Upgrade Bass Amp to?

[chimaera]

Am thinking of upgrading my microbass amp to sumthing better, say around 60-100 W not peavey, heard enuff of em, am playing active bass 4 strings, thinking wats good in ur opinion? am more of a guitar player but i switch to bass once awhile(play both)
SWR LA 12/15
SWR Working man12 (BTW wats the main diff btw the LA n workingman, beside LA is cheaper)
Ampeg BA112
Laneys?
around 500-600 ish

cheers

 

[cherns]

The Ampeg sounds like a good idea If you had the dosh, you could even think about getting a Mesa walkabout scout combo Don't know anyone in SG selling that though...

 

[fretless6]

If he had the dough, he could just get any amp he wants :wink:

 

[Guest]

Personally im using a laney 150watt bass amp.

The low range is fine, but it's lacking in the mid and high range.

Got it around $400+ last year at Ranking Sports.

As for SWR, i've not tried it personally, but i heard it's got a big bottom with a distinct high range.

I reckon it's one of the best bass amps around. Hefty price tag though. A head and

Tried an Ampeg at music plaza. Feels kinda weak. Not much low end to play with. But the reason could also be due to the low volume.

The knob was at 3. Any higher, and the sales person would walk over and turn it down for me.

But at that kind of volume, it already sounds very thin. I doubt a fat tone can be achieved easily with that amp.

If you're lucky, can probably get a Kustom 100 watts. Excellent tone for a low low price. Last i checked, the 100 watt is sold out.

You can try your luck at the music shop located at Sim Lim Square. They're the official distributor for Kustom Amps.

 

[andrewteo]

ampeg

Hey the ampeg at music plaza weak?? i think its because u dunno how to set the settigns properly. The ampeg at music plaza is one of the better amps that i have tried. Better than some of the new swr amps that i have tried at davis. honestly if your practicing at home a small bass combo would be sufficient. Given the correct settings any amp can sound good. Even if u buy a swr or a mesa amp it doesnt mean that u can get a great sound out of it. Its about findin your tone if u cant even find your tone on a small amp u can forget about finding it on a big amp.

 

[Guest]

Re: ampeg

Hey the ampeg at music plaza weak?? i think its because u dunno how to set the settigns properly. The ampeg at music plaza is one of the better amps that i have tried. Better than some of the new swr amps that i have tried at davis. honestly if your practicing at home a small bass combo would be sufficient. Given the correct settings any amp can sound good. Even if u buy a swr or a mesa amp it doesnt mean that u can get a great sound out of it. Its about findin your tone if u cant even find your tone on a small amp u can forget about finding it on a big amp.

Yup. It was really weak. Probably i really din know how to tweak the settings properly.

Just stating from my own experience. I guess it's very subjective. One man's meat is another man's poison.

But among all the other amps i've tried, ampeg is really the weakest. Probably just an isolated case. Perhaps other ampeg amps are just as good.

One thing though, big amps are very different from small amps. It's like comparing apples to oranges. Small amps can never get the fat tone achievable from bigger wattage amps. Playing the bass using a 100 watt amp is definitely different from playing with a 10 watt amp.

If given the correct settings, any amp can sound just as good, why would people spend few thousand dollars on a mesa? Might as save the money and get a cheap china made amp instead. hehehe

Just my 2 cents. :wink:

 

[blackductape]

i used to play bass in my school symphonic band last year and i used a gallien-krueger combo (i think its 2x12...) i set the sound to be really big(like there's a lot of invisible reverb or something, very orchestra concert hall sound)... but if you play around with the eq, you can get quite a range of tones... but i don't noe what the price though... btw, chimaera, what kind of stuff do u play?

 

[afterdeath]

of all the bass amp have used be4, marshall seems 2 be the best....... very crispy....... easy 2 get the sound i 1........


:twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[chimaera]

I play more straight ahead rock n blues, dabble in slap once in a while, but mostly juz ficngerstyle with runs.. Am a guitar player as well but now its like 65-35 i play bass in a band, i practice my guitar solos ar home, but i can do both, hope to be adept in both,... am using a precision with active emg- p pickups, but i might change to a spector, the precision has tons of bottom but yeah cant really get a good slap sound, but i mean i play bottom most of the time so dun really matter. Am juz trying the spector for fun n also because the bass i share w my gf, she also learn to be bassist, n she complain the body n neck too big for her, tts y try spectorr.
Am more interested in the SWR, the LA series look very tempting but they got super bad reviews at HC, otoh the Working man 12 gets really high reviews, but the working man 12 cost twice the LA series...

 

[Guest]

I play more straight ahead rock n blues, dabble in slap once in a while, but mostly juz ficngerstyle with runs.. Am a guitar player as well but now its like 65-35 i play bass in a band, i practice my guitar solos ar home, but i can do both, hope to be adept in both,... am using a precision with active emg- p pickups, but i might change to a spector, the precision has tons of bottom but yeah cant really get a good slap sound, but i mean i play bottom most of the time so dun really matter. Am juz trying the spector for fun n also because the bass i share w my gf, she also learn to be bassist, n she complain the body n neck too big for her, tts y try spectorr.
Am more interested in the SWR, the LA series look very tempting but they got super bad reviews at HC, otoh the Working man 12 gets really high reviews, but the working man 12 cost twice the LA series...

