Why so much power?

[chris_b]

Sorry, but very, very loud isn't just bad, it's stupid.
I used to go and see Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Richie Blackmore when they were at the top of their game and they used 100 watt amps with a 4x12 stack. I know they went to 2, 3 and 4 200 watt stacks, but that didn't make them any better than before.

Edited May 16, 2008 by chris_b

[endorka]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='200211' date='May 16 2008, 10:13 AM']Simple answer ear plugs![/quote]

Yes, but sooner or later - preferably sooner - you begin to realise that there is a certain madness in pumping hundreds of watts into massive stacks of speaker cabs, only to "turn it down" again by putting ear plugs in. Far better just to play at a reasonable volume in the first place, which has the advantages that the drums don't ring, resonate and rattle so much, you won't suffer ear damage, everyone can hear everybody, including themselves, and consequently some reasonably sophisticated music may be made. If the audience want loud, they can get it through the PA, while keeping onstage volume at a polite level. And you'll only need to carry a small combo into the gig.

Of course, it is a lot harder to fudge good musicianship at polite volumes levels - you don't get the instant "vibe" that loud volume appears to give you, and for the reasons mentioned above mistakes will be more obvious. It also requires far more disciplined musicianship to maintain, as just one guy playing loud can ruin the whole dynamic.

Naturally, there are some exceptions, I gues punk, metal etc. are not supposed to be polite :-)

Jennifer

[Wil]

I've played pub gigs with only a vocal PA, where I've needed to turn up nearly all the way with my 500 watt head in order to get a decent bass sound out front. My drummer hits hard, and my guitarist uses a 100 watt Marshall 4x12 stack. If I were using anything less the bass would be an indistinct murmer - I like to feel the bass, not barely hear it.

[Burg]

I have a Hughes and Kettner Bassbase that chucks out about 650watts. Only used it live once and that was through one 8ohm speaker and it was loud enough, every other live gig i've done has been through a small combo provided by the venue. All the actual volume is being handled FOH and the bass amp is basically used for onstage monitoring.

I do use a full rig in rehearsals though because I don't have any PA support and our drummer is very loud, but i've never found the need to go above 7ish on my master out.

[alexclaber]

The question should not be why so much power now but why so little power in the past.

Investigate the true sensitivity of a compact bass cab plus the full dynamic range of an uncompressed clean bass guitar, compare that to the sensitivity of a guitar cab and the dynamic range of a typical guitar sound and you have your answer to the original question. The answer to the other question is because that's all we could get at the time.

All this anecdotal evidence about amp A being X watts and Y loud despite only having the volume control at Z is as useful as comparing the performance of cars by seeing which travels fastest along the M1 during rush hour.

Alex

[ahpook]

[quote name='endorka' post='200256' date='May 16 2008, 10:50 AM']Yes, but sooner or later - preferably sooner - you begin to realise that there is a certain madness in pumping hundreds of watts into massive stacks of speaker cabs, only to "turn it down" again by putting ear plugs in.[/quote]

plus the one.

for years i used my trace elliot 150W head for every gig i played...never had any problems being heard, and if i did i made everyone turn down.

imho anything over 400W is excessive....for a venue needing that on-stage volume to fill it, you're going to be going through a PA anyway, so hefting all those watts around seems like a waste of time.

my current rig is a 400W...[i]more[/i] than enough in my experience.

[Wil]

My theory is:

If its not loud enough to make your eyes water, its not loud enough.

Simlilar to the other universal rule - if its not too fast, its too slow.

[thinman]

My original point wasn't really about volume so much (although that may be part of the reason for having all that power) as the need for really powerful amps (and by that I was think approaching 1kW and upwards - I don't consider 500w unusual).

Neither am I saying that a lot of power is unnecessary before I offend someone or make them think I've got some sort of wattage envy!

My question was more curiosity about what having that much power practically enables you to do and whether the way most people couple those big amps with cabs that they ever realise their potential. Are there some horrendously inneficient cabs out there?

Also, as Alex Claber says, the position of you master volume doesn't tell you anything about what's being pushed out.

In basic terms I keep coming back to thinking that there's no need to have anything louder than an unamplified drum kit. Maybe not the case?

Edited May 16, 2008 by thinman

[ahpook]

[quote name='thinman' post='200297' date='May 16 2008, 11:41 AM']In basic terms I keep coming back to thinking that there's no need to have anything louder than an unamplified drum kit. Maybe not the case?[/quote]

plus the one...couldn't agree more.

