Looking to buy my first amp. How quiet can the Fender Rumble 40 play? My house doesn’t want me blasting my playing.
I have a Nux Mightyplug headphone amp so when I need to be silent I can.
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Haha…it comes with a volume control so as quiet as you need it too I guess. Rumble 40s tend to be pretty ideal home practice amps. I had one for awhile and I live in an apartment. To be honest I’ve never had a single complaint no matter what amp I was playing. Even a 750w model through a 2x12 cab. Just keep the volume low is all.
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I’m torn between that and the Positive Spark. I don’t really need to gig, as I’m just learning myself.
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I have a Spark 40. If you need it for it’s ability to play tracks to play against it would be more ideal for that. If not the Rumble is much better bass amp and their costs should be similar.
Both can be found used pretty easily. IIRC I payed $140 for the Rumble and $180 for the Spark both in barely used condition.
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My Rumble 40 is my only amp. It’s a great home practice amp. And, yeah, the volume knob works well to keep others from hearing any playing.
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what @MikeC said. Love mine.
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Spark 40 is now about $220 or less. Spark 2 (50) is going to be $250 Black Friday, I saw it some where. If not give Musician’s friend or Pitbull audio a call they should be able to give you 15%-20% off.
It’s deep enough for bass and the App makes practice fun, comes with all kinds of awesome effects too.
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I’m in Canada but it’s on sale here as well. Now starting to think I’m going to get the Spark instead of the Fender. I like to dabble in Guitar as well, so this seems like a no brainer.
If I get serious and actually stick with it, I’ll get a bigger cab later on.
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@Al1885, I think it is great you have a great pulse on pricing for your Bass Buzz Friends.
I have a question for you:
It is my understanding that guitar amp may not be ideal for bass because of the lower frequencies of the instrument. The question is will a bass amp also be good as a guitar amp?
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In general at low volume you can use any amp for bass but of course at higher volume it will clip. The Spark series is designed to have good bass response at the expense of having warmer guitar tone, the idea is you can always add treble on guitar signal to make it up.
Some bass amps can be good for guitars if it has some kind of tweeters. The katana has one that you can turn on and off, my Genzler has 4 vertical array tweeters.
The best of both world type of amp is the Acoustic amp. Most has XLR mic input or combination. Human voice has such wide range collectively between male and female and some especially good ones are absolutely excel in wide range of frequencies spectrum, same goes to keyboard and drum amps.
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I’ve got a Fender Rumble 100 and I can make is as quiet as I want. Additionally, you can plug headphones into the back and it’s silent.
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I would consider a Fender Rumble 100. The volume will keep it low, but while you are just starting out and have no intention of jamming with others, it’s possibly down the road and taking the long view makes sense too. Rumble 40 is fine, just something to consider.
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If you ever plan to play without headphones, do yourself a favor and get the Rumble 40 (or to @Wombat-metal’s point, the Rumble 100) instead of the Spark.
The Spark is great for headphone use. Really, really great. But without headphones, the little speakers are just not enough for bass, especially if you’re also playing backing tracks through it.
The Fender Rumble 40/100 amps are really great across the board. With headphones, without headphones at low volumes, without headphones at higher volumes, they’re great.
I bought one (the Spark 40) with the same idea as you: great small amp for quiet off-headphones playing. But I sold it back to Guitar Center and bought the equivalent to a Rumble 40 (Guitar Center’s house brand Acoustic B50C) for the reasons I mention above. (I decided to go with the Acoustic because I’ve already had both a Fender Rumble 40 and 100, and wanted to try something different.)
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As @Wombat-metal mentions, I went for the 100 because while the 40 is a great practice amp, it’ll always be just a practice amp. With the 100 you could easily take it to a jam session or even a small gig. It’s not much more money to give yourself options. After looking at the 40, 100, and the 200, my conclusion was that the 100 is in the sweet spot: small, light, capable of getting loud when needed.