David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 24 Jun 2009 10:24 am |
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Too small to keep up with a drummer. Pedal steels need a lot of headroom if you want to stay clean and use the volume pedal (C6th especially eats bass). If you're looking for solutions based on budget and your availability, I think that bass amps are a pretty good bet - especially heads, especially if you can find one with a versatile mid-range, either a sweepable one or with a graphic EQ. Even an old Fender or Peavey PA head + decent speakers works, just to piece something eminently usable together. You will want at least 100 watts. Except for the Peavey Nashville 112, but that's voodoo designing.  
However, avoid the modern speaker setups that are popular with slapping, tapping bassists - aluminum cones and dustcaps, horns, tweeters... I think it's customary for steel guitarists to use speaker choices to kill off the icepick frequencies above 4K or so. My big rig for bass, guitar and steel is a SWR SM-500, stereo 250 watts X 2, but with Peavey Black Widow speakers, which are paper-coned & designed for steel, bass and PA purposes. I use variant preamp/modelers in the effects loop, depending.
A little rig I have that works OK for practice & non-drummer-assassination purposes uses a bitty Stewart PA100 head with a modeler for reverb & EQ, and one or two old Fender wedge monitor speakers - but disconnect the horns! You can sometimes find really good speakers in old PA cabinets.... but kill the tweet. I've plugged into a newer Ampeg "BA" series bass amp and been pleasantly surprised - they have a five-position midrange switch that gets it in there toward toneland. |
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