Stereo bass setup, one amp two cabs

M

Mwahaddict

Sep 14, 2018
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#1
Hi Folks
I'm a long time guitar player, just switched to six string fretless bass, loving the lush stereo sound I'm getting through the headphones from my DAW. I'd like to recreate that for my live setup without purchasing a second amp. My amp has two outs so can I run them into a stereo effects box, stereo delay or whatever and send one out to each of two 8 ohm cabinets and get stereo? Everyone I've read about seems to have one amp per cabinet or a stereo amp and two cabinets. Can you smart experienced types help me out? I'm using an MB 500 GK amp.
Thanks
 
#3
Mwahaddict said:
Hi Folks
I'm a long time guitar player, just switched to six string fretless bass, loving the lush stereo sound I'm getting through the headphones from my DAW. I'd like to recreate that for my live setup without purchasing a second amp. My amp has two outs so can I run them into a stereo effects box, stereo delay or whatever and send one out to each of two 8 ohm cabinets and get stereo? Everyone I've read about seems to have one amp per cabinet or a stereo amp and two cabinets. Can you smart experienced types help me out? I'm using an MB 500 GK amp.
Thanks
Click to expand...

No, there's still no free lunch. The two outputs are in parallel and it is a mono amp. And the vast majority of EFX boxes will not work at speaker level anyway, at least not for more than a few milliseconds.
 
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#4
Thank you gentlemen for saving me from my few milliseconds of bliss followed by catastrophic failure! If I could impose again as to the preferred simple setup having two identical amps and cabs? I'd like to avoid unnecessary complexity as I find it distracting having too many buttons, less music gets made.
 
#5
Mwahaddict said:
Thank you gentlemen for saving me from my few milliseconds of bliss followed by catastrophic failure! If I could impose again as to the preferred simple setup having two identical amps and cabs? I'd like to avoid unnecessary complexity as I find it distracting having too many buttons, less music gets made.
Click to expand...
Something like a mono in, stereo out chorus or delay in front of the amps works pretty well, but I prefer to cut lows on one side, in which case you don't really need identical amps. A small guitar combo can work really well for the "satellite" side. Running full range on both sides can create low end cancellation that may not be what you want.
 
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#6
Interesting. So because the lows are more omnidirectional, they won't be missed on one side as the mids and highs would?
So you would need a separate eq before the satelilite amp to make sure you don't send lows to it?
 
#7
Mwahaddict said:
Interesting. So because the lows are more omnidirectional, they won't be missed on one side as the mids and highs would?
So you would need a separate eq before the satelilite amp to make sure you don't send lows to it?
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Well, you may be fine just cutting bass a bit on the smaller amp. One of the delays I own already has a high pass filter in it, which works very well. A dedicated HPF would be my first choice though. But ther's a lot to be said for keeping things simple too.

But the bigger point is not inducing unwanted phase cancellation and killing low end in the FOH mix, assuming your stage rig carries some of that. You will probably hear from many people about how stereo rigs are a waste, and how people in various places in the room will receive a different mix. But IMO and IME that already occurs pretty frequently anyway, and moving the sound field around intentionally can actually improve the audience experience in some rooms. I'm not gigging much any more and when I do it isn't in the contexts that I've always used stereo rigs for in the past. But I still have all the bits and pieces and for performing my own music I would still always greatly prefer a stereo rig, even more so because I would also be using it for synth and processed vocals.
 
#9
Mwahaddict said:
Great information, thanks so much!
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No worries. I'd suggest that if at all possible you borrow enough gear to try a few approaches and make sure it's even worth the effort to you before going all in. I also forgot to mention that getting a stereo feed to the board can be a hard sell in many venues, especially since mono FOH mixes are pretty common. I've dealt with that a number of ways, but staying flexible is definitely helpful. And as a longtime sound provider, I always greatly appreciated some advance notice when something non-standard was going to be headed my way.
 
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