Real world experience of Clean amps, HIFI amps, Tube amps, baked in sound...

[Jaybeevee]

Can i get some real world experience or advice?

I'm in the market for a new (used) amp. My bass amp experience i can count on one hand but include Mesa tube amp, Ashdown, Old peavy SS amp, Tecamp and Markbass. I think all of these coloured my sound providing varying degrees of warmth, fattnes etc. What i am wondering about is how amps which are so called HiFi amps, or are designed to deliver clean sound only or 'the sound of your bass' actually sound and work compared to Amps which are designed to colour you sound? Do they 'suck out the vintage' from old P basses (as i have read), are they only good for Soap bar basses (as i have read) or not that suitable for this genre or better for this or that. Can a decent EQ section warm things thicken things up? Do they need to be warmed up? Just throw a tube pre amp or other pedal infront? 

 

For me, i enjoy my vintage basses and have a couple of boutique basses with my current collection pretty much covered by P basses, J bass, Yam BB and a stingray and TKS 112 cabs. I play usually guitar based bands of various forms but pretty much rockish based. My skills are somewhere in the intermediate area (no pro here) and play mostly pubs and gig venues usually through the PA.. There are a couple few intriguing amps for sale on here and locally to me that are 'clean amps' such as thunderfunk, Glocks, Aggi AG700 Epifani, Eden..  I really fancy any of these, but then i get cold feet about it and think i need a Mesa Walkabout or Ampeg or Ashdown or simillar.

Any thought please? Real world for someone at my level... 

Cheers

Jay

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

IMO sterile. I don't know where you've read that stuff, but from day one the sound of the electric bass was defined not just by the instrument but also by the amp and speaker, and they were anything but clean.

[msb]

A transparent amp allows different basses to sound different , instead of running everything through a baked in sound. I went from a GenzBenz Streamliner 900 to a Bergantino Forte. The Benz has a three tube preamp , and does warm and tubey , or you can make it fairly clean however the Forte is a simple clean platform with some serious slam. With the Forte the individual character of different basses comes through much stronger.

Two very different amps and I’ve gone for the Forte for gigs. I also have SWR , GK , and Darkglass amps. The SWR and GK have distinct personality , the Darkglass is a chameleon.

[BigRedX]

Every bass amp has a baked-in sound. Otherwise there wouldn't be any point in having multiple makes of amp. You pick one with a baked-in sound that you find pleasing.

[msb]

Some amps are relatively transparent though , others have more distinct character. My Forte sound is largely determined by the bass I’m playing. More so than some other amps I have. 

There are many that use a power amp with a completely separate front end /preamp. 
 

edit The Forte does not suck the vintage out of passive basses , if you want to add an additional gain stage you can simply add the pedal or preamp of your choice , I run mine just as it is. It possesses  some serious slam , and I find the EQ on the Forte almost surgical when it comes down to dialling things in. 
 

Edited October 13, 2022 by msb

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

IMO sterile. I don't know where you've read that stuff, but from day one the sound of the electric bass was defined not just by the instrument but also by the amp and speaker, and they were anything but clean.

 

This. I remember the first time I ran my bass direct into the board in a studio with proper monitors, not the little nearfield speakers everyone uses these days with their desktop studios (it was at the BBC studios in Maida Vale in case that's of interest). The sound was smooth, clean and even - all the notes spoke equally. It was also rather characterless and needed eq, etc  to make it work in the mix. As others suggest, look for an amp that has a baked-in sound that suits you and go from there. Some are certainly more overtly baked-in sounding than others, but what you like and what suits the music you are playing is what counts, rather than how it measures on an oscilloscope.

[msb]

There are amps that do not have any EQ , like this M Series amp by Jule. But they are designed to be used with a preamp with EQ .  Like Monique. Someday I hope to run one of those rigs.


 

[msb]

And the preamp , Monique

 

Here powered by a Demeter Minnie , 800 watts.

