Wanting to play a bit more bass at the moment. Currently don’t have a bass amp or anything, just plug into my interface direct to Yamaha HS5 monitors. Fine, but a bit bland.
What do you proper bassists think would be most inspiring to plug into out of these two options:
Small bass practice amp such as a Fender Rumble 15 or similar.
or
A preamp Pedal such as the Eden WTDI into my interface / monitors.
I like the ease of use of the practice amp but think the Eden could be a more inspiring ride, with the compressor etc.
Thoughts? or alternatives?
Cheers
Comments
This is free (donation ware) and sounds decent, maybe worth a go either way https://www.tseaudio.com/software/tseBOD
If you want an amp see if you can track down a used Line 6 lowdown 110. They’re out of production but are pretty good sounding little amps. Way more than enough beef for a typical home room. Not powerful enough to gig with though and also not tiny, but a decent choice for home playing.
I have a Logic project on my desktop called practice which is all set up and ready to go with the sounds I want, arguably more practical than a practice amp that just takes up extra space at home but isn’t powerful enough to be used with s band.
I only use practice amps for writing with others at their houses these days. Otherwise I wouldn’t own one at all.
I disagree slightly with thermionic - I wouldn't go as small as a 15W 1x8" combo if you can justify anything even slightly bigger - they just don't sound as good. 30W or so with a 10" speaker will be miles better, and you don't *have* to play it any louder - that's what volume controls are for .
"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
Yup, they go down as well as up.
Laney RB3 here. 65W 1x12 with horn. Gain and master with a compressor. 3-band EQ with parametric mid, FX loop, XLR DI out. Aux in, phones out.
I have the gain at 5, compressor on, master at 3, and that seems to stay clean with an active 5-string bass while staying at a sensible volume at home (I probably keep the bass volume backed off a bit).
Nomad
Nobody loves me but my mother... and she could be jivin' too...
I am a bit worried about a very small combo as ICBM said, and I could do without a big old box kicking around in my tiny man cave.
I use use my iPad for recording but my interface allows a pass through signal to the monitors so it’s no faff to have a preamp. I might try this route first and seee how I go.
As for the second point, I didn’t audition any other amps, but the sound that comes out of that 8” speaker is very impressive. No doubt a bigger box producing 10W more through a bigger speaker would produce a better sound. As it is, the 15W Ampeg is plenty loud for playing in the house, barely gets above 3 on the volume control. Something more powerful would have to be turned down even more for what I want it to do. Also, a large part of my reasoning was that I wanted to keep it around £100.
I'm cheating anyway, my home bass amp is the Ampeg Micro VR (200W) and 2x10" - which is still almost hilariously toy-like compared to a full-size SVT and really doesn't take up much floor space, but I admit is probably too large for a small 'music room'. (And the fan noise is very annoying too... I must see if I can do something about that.)
"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
Not a lot of money if I don’t get on with it and want an amp down the line.