[alexclaber]

[quote name='thinman' post='200297' date='May 16 2008, 11:41 AM']In basic terms I keep coming back to thinking that there's no need to have anything louder than an unamplified drum kit. Maybe not the case?[/quote]

To match the SPL of a loud drummer with a compact deep response (and thus low sensitivity) cab you will need a lot of watts. My Acme rig was driven with a 2000W amp and sounded fantastic. Use more conventional cabs with less bass extension and you could reach the same SPL with 500W or less.

Those who continue to equate power with loudness are completely missing the point.

Furthermore there is little point of a manufacturer selling a range of amps whose different power models exhibit less than a 2:1 power ratio, due to the logarithmic nature of hearing, other than to pander to marketing needs.

In my experience those old TE rigs had much less bass extension, a much more midrangey sound and much more compression than I like - I am not surprised that 150W is enough with that kind of sound and enough speakers. But if you want deep bass and don't want to carry a van load of cabs then you need big power to reach high SPL.

I should also point out that many bassists have such poor control of playing dynamics that a rig with good headroom and minimal compression can make them sound awful - that's one reason the SVT rig remains popular. Likewise rigs with true deep bass extension are such a shock to the average bassist that they continue to boost the lows and end up sounding rubbish.

Alex

[thinman]

[quote name='alexclaber' post='200320' date='May 16 2008, 11:59 AM']To match the SPL of a loud drummer with a compact deep response (and thus low sensitivity) cab you will need a lot of watts. My Acme rig was driven with a 2000W amp and sounded fantastic. Use more conventional cabs with less bass extension and you could reach the same SPL with 500W or less.

Those who continue to equate power with loudness are completely missing the point.

Furthermore there is little point of a manufacturer selling a range of amps whose different power models exhibit less than a 2:1 power ratio, due to the logarithmic nature of hearing, other than to pander to marketing needs.

In my experience those old TE rigs had much less bass extension, a much more midrangey sound and much more compression than I like - I am not surprised that 150W is enough with that kind of sound and enough speakers. But if you want deep bass and don't want to carry a van load of cabs then you need big power to reach high SPL.

I should also point out that many bassists have such poor control of playing dynamics that a rig with good headroom and minimal compression can make them sound awful - that's one reason the SVT rig remains popular. Likewise rigs with true deep bass extension are such a shock to the average bassist that they continue to boost the lows and end up sounding rubbish.

Alex[/quote]
Alex,

That was a bit of a broad ("basic" as I said) statement I made there. I do understand that dependent upon tone, eq, compression etc widely different levels of power are required to produce equivalent levels of perceived loudness.

I was expecting someone to pipe up and say, for example, "I play heavy dub and I need 2k to produce even moderate volume levels for the sound I want."

[phagor]

Don't be fooled by the number of watts your rig is rated at. There is not a linear relationship between power and perceived loudness.

The rule of thumb is that a 1000 watt amp is only twice as loud as a 100 watt amp. That's based on the logarithmic sound pressure level measured in decibels.

In the real world, the perceived loudness is probably affected by lots of variables - the frequency range of your instrument, the other musicians, the acoustics of the room etc.

As with most things in music, the best way seems to be: trust your ears.

[johnnylager]

[quote name='BeLow' post='200375' date='May 16 2008, 01:04 PM']Some of us like to play loud whatever, others are fonder of hearing things into middle / older age.[/quote]
EH? ER20 me up mush.

[coasterbass]

I'm in the process of changing my rig due to some of the realities of this debate, primarily:

1.) No matter what you have behind you it can never compete or replace a decent foldback system.
2.) See point 1. again.

I've done gigs with my SVT4, driving a 410HLF and 118SE. Thats a good 1200w at 4ohms, and I haven't been able to hear it because there's 5kw of decent foldback coming at me too. I turned it off in the end.
All a stupidly loud stage volume provides is a headache for the sound engineer and a headache for you in the morning.

We now DI everything. Two guitarists run through Pod XT Live's, the keyboards are DI'd, and I just bring my preamps along. Everything goes FOH and foldback, and we can hear whats going on properly. After years of lugging crates around, fighting with stupidly loud lead guitarists and suffering a dodgy back and tinnitus as a result, all i can say is this is the most sensible setup that I've ever encountered.

