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Attention bass players, need opinions.

bill114

bill114

Active Member
Has anyone ever used a rig like Jerry Garcia's for bass? If you don't know, Jerry used a Fender Twin with a preamp out and ran that into a McIntosh power amp. I'm thinking of having my 1973 Fender Bassman 100 modified with a preamp out so I can use an external power amp for gigs where I need more power and still be able to use the Bassman as is for smaller venues. Right now, I've got a rack with an Ampeg SVP Pro and a Crown CE 1000 but I'm finding that these days this rig is a bit of overkill. Using the Bassman this way will allow me to pare down my setup. Thoughts??
 
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I'm a guitar player, not a bass player, but I think the approach would actually work better for bass than for most guitar players. Guitar players generally like the sound of some power stage distortion, while bass players usually like it very clean. Running the preamp out to a high power amp would keep it clean. The only thing to watch for is that you will still need to have a speaker load on the Bassman to keep its output transformer happy unless the modification to the amp shuts the internal power stage off. That's a trickier mod than just adding a preamp out, but I'd think a good, creative tech could figure it out.
 
I may be wrong but I don't think you need a pre-out on a Bassman because the input jacks also give a signal out (I may be wrong, but that is how most old Fenders are). I would hesitate to chop up any older Fender, and JonL is right! keep a dummy load on it or it will blow up.
 
now that i think about it, I can't remeber if the tone and volume work in that setup, or if the jack just passes the guitar signal.
 
The jack just passes the guitar signal. It's convenient for daisy-chaining multiple guitar amps, but the signal is passed before the preamp stage.
 
I wouldn't mod a bassman myself, I would go buy a smaller amp.

Myself I use a hartke 3500 head and I have a single 10" cab for small places and a hartke 4-10 for bigger places. More then enough for me.
I also like their kickback 12" series and would get one of those or something like it just because I'm getting older (51) and hate dragging the heavy gear now
 
Thanks for the replies but I already have 2 great rigs. The whole point was to consolidate my gear not to buy more....
 
Better to play guitar out of a bass rig than vice versa. You will get no pressure from an open back speaker, you will blow speakers trying. The speakers for bass must be heavy-duty like JBL 15's. Oh, yeah, but what about 10"s in bass rigs, you may ask? How about 4 to 8 in a rig? The speakers themselves are designed for bass, they're not just guitar speakers because they're small! A Twin is not designed in any way, shape or form for playing bass, and on the other hand, bass rigs with tweeters nowadays are like little PA systems, you could get into some effects to compensate for the lack of speaker compensation. I laugh at the absurdity of people trying to save money and bastardize their gear! Rigs specialize; that's what makes a bass sound like a bass, and the 12" speaker is specialized for guitar. Hey, I got an idea! Why even buy a bass! Tune your guitar low and play one string at a time! That's how absurd using a Twin for bass is. The head of the Twin is voiced for guitar as well.
 
michaelhigh said:
Better to play guitar out of a bass rig than vice versa. You will get no pressure from an open back speaker, you will blow speakers trying. The speakers for bass must be heavy-duty like JBL 15's. Oh, yeah, but what about 10"s in bass rigs, you may ask? How about 4 to 8 in a rig? The speakers themselves are designed for bass, they're not just guitar speakers because they're small! A Twin is not designed in any way, shape or form for playing bass, and on the other hand, bass rigs with tweeters nowadays are like little PA systems, you could get into some effects to compensate for the lack of speaker compensation. I laugh at the absurdity of people trying to save money and bastardize their gear! Rigs specialize; that's what makes a bass sound like a bass, and the 12" speaker is specialized for guitar. Hey, I got an idea! Why even buy a bass! Tune your guitar low and play one string at a time! That's how absurd using a Twin for bass is. The head of the Twin is voiced for guitar as well.
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Dude, WTF? Did you even read my original post? I mentioned Jerry's rig as an example. The subject amp is a BASSMAN 100 HEAD. Bass amp and no speakers mentioned. It so happens that I've been gigging since the '70s - I know a thing or two about the gear.
 
bill114 said:
Thanks for the replies but I already have 2 great rigs. The whole point was to consolidate my gear not to buy more....
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If you find the SVPCrown combo overkill, why not just sell it off and go with
something leaner. The number of options with newer mini and micro bassheads
such as the Genz Benz Shuttle, TC Electronic, etc, allow you to assemble a
high power rig you can take in in one trip. The new TC RH450 head will fit in the pocket of your gig bag literally. The GB Shuttles are plentiful used.

Any one of those with 2 2x10 or 2 2x12 will give you a rig suitable for any venue, large or small using wither one or both cabs. That also keeps the vintage Bassman home and out of harms way.
 
+1 on the Genz-Benz shuttle,it fits easily in a backpack and the tone is sweet! I have heard a bass through a McIntosh tube amp and it was awesome.
 
Myself, I'd be very wary of altering the Bassman 100 - it's ain't broke, so why fix it?

The way I used to work very successfully was to grossly abuse a Selmer Twin Thunderbird by putting my bass into it (just as michaelhigh warned against doing ;) ) and miking that up for a bigger amp with a bit more grunt as and when I needed it.

Doing the same thing with your Bassman would preserve the sound you know and love, while offering the option of as much extra oomph as you need for a bigger venue... it's just the same as miking up the drum-kit.

Doing it this way also allows you to beat up the house PA rather than carrying extra gear if the venue already has something robust enough to cope?
 
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