Guitar Buffs... need your help building a rack...

[hpkeeper]

First off... I'm a bass player... I'm gonna build a rack... I currently have a Hartke amp, which I intend to replace with a power amp of some sort, but for now, I'm stickin' with my Hartke. I'm a fairly basic bass player, I pick it up, I play... that's the extent of my knowledge of wizbangs and gadgets.

I need to know what to buy... one of my friends was talking to me about building one, here are some suggestions he made:

Power Conditioner
Wireless system (eventually)
Compressor (What does this do?)
Tuner
Pre-amp (again, what's this do?)
a rack
and of course my amp


Any suggestions of additions? anyone else have a suggestion of a how many spaces my rack should be? any recommendations for a specific type of any of the above?

~ThE KeEp~

 

[hpkeeper]

TTT

 

[alembic5]

Greetings from a fellow bassist! IMHO, KEEP IT SIMPLE!! I've been playing for 13 years, and have had tons of gear. What is your price range? I would strongly suggest a David Eden head (light weight, powerful and great tone). Ampeg is also good, as are (believe it or not) some of the peavey gear. Eden cabs are cool, but the new Ampeg cabs are awesome! Get yourself a good 4-10" cab... you'll never be sorry. I play a 4-10" with a single 15" bottom cab. Great combo. A compressor is a nice thing to have as well, as is something like an Aphex sonic maximizer. Check out the Aphex model 104... I got mine for $99 at guitar center a few years ago. As for compressors, nothing fancy... I think I have an alesis 3630 in my rack I don't use anymore. Decent and cheap! Don't waste your money on any processors... they don't have alot of real usefullness other than in very eclectic music (also IMO...). As for wireless, GET A GOOD ONE!!! You get what you pay for. Make sure it is true diversity, and test them out before you buy. I've had several, and some of the cheaper versions really stole the low end from my 5 string. Sounded very hollow. One decent one to check out is the samson airline wireless... I haven't used it, but have seen it in bass player mag. You also probably want to get a Korg rack mount tuner... they are a good thing to have on a gig. As for your questions, a compressor does just what its name implies. Depending on how you dial it in, it will squeeze your sound in a fashion... keeping potential "spikes" in your playing under control, keeping a more universal volume... but more importantly, protecting your speakers from damage. I use a compressor in my PA as well... it has saved my drivers many times! As for a pre-amp, you only need one of those if your bass head doesn't have one. All true bass heads have pre-amps built in... the pre is the portion that has all the tone controls and pre-volume on it. Now, if you wanted to buy a power amp... such as a QSC PLX3002 (I use one of these)PLX series power amps then you would need a pre-amp such as this Alembic F-1X preamp. Anyhow, that should give you a decent idea about where to start. I'm going to link here to the eden amps, so you have a good idea what those have. Eden Amps. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me... I'm happy to help whenever I can. Good luck, and happy hunting!

 

[thomsbrain]

ok here's the breakdown:

power conditioner --- basically a glorified surge protector. they're supposed to keep AC hum out of your sound. they're only helpful if you're in a situation where things are humming. otherwise, any surge protector will do the job just as well.

wireless --- careful here, the cheap ones can suck tone. but there's no denying that they're uber-cool.

compressor --- compressors reduce the dynamic range of your instrument. using it on a bass will basically make your loud slaps or hard picking less loud -- which allows you to raise the overall level of the amp and make the whole rig sound "louder." useful for slap bass or if you're not super careful about how hard you pick (like if you dance around a lot or just don't care). you'll want one of these, but it should be noted that many bass pre-amps have these built in, so you wouldn't need a seperate one unless you really wanted a super nice compressor.

tuner --- certainly cool, but personally i'd have a hard time justifying spending $100 to get the same stuff that any decent $30 chromatic stand-alone tuner can do.

pre-amp --- this will be the core of your sound. pre-amps adjust the level of the signal, usually add EQ of varying types, and can add distortion. sometimes they also include effects and things. but the pre-amp is a big factor in "tone," and different models will sound different.

if you replace the hartke, you'll need a power amp to power the signal from the pre-amp (they just put out line-level signals, like a CD player). otherwise, you can plug the pre-amp into the hartke. if the hartke has an effects loop, plug the pre-amp into the return of it's effects loop (this will bypass the hartke's built-in pre-amp). otherwise, as long as you're using the hartke anyway, there's really not too much point in getting a seperate pre-amp, since the hartke has one already built-in. if i will you, i'd skip the rack until you're ready to go all out and by a power amp and pre-amp at the same time.

edit: as mentioned by alembic, you can also get a rack-mountable bass head, which would contain a pre-amp and power amp built into one tidy unit. although i'm a guitar player, i love the sound of a bass player playing through an Ampeg head and 8x10 cabinet.

 

[KEV1N]

A crucial piece of equipment, in my opinion, is the Boss TU-2 stage tuner (pedal). The biggest part of your sound is how in tune you are, and this keeps away the dreaded "tuning song"!

 

[DerwenArtos12]

bass is the sh!t! what type of music do you play? i am wondering why you need a compressor? i enjoy using a metal pedal and a crybaby. i get some awesome effects that way.

 

[ThaPerculator]

ahh.. the rackmount tuner...

the one piece of equipment that visually verifies to the audience that you sound like crap onstage... personally I'd get a floor tuner so if you go out of tune u can get away with it for a little bit till u get a break... visually showing your crowd how off u are is just embarrasing.

 

[alembic5]

Agreed, except that most places you play nobody has any clue what those little lights mean. And lets face it... more little lights in the rack ups the "Cool" factor! And to be quite honest, I've never even owned a tuner after playing and giging for 13 years. I've always just tuned by ear... but to each his own! Depends on what kind of music you play. As for why a compressor... I find that a light compression helps cut back on the "edginess" of the tone when doing and type of slap/tap/popping. Those tones can really cut through... and sometimes you don't want them to stick out quite so far. Light compression helps blend in the pops without having to turn down the overall volume. Some of that also comes down to technique, but thats another thread...