Bass Amp for Steel

Aaron Garrett · From: Roslindale, Massachusetts, USA

Has anyone tried to use a bass amp with a Piezo tweeter, like an SWR amp, for steel?

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

The amp may be cool but I'd turn off the piezo tweeter. Piezos are too crispy on steel. IMHO

Brad Sarno

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

I used a Peavey TNT for a while, but didn't like the size of the thing, and the lack of reverb. Better than most cheap guitar amps, bass amps do a decent job, but still leave something to be desired for commercial E9th sounds.

Steels don't need tweeters, piezos or otherwise.

Travis Bernhardt · From: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

If I can just hook on, lamprey-like, to this thread for a minute--what about the reverse? Which steel amps would it be okay to play a bass through?

-Travis

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Years ago, when I played non-pedal in a western swing band, I used a couple of Ampeg B-15N "flip-tops" with a Bigsby. They had a very "brown" sound and not much "definition" for the interior notes in the 4 note chords I was playing, so I switched to an Evans.

Marty Nemanick · From: Madera, California, USA

Aaron,
Good to see you on the forum. I had to finish playing a show one night playing through a Fender Bassman, aside from lack of reverb, is worked great. BTW the PRICE banjo is working out great, it has a vintage Gibson tone that is outstanding I'm very pleased with it.
Marty

Gary Walker · From: Morro Bay, CA

For years, Curly Chalker played through two Fender Bassman amps and set the world on fire.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Our bass player recorded his Fender Jazz bass thru my old Session 400. It came out sounding like an acoustic bass. Very cool sound. He tried it at some quieter gigs, but the open cabinet kept him from getting that bottom octave of fatness out in the room. The tone is real good though.

Brad Sarno

Aaron Garrett · From: Roslindale, Massachusetts, USA

Glad to hear it Marty, that's a great banjo! You deserve it after getting all your stuff stolen.

A Fender Bassman and an external reverb unit sounds like a great combo. I play a universal so the bass strings get pretty low. It just seems that by restricting yourself to steel amps you are perhaps limiting your options, in particular given the big changes in technology with bass amps.

Mike Winfield · From: Fairhaven, MI

Aaron,
I have used a Fender Pro 400 combo bass amp for steel. It has 2 10"s and a tweeter and 350 watts.It is SUPER clean and sounds good (not great)for steel when used alone but when I run my Nashville 1000 along with it, it sounds fantastic. One bit of advice, to get a good steel sound, turn the tweeter almost off( there is an attenuator on the back). There are two other hi-fidelity bass combos that I know of that would probably also work for steel amplification.The Super Redhead by SWR and the Metro Combo by Eden. I have never used these amps for steel but they are similar and sound great for bass guitar.BTW, None of these amps are cheap. Hope this helps.
Mike

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I used my Hartke 210 cab w tweeter and 350w brain and a Tube Fex unit until I got the Peavey Transfex 212s amp for steel.
It was more than enough and sounded good, but I wanted a single unit.

Now I play some bass on quieter gigs thru the Transfex amp and it does get and interesting sound with the open back.

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

Fender Bassman with an external reverb unit is a great sounding steel amp. I still use that set up, and an old Showman. Bandmasters are also quite good for steel,maybe better than a Bassman because they tend to be cleaner than a Bassman at high volume. That's the biggest drawback to lower wattage Fender amps for steel,, they tend to overdrive too easily when cranked a bit..... bob

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

It depends on the frequency response of a "Bass" amp. Some have a limited hi/cutoff response. If this is the case, one loses much of the mids and highs. The original Ampeg Bass amps are a prime example. No way could this amp EVER bring out the mids and sparkle of most PSG's.

The opposite situation is the Fender Bassman amp. For all practical purposes, this amp was NOT a bass amp at all by design. It was just a regular Fender amp that had a lower frequency response.

This fit perfectly Curley's style and tone of playing; since he played more in the bass register than most players do. Also reverb is higher frequency oriented and has little effect at low frequencies.

Adding an outboard reverb unit to a Fender Bassman would tend to give the best of all worlds, minus power. IE, push it too far and it will distort.

Course, who needs to push that far anyway? We can be heard 5 miles away at 1/3 the volume now.

carl

James Morehead · From: Prague, Oklahoma, USA - R.I.P.

If you get a chance to score a Peavey Data Bass and put an RV-5 for reverb and a DD-3 delay, or a tubefex, you will have an awesome steel amp. It is a combo amp. It has the BW 1502 speaker in a closed cabinet. It's 450 watts and has a 7 band eq, so you can "up your highs and mids a little". Deepest lows for E9th and C6th neck. Gobs of headroom. It weighs just about ten lbs. less than my twin. The Data Bass was discontinued about 10--12 years ago.

