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Does anyone still bi-amp?


HazBeen
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For those having moved to "FRFR" with powered cabinets like those from RCL and QSC (and many more of course) they are already enjoying Bi-Amping and the benefits that a well tuned system can bring. In this case I love the idea. Pop to a gig with just my Helix and one of these active cabinets for monitoring. Chuck everything in to the PA - that's practically one trip from the car!

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I have downsized my transport to cope with falling gig fees and rising petrol prices so I can't really take my preffered rig any more. 

The frfr solution sounds neat, elegant and tempting. 

I can't quite explain however why I get goosebumps at the sight of 2 15" Trace cabs stacked with a Trace  2 x 10 on top. 

 

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For all of the 90s and much of the following decade I was using a bi-amped system running a 1x15" and 2 x 8" cabs. This allowed me to run different effects on the low and high frequency components of my bass sound, mostly to stop any chorus, flange, or distortion effects sucking all the bottomed end out of the sound.

These days I do much the same thing in the Helix, only I merge the channels before the final output that is presented to the PA and my FRFR cab for on-stage monitoring.

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11 hours ago, BigRedX said:

For all of the 90s and much of the following decade I was using a bi-amped system running a 1x15" and 2 x 8" cabs. This allowed me to run different effects on the low and high frequency components of my bass sound, mostly to stop any chorus, flange, or distortion effects sucking all the bottomed end out of the sound.

These days I do much the same thing in the Helix, only I merge the channels before the final output that is presented to the PA and my FRFR cab for on-stage monitoring.

Gotta love the Helix for multiple signal paths! Yeah, all of that and more!

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On 20/02/2020 at 23:19, Dood said:

Gotta love the Helix for multiple signal paths! Yeah, all of that and more!

I do the same with the good old Line6 X3 Live, one channel clean and with effects. It really helps keep a fat punchy tone especially when using distortion or fuzz effects. 

I used to, in my early days when money was tight and knowledge was low, run a bi-amped rig. I built a 2x15 sub cabinet and had an old pair of H&H 4x12 tower PA speakers which I built a 4x12 cab from. I made a head/rack unit housing a Peavey max valve pre-amp cross over unit, a stereo graphic EQ and a stereo power amp. The lows went to the 2x15 and the highs to the 4x12. It was Heath Robinson but it sounded great. 

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Clearly this wasn't mad enough so I added an Akai Unibass, which splits your signal and leaves one channel unaffected and adds a fifth above to create a power chord to the other which can be fed to a separate amp (it does more but I didn't use that) and fed the fifth above to a 2x10 overdriven guitar amp which was housed in a matching cab which sat between the 2x15 and 4x12. Sadly no pictures but it was huge, and mental. 

It ended it's days as a more sober 2x15 and 2x10 bi-amped rig which is still wrapped in plastic in my workshop as it has little to no resale value but it too good to get rid of. 

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I used to bi-amp and enjoyed prodigious LF. At a guess I was a problem in the room, but I had a lovely time. I tried a QSC KW112 recently and it was lush. I then put a KW118 sub into the mix. I have to admit I did not get the extreme LF hit I was hoping for. There was more wool but not the joy I was dreaming of. 

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  • 1 month later...

I have used the lock down to organise my bi amped rig. Rack mounted Trace and Bugera heads, a crossover, a couple of always on effects and my wireless receiver. 

All wired together and ready to roll, should actually be a faster set up now. 

Deep rack allows for multi socket at the rear and space to pack some cables. Planning on two different effects set ups too, one for each amp. 

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