[trent900]

I completely agree with the ideal that FOH and stage mixes should be provided by decent PA and decent foldback systems respectively, with no real need for any backline at all.

However, two things still lead to the purchase of kW stacks:

1. Many, many PAs, foldbacks, and even basic room acoustics are by no means ideal.
2. In the end, for a lot of people what you buy has absolutely nothing to do with what you need

Which is why I am expecting delivery of a 1080W rig next week. Men are here, we make noise!!!

Edited May 18, 2008 by trent900

[nottswarwick]

good read.
i have a gig tonight, and was going to use my combo with an extension cab. whay? no idea, as last time at the venue i had to turn my combo alone down. so tonight the combo will go solo again. it will simply be my monitor, with yhe pa doing the rest.

alex, out of interest, what cabs fit the description of true deep bass and low sensitivity. i would like one i think.

[silverfoxnik]

[quote name='nottswarwick' post='201409' date='May 18 2008, 10:30 AM']good read.

alex, out of interest, what cabs fit the description of true deep bass and low sensitivity. i would like one i think.[/quote]

+1

Fascinating stuff! I use a Gallien Kreuger RB700 which is rated at at 380 watts into 4ohms. It sounded good and loud enough for me with a Peavey 410 and I never took the master volume over 11 o'clock.. Now I'm using the GK with an SWR Triad and I set the master volume at about 10 o'clock.

The SWR seems to my ears to be more efficeint (with all other things being equal) and it has more clarity and low end to my ears, so I'm very happy. At our gig in Mullens in Eastbourne on Friday, we didn't even put the bass through the PA as we normally do, so something must be working right?

Like others have said, with a 400w or 500w rig and a PA, I can't see how you can need more power to make the sound in the room right for both band and for punters..

[gilmour]

[quote name='endorka' post='200256' date='May 16 2008, 10:50 AM']Yes, but sooner or later - preferably sooner - you begin to realise that there is a certain madness in pumping hundreds of watts into massive stacks of speaker cabs, only to "turn it down" again by putting ear plugs in. Far better just to play at a reasonable volume in the first place, which has the advantages that the drums don't ring, resonate and rattle so much, you won't suffer ear damage, everyone can hear everybody, including themselves, and consequently some reasonably sophisticated music may be made. If the audience want loud, they can get it through the PA, while keeping onstage volume at a polite level. And you'll only need to carry a small combo into the gig.

Of course, it is a lot harder to fudge good musicianship at polite volumes levels - you don't get the instant "vibe" that loud volume appears to give you, and for the reasons mentioned above mistakes will be more obvious. It also requires far more disciplined musicianship to maintain, as just one guy playing loud can ruin the whole dynamic.

Naturally, there are some exceptions, I gues punk, metal etc. are not supposed to be polite :-)

Jennifer[/quote]

hehe to true Jennifer, a big +1 for the pro comments

[Ham fisted Bass]

[quote name='thinman' post='199139' date='May 14 2008, 10:38 PM']I'm a bit struck by the huge amounts of power (500/600 watts +) some people have in their rigs and I'm a bit curious why.

Are some of the cabs out there very inefficient?

Is it required to get certain tone at volume?

Do people want 130db at 30Hz?

Do they never really use it?

Do they play just too loud?

Am I just being an old fart?

I've always thought that if you can get your desired tone and keep pace with a loud unamplified drum kit there's not a lot of point being able to go much louder. Once your drum kit is getting mic'ed up then there's probably a PA available that can handle bass reinforcement too and then the soundman won't appreciate your backline being too loud.[/quote]
I think that there are a number of factors at work here - in no particular order I'd go for
1 - Technology; years ago (25 - 30 years ago) when Trace Elliot first made an appearance they really were 'state of the art' and comparatively powerful. Bass amps at the time were generally either too small - physically and Wattage or required that you had strong mates to help move them. So when TE came along things moved on - to the point of 'mini rigs of doom' threads
2 - Physics; The frequencies which, as bass players we need to get out to an audience require more power to move them - Someone on here will be able to tell you why this is but by example, our guitarists 'lonestar' combo runs at a fraction of its 100W and can swamp any amount of Bass, and also this is why players who prefer 'middy' sounds can be heard more clearly - My band require quite a traditional Bass sound.
3 - The 'tone at volume' thing is interesting - For a good period of time I exclusively used an SWR Electric Blue Head 120W at 8Ohm this was played through a TE 15" cab (I forget the model) I then bought a Aggie 112 for portability and to help my ageing back figuring that I'd use it for monitoring on stage - anyhow this didn't work out I ended up driving the amp at full tilt - I bought a Mesa Walkabout 12 - Which in one incident bought a meeting of the local Masons to a halt - though its output. I had issues with this amp so I bought a Markbass R500 (500W into 4Ohm) to go through the Aggie (8Ohm) - worked to a point but the single 12 struggled for Bass repsonse so I added another Aggie (500 Watts!). Never used it past 10 o'clock and we've changed things in the band so I now need the amp to provide back line. But there's a lot to do with room accoustics here.
4 - I don't know about the drums thing our drummer uses a Roland Electric kit through the PA and our setup does not currently allow the bass through the PA but I can cover all but the largest rooms with my rig. Big rooms require big PA - with foldback I wouldn't use a speaker at all.
5 - Can you ever have enough?

