Re: Guitar/Bass head???

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 9:26 pm

I don't currently have an amp and when I do buy another I'm thinking of getting something that works well for both guitar and bass.. I'll probably get a 412 cab for guitar and an old Fender 215 for the bass cab. It's gotta be loud enough for playing out and have enough headroom to be reasonably clean, not too clean though.. I definitely don't mind a little grit to my bass tone

any recommendations?

Post by **Jay** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:09 pm

A 50wattish (2 tube) Hiwatt would be my first choice. Then a bassman.

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:11 pm

I've been wishing for a Custom 50 for a long long while.. fifty watts enough for bass though?

Post by **mezcalhead** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:49 am

Depends where and what you're playing, but maybe not .. although many larger venues DI the bass straight into the PA anyway and just leave you your bass amp as an onstage monitor. Depending on the DI and the bass, this can sound surprisingly good. I used to do this regularly with an old P bass and the natural sound of the bass couldn't really be improved that much by an amp for the stuff I was playing.

If/when I go back to playing bass out regularly again, I'll be looking at getting my own DI as well as amp, maybe a blackface Bassman head. Makes life a little easier.

Or if you find you're playing a lot of big gigs without being able to DI the bass, I think you can get bass power amps fairly cheap .. then you're kinda using the bass head as the preamp stage.

Post by **zhivago** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:37 am

I'd go Bassman too...you could probably score a silverface pretty cheap....a blackface one would also be super-sweet, of course

tremolite · Post by **tremolite** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 9:43 am

I mainly record with my bass rig. I always run a DI signal and (you'll probably laugh) a late 70s Musicmaster "Bass" amp that I recently bought. I record at fairly tame volume levels so the Musicmaster works great and overdrives quite nicely as well. I think if I was going to play out i'd go for a Bassman head as well. Silverface one's are still pretty inexpensive. I think the next amp I purchase will either be a SF Bassman or a SF Princeton/Princeton Reverb. Most of the venues my band(s) have played in Seattle and Portland mic the bass cab and use a DI. You tend to get better definition from the DI and the overall tone from the cab, live and recording.

chrisjedijane · Post by **chrisjedijane** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:39 pm

Orange have just released that Thunderverb head - it's designed for use with both guitar and bass, and I think it's 200W, which is more than enough power than you'd ever need.

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:41 pm

thanks guys.. I sold a 70's Bassman with 215 cab a few months back which was a pretty nice sounding guitar amp though a bit muddy, I really wanted to keep it for this exact purpose but I had to sell it to get my current JM which was probably the better choice.

A local bassplayer a while back used a 90's Orange OR80 or 120 through an ampeg 410 which sounded good to me from what I remember. If you see this post Justin let me know if you think your 120 would make a decent bass head.. not sure if I could swing a real one this time around but we'll see. My budget will likely be around $1k so I'll probably opt for the Bassman or maybe an old Ampeg or Traynor.. anyone have a thought on those? Traynors are pretty easy to find here since I'm only a few minutes from Ontario which seems to have loads of these old amps, I just don't know much about them..

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:42 pm

chrisjedijane wrote: Orange have just released that Thunderverb head - it's designed for use with both guitar and bass, and I think it's 200W, which is more than enough power than you'd ever need.

sounds interesting.. I'll check into it, thanks

chrisjedijane · Post by **chrisjedijane** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:46 pm

i shoulda done this first time around...

http://www.orangeamps.com/thunderverb/

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:50 pm

chrisjedijane wrote: i shoulda done this first time around...

http://www.orangeamps.com/thunderverb/

thanks.. it seems to have a lot more options than I require though and I bet it'll be on the expensive side. I'd probably be most happy with a single channel, non mv, super basic amp. We'll see though, I'll definitely keep an eye out for one at the local shops.. thanks again

chrisjedijane · Post by **chrisjedijane** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:56 pm

oh god yeah, i just checked the price there, and the best internet price i can find is £1289

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:00 pm

damn

mjet · Post by **mjet** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:01 pm

Jay wrote: A 50wattish (2 tube) Hiwatt would be my first choice. Then a bassman.

Or a 50-watt Sound City.

Post by **daydreamdelay** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:07 pm

I had thought of picking one of those up a while back as a substitute for the more expensive Custom 50 but two people I've talked to that had owned one haven't had very good things to say about them