Ka-Pow! ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Just be sure to keep the volume down on that Bandmaster. You don't want to wreck your Weber with massive bass vibrations. Bass playing does tend to put much more strain on speakers, with bass you can actually see the cone moving back and forth dramatically!

Back in the olden days, I totally destroyed the speaker on my 1976 Fender Champ by playing fuzz-bass at max volume (10) through it...not too smart, but I was 14 at the time, so I did a lot of stupid crap back then.

With all that said, I want to say welcome to a fellow bassist and wish you much success in the low zone...

DannySnyder

dp
Just be sure to keep the volume down on that Bandmaster. You don't want to wreck your Weber with massive bass vibrations. Bass playing does tend to put much more strain on speakers, with bass you can actually see the cone moving back and forth dramatically!

I'm curious about this whole vibrating speaker thing. If you want to see vibrations, look at a speaker while your built in 'vibrato' is on max intensity. How can that be less harmful than a bass? Maybe it's in the voice coil that the damage is done?

Danny, you're exactly right...a tremolo does extend a speaker cone pretty good...the deal with bass frequency and speakers does have to do with messing up the voice coil...

bass playing can produce stronger speaker response due to transient attack and the lower sound frequencies involved...in other words, larger sound waves take considerably more energy to produce (i believe sound pressure is somewhat exponential, right? sort of like earthquake intensity...decibels and richter measurements increase exponentially...getting more or louder bass frequency response requires more energy then comparable treble response or volume...)

...the speaker is required to work harder when dealing with the bass end of the sound spectrum. Voice coils get hotter, and the tend to be driven more by the transient volume spikes coming from the amp output...

Last edited: Mar 13, 2009 10:39:47

I don't think there is any risk to the Bandmaster in this application. I have seen them used as bass amps (into a bass cab) and it sounded pretty good.

You could get a little 10" practice bass amp from CL for less than it would cost to replace the Weber speaker

Ben
I don't think there is any risk to the Bandmaster in this application. I have seen them used as bass amps (into a bass cab) and it sounded pretty good.

You could get a little 10" practice bass amp from CL for less than it would cost to replace the Weber speaker

Ben, you are correct...the Bandmaster head does a decent job with the bass tone (organ tone, too)...but it's the Weber guitar speaker cab setup that might take a beating if you push it too hard...i'd hate for someone to wreck their speaker cab trying to play some wicked full-volume Geddy Lee bass riffs: "Today's Tom Sawyer..."

Put real speakers in it and you're good to go........We've used them on and off for bass for years........ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Thanks for the help. You guys are excellent.

Sounds like I should be fine playing bass into the 12F150T as long as I don’t turn it up too loud.

Not sure what “too loud” is but if I start to se the cone moving a lot, I’ll back off. So far, I haven’t even played guitar through this rig at anything louder than about 3.5 for volume.

JakeDobner
It isn't an ideal bass amp, but it is going to make sound that you will like I am sure. As you get better and play through other amps you will enjoy those amps more, but there is nothing wrong with practicing through a bandmaster. Also, you can just play without an amp. Learning bass is fun.

Thanks Jake. Yeah, it looks like it could be fun. I just want to try noodling around for now. Of course, if I get serious about it I’ll get some sort of bass amp rig to live up to my current, sweet guitar amp.

dp
Just be sure to keep the volume down on that Bandmaster. You don't want to wreck your Weber with massive bass vibrations. Bass playing does tend to put much more strain on speakers, with bass you can actually see the cone moving back and forth dramatically!

Back in the olden days, I totally destroyed the speaker on my 1976 Fender Champ by playing fuzz-bass at max volume (10) through it...not too smart, but I was 14 at the time, so I did a lot of stupid crap back then.

With all that said, I want to say welcome to a fellow bassist and wish you much success in the low zone...

dp
exactly flat-ish tone ( 3-4 treble, 3-4 bass) and maybe 3 or so on the volume...
being conservative is best when playing bass through a guitar rig..

Thanks dp. So, basically, just play and back off when I see the come moving a lot. Or try to keep it at 3 or less on the volume. That should be OK enough to give me a feel for bass and see if I want to get into a real bass amp and such.

BTW, I’m really impressed with the music on your Myspace page. Especially zmudowski. That’s some powerful stuff. Hope to be at your level some day in the far, far future.

Ben
How would a 2x15 Showman cab do for bass with Showman head?

I did some reading about bass into guitar amps, as much as I could fine, before posting this question. I think I saw that WoodyJ is running a brown faced Dual Shown into a 2 x 15” setup for bass. Sounds like he’s happy with it.

EDIT: He just posted here as I was typing that.

eddiekatcher
Ka-Pow! ed

So did someone say we’re supposed to take this guy seriously? ;)

Brian
Seems to me like you need more work to vibrate something at 20 kHz than 20 Hz.

well, i guess it all depends.

you can produce many high-frequency soundwaves, or a small amount of low-frequency soundwaves from the same input of power.

the thing is, when you put human ears into the mix everything gets sort of wacky. high frequency is easier for humans to attenuate to (hear), so they tend not to turn up the treble volume knob. Low frequencies are harder to attenuate, in fact they are so low that they are felt. People tend to turn up the volume there.

Often, people turn up the bass on playback equipment sort of unconsciously: it just seems to "sound better" that way.

in order to produce audible and sensible bass, people tend to use more power into their bass-producing speakers...typically about double the watts used to amplify a guitar. Another way to look at it is: if you're playing guitar, you might need speakers rated @ 150 watts, if you're playing bass (or organ/keyboard) you'll probably want speakers rated @ 300 watts or so.

Work is energy per unit of time. If I have to move a speaker cone back and forth 20,000 a second, I think I am doing more work than if I do it 20 times a second.

I know I am missing something in my analysis, but I'm not sure what yet.

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