Combo bass amps and slaving

or Peavey

…smaller and lighter are good things these days…and I’m looking to move air and fill the room, not so much about high end. I didn’t see the detachable head…that’s interesting…they appear stackable…saw a used P3115 fo sub-$200…

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I don’t think the export models are detachable - the detachable models have a “D” at the end. So, P3110D and P3115D are detachable but I think they are only sold in Japan.

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I’d recommend against running anything from an amp to an amp.
In all of my days and tours and experience, I have never used this set up nor seen someone use it. Bringing two combos with two different controls would be less efficient and more problematic than a single amp - single EQ - single place to go and twiddle knobs - and then run it into as many cabs as necessary.
Also, the tilt back feature on those cabs makes them dangerous in any sort of stacking scenario… unless you’re putting them on their sides?

I would recommend any combo or head/cab combination of 300W or more.
Once you have that much power, you should have enough head room to run another cab if you need more spread and volume.

I can’t recommend brands or models at this point, as I’ve only been drooling on too-expensive vintage gear for the last bunch of years…
However…
I did pick up a Rumble 500 recently for easy-transport, easy-gig action.
It’s loud and sturdy and has a speaker out for another cab, if I need it. I’ve never needed it!

I like the idea and the forethought… wish I’d had hands on experience with something like this so I could recommend with more authority… but the fact that I’ve never seen it before has all my danger senses tingling!

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Be careful with the idea of separating cabinets. When they are adjacent they couple up and work together. When they are split they will be working together in some places and against each other in some places. It can cause bass dead spots and intense spots around the stage and audience

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yeah more phase issues to be expected

Thanks Gio for your input. Using one amp’s line level signal to allow use of a 2nd amp for reinforcement is nothing exotic, dangerous or new. Slaving an amplifier is relatively common on big rock tours for multiple guitar amps, although I’ve not encountered it with bass in my touring experience. I’ll definitely agree with you in regards to stacking the cabs on their sides for safety though!
The tilt back feature would be useful onstage, as long as you don’t point them at a mic…and I’ve had cabinets on opposite sides of the stage, or opposite sides of the drums on many occasions with zero issues, although they were both passive and driven by an 800w gorilla GK head…
I’d love a Rumble 200 for cheap or a 500, but the smaller Promethean at 300w is reasonably light without being flimsy…and I’ve owned the Rumble 40 and though it’s super portable, I’d hesitate to even sit on it!
I’m still considering the Ampeg, Acoustic, and Promethean at this point, and still plan to buy one now used, and look to slave one in a month or two…as I said, it’ll be the econo rig with hopefully enough oomf to keep up with the Jones’!

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Thanks Dave for the reply, and I understand your concern with separating the cabs, but I can speak from experience with passive cabs…I’ve used a pair of 115 Teil cabs driven with a GK 800RB, and regardless of where they were situated, they performed well, and filled the space between them with low end. Using a slave set up with 2 powered cabinets, I’d be keeping them most likely one on top of the other or side by side anyway, but I’m prepping for when the drummer asks for them to be on either side of his kit!

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I didn’t want to say anything, but I’ve also been thinking about connecting two combos together, perhaps the 100 running into a 500? (lower power running into higher). I’ve searched for info on this, but can’t seem to find any consensus.

So you would need a cable with a female XLR connector on one end and a male 1/4" instrument jack on the other, right ? :thinking:

Do you think it would work if all the controls were set the same way on both amps?

Cheers
Joe

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as far as cables, you can use a 1/4" from the ‘send’ output in the effects loop, to a 1/4" input on the slave amp…my plan is to take the send from the effects loop output on the amp I’m plugged into, and once I have a good tone, running that into the input on the slave amp…I also plan on matching output in both cabs, so I’m not sure about going into a more powerful amplifier - although with a line level signal, I don’t think it will a bad thing…check back here if you hook it up that way and tell the tale…

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thanks Paul…I have owned Hartke and been very satisfied, but only speaker cabs. I’ve not really looked at used prices, but I think they’d be a little more (even used) than I’d have to spend at this point…

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Peavey is not in the mix for consideration at this point terb, but who knows…I’ve seen some 118 Peavey combos for short money, so I may end up looking harder at them at some point…currently, I’m leaning to the Acoustic, Ampeg, and Ibanez (Promethean), but time will tell…my GuitarCenter guy has been a great help too.

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I’m glad to hear it’s worked out for you so far. The success was due to circumstance and won’t be universally true for everyone in every situation. I can say for certain if they get far enough apart, there will be places in the audience that won’t have any bass. This one is up against physics.

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it’s hard to be limited by my english speaking because I’d have a lot to say about all this :frowning:

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I’ve never seen an amp daisy chain either! Sounds like a whole lotta nightmares. :hear_no_evil:

Like Gio said, running a head with enough headroom to run multiple cabs seems like a simpler way to go about it?

Otherwise you’ll have one bass tone from one amp, and then a different tone being colored by the second amp. Plus your signal path will be more complicated, you could get phasing issues, who knows…

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that’s the same thing really (assuming that you run the “send” signal to the two “return” inputs)

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Yeah for sure, you’ll definitely get phasing if you go into the standard input because the second preamp will introduce some phase delay for sure. If you use effects send/return you’ll probably still get phase shift from the power amp too though perhaps less (unless the effects loop is pre-preamp, but that would be dumb.)

Personally I would absolutely go for a bigger amp and multiple cabs over this idea. But like I said, I’m also not a real amp expert.

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Good point, @howard and @JoshFossgreen . . . I didn’t think of that.

Thanks for your input, guys . . . :slight_smile:

Cheers
Joe

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The power amp stage (any amp really) will introduce a phase shift. The preamp will introduce a serious one.

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Another thing I am missing here is why you would want to do this. It seems like categorically the worst option. Even if you don’t want to buy a big bass amp and cabs, instead of this you can get 2000 watt powered PA speakers for $250 each. Just run your tone-coloring preamp into a couple of those instead. Mackie makes a 1300W 15" one for $350:

But really, just getting a less expensive, modern version of something like the 800RB you used to have seems like the best option to me :slight_smile:

Even used G-K modern amp heads aren’t too bad. Used MB500’s run $300-400. And G-K is on the spendy side of course.

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