Hey Guys
I am looking for recommendations for a bass amp or similar with nice punchy highs and plenty of tight bass. Would be for events with no PA system. My band gigged there with a Laney acoustic amp for myself and it was pretty anemic , lacking proper punchy highs. Thanks!
Bass player here, I use Markbass stuff, it’s pretty transparent and can sound hi-fi if you need it to!
Hey dude, thanks
Is that 60W one good enough for use without a PA for small gigs? I’d use it for monitoring when at gig with PA …im bit in dark as usually I’ve used acoustic amps as I’m a guitarist …
I think it would struggle, tbh. Perhaps you’d be better off with a powered PA speaker for a fuller range?
Something with a 12 or 15 inch speaker and tweeter for highs
Indeed. Why limit yourself to a bass or guitar amp that doesn’t have the frequency range you need? I’d recommend getting a powered (active) speaker. You can build it out to 2 for stereo at some point: https://www.thomann.de/intl/active_loudspeakers_fr.html
Just in case your not aware bass and guitar amps are designed to affect and become part of the overall tone of the instrument and also have high impedance instrument inputs… They will sound totally different than PA’s which are designed to just amplify audio and be relatively transparent although still might add a little color… Very different animals… Although some might like that sound…
Keyboard amps sound more like PA’s if your looking for something small and boxy…
yeah years ago when I played out frequently and needed more “on-stage” sound, I purchased a PA. didn’t have to worry about things sounding drastically different than what I’m used to hearing in the studio. just louder. I went the super simple route: two powered speakers. didn’t even need a mixer. just plug in two cables and go.
Thanks , lots of options thusfar … I can’t say I am any wiser though. I think I’ll just need to bring my digitakt to a few music shops and try some rigs out. I do want something smaller and boxy so I can use it for monitoring at gigs where there’s an engineer and PA … so keyboard amp thusfar seems to be leading the way … given the range of tone/freq from lowest to highest piano key … a good keyboard amp could work well with digitakt … as well as for my vocals …
The roland keyboard amps are marketed on their site as also targeting non keyboard instruments specifically electron rhythm …and vox - https://www.roland.com/us/products/kc-600/features/
200w also … could this be worth a look? thanks
If you have the possibility then testing for yourself is the best thing you can do.
I’ve been using a single 12” active monitor box for sessions as monitor/amp. There’s a range of 12-15” fullrange wedges that are dual use as monitors/PA. Especially the 12” are quite portable. Get 2 of them for a small PA for gigging/rehearsal. Get at least 150W.