AX8, HS8's and bass for home practice?

D

Dudley

New Member
First of all, apologies if this is in the wrong sub-forum... I did my best, but there were a few options that might've worked!

I'm a guitar player, but started out on bass some 20 years ago and have been feeling the urge to pick up a bass again for a bit of variety lately.

My current set-up is a pair of Yamaha HS8's with an AX8 for guitar playing. I don't gig, or have any plans to, and don't record, though wouldn't mind doing some very basic recording in the future at some point. I absolutely love this set-up for home practice and jamming, it's been a god-send for getting high-gain tones at low volumes.

I'm doing my best to de-clutter the house of musical gear lately (ENGL Powerball out the door today and the Orange 2x12 to follow shortly, hopefully), so it'd be amazing if the AX8 + Yamaha's would make a decent little home practice rig with a bass, just like it is for guitar. I'd be looking to buy a 5 string Dingwall and wanting to play both with a clean tone and a distorted tone for metal (something akin to Fear Factory/older Meshuggah/Decapitated). Tight and grindy.

Will the AX8 and the Yamaha's work well for what I'm after? I know it's not going to shake the foundations of the house, nor am I looking for it to, but it'd be really off-putting to purchase a nice bass and then find that it's a really lacklustre experience or that the monitors just aren't capable of putting out a satisfying bass guitar tone. Keen to avoid buying a dedicated bass amp as it's A) more clutter around the house and B) I want to utilise the AX8 for a range of tones in a pretty plug-and-play manner. I'm not against the idea of picking up a Headrush 108 or 112 potentially though as it'd be useful for my main focus of playing guitar too and the odd bit of jamming with a buddy once the old Covid situation dies down a bit blue skies thinking

Grateful for any help or input! :)
 
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Comes down the volume you're wanting to push, as well as the general tone you want (I know you mentioned the grindy type of playing, but, you could still end up wanting to push a ton of low content, especially if you downtune to F# or similar, which will tax studio monitors greatly). I have used the HS8's quite a bit in the past, and even without a sub for the lo-lows, they did really well and low to moderate volume for bass, with a reasonable EQ and overall tone.
 
Thanks for your reply.

I don't think I'd tune any lower than Bb, perhaps A at a push. I probably play guitar louder than most people would at home, but I know that's not a very meaningful statement. Definitely a lot louder than TV or conversation volumes, but equally wouldn't be too sad if the bass guitar had to be played a little quieter than this to not be too taxing on the monitors.
 
Ah, you had periphery in there at first before the edit :). The others are yeah, pretty much B standard or in the case of Meshuggah, tuned up half step from standard even. You should be fine to push pretty good volume with that... just listen for speaker distress mostly, which will come on the attack of the note the most.
 
selta said:
Ah, you had periphery in there at first before the edit :). The others are yeah, pretty much B standard or in the case of Meshuggah, tuned up half step from standard even. You should be fine to push pretty good volume with that... just listen for speaker distress mostly, which will come on the attack of the note the most.
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Yeah, you got me :p sorry for the sneaky edit but after your reply I realised people might've thought I was wanting to go a lot lower than I intend to :) Periphery was better as an example of distorted and aggressive bass tone rather than pitch or actual music in hindsight.

That's really positive to hear - sounds like this might be doable!
 
Dudley said:
Yeah, you got me :p sorry for the sneaky edit but after your reply I realised people might've thought I was wanting to go a lot lower than I intend to :) Periphery was better as an example of distorted and aggressive bass tone rather than pitch or actual music in hindsight.

That's really positive to hear - sounds like this might be doable!
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Give these a quick play through your monitors:







Please ignore the horrendous playing... usually kick in some recording while practicing to figure out my rough spots to work on... a habit I regrettably gave up some time ago, but helps immensely. But you should be able to play those through and see if things get to a volume you like without stressing your monitors.
 
If the HS-8's don't end up with enough extension for you, Yamaha makes a matching HS-8S subwoofer that does 22Hz at -10dB.
 
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