[NJW]

I use my 300W of all tube power for flexibility reasons.

First of all, many of the venues I play at provide me with only a single 12" or 15" monitor. We try to run as little through these as possible across the board but I tend to like mine to contain a little kick (if 15"), perhaps a bit of far side guitar and lots of vocal. When I start pushing bass through the monitor, I lose clarity in other areas. With a 6x10 and 300w amp behind me I have plenty of power.

Also... there is nothing that can replace the vibe and 'feel' of having 3 tube amps (2 guitar, 1 bass) on stage. We are NEVER too loud for our engineer and are very careful about stage volume.

We also end up sometimes playing vocal PA only shows, where I really really need my amp and could not live without it.

And finally... our backline looks awesome and geeks love it.




...when it comes to the day where I have to carry it about by myself, I may have to reconsider.

[wateroftyne]

I'm all for manageable stage volume, but the thought of backline consisting entirely of DIs into PODs makes by blood run cold...

[Ham fisted Bass]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='201657' date='May 18 2008, 07:00 PM']I'm all for manageable stage volume, but the thought of backline consisting entirely of DIs into PODs makes by blood run cold...[/quote]
Any particular reason for this? If I can hear what's going on with the drums and guitar in relation to me - that's it. The best gig 'all round' we played last year consisted of me going straight from my SWR into the PA and sent back to me via monitors (no speaker cab) - a quick sound check gave me a near 'perfect' mix. I'd love to achieve that every gig.

Can anyone explain (or point me at a thread) how Geddy Lee does the 'in ear' monitoring thing?

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Ham fisted Bass' post='201720' date='May 18 2008, 08:06 PM']Any particular reason for this? If I can hear what's going on with the drums and guitar in relation to me - that's it. The best gig 'all round' we played last year consisted of me going straight from my SWR into the PA and sent back to me via monitors (no speaker cab) - a quick sound check gave me a near 'perfect' mix. I'd love to achieve that every gig.

Can anyone explain (or point me at a thread) how Geddy Lee does the 'in ear' monitoring thing?[/quote]

I was specifically referring to PODs. Digital modelling ain't for me, that's all.

I like to have a mic on my cab where possible, too.

[bass_ferret]

Not sure Trace invented the high power rig - Acoustic and Sunn were doing it well before. Lots of bands playing in lots of pubs and clubs run vocal only PA, and they need bass rigs. A full band PA is a big investment and lots of bands either dont want to collectively pony up or dont want one person to own the "band" PA cos then they will start thinking they are the band. Of course you dont need 1000's of watts for playing with unamplified drums unless you are using cabs that need lots of power like Alex old Acme's.

[bnt]

[quote name='Ham fisted Bass' post='201720' date='May 18 2008, 08:06 PM']Can anyone explain (or point me at a thread) how Geddy Lee does the 'in ear' monitoring thing?[/quote]
Have a look [url="http://www.bassplayer.com/article/northern-warrior/Aug-07/30528"]here[/url], the sidebar has a full breakdown of his current touring rig. The main components are the [url="http://www.tech21nyc.com/rpm.html"]SansAmp RPM[/url] and Palmer Speaker Simulators. Weirdly, Geddy still has a couple of Trace Elliot amps in his rack though I have no idea where that signal might go. They all use wireless monitoring, handled from a monitor desk - dunno what they use.