My newest toy.

DaFiz

The latest addition to my collection...
Behringer Ultrabass BX1200.

It's basically a practice amp for bass guitar but we used it on stage last week after the bass guitarist's amp started spewing smoke :-[
The Ultra bass feature gives an extra deep kick. The thing must have a huge speaker magnet coz it weighs a ton.
Also it works very well with the Takamine dreadnought and it has RCA inputs for the iPod.

babbalute

Nice small toy ? does it have a 10", 12" or 15" speaker in it ? I guess maybe max a 12" looking at the picture.

I have a Fender Rumble 30 and for a 30W amp this thing makes a hell of a noise as well wiht the standard speaker. You can not go down to deep with the bass as the speaker is a bit small for this.
I installed an additional speaker outlet at the back of this amp. (after drilling a hole and installing a cut-off female standard speaker jack connection I had lying around) It will disconnect the buillt-in speaker when plugging in the bigger vented cab which will contain a single EV-15B speaker. I recently got hold of an old Fender 2x15" (4 or 16 ohm depending how you connect the speakers) bass cab and am thinking of cutting it in half to reduce the size and weight and land up with two cabs each containing a EV-15B speaker. Give me some versitility depending noise required as well as size of venue when gigging. Will put up pics if its done and ready.
I put the original Fender 15" speakers (which are original Electrovoice 15F units) in the cab I have been using and is a very good state after 30 years. Need to take pics of these speakers and put these up as well. Seeing the Celestion speaker story on Guitarforum the last few days.

DaFiz

It's a 10" speaker which comes from a jack plug socket, so it's drive an external speaker if I need to,
however it also has a line-out so you can plug it into the PA as well. 8)

Kalcium

Been looking at these online as I was offered a trade for my solid state guitar amp for a Behringer Ultrabass 600. From what I've read it appears its the wood the cab is made out of that makes it so heavy...My biggest concern was whether or not the 60W ultrabass would be loud enough to be heard over a drummer, you say you gigged yours recently, would you say it was loud enough with enough volume spare to be too loud? Or did it just make it? Also how does it sound? Being a guitarist Im not clued up on what a good bass amp sounds like so trying it out would yield limited results...

DaFiz

Kalcium wrote: Been looking at these online as I was offered a trade for my solid state guitar amp for a Behringer Ultrabass 600. From what I've read it appears its the wood the cab is made out of that makes it so heavy...My biggest concern was whether or not the 60W ultrabass would be loud enough to be heard over a drummer, you say you gigged yours recently, would you say it was loud enough with enough volume spare to be too loud? Or did it just make it? Also how does it sound? Being a guitarist Im not clued up on what a good bass amp sounds like so trying it out would yield limited results...

My bass guitarist's valve amp
started "smoking" as soon as he switched it on and we shot home to fetch this amp. I never gave it another thought as it performed well enough.
He now uses it at practices and it works exceptionally well... Use the line out option if you want more. 8)

AlanRatcliffe

It depends more on the efficiency of the speaker than the power rating, but IMO, most 100W bass amps barely cut it in many situations, without spreading some of the load to the PA. 150W up is OK for smaller, quieter stuff and 200W up and you're usually smiling.

DaFiz

We're playing blues and soft rock in a local pub on a Sunday afternoon while the audience chews on their pizzas and eisbeins.
The trick is to not be too loud and the vocals is through a 150W PA which also carries the acoustic guitar and the bass drum.
The bass guitarist would usually use a 100W valve amp and the lead guitarist uses a 120W amp while my own rhythm guitar amp is a 60W Vox.
None of the amps are driven hard (50% volume setting being my favourite trick) and I'm even playing softly and delicately to keep it mellow.

If you wanna rock hard you definitely need more watts ?

nick

Got the same amp except mines a little more beat up 8) We used it when practicing and it somehow kept up with my 50w Marshall (and 2x12) and Reinhards 30w Matchless (and 2x12) and a drummer!

Kalcium

I do get that the efficiency plays a big role but I assumed being the same amp just a lower wattage version it might be around the same...as far as 100W only just cutting it is it really such a big difference, whereby I used a 15W valve guitar amp playing clean rhythm being heard (just barely, but enough to monitor my playing) for band practises over a drummer and a bassist and brass instruments that you then need a 100W at least bass amp? I mean for gigs plugging into a PA isn't a problem the same way a guitar amp would be mic'd so i'm just wondering as far as being heard with a band type of thing

AlanRatcliffe

The thing with bass is it does take more power to get the same apparent volume at lower frequencies - that's in the nature of sound and hearing. That's why a Hi-Fi or PA speaker will always have a lot more powerful woofer than tweeter. Bass tones are also usually cleaner, need more headroom and more often than not come from solid-state amps (and, as amp power is rated at onset of distortion, a bass amp is near the top of its power range when it starts to break up, while a guitar amp is only ticking over).

Especially with smaller PA setups, the bass amp has to have sufficient grunt as you want to use most of the PA's power for vocals, maybe a touch of kick and things like acoustic guitars. Use it for bass and a large percentage of the headroom will go to the kick and bass.

The general rule of thumb is bass amp should be approximately ten times the power of the guitar amp. Some players like more, which is why we see a proliferation of 500 W - 1 kW bass amps these days.