lowquality.net » Musician / Geek

I’ve been really pissed off about my bass rig for awhile now and I am venting.

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 works great in my home studio, but live it just doesn’t seem to make any 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. 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.

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 using compression pedals and had some improvement but, really, adding another piece of gear shouldn’t be 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.

I am sure some people have had great success with Preamp / Poweramp setups but I have not. When you think you are saving money by getting a preamp/power amp rack, you should consider what you are not getting. You are not getting a bass amplifcation solution that is designed and manufactured by one company. Even if your preamp has all of the bells and whistles of a high-end boutique amp (the SansAmp RBI really does not), you are still combining two different companies’ product philosophies to achieve one goal: good tone. Crown does not have the electric bass player in mind when they design their products. Crown’s idea of good tone is not the same as Eden’s, or SWR’s, or Ampeg’s, or whomever. A sound-reinforcement style power amp may have been designed with a higher damping factor (meaning better control over the speakers) and therefor have a tighter, more efficient sound. 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 boominess in there and so where you think you’re getting a deal by “building your own head” you’re really not getting what you’re looking for.

Another thing to consider is the need to plug into two AC outlets instead of just one. This seems like a minor issue, but I am constantly confronted with stages that lack proper power distribution. Club owners don’t know anything about that shit and your guitar player is gonna hog everything up with his pedal board, amp and whatever else. Sure you could keep a power strip in the car (and will probably have to) but wouldn’t it just be easier to have one less thing to worry about on the gig? Just plug in that bad-ass bass head and rock!

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 something simpler that meets the needs of just sounding great and pushing the hell out of the Bergantino cabinets.