Edited October 13, 2022 by msb

[Jaybeevee]

5 hours ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

I don't know where you've read that stuff,

just talk bass and other forums. Just punters putting in their two penneth

[BassmanPaul]

In the late Sixties I bought a Leak TL50 Plus. A mono power amp with 50W output from a pair of Cathode biased KT88s. I paid five quid for it. I built a single tube pre-amp, basically the normal channel of a Fender Bassman, to plug into the pre-amp socket on the Leak. It worked really well.

[Jaybeevee]

I get it its a very subjective thread and the only answer is already stated. Buy what you like. But of course it's often not possible to try, especially used. 

Sounds like buy it, try it, move it on if not, is the best bet..

Edited October 13, 2022 by Jaybeevee

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

40 minutes ago, Jaybeevee said:

just talk bass and other forums. Just punters putting in their two penneth

We've got a saying in the States about sphincters and opinions, I've got to assume you have a similar one on your side of the pond. That's especially true of Talk Bass. I had to leave there ten years ago lest I lose what was left of my sanity completely. 😳

[Passinwind]

On 13/10/2022 at 04:40, Jaybeevee said:

Can i get some real world experience or advice?

I'm in the market for a new (used) amp. My bass amp experience i can count on one hand but include Mesa tube amp, Ashdown, Old peavy SS amp, Tecamp and Markbass. I think all of these coloured my sound providing varying degrees of warmth, fattnes etc. What i am wondering about is how amps which are so called HiFi amps, or are designed to deliver clean sound only or 'the sound of your bass' actually sound and work compared to Amps which are designed to colour you sound? Do they 'suck out the vintage' from old P basses (as i have read), are they only good for Soap bar basses (as i have read) or not that suitable for this genre or better for this or that. Can a decent EQ section warm things thicken things up? Do they need to be warmed up? Just throw a tube pre amp or other pedal infront? 

 

For me, i enjoy my vintage basses and have a couple of boutique basses with my current collection pretty much covered by P basses, J bass, Yam BB and a stingray and TKS 112 cabs. I play usually guitar based bands of various forms but pretty much rockish based. My skills are somewhere in the intermediate area (no pro here) and play mostly pubs and gig venues usually through the PA.. There are a couple few intriguing amps for sale on here and locally to me that are 'clean amps' such as thunderfunk, Glocks, Aggi AG700 Epifani, Eden..  I really fancy any of these, but then i get cold feet about it and think i need a Mesa Walkabout or Ampeg or Ashdown or simillar.

Any thought please? Real world for someone at my level... 

Cheers

Jay

None of the ones you mentioned as being clean with the possible exception of some Glock models really are, IMO and IME. I've built a few that were closer but IMO very few people really actually dig that for bass guitar. Perfect for upright though, which was my primary goal at the time. OTOH, I absolutely love the sound of my BGs plugged straight into a mixing board without even a DI, but there's still always at least a bit of voicing in the onboard electronics I build myself.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Passinwind

[Merton]

I’ve used loads of amps through the years - Ashdown, Eden, Hartke, GK, Trace, Glock… class A/B, D, valve…

 

All have their own tonal tints and hues, the Glock being the most transparent/flat with everything at noon. I’ve found recently that the way I EQ that to my liking creates a tone very very similar to the Trace TE-1200 set “flat”.

 

As @BigRedX says, find the one with the base sound that you like and use that. For me at the moment that seems to be the Trace, but I’m not making a rash decision yet because I’ve spent the last 15 years doing that 😅

[Phil Starr]

You might want to have a quick look at this thread, it's about two specific amps but as you can see from the frequency plots they are very far from clean. Difference in sound between TC Bam 200 and Warwick Gnome - Amps and Cabs - Basschat

 

i'm agnostic about the clean versus coloured debate, like passinwind I do quite like the sound of my bass through a desk and straight to headphones but I also love an amp/speaker combination which just sits in the mix. 

[Merton]

2 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

 

i'm agnostic about the clean versus coloured debate, like passinwind I do quite like the sound of my bass through a desk and straight to headphones but I also love an amp/speaker combination which just sits in the mix. 

