keyboard through bass amp

[jazzfish]

Hi all,

 

what do I lose out if i play my RD700SX or Motif ES through my fender bassman 150 amp.

 

aside from headphones, im yet to acquire monitor speakers for them but will my bass amp be inadequate for output compared to a dedicated keyboard amp?

[Garrafon]

Many many moons ago, I used to always play my keys through a bass amp, and a lot of other keyboard players I know did as well. I'm not personally familiar with the bassman 150, but, my comment is - if it sounds good to you...then you are good to go.

[Eric VB]

I'm pretty sure that's the Fender Bassman that guitar players like to use. If so, it should have enough high-frequency response to be suitable as a keyboard amp.

 

It usually works better the other way around; bass can sound quite good out of a keyboard amp.

 

Bass amps are notorious for adding color to the sound. If you don't mind the way your keyboard sounds with the built-in EQ preset of some bass amps, then you won't have any problems. Again, since the Bassman is favored by guitarists, I don't think you'll have too much trouble with this particular "bass" amp.

[stepay]

Lots of keyboard players play through bass amps. Many amps are marketed as bass/keyboard amps. As was already said, if it sounds good to you, then do it.

[dementedchord]

bass amps for keys are not unusuall as opposed to guitar amps... primarily because of the open back of a giutar combo will never have any serious bass response.. if your expecting crystaline highs though.... spin again vana...

[JeffLearman]

I doubt that's a particularly clean and flat amp, so expect a colored sound. For rhodes, clav, and hammond, the color can be nice, and distortion can add a very nice quality. But for piano and strings, color is bad.

 

Will it be loud enough? That depends on a lot of things, like how loud your band is and how efficient the speakers you get are. 150W seems like plenty, but a 150W guitar amp is WAY louder than 150W of clean power delivered into full-range stage speakers. Also, is that 150W into 8 ohms or 4, and can you run with two speakers for 4 ohm load? If so, how many watts do you get? (I doubt Fender gives a rating.) In any case, watts are meaningless until you know what the speaker efficiency is (rated in dB SPL for 1kHz 1W signal fed in, measured at 1 meter from the speaker -- that's the standard).

 

Typical stage speakers are around 100dB SPL. At one watt. 10 times the watts is 10 dB louder. Do that twice (to get from 1W to 100W) and you get 120dB SPL. But that's only 1M away from your cab; at a reasonable distance it's more like 110 dB.

 

But that's using all 150W -- but guitar/bass amps are rarely very clean at those levels. So, with 1 8-ohm cabinet, and assuming typical rock band stage volumes (100 to 110 dB SPL), expect your piano sound (if it's a good digital) to have insufficient headroom, and maybe not quite enough volume when the band's playing too loud.

 

The most you can get by adding a speaker is twice the power (add 3dB) plus the extra speaker area (add 3dB) for a total gain of 6dB (I think). Typically you'd get less than twice the power for running at 4 ohms, though, so expect more like 4.5dB boost -- enough to notice, but not enough to blow your socks off.

 

Bottom line, though: you have over $4000 or more worth of keyboards. You shouldn't try to play it through $200 worth of sound gear and expect to hear the quality sounds that are inside them. You'd sound a lot better spending half that on synths and $1000 or so on amplification.

 

In particular, those babies sound a LOT better in stereo.

 

I have a 1997 Ensoniq MR76, which you can find on ebay for about $500. While the RD700sx+Motif combination would normally blow it away, I'll stack it along with my Yamaha EMX5000 and JBL floor monitors against your proposed rig any day, for piano. Play your gear through a decent rig and mine stands no chance.

 

For a temporary arrangement, go for it. Just be sure to get speakers you'll still want when you get an amp that's really suited for the purpose. And leave the bassman set up for practice or whatever. (Or playing bass?)

 

Sure, lotsa folks do it. But it's a waste to play such great gear that way. Serious misappropriation of funds, unless all you play are Rhodes and Clav. (Hammond really wants stereo, although real tubes are hard to beat!)

[JeffLearman]

DOH! wrong button ...

[Moog_Man]

i play all my keys through a fender twin reverb, and all sound fine. I mainly got it for my rhodes as a rhodes sounds way better through tubes but my synths sound great through it too, so if it sounds good, use it!

[JeffLearman]

Good point, lead synths can also sound nice and hot through a tube amp.