Bill Fitzmaurice

That's not so much using a pick as it is having a new set of light gauge round wounds. Entwhistle got very close to that tone finger style, though you wouldn't know it after ham fisted mouth breathing producers were done. Listen to 'My Generation', one of the few tracks that managed to get past them with his real tone.

I'd run dual mono. There's no advantage to running one side only.

Is it worth it? From the standpoint of output, yes, because a 212 isobaric only plays as loud as a standard configuration 112. But you can't just pull one driver out of the 212 box and expect it to function optimally. You'd need to build two cabs, with the cab design compatible with the driver Thiele/Small specs.

You can use the gain to add some edge and grit to the tone. Set it with the master volume low at first, then bring the master up. The sound with a bit of overdrive is related to the sound of drivers being pushed too hard, but it's not the same. Overdrive sounds the same no matter where the master is set. Over-excursion distortion gets worse as you turn the master volume up, disappears when you turn the master volume down.

Seems logical, but the position of the knobs doesn't limit the output of the amp. All you can say with any certainty is that with the gain set at 4 it won't be as loud as when it's set at 6. How much power either will result in one can't say, as it doesn't account for the other half dozen or so variables. What one can say with certainty is that if you hear the drivers straining to handle the low notes you're approaching mechanical failure, so back off on the gain or volume or bass EQ or instrument output or all of the above.

I'm afraid not. With no changes to any of the amp controls a hotter input signal will result in increased power output.

If it distorts turn it down. The power required to do that is moot, as you have no way of knowing how much power you're pushing anyway.

The loop is used with line level effects, whereas instrument level effects are used before the amp input. By and large if it's a stomp box it's instrument level, if it's not it's line level.

Bass cabs are usually ported, but the ports have ducts that tune the speaker response for the low frequencies of bass. The size of the speaker has very little to do with the result, the size of the box it's enclosed in does. As for coping with a low B at anything above bedroom practice levels, you won't find anything either small or on the cheap. Even powered PA cabs loaded with fifteens aren't made to go that low, being intended to be used with subs for the lower octave or two.

Don't literally stuff the cab. You do that with sealed cabs, but not with ported. Ported cabs are lined with damping material to reduce internal reflections. Sealed cabs are stuffed to both reduce internal reflections and to lower the speaker Q. You can find out what that means and a lot more here: https://www.ht-audio.com/pages/SpeakerBasics.html

The settings needed to get flat according to your amp is different with every amp, if it can be achieved at all. Even if the EQ controls are flat at 12:00 there's usually some voicing applied to the pre-amp that can't be removed or altered. I recall a big deal being made about flat response some years back. It pretty much went away when someone measured the response of a bunch of amps and found that flat response from bass amps was an elusive concept seldom realized. Having all the controls at 12:00 is as good a starting point as any, but there's nothing to be gained by leaving them at 12:00. If there were there would be no reason to have them at all.

The problem there is that pretty much nothing is flat. Just as with tone this applies to every link in the chain. If you did somehow manage to actually get flat response it would be as appealing as flat beer. Skunky flat beer at that.

Every model of bass has a different tone, every model of amp has a different tone, every model of speakers has a different tone, even strings have different tones, and every player has his own tone preferences. The only way to know what works best for you with your gear is to experiment.

It doesn't matter. I can show you many examples of how a 450w driver can be ripped to shreds with 50w input. Here's one: It's quite easy to do with a signal an octave lower than the speaker was designed to handle, which is very much what the OP described doing.

The power rating of a speaker is thermal, literally how much power it can take before the voice coil fries. How much it can take before mechanical damage may occur is seldom more than half the thermal rating. Besides, most amps are rated for their output capability at a very low distortion figure. Most are capable of at least twice their rated power at high distortion, albeit not long term. A sufficiently high pulse can fry a voice coil in a fraction of a second. A watt is the product of voltage x current, period. The TCs have been proven incapable of delivering the requisite voltage at the requisite amperage to come even close to their advertised ratings.

It's possible. You also could fracture the voice coil. PA subwoofers are designed to handle that usage, but standard electric bass cabs are not.

The Blackface and Silverface Bassman and Bandmaster were almost identical, the main differences being the Bandmaster had a tremolo circuit, while the Bassman had a high cut switch on the bass instrument channel. One of the earliest true bass amps was the 1960 Ampeg B-15. The next true bass amp innovation that I recall was the 1968 Sunn 200S. The amp was nothing special, but the bass reflex (mis-labeled as a rear loaded folded horn) JBL 2x15 speaker was a major improvement over other contemporary offerings.

That would have been the '59 4x10 Bassman, which for all intents and purposes was a guitar amp.

The description '6.5" 4 Ohm Hi-Fi Speaker Driver' confirms it's not a musical instrument driver. It's main shortcoming is that it won't have the durability of a musical instrument speaker that's designed to handle high level transient peaks.

It wouldn't hurt.

That's literally a tuppence driver. Replace it with an Eminence Alpha 6 and it will work as well as is possible. http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=EMIALPHA6A

Schematic_of_SUPERFLY1.pdf

As I said, I'd never seen one, but it's not like I'm shopping cabs. That looks pretty good, and it's correctly configured. At first glance it would appear pricey, but as I said there aren't many eight inch drivers that work well for bass, and those that exist aren't cheap. It looks like it may be loaded with Faital Pro 8PR200, which is a particularly good option.

The usual configuration is paired 2x10 or 2x12 vertically stacked. I haven't seen a pair of 2x8 vertically stacked, but I haven't seen a 2x8 either. As for why vertical stacking works better, the horizontal dispersion angle is inversely proportional to the cab width. It also eliminates high frequency comb filtering across the sound stage.

There are some, though not many, eight inch drivers that work well for bass, and they have the advantage of much better mids. But in terms of midrange dispersion to the audience and the player as well they should be vertically aligned. Using four eights in the usual arrangement would give the worst possible result.