate requiring for live appearances.
Have you ever played through one? IIRC, they didn't sound particularly good for either application.
The tweed Fender Bassman for guitar story was an accident. The weedy single coil pickup on the original Fender Precision Bass obliged Leo to provide a shed load more gain in the bass amplifier in order for the instrument to be audible. Eventually, a guitarist must have borrowed a Bassman and discovered all that additional gain. The rest, as they say, is history.
The guitar through the amp and cab on it's own can produce beautiful clean jazz tones, and while I have only used it at bedroom levels it is set so low, and is so unstressed, I can only imagine it would happily go a lot louder without issue. The VLE control on the amp gives a bit of warmth so it doesn't sound too clinical. Running it through the Boss unit on a B15 setting and it sounds even better. I haven't tried it with any drive sounds but I have no reason to suspect it would have problems. There are threads on various forums about how well bass amps can work for guitar and the consensus is that it will do no damage. It appears that a lot of the specialist jazz guitar rigs are very similar to this kind of lightweight bass rig. So I am sure it could do double duty for clean guitar stuff. Overdriven or distorted sounds would have to come from effects though and that is a whole other discussion!
So: Barefaced Midget (1x12", no tweeter, not totally incomparable to the One 10) plus a Quilter Bass Block 800. Insert Telecaster. Well... bloody loud, pretty bottomy, not enough treble, and definitely strange in the mids. Add in FX (spring reverb sim, touch of overdrive, touch of delay) and it's sweeter-sounding but the mids are still wrong and it's still way too dark.
Lightbulb moment: add the Session JD10 pedal I use as a guitar-DI-to-PA solution, post-FX... total transformation. Good Fendery cleans, plenty of mid control, nice top end, controllable bass... really useable. Crikey, I've suddenly got a spare loud clean guitar rig... a bit cumbersome, with spaghetti, but doable.
I think the One 10 plus a less powerful, more guitar-oriented solid-state amp (eg. one of the smaller Quilter guitar heads, which some bass players really rate as home practice amps) could possibly fulfil your needs. But you'd need to suck it and see for yourself, especially in a real gig and at proper volume... seeing your location, Barefaced's one-month free trial could be useful.
Worth a go, I reckon.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
But I’m also getting a bit intrigued by the option of a nice pre-amp (as per the other thread - which is great, btw) into a powered PA speaker. Or even something like a Helix into a powered PA speaker. And I do like the possibility of being able to use this sort of rig for vocal foldback at the same time. But then I come back to thinking that for a really inspriring bass, especially of the old school type, I’d be better going the one10 route. Or can a powered PA speaker *really* hold it’s own against a purpose-designed bass cab as long as it’s driven by the right pre-amp or effects?? Hmmm...
It says a lot that for gigging I use a Preamp DI Or Helix into a QSC k10.2 or direct to FOH...
If you aren’t playing a 5’er then the k10.2 does a really good job of being a bass monitor with a good quality Preamp or helix.
For most of my gigs the FOH provides the welly and the full sound. For me, the weight, size, portability and flexibility of an FRFR solution - and it’s flexibility (monitoring and other instruments) makes it a much better gigging solution.
For recording though - I’m a traditionalist - as you can see by the fact I’ve just bought an all valve head
(I realise it’s all subjective and I’m just blowing smoke here :-)).
For a “live” sound at home I sometimes use my frfr but mostly a pair of studio monitors which sound just as good at a lower volume.
I do have a cab in the man cave - the barefaced and it’s great but it doesn’t sparkle as well at lower volumes so by the time it’s really cranked the radiator/window/furniture is ratttling
The PF20T does a really nice sound at lower volumes through the barefaced so I can see myself using that a lot - but for normal practice - I usually revert to headphones and switch in different preamps