Played bass through a 120 watt guitar amp last night. Wow it was loud!

[gjones]

I played at a venue in Edinburgh, last night, called Whistlebinkies. The bass amp they usually provide was broken, so the engineer connected up an Orange, Crush Pro 120, guitar amp, to the Ampeg 410 they have at the venue, for me to hear myself.

Wow that thing was LOUD! I had the master at about halfway and the gain on the clean channel just under halfway.

Now I can't figure out, how a 120 watt, solid state guitar amp, can be significantly louder than the 600 watt bass amp it replaced.

The previous amp they had at the venue was a 600 watt Ashdown Mag and the one they had before that was an Ampeg PF 500 I would have to crank both of them up near their max to compete with the volume the Orange could put out, with the gain and master at approx 50%.

I might understand if the amp was valve but there are no valves in a Crush Pro 120?


I am officially confused?

Edited August 13, 2017 by gjones

[JimBobTTD]

No, to be officially confused, you need to have been granted ISO Nigh No 9029YY9-Eau.

What was the bass response like? I would imagine that the guitar amp was nice and loud but not loud and nice.

[T-Bay]

Our rhythm guitarist has that amp and runs it through an orange cab, it's not as loud as that though. He normally has it on about a quarter for practice but it's fairly cranked up for gigs.

[Lozz196]

Could be that the mids/highs were much more prominent, being a guitar amp, so seemed a lot louder?

[PaulWarning]

yeah, bass frequencies are the ones that soak up the power, that's why we need 500 watt amps and guitarists need 50 (unfortunately not all of them understand this)

[SpondonBassed]

You wont have been feeling so much as hearing your bass in that situation. You need additional power to get that true depth where you'll still feel the subsonic stuff in your chest cavity at fifty paces.

[gjones]

I had the bass at max on the amp. The sound was passable, if a teeny bit bass light. I have a pre amp, so could have added more bass and the amp would have gone even louder. But I had a DI going to the desk and didn't want to muck up the front of house sound.


So the onstage sound wasn't particularly twangy. There was definitely some, trouser flapping. low frequencies there.

Edited August 13, 2017 by gjones

[dannybuoy]

The power ratings usually refer to how much power it can put out and stay clean. So for example a 120W bass amp might be designed to be used clean, putting out about 120W clean with the volume knob cranked. A 120W guitar amp on the other hand might be designed to hit 120W clean with the knob at halfway, so you have extra room to push it into overdrive, which is something many bassists don't want from their amps.

[Beer of the Bass]

I haven't gigged there with the Orange, but I've been surprised at how far up I have to turn both the Ampeg and Ashdown heads with that cab in that room. I had put it down to the cab having low sensitivity, so I'm surprised the Orange is louder. I wonder if it has something to do with "guitar clean" not really being clean, and not wasting power on the sub-100Hz stuff.

[wateroftyne]

Strangely, most (if not all?) 600w class-D 'powerhouses' have hi-pass filters to remove the really power-soaking lows, yet a 120w valve head can outperform them.

But watts is watts, right?

*raises eyebrow*

[Beer of the Bass]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1502698323' post='3352866']
Strangely, most (if not all?) 600w class-D 'powerhouses' have hi-pass filters to remove the really power-soaking lows, yet a 120w valve head can outperform them.

But watts is watts, right?

*raises eyebrow*
[/quote]

I'm pretty sure the Ashdown MAG in Whistlebinkies is old enough to be one of the class AB models, and the Orange is a solid state guitar amp, no valves. I wouldn't say that output topology is the issue here.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1502698743' post='3352869']
I'm pretty sure the Ashdown MAG in Whistlebinkies is old enough to be one of the class AB models, and the Orange is a solid state guitar amp, no valves. I wouldn't say that output topology is the issue here.
[/quote]

Ah, my mistake - fair comment.

On a wider point, I do think output topology has a lot to answer for, but I guess it's been discussed ad infinitum on other threads...

[Beer of the Bass]

I think the manager of that venue has gone off us, but if I'm back there some time it might be interesting to try my GK MB200 in the same setting and see how it fares.