Battery Powered PA Speaker for playing bass outdoors

[Caz]

Hey everyone, I was looking into ways to play outside just now as it's summer and UK indoor performances are all cancelled due to Covid. I got some useful advice on the Battery Powered Bass Amps thread for different types of battery powered bass amps and also ways to connect a battery to normal bass amps or run from car generators. After a lot of looking into it, I ended up not going down the bass amp or battery/generator route at all. I'm also a drummer and had a couple of outside jams with a quartet where the double bassist owns a battery powered PA speaker. He said a few local double bassists use these, and to get the 40W one instead of the 100W as the bass sound is better. 

It's a Behringer battery powered PA speaker https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_mpa40bt.htm I bought this and the Behringer V-tone bass pre-amp for around £20 for a DI, which actually has turned out not to be all that necessary. Apparently the battery lasts up to 12 hours, it's small/lightweight and it has a second input as well as a bluetooth function to pair with a microphone or MP3 player. It sounds great with guitar coming through and can get an impressive volume out of it. When I have been on drums, the guitarist had the volume around half full and it sounded fine. It doesn't deal with the lowest notes on my 4 string Precision too well at a really loud volume, although changing tone and pre-amp settings helps. It comes with a mic and cable.

Just wanted to let people know that this has turned out to be a reasonably simple and cheap option to allow outdoor playing.. hopefully we'll be allowed to play indoors again soon.

Caroline