Cool! But do note some users find SWR amps sterile. Even the bottom sounds flat and thin. However it still kicks my laney's ass anytime!

Btw, how's your precision? Does it have the infamous G String C dead spot?

8 out of 10 P bass users i've met suffer from that.

 

[chimaera]

mine dun suffer from the g string dead spot, its quite ok, quite old but good enuff to play, very woody n bottomy ,.. I tried the spector at swee lee highly dinged its from the old stock, i tried to lower the price coz the sound its good less bottom than the precision but has more tonal options, n the board is thinner, n lighter(good as i play guitar a lot n yeah the change sumtime can be a hassle). Trying to get spectors
The SWR yeah sum would say its sterile but mabbe coz am not like a pro/play bass all the time i cant really diff, as long as punchy with a defined tone am fine. Thinking of 100 w then can do small gigs w it, i have a 30 w tube amp for the guitar looking for a bass amp tt ca keep up w it, at least half volume of the guitar amp the bass can still be heard.
The SWR LA 15 retails ard 600 ish at Swee lee w the customary 20% off, i think me prob get tt unless can get 2nd hand workingman or the ampeg ba112

 

[Guest]

mine dun suffer from the g string dead spot, its quite ok, quite old but good enuff to play, very woody n bottomy ,.. I tried the spector at swee lee highly dinged its from the old stock, i tried to lower the price coz the sound its good less bottom than the precision but has more tonal options, n the board is thinner, n lighter(good as i play guitar a lot n yeah the change sumtime can be a hassle). Trying to get spectors
The SWR yeah sum would say its sterile but mabbe coz am not like a pro/play bass all the time i cant really diff, as long as punchy with a defined tone am fine. Thinking of 100 w then can do small gigs w it, i have a 30 w tube amp for the guitar looking for a bass amp tt ca keep up w it, at least half volume of the guitar amp the bass can still be heard.
The SWR LA 15 retails ard 600 ish at Swee lee w the customary 20% off, i think me prob get tt unless can get 2nd hand workingman or the ampeg ba112

Spectors are awesome! But beware of korean made ones. Authentic USA spectors range from $3500 - $5000.

Those that you see at Davis are mostly korean made. You can easily get a 5 string spector made in korea for $500. The difference of course, is huge. I'm not sure where Swee Lee gets their spectors from, but i reckon, it's from korea?

I'm not quite sure about your guitar amp model, but the ideal combination is actually 4x wattage of the bass amp. Eg, bass amp 100watt, guitar amp should be 400watt.

A 30 watt guitar amp would be easily drown out by the tone coming out from a 100 watt . My guitarist uses a 60 watt marshall, and if i turn my amp gain slightly higher, i could hardly hear his guitar even though his amp is at full. I think for small gigs, you can probably get a > 150 watt guitar amp to compliment the bass tone.

I've read several not so good reviews regarding the SWR LA 15. But i think it's very subjective. Probably the users tried it at major gigs. As usual, the comment is it's too sterile. A trademark of SWR amps. But for small gigs and personal use, i think it's quite sufficient. Coupled it with a Sansamp Bass DI or MXR - M80 and you're gonna kick some serious ass.

Rock on!

 

[cereal]

I'm not quite sure about your guitar amp model, but the ideal combination is actually 4x wattage of the bass amp. Eg, bass amp 100watt, guitar amp should be 400watt.

I thought its the other way round?....meaning that if your guitar amp is 100watt, then the bass amp shld preferbly be 3 or 4 times wattage of the bass amp. I'm not equally sure of that either cos i vaguely remember reading about this sometime back. hope someone can clarify this.

 

[fretless6]

I'm not quite sure about your guitar amp model, but the ideal combination is actually 4x wattage of the bass amp. Eg, bass amp 100watt, guitar amp should be 400watt.

I thought its the other way round?....meaning that if your guitar amp is 100watt, then the bass amp shld preferbly be 3 or 4 times wattage of the bass amp. I'm not equally sure of that either cos i vaguely remember reading about this sometime back. hope someone can clarify this.

Yep that's right... Low freqs take more much energy to produce. My 1000watt ( ran at 500watts 8ohm) power amp bass rig can easily be drowned by my guitarist's 100watt tube amp under hi gain settings.

 

[Guest]

Alamak. guess i've been reading the wrong stuffs!

But i still cant hear my guitarist. 8O

Thanx for the info guys!

 

[chimaera]

yeah tts y i tot so to, my 30 w guitar amp req at least 100 w bass amp to keep up, anyways thanks for the info guys. Btw the spector bass am looking at is 2nd hand european model one, guys asking 800 sgd, is it a reasonable price?, it has emgs p n j pickups, it should be more versatile than my precision but yeah i need to try first, goin to do tt tis week.
Yeah i think i can i save up for a working man 12, but i think i should give the ampeg ba112 a shot, howse trace elliot, any comments about those?