Agree. Sometimes I want clean and uncoloured, sometimes I want the amp to impart something extra. In this aspect the Glock can do everything whereas the Trace may be a little more limited … hence no decisions yet

[Beedster]

3 hours ago, msb said:

And the preamp , Monique

 

Here powered by a Demeter Minnie , 800 watts.

Nice

[BigRedX]

It's strange how we tend to spend a lot of time effort and money chasing that "perfect" tone, but if you listen to the many isolated bass guitar tracks from great recordings, you'll rarely hear it. What makes the bass sound good is not how brilliant it sounds on its own but how well the mix engineer has blended it with the other instruments, usually making the solo'd track sound very different to the original recorded sound.

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

It's strange how we tend to spend a lot of time effort and money chasing that "perfect" tone, but if you listen to the many isolated bass guitar tracks from great recordings, you'll rarely hear it. What makes the bass sound good is not how brilliant it sounds on its own but how well the mix engineer has blended it with the other instruments, usually making the solo'd track sound very different to the original recorded sound.

 

Thread  

[Jaybeevee]

6 minutes ago, Merton said:

Agree. Sometimes I want clean and uncoloured, sometimes I want the amp to impart something extra. In this aspect the Glock can do everything whereas the Trace may be a little more limited … hence no decisions yet

I really do fancy trying a Glock. The level of quality and no compromise approach sells it to me, but I´m used to amps that colour a bit hence the thread, so your comment about the Glock can do everything is kinda what I´m wondering about. And I´m really curious about the Thunderfunk on here too. The eq looks really versatile.. I just wonder will these amps give me thick, warm,  if I want it?

[Merton]

9 minutes ago, Jaybeevee said:

I really do fancy trying a Glock. The level of quality and no compromise approach sells it to me, but I´m used to amps that colour a bit hence the thread, so your comment about the Glock can do everything is kinda what I´m wondering about. And I´m really curious about the Thunderfunk on here too. The eq looks really versatile.. I just wonder will these amps give me thick, warm,  if I want it?

The Glock can, you just work the EQ and drive controls and it will do pretty much anything you want. It’s an immense amp, really well thought out. I can’t comment on the Thunderfunk but knowing its lineage I’m sure it has some wonderful versatility 

[msb]

With any clean amp you can add a gain stage , and tart it up. Not so easy the other way around.

[Dan Dare]

2 hours ago, Jaybeevee said:

I really do fancy trying a Glock. The level of quality and no compromise approach sells it to me, but I´m used to amps that colour a bit hence the thread, so your comment about the Glock can do everything is kinda what I´m wondering about. And I´m really curious about the Thunderfunk on here too. The eq looks really versatile.. I just wonder will these amps give me thick, warm,  if I want it?

 

For what it's worth, I tried a number of amps side by side several years back when I decided to give in to advancing years and go lightweight. I spent an afternoon at a well-known shop that sells most of the name brands. Among those I tried was a Glock Steamhammer. It was a fine sounding amp and turned out to be my second choice. It was clean and powerful and I liked it very much. I bought an AG700 in the end, because I felt it had a little more warmth when I wanted it than the Glock. I should point out that I use PJB cabs, which are clean - some would say hi-fi - sounding and I made sure I tried the amps with PJB cabs. Had that not been the case, I may have gone with the Glock. It was a close call. Do test amps with your cabs of choice before buying. 

[Merton]

Good point @Dan Dare - I use my Glock (a Blue Rock, a forerunner of the Steamhammer) with Barefaced Two10 cabs, so more of a coloured tone than the PJBs. 

[fretmeister]

12 hours ago, BigRedX said:

It's strange how we tend to spend a lot of time effort and money chasing that "perfect" tone, but if you listen to the many isolated bass guitar tracks from great recordings, you'll rarely hear it. What makes the bass sound good is not how brilliant it sounds on its own but how well the mix engineer has blended it with the other instruments, usually making the solo'd track sound very different to the original recorded sound.

 

This.

 

Isolated bass tracks often sound awful on their own, and magical with the rest of the band.

Some of the bass sounds that sound the cleanest / flattest / whatever in the mix are actually a real farty mess when heard alone.