soulman
Royal Corn
Do you find that a single 8" speaker is a little too "light duty" for bass?
Bass equipment thoughts and ideas
- Thread starter Jim C
- Start date
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
Not really, but it's only a 30 watt practice combo. I have a downward firing 1x8 I put together and it sounds huge. Obviously I wouldn't expect either to be much use as a festival rig.
Pilgrim
Corn Star
- Reaction score
- 6,751
- Points
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I have a Roland CUBE-20 bass cube. Speaker is 8 inches and the amp is 20W; primarily for practice, but a nice amp that has a tuner and effects built in and actually sounds like a bass. You could use it an acoustic group or in a coffee house setting where volume is low.
I'm sure you will be amused by the sticker that says "HIGH POWER 20w".
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soulman
Royal Corn
I had a 40w Cube 1x10 guitar amp and was surprised at how much output I could get out of it as well. The overall design of that series of amps with their efficient speakers and sealed cabs is pretty amazing. I've just never trusted an 8" speaker with a bass before. I guess I should try one through that Spark I bought. It's got twin 4" speakers and it's supposed to handle a bass too.
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
My Phil Jones Double Four also has two 4" speakers as you might guess from the name. It will be interesting to see how the 30 watt 1x8 Ampeg with a larger enclosure matches up to the 70 watt 2x4 shoebox. More cone area vs more power.
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
The little 30 watt Rocket is here 
Sounds great! Way too loud for my little office at anything over 1/4 volume so beats the 35 watt PJB Nano X4 hands down in that respect. I'm going to take it to a rehearsal and see how it fares in a 4-piece with drums. Still amazed they are so cheap.
Sounds great! Way too loud for my little office at anything over 1/4 volume so beats the 35 watt PJB Nano X4 hands down in that respect. I'm going to take it to a rehearsal and see how it fares in a 4-piece with drums. Still amazed they are so cheap.
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
An annoying restriction with the smaller Rocket series is you can't add an extension cab and thereby get more volume... but as I have a spare 8 ohm driver I can swap with the 4 ohm one the RB-108 comes with, I reckon can easily add a parallel extension speaker socket so I can use one of my PF-112 cabs with it.
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
The little Rocket passed the rehearsal test with flying colours! Bass + drums + guitar + guitar / vox in a reasonable size room, all on half vol with eq flat. The speaker sounded much better after a couple of hours playing so I guess needed playing in.
Pilgrim
Corn Star
- Reaction score
- 6,751
- Points
- 93
Those small amps deserve some respect. Not surprised that its sound improved after some playing time.
Jim C
Royal Corn
I bought one of those under $100 Glary P basses and it plays really well.
It was approx. 6.8 lbs and was neck heavy.
Just happened to have a used set of lightweight tuners and it balances just fine. It does feel cheap and I think 6.4 lbs is just too light for a bass.
I've been searching Squiers for years and most are 8.5 lbs - 10.
There was one listed at SW that was 7.2 lbs. Called my rep and asked him double check. It's actually 7.5 lbs. and headed this way.
I can only hope it's a good one and that it's not terribly neck heavy. And I don't need another bass either.
Might finally return a bass if it doesn't feel solid and play well. BTW, after a year of following the CV's the sunburst are the lightest. No idea why and the maple necks are consistently heavier too. Again, no idea why.
It was approx. 6.8 lbs and was neck heavy.
Just happened to have a used set of lightweight tuners and it balances just fine. It does feel cheap and I think 6.4 lbs is just too light for a bass.
I've been searching Squiers for years and most are 8.5 lbs - 10.
There was one listed at SW that was 7.2 lbs. Called my rep and asked him double check. It's actually 7.5 lbs. and headed this way.
I can only hope it's a good one and that it's not terribly neck heavy. And I don't need another bass either.
