Al Krow

So usual low end cut...which seems to be defeating the whole purpose of a meaty chest thumping sub! But I guess with the smaller form factor of this unit I shouldn't have too high expectations.

I do like the look of that one (although I'm assuming no longer in production as it didn't show up on the RCF website when I just looked), particularly as it's < 40lbs! Be interested to understand from @EBS_freak what he has in mind re 'processing'.

The smallest seems to be the RCF SUB 905-AS II - 15" 67 lbs and £1,200 (which is a lot, given what we spent on the 310As) The Alto at £340 really is a budget option (albeit some of Behringer subs are even cheaper). I guess it would be the sensible one to dip our toes into, or see if I can get an RCF used. The only (and significant) point about going "cheap" is that if it sounds crap, it will prejudice the band against bothering with subs at all. I think I just need to spend some time having a browse through this over the weekend: https://www.thomann.de/gb/active_subwoofers.html

Thanks John, you're absolutely right, I meant Alto. Now corrected. Yup matching logos - that's going to be very important to any audience members with OCD 😁 Again more seriously, not sure I've heard anyone EVER say a bad word about RCF gear (no doubt I'll shortly be proved wrong), so definitely worth checking out.

In which case I may be forced to go with the (much!) cheaper QSC Alto option; that would certainly save on the faff of getting a splitter pedal combined with separate lpf and hpf channels (and would likely set me back another £150+ or so). Oh dear, what to do with the £££ saving 😁 On a more serious note, hopefully the QSC Alto won't sound crap / boomy in comparison to something that has the branding of BF? I generally believe you more often than not get what you pay for, and I'm struggling to think that the speaker and driver, in particular, in a £340 QSC Alto sub together with the rest of components will be anything like on a par with those used in a £1,600 (new) BF LF1400. I wasn't thinking of paying anything like that, but there are a couple currently available here and on eBay used, but the difference in new prices is noteworthy to illustrate the point i.e. the BF is over FOUR times the price of the QSC Alto new.

That's brilliant, thanks John. I was looking at a BF LF1400 recently and was advised I couldn't do what you've just said with the LF1400 in combination with my RCF 310As, but maybe what I was told isn't correct.

Yup that is definitely the theory. Not having owned a reverse P, I can't comment in practice. But I do know that I'm not using a solo'd P on my Yammy PJ 5ers, but have settled on the blended PJ setting which kinda ties in with what you're saying. Both the Ibby SR655E and the Jackson Dave E models are offering the reverse P (as do Sandbergs, but we're starting to stray into > £1k territory, certainly for new with the Bergs).

I'd forgotten about this one... Recently released JACKSON SIGNATURE DAVID ELLEFSON CONCERT BASS CBX-M V 5 string PJ & blend knob reverse P EMGs 3 band EQ 35" scale graphite reinforced neck £659 GAK in the UK available in white Downsides seems to be purely active; no passive 'fall back' 21 frets rather than 24 frets I could see this being an excellent workhorse gigging bass. Oh dear...I'm kinda getting a sense of small bubbles building up in the depth of my gut, again, now that I have recently moved on my BB P35. Must resist, must resist...😂 A completely spooky "snap" arriving at the same conclusion!!

Steve - pics are always good, so yes please! But you weren't 100% of the fan of the Mackie, so hopefully this flexiblity is available on some of the other subs you're more keen on. However from what you've said I'm not clear that you are managing to feed the subs with just the low end <80Hz range i.e. we really need a lpf not hpf, but maybe that is what the sub has (would make more sense!)

Cheers Phil - always good to have your input and insights! One matter I'm trying to get my head around is a piece of kit that will allow me to take the XLR out from my mixer and to split it into two: one to go to my RCF310A tops with hpf applied at around 80Hz and the other to go to the sub with lpf applied at the same crossover frequency => both the tops and sub are working in their optimal frequency range. Given that I am dealing with unamplified signals as I am using active tops and would be looking for an active sub, I'm guessing an hpf / lpf splitter pedal with a couple of DI outs should do the trick? Anyone using one / come across one? Or alternatively an AB/Y pedal to split the signal routed through separate hpf / lpf pedals. I appreciate that this is sounding complicated, but should be easy enough to load three pedals onto a small pedal board and just get out when the sub is being used?

A post from another thread, which was very interesting in terms of getting a sound guy's perspective: "As a FOH guy, if you are playing in anything larger than a wine bar I'll take SUBS over NO subs... 99.999999% of the time! 3-way tops might work…but single 15/12/10's simply can’t reproduce the entire spectrum to give enough "bottom". Gives me far more control over the mix, and for dance music it lets me get that chest thumping kick/bass mix going. So yeah…subs all the way."

Maybe it's just me, but my biggest issue with much of the Tech 21 stuff is that it all sounds very samey. Tim Starace playing the Tech 21 Geddy Lee pedal sounds hugely like Tim Starace playing the Tech 21 Steve Harris pedal...ah well.

@dave_bass5 I could listen to Tim Starace all day and I love his new band! Still doesn't make this pedal worth £400, though 😁

With active tops like the RCF310As any tips on how best to get the tops plus one active sub connected up with a view to ensuring the tops are dealing with (say) >80Hz and sub is dealing with < 80Hz. It's classic hpf territory, I know, but not sure how you get there post-mixer and daisy chaining one top to the sub? Be very interested in how you guys are going about this and also whether 80Hz is an optimal cross-over frequency?

@Dad3353, this looks like a really good 'old' thread. Would you mind working your magic to 'refresh' the earlier posts for us please? Thanks (again!) in advance

It seems from the (very helpful, thank you!) responses so far that not all subs are equal. My biggest concern would be muddiness of sound (= makes things worse), followed by lack of "heft" / low end kick (= not adding much). Based on your experiences so far, are there subs that you rate highly and others you would recommend to steer clear of? Some of you have already shared your thoughts on this in earlier posts, so thanks for that.

Can't disagree with that. Pub gigs it's definitely going to be too much of a faff. A couple of the venues we regularly play at have a great sound system, mixing desk and sound engineer - so we don't need any of our own PA gear for that. Other folk on this thread will be playing festivals, most of which I guess will also have sound systems etc. But it's the stuff in between, particularly functions where we are providing the PA gear. Even then we "do the sound" ourselves. However our drummers are pretty adept at just micing up the kick drum which is pretty much all we are currently thinking about, although something more elaborate may be appropriate for other BC'ers.

Can you say a bit more about what you feel the Mackies are missing?

We've played Wembley and managed just fine without subs! ...ok technically it was the Jubilee Line Underground 😂

This thread is already proving quite an eye opener! I guess I was asking the wrong question previously about adding a sub to a bass amp and got a pretty much uniform "no, you're just going to get mud"; but when it's in the context of a PA for the band and particularly the kick drum in addition to the bass, it's getting a very different set of responses. Around 3/4 of folk who've responded the poll have said their bands either already have a sub with their PA or are thinking about getting one.

So the Alto 312s simply wouldn't cut it?

That's very interesting and somewhat goes against the FRFR 'orthodoxy' that has been set out over a volume of posts! I'm guessing you've experienced 745As in the flesh and found them lacking in comparison? What subs are you guys using?

Just bought a pedal from Willem. Good comms, well packaged / everything as described and very smooth transaction. Really happy to recommend. Cheers, Bas