LeftyBassist.com

hey posting this for a friend of mine, he used to run a stereo rig with 6x10s for the highs and 2x15 and 1x18 for the low end with eminence 10s gauss 15s and an ev 15 and he blew out the 10s sold the 15s so now all he has is the 18 and wants to add on to it i was telling him to get 2x12s to round out the mids and get a touch of highs while still getting some bottom end, just figured i would get some feedback, anyone have any suggestions?

What amp is he running, and what kind of sound is he after? What style of music does he want to play?

Depending on what amp he is using and ohm rating, 12's are great speakers for mids and cover the high and low end pretty well depending on genre of music and amp of course. If he is running 18's, I would go biampable and set the 18's for the low freq only. They would more than cover the lows.

he's running a bassman 400 pro that I sold him he's playing in classic rock cover band and a band that plays 60s psychedelic style pop that dabbles in jazz fusion, he wants something that wont get muddy on the low end but not to brissly on the highs (he ways he wants his highs glassy for soloing but i have no idea what that's supposed to mean) with a strong emphasis on the mids, so i guess it would be a cross between bootsy, john paul jones, and jaco/Paul McCartney on the ric (the 18 runs at 8 ohms at 300 watts)

a near opposite rig compared to what I run in that I use an Eden WT800 pushing an Avatar 210 cab full range for my overall bass, and when I need something a little deeper I add an Avatar 112 cab running full range to thicken up the bottom. this keeps my sound nicely tight and yet has all the bottom I need even when pushing hard on a low B string

IME I found that using 15's or 18's with any kind of volume only works against me because it adds way too much lowend into the room - and that result in the sound tech mixing the bass muddy and quieter in the FOH mix. I've learned to readjust my ear to be satisfied with a near monitor that punches above 50Hz knowing that a good sound tech will pump the subs to fill out the bottom as needed for the overall mix

but ... if I had the option to play with a pair of 218's for subs, and they had zero impact on the overall house mix - woo-hoo!!!

all the best,

R

Not familiar with the Bassman 400, but for glassy highs I would recommend 70's Hiwatts, the Demeter 225 watts beast, 70's Ampeg SVT's, or V4-B and lastly a Mesa 400+, in that order.

I used to use a Big Ben paired with a Hartke XL 2x10 and that worked really well except in medium sized rooms where the 18 would over power everything else in the room at certain nodes. Those 18's have a really long waveform that can be a bitch to have to compensate for. that rig did fine in small and really large rooms tho.

well i gotta say im a fan of the bassman that certain model when it comes to tone i would compare it to a swr and the head comes with a room balance knob that runs before the preamp to tweak the low end freq to accommodate to the room size so once you set the room balance knob you can adjust the eq and still get a nice round bottom end with out having to worry about it becoming boomy in certain parts of the room , the more i think about it the more i wish i didnt give it up, oh well thats life i guess

I've used 15's and 18's for most of my "career" and have found that with 18's it's best to bi-amp and run the mid and highs into either 2x12 or 4x10. Once he gets is crossover set correctly (I can't remember the freq split but that info is readily available) he will probably find that arrangement satisfies his needs, especially if he often must play without PA support.

There is a real misperception out there these days that 15s and 18s can't deliver crispness and clarity. But the facts are that with modern drivers and properly designed and configured cabs the big boys can deliver surprisingly well.

I think a 2x12 would work nice with that head and the 1x18, but I also think a 2x10 or 4x10 could be good for tight response to couple with the big sound of the 18.

thanks for all the feed back guys he's gonna go with with the 2x12s and see how those work out and if the size of them plus the 18 doesn't turn him off i think he's gonna have himself an awesomely versatile rig, he'd like me to pass this on "thanks for sharing some knowledge with a righty bastard"

Hey AzWhoFan, was that Big Ben an 18" EV speaker cab in a big square box with grey monkey carpet and a metal grill? If so I used to use a pair of those back in the day. They had some great lows and you cant go wrong with EV speakers. Best discontinued speaker period IMO..!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeppers, you hit the nail on the head! i loved that rig and can't for the life of me remember why I ever changed it. It was powered by one of first production runs of the SWR 350.

update, my buddy got tired of hauling around a giant rig so i bought back the head and i purchased the 18, the low end can only be described as "rounder then a womans vuluptous back side" haha his words not mine but their spot on