lowquality.net

I’ve been really pissed off about my bass rig for awhile now and I am venting. If anyone wants to get me a new head, please feel free.

I’m using two Bergantino cabinets, which I love (a 2×10 and a 1×15 both have tweeters, which I leave flat). My beef is definitely not with them, they sound great, and just as importantly, they fit in my car. The Bergs don’t have as much of that “sub” boom sound that I’d like sometimes, but for their size and weight, they are more efficient than many much larger cabinets. These cabs run at 8 ohms each but I chain them together for a 4 ohm load.

Now here’s where things get a tad ghetto: I am using a Sans Amp RBI into a Crown XS700 power amp. I don’t know why I let myself get suckered into using the preamp/power configuration again. I did it once, years ago, and I wasn’t happy with it then and the gear I had then was better! I bought all of this stuff because I was out of college and needed a larger rig for playing shows. I guess I ran out of money when I bought the Bergs.

First of all the Sans Amp may work great in the studio, but live it just doesn’t make sense, a three band parametric EQ is sufficient when you’re going into a board, but every time I play a different room I stand there fiddling with these three knobs trying to isolate the one frequency that is causing me grief. It’s nice to have a graphic EQ, even if you leave it mostly flat, just to adjust a little for the room. I digress. On the Sans Amp RBI, the blend knob, which controls the amount of Sans Amp Circuit and Drive you want to use, is completely unintuitive. When I roll it back I get this really growly mid-range sound, which when I want a growly mid-range sound is great, but, like it or not, it clips my power amp and I have to roll it back to where I can barely hear it again. The alternative is to have almost no midrange and not be able to hear myself with a full band. I’m no expert, but the Sans Amp Circuit sounds like an EQ preset that scoops out the mids like a nu-metal guitarist. That might be great for someone else, someone like a nu-metal guitarist, but I like mids. I like to take the highs way down and concentrate on the low-mids and lows because it fills the space that the drums and the guitar leave out. Plus, it’s called bass. I don’t play the “treble guitar.”

I’m not sure that there is anything really wrong with the Crown XS700. It clips a lot for an amp that should be running at over 1000 watts bridged mono. Granted, I play loud with the Jay Rakes Band, but this clipping is occurring with the EQ flat and usually happens with aggressive attacks on low strings. I’ve tried to use compressors and stuff, but really, adding another piece of gear isn’t the answer. I want less! Also, that stuff never really worked well enough to be worth it. I think, perhaps, this amp just wasn’t intended for what I am using it for.

The bottom line is that I am pushing my 3,000-dollar boutique bass through a 200-dollar pawnshop solid-state preamp, into an “affordable series” power amp and back out pair of handmade boutique speaker cabinets. The Sans Amp is definitely the weakest link. The Crown might be a problem, but I don’t think it is the real cause of my misery. The Sans Amp RBI is doo doo, and you can tell Geddy Lee I said that. Also, tell him my drummer wants his autograph.

When you think you are saving money by getting a preamp/power amp rack, you should consider what you are not getting. Most decent bass amps have a compressor, a limiter, and tons of EQ. Even if your preamp has all of that, you’re combining two companies’ product philosophies to achieve one goal: good tone. Crown’s idea of good tone is not the same as Ampeg’s. A sound-reinforcement style power amp may have a higher damping factor, and thereby have less low-end muddiness. For a PA, that’s great, you’ll get a really loud clean full-band sound. For a bass amp you may want some of that low-end in there and so where you think you’re getting a deal by “œbuilding your own head” you’re really not getting what you’re looking for.

I learned all of this the hard way, and I would have known better if I had tested some of this stuff out on a few gigs before I committed to it. It’s taken me a year or so to really figure a lot of these problems out. When I get the funds, I plan on getting an SVT4-PRO because it has all of the headroom I need to play without it breaking up, a lot of EQ and bi-amp possibilities (which I most likely won’t use) and just an amazing sound that’s impossible to dial in wrong. The Ampeg stuff just sounds great; you can easily forget about it on stage and just play music, which is really what I’d rather be thinking about in the first place.