Might finally return a bass if it doesn't feel solid and play well. BTW, after a year of following the CV's the sunburst are the lightest. No idea why and the maple necks are consistently heavier too. Again, no idea why.
theothersemioldfart
Unicorn Ninja
- Reaction score
- 4,395
- Points
- 93
I bought this Cozart 12 string that was freakishly light - the neck itself felt like balsa. It was $100 new and that's the guitar that I sold for $60 and had flippers beating down my door. I joked to my son that the main purpose of this $100 guitar was to occupy a space in the rack while reminding me that I don't play it. However this one sucked badly - the strings were nowhere close to the same height within each course. Had that not been an issue it would have been okayish for a $100 guitar.
theothersemioldfart
Unicorn Ninja
- Reaction score
- 4,395
- Points
- 93
The ministackodoom. Totally overkill but oh what fun
dedpool1052
Royal Corn
My "beaters"
Foreign and Domestic.
Foreign and Domestic.
- Reaction score
- 88,478
- Points
- 113
Trying not to buy one of the new Schecter 12-string basses that I wouldn't have time to play, but this video is not helping:
(Not a Schecter, but probably not too different based on the Schecters I've heard.)
(Not a Schecter, but probably not too different based on the Schecters I've heard.)
ficelles
Unicorn Ninja
That's a lot of strings on a bass!
Just finished up a major revamping of this Marco Bass:
Rolled the fingerboard edges, shaved down the upper horn a bit, and then did a trick new onboard preamp build with separate EQ for each pickup and an active mixer section. Neck pickup gets Bass/Mid controls, bridge gets a resonant LPF ("filter preamp") with a Q-switch. Volume controls are unity gain at noon, allowing many more boost/cut options than most commercial jobs can manage gracefully. In practice this means I can just tweak the bridge volume for soloing and /or slide work and go back to the "normal" sound in a heartbeat, since both volume pots are detented. Plenty of output to run directly into a line level FOH mixer for open mics and the like too, which is a very nice bonus.
Rolled the fingerboard edges, shaved down the upper horn a bit, and then did a trick new onboard preamp build with separate EQ for each pickup and an active mixer section. Neck pickup gets Bass/Mid controls, bridge gets a resonant LPF ("filter preamp") with a Q-switch. Volume controls are unity gain at noon, allowing many more boost/cut options than most commercial jobs can manage gracefully. In practice this means I can just tweak the bridge volume for soloing and /or slide work and go back to the "normal" sound in a heartbeat, since both volume pots are detented. Plenty of output to run directly into a line level FOH mixer for open mics and the like too, which is a very nice bonus.
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Jim C
Royal Corn
How did you roll the fingerboard edges?
I've done a version with a 3/4" socket and pressure that didn't hurt the finish but the radius was also small.
Congrats on yet another all new, high perf., pre-amp.
I've done a version with a 3/4" socket and pressure that didn't hurt the finish but the radius was also small.
Congrats on yet another all new, high perf., pre-amp.
The board is epoxy infused, so there were no issues with needing to refinish. I started with very small hand files, then 220/400/600 wet/dry paper and Scotchbrite. I didn't go for the full long radius oval thing, but just enough to allow lowering the action and still being able to use the slide on the G string. Psychologically it feels immensely nicer now, in any case. Now that I'm playing my EUB regularly again I don't need one fretless to be set up to mimic an upright so much, so I figured the Marco might as well be a mwah machine along with being a slide bass specialist. My other fretless four is super nice too, but there's always been a little too much overlap between the two for my taste. The new preamp is a reaction to that too. It uses 6 opamps and in the past external powering a la Alembic was the only reasonable way to get there. Modern opamps cut current draw a lot and this is probably a 200+ hour piece on a 9V battery, and I haven't even gone with using the lowest current opamps for everything this time. Noise floor is great and there's headroom for up to 24dB of bass boost without distortion, or used another way, full spec line level output that could probably drive many power amps directly if desired. I've been using a pedal to go direct to House at open mics lately, but all the better if I don't need to.
Took this bass out to our weekly jam Friday and some Phil Lesh love was the obvious call. It works supremely well for that now, especially for the late 60s/early 70s Phil vibe when he was still using Guild and Gibson basses and playing finger style.
And against my better judgement it now looks like I'll probably be doing 4-5 NAMM 2025 onboard preamp builds. Not currently planning on going to the show myself, but you never know...
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