Atomic CLR for bass?

dr bonkers

dr bonkers

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Anyone try using an Atomic CLR with bass and the Axe-Fx III?

I'm intrigued, but don't want to get one and launch the cone into space.

The Accu Groove and FearFul/Greenboy stuff is too big and heavy.

The L6 2x12 can't hack it.
 
Works for me, at least at home playing and I usually tune down a bit too. Don't know how it would work pushing 120dB, but for my needs it stays really tight and punchy while other stuff would fart out way higher in the register
 
IMO the CLR doesn't bring what it takes, as a bass amp for live purposes. From 70 to 40 Hz Hz there's a steep rolloff in volume (see graph in manual), and the CLR can't compensate with power. You'll notice the absence of the sub lows (40 Hz and higher) at higher dB levels. For home use it is fine.
 
A lot of the high-end "boutique" bass FRFR/cab stuff (Greenboy, Audiokinesis, etc.) use Eminence Kapalite/Deltalite woofers or its variant and so does the CLR. You're not going to get much better than the CLR for bass with similarly sized/weighted products. And plenty of plain ol' bass cabs roll off at or above 70Hz.
 
I've a pair of original version CLR powered cabinets as well as a pair of passive cabinets. Some of its performance depends on what you need on stage, and if you need to carry a room purely from your bass stage amp. The latter may suffer a little bit from the lack of sub low frequency response. I've used the CLR in pairs and I personally enjoy them a lot. This is using them both with full PA support, or as stage amp carrying a small room.

Some of the other boxes you mention will deliver better low-end response , but for some situations that is not necessarily always a good thing. I personally like to have my bass predominant above the 40 to 80 Hertz range, and it doesn't seem to suffer, and helps keep stage Rumble down to a minimum.
 
Maybe I'll just give my CLRs a try for my next band practice. Our drummer isn't very loud anyway.
 
I'm not experienced with FRFR stuff at all, so take this with a grain of salt, but IMO bass stuff tends to be bigger and heavier and specially tuned etc. for a good reason. The demand a bass puts on a cab/speaker is just a lot more than a guitar. Bass stuff takes a beating in a way guitar stuff just doesn't. I've rarely had to fight with pro guitar gear to compete with a band, but it's been a pretty constant struggle for bass if you're in bad sounding rooms with loud drummers.

Given the kind of abuse I've seen bass cabs have to put up with, I'd be equally worried about launching cones into space if they weren't made to handle that kind of use.
 
^^^ Agreed! It's hard to get an FR cab to handle Bass freqs without building something specifically for the job. For what it might cost to do that I would be looking at a Phill Jones or Mark Bass combo type of solution, fairly light weight and pack a pretty good punch!
 
^^ As more modern bass amps & cabs are a wider and flatter response than their guitar counterparts. many bass players play into an FRFR/PA rig,

So for experiment, as I have a Genz Benz Streamliner 900 and Uber 1288T "Quad", for giggles i plugged my Ax8 into the aux in.. and was quite frankly stunned.. after turning the tweeter down to 50% and slight eq changes to my PA setting (Line 6 L2T) I was really impressed...

So i think a bass 210T or 212T cab may very well be a great option.. powered like the above but any class d bass amp with aux in, plate amp or whatever would do..play music through it to get an eq starting point and work from there..
 
I use one at home, for practice. Seems to lack a bit of power and oomph in that lower range. I've had the power amp fail twice over the years and I'm hesitant to push it hard.
 
The real question is correct me if I am wrong but Atomic amplification has all but disappeared so why buy a product that can never provided support?
 
200man said:
I’ve never used the Axe with a tube amp.
I just bought an FM9 for this purpose.
Are there a few presets in the FM9 set up like the 4CM manual description to start off with?
Thanks in advance…and BTW…excited as hell to get one of these floor style puppies!
Click to expand...

notalemming said:
Nope:
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/atomic-clr-sold-out.2305166/post-33574786
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That is great news! I owned 2 at one point, but sold em. I may get another!
 
jamn4jc said:
I use one at home, for practice. Seems to lack a bit of power and oomph in that lower range. I've had the power amp fail twice over the years and I'm hesitant to push it hard.
Click to expand...
I had a CLR power amp failure as well. I did wonder if this is common.
 
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