[This message was edited by James Morehead on 18 February 2004 at 04:57 PM.]

David Doggett · Posted 18 Feb 2004 5:36 pm

Saturday night I will be playing my uni Emmons p/p through a borrowed new Fender Bassman 300 all tube amp head. It is 300 watts and has a multi-band graphic EQ. It will have a 4x12 bass cabinet. I will also bring a couple of 15" speakers I normally use with my Dual Showman Reverb for comparison purposes. Stay tuned.

Kevin Ruddell · From: Toledo Ohio USA

My small SWR LA 8 Bass Combo works fine for playing steel in small rooms , My Ampeg SVT Pro is a fantabulous bass amp , but a terrible match for Steel though. Plugging a steel into a powered mixer via a direct box sounded not good , but trying it through our guitar players Fender All Tube Pro Sonic.... beautiful sound.

Rick McDuffie · From: Benson, North Carolina, USA

Don't do it.

David Doggett · Posted 22 Feb 2004 10:36 am

Okay, I tried the new all-tube Fender Bassman 300 with my Emmons p/p uni (w/ TrueTone) last night. Awesome steel amp!

Our rockabilly/alt-country group (Gas Money) played a wedding reception at a bowling alley. Sounds weird, but it wasn't. The groom is a backline sound specialist whose company worked the Super Bowl, so a lot of music people were there. He set up the sound for the reception and told us to ask for any pieces of equipment we wanted, sky's the limit. I asked for the Bassman 300 and two 15" speakers. I got it, but with a 4x12 bass cabinet.

I plugged into the clean channel, set the 10-band graphic EQ flat, the channel and master volume at half mast, and tried it out. Trebly and harsh, like a guitar amp. I then set the EQ with a Twin-like midrange scoop centered at the 500hz and 1k sliders. Ahhh...there it was. It was like playing through three Twins, but smoother. I never got above half mast on the volumes, and it filled the 24-lane bowling alley. This amp will take care of anything less than a stadium.

The pluses: 300 watts of clean tube power, 10-band graphic EQ (switchable), mid notch filter, two channel mixing, master volume, high and low enhance, tuner and phone jacks with mute, compressor with extensive controls, active and passive inputs, line out, switchable speaker impedance. AND, it looks so cool with its see-through grill so you can see those six glowing 6550s sitting in there.

Minuses: the head alone weighs as much as a Fender Twin (75 lbs.). It is almost too smooth. I didn't hear much of that tube harmonics texture I've grown to love from Twins/Duals/ Vibrasonics. Supposedly you can dial in some distortion with the second channel (and mix it with the clean channel), but I didn't have a chance to play with that, or the compressor. It has no reverb. The stock 12" speakers were too midrangey for me. I don't care how much air they move, I just don't like the voice of 12" speakers for pedal steel. At the first break I brought in a 15" speaker (Emminence in a Vabrasonic cabinet, with a closed back, and the chassis removed for a reflex port). It sounded much better, and the rest of the band and the sound board guy all agreed. This amp really wants two or more 15s.

Conclusion: This is a very good amp for pedal steel, if you need that much power. If it weren't for the weight, I would almost get one just for all the features. But in the end I like the sound of my silver-face Dual better. If I need more volume, I'll just bring a second or third Dual and speakers. More trips, but fewer hernias.

Aaron Garrett · From: Roslindale, Massachusetts, USA

Thanks a lot everyone. Dave, what a useful review!

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

Once on the road in Fla w/Dale Watson we did a 2 week stint at one joint and had rental amps provided.I didn't like the Fender SuperTwin they gave me and they had no Peaveys so I tried a Traynor bass amp w/1-15,a lot of EQ and a one piece closed back design. I don't remember the exact model but it sounded great for steel provided you had your own outboard EFX(which I did). It sounded like my Session 500 and weighed as much......... -MJ-

David Doggett · Posted 23 Feb 2004 9:18 pm

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - bowling shoes are really great for playing pedal steel.

Carlos Polidura · From: Puerto Rico

Gentlemen,
This is new to me. I never thought anybody would consider playing a PSG through a "bass amp". Very interesting.
By the way I have a "WSR" amp for sale in the buy and sale section of the forum. Check it out... you might want to get a hold of this beauty. So before it's gone I'm gona try my 1974 Red Lacquer aluminum necks D-10 w/ 8 & 4 BEAUTIFUL EMMONS PUSH PULL.
Good luck to you all.
Carlos

Carlos Polidura · From: Puerto Rico

Sorry for the error.
For the amp it should have read...

"SWR"

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