Gunslinger Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I recently read that Cliff Burton used Mesa 4x12 guitar cabs along with 1x15 cabs. Will the bass harm a guitar cab when pushed? Reason I ask is I have a Randall guitar cab and it sounds really col with bass @ bedroom levels but I want to take it to practice and try it out, BUT I dont want to f it up. Has anyone had any experience in this? Help!!! Brainwashed by ME,Myself influenced I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reachjkh Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 You could use them in a biamped system. Hey you white boy there Go play that funky music "ok...what's it pay?" first smoke, then silence your very expensive rig dies so gracefully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73 P Bass Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 As long as the cabinet's power handling capabilities are in line with your head you should be ok. Guitar cabs. usually have open backs so the do not have a very good lowend response. Also lower notes take more watts to produce, so again, make sure your cabinet can handle the power your bass amp delivers (that's why guitar players use 50-100 watt amps, and we use 300 plus watt amps). "Start listening to music!". -Jeremy C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 At band levels, a bass can easily blow up the speakers in a guitar cabinet. You need to bi-amp to use this cab. That means you split your signal with a crossover into lows and highs and use two amp heads. The highs go into one amp which powers the guitar cab and the lows go to the other amp which powers the bass cab. You can get some awesome crunchy sounds this way. Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticsound Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Originally posted by 74 P Bass: ...Guitar cabs. usually have open backs so the do not have a very good lowend response...Irrelevent, as he's made clear the cabinet in question is a 4x12 cabinet. That, almost by definition, means a closed back cabinet. Has anyone actually seen a manufactured, open back, 4x12 cabinet? Originally posted by 74 P Bass: ...Also lower notes take more watts to produce, so again, make sure your cabinet can handle the power your bass amp delivers (that's why guitar players use 50-100 watt amps, and we use 300 plus watt amps). Good point. But guitar cab. speakers are not designed to handle the bass frequencies well at all. As has been suggested, it could work well as the high/mid for a biamped bass rig, but why go that route as opposed to buying a cabinet tailored specifically to bass? It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman Soundclick fntstcsnd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kooky Mogessi Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Originally posted by jeremyc: At band levels, a bass can easily blow up the speakers in a guitar cabinet. You need to bi-amp to use this cab. That means you split your signal with a crossover into lows and highs and use two amp heads. The highs go into one amp which powers the guitar cab and the lows go to the other amp which powers the bass cab. You can get some awesome crunchy sounds this way.I'm a bit confused about the 2 heads thing. Are you saying in order to biamp something you need two heads or what? Basically I thought I basically understood the process of Biamping but after this post I'm a bit confused. I just need straitened out. Thanks for unconfusing me "Cliff Burton (the "Major rager of the 4-string mother f***er", from Metallica)" Direct quote from Wikipedia (censored out of respect for the forum) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basshappi Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Hi Everyone, I posted on the 2x12 thread that I had used a bi-amped 2x12-1x18 rig (and loved it)The 2x12cab was a guitar cab and worked just fine even at high volume. However, it is as others have pointed out, the rig was biamped and the 2x12 cab was only required to handle the mid & high frequencies. I would not have tried going full range into the 12s. A cab designed to handle bass freqs and wattage is of course the best. As to your question Penquinsarebirds. Jeremyc is correct, you have to split your signal and then amplify each one seperately. This is usually done with regular power amp(s). However some bass heads can be slaved together. For example I have a peavey mkIV the crossover is built into the amp head, so it is possible to bi-amp using another mkIV or I can use a regular power amp. Most of the preamps now have crossover built in so you would use just a regular power amp and not a bass amp to amplify the seperate signals. Hope this bit of long-windedness helps Nothing is as it seems but everything is exactly what it is - B. Banzai Life is what happens while you are busy playing in bands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunslinger Posted July 12, 2003 Author Share Posted July 12, 2003 Thanks for the help guys. I've got a Randall 4X12 laying around and thought about jamming on it to see what it would sound like, but I guess I'll stick with my regular bass rig. It was just a thought. Thanks for your thoughts. Brainwashed by ME,Myself influenced I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy c Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Penguins, You either need two heads or a stereo power amp. Most people that do this have a preamp with the crossover built in. This splits the signal into the highs and the lows....and then each signal goes to one side of the power amp and then to the appropriate speakers. My SWR SM-400 and some other bass heads are designed so that all this can be done with one bass head. My SWR actually is a stereo amp and can be patched in several different ways depending how you want to use it. I have biamped in the past with the preamp/stereo power amp method. One nice thing about biamping is that you can put effects on the highs only and still have a big bottom. That's what some rock players...like Sheehan and Entwistle and I guess Cliff Burton...have done. Put distortion on the high end and keep the bottom clean and you can get an awesome sound that would be extremely difficult to duplicate with one amp. Free download of my cd!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kooky Mogessi Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Oh Ok I got it know. Learn something new everyday "Cliff Burton (the "Major rager of the 4-string mother f***er", from Metallica)" Direct quote from Wikipedia (censored out of respect for the forum) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73 P Bass Posted July 13, 2003 Share Posted July 13, 2003 Originally posted by fantasticsound: Originally posted by 74 P Bass: [qb]...Guitar cabs. usually have open backs so the do not have a very good lowend response...Irrelevent, as he's made clear the cabinet in question is a 4x12 cabinet. That, almost by definition, means a closed back cabinet. Has anyone actually seen a manufactured, open back, 4x12 cabinet? Yes. I used to have a Gibson 4 x 12 with an open back. Also not being a guitar player, but starting out as one, I always thought it was the norm for guitar cabs. to have open backs. Every guitar amp I can remember has had an open back ( 2 x 12, 1 x 12, the afore mentioned 4 x 12, didn't the original Bassman 4 x 10 have an open back?). As I stated previously, bass cabs have closed backs to more effectively produce low notes. I don't think (and I'm not an engineer, so this is just what I've read) that guitar cabs. need a closed back to effectively produce the notes they are intended for. Also if a guitar speaker only needs to handle 50 watts to produce a good sound, why would a manufacturer design it to handle 300w? My point is just make sure it can handle what you give it. Nobody needs a blown speaker! "Start listening to music!". -Jeremy C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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