Bass Amps and Cabs?

Decapitated Playthings

Decapitated Playthings

Member
Hello all you helpful Axe lovers! You guys have never steered me wrong. Only have a question looking for opinions... I've always used the Axe FX II for just guitar because it is my primary instrument of choice even though I play Bass, Drums, Keyboard, etc. Because of this reason I haven't explored the unit for Bass amp Sims and Cabs. Can you guys give me a good solid starting point for some really nice bass combinations? I'd really appreciate your input. Thanks again for whomever decides to respond. You guys rock! :encouragement:
 
Us low end dwellers have our own sub-forum that is... pretty much ignored :). But, there's a wealth of knowledge there. I've contributed to a few threads on bass, as have the usual other people like SeeD.

Bass & Other Instruments
 
I am going to follow this topic. I am (serious) bass player too (and guitar player). I wonder what your favorite amp and cab block combinations are? I have experimented with the bass amps and cabs quite a bit but have not had super great results. For me most bass cabs are too boomy and unclear. I am more a fusion/funk guy so I don't like that boomy rock sound. So most of the times I end up using only the Tube pre for recordings or just plug my bass straight in the soundcard or my Aguilar Tonehammer preamp with no Axe fx at all. Somehow I think the bass amps and cabs in the Axe fx are not on the same level as the guitar cabs and amps. For me they are not as easy to dial in as they should be. So I am hoping for some good suggestions here.
 
I use the ST amp and the 15" cab with excellent results. Sometimes I use 2 amps ie the ST & a Marshall & quad set With a bit of gain and blend them to get a bit more of an aggressive sound.I always roll off the bottom end in my mixdowns with all patches as it gets boomy but so does DI bass too. You could add a eq block to your patch and do the same before mix down. Whenever I listen to radio friendly mixes the bottom end is very mild. I do it to guitars as well. It de-clutters the finished product.
 
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If I had to give a super quick summation of bass with Axe-Fx, it'd be this: "be prepared for a lot of 'that's close enough'". It's a great system, and a lot can be coaxed out of it, especially if you're a guitarist as well. I know I can get pretty much any guitar tone I want from this thing, easily.
Getting the bass tones I want takes a substantial amount of time, more so than it does with guitar. Mostly, because there's so many compromises I have to deal with. The community is filling in the chasms as well as can be, but a few guys with spoons can only fill the grand canyon so quickly :p.
 
Just keep the cab/mic settings in mind when tweaking your tone. If it's too boomy, try experimenting with proximity, speaker size and your low cut settings to tame it.
 
Bodde said:
I am going to follow this topic. I am (serious) bass player too (and guitar player). I wonder what your favorite amp and cab block combinations are? I have experimented with the bass amps and cabs quite a bit but have not had super great results. For me most bass cabs are too boomy and unclear. I am more a fusion/funk guy so I don't like that boomy rock sound. So most of the times I end up using only the Tube pre for recordings or just plug my bass straight in the soundcard or my Aguilar Tonehammer preamp with no Axe fx at all. Somehow I think the bass amps and cabs in the Axe fx are not on the same level as the guitar cabs and amps. For me they are not as easy to dial in as they should be. So I am hoping for some good suggestions here.
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The amps & cabs are really good if you get into the habit of:

A) Having a good monitoring system with two sources, like dependable headphones and studio quality monitoring to switch back & forth on when creating presets, in a good room for accurate low end.
B) Using the Amp Passive EQ's to your advantage to tone shape.
C) Using bi-amping with the crossover, just like you would with many pro rigs in the real world. This way each amp & cab combo is really doing well with its given frequency range.

If you set the crossover to split at 250 Hz, you can arrange it so one amp handles everything below 250Hz and one amp handles everything above 250 Hz. Then you can use the individual amp block EQ's and block levels to tame the low end and shape the high end without killing the tone you are going for.

Playing with size, drive, and proximity parameters in the cab block helps dial in the sound you want.

If you have a sound clip of the type of sound you are looking for, I may be able to point you in a good direction as far as amp/cab combos that I have not posted on the AxeChange.
 
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dr bonkers said:
If you have a sound clip of the type of sound you are looking for, I may be able to point you in a good direction as far as amp/cab combos that I have not posted on the AxeChange.
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There are so many bass sounds I like that it is hard to give a specific example. As I said I am more a fusion guy. Think Tony Levin, Jaco, Mick Karn, John Giblin or Percy Jones for example. But of course they all have a totally different sound. I think most amp blocks are geared more towards a rock sound. For me the tube pre and the FAS bass amp work best. But I can get better results sometimes when going direct in the soundcard and adjusting the controls on my bass and do some post EQ'ing in Cubase. Many bass recordings are direct to the board (through a good preamp) anyway. Maybe mixed with a real amp sound but not always.
 
Bodde said:
There are so many bass sounds I like that it is hard to give a specific example. As I said I am more a fusion guy. Think Tony Levin, Jaco, Mick Karn, Percy Jones for example. But of course they all have a totally different sound. I think most amp blocks are geared more towards a rock sound. For me the tube pre and the FAS bass amp work best. But I can get better results sometimes when going direct in the soundcard and adjusting the controls on my bass and do some post EQ'ing in Cubase. Many bass recordings are direct to the board anyway. Maybe mixed with an amp sound but not always.
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If you have not updated to 18 beta yet, try my prog bass preset as it has some tony levin like tones in it. you will probably need to adjust the eq to taste. He had a lot of low end in his rig when i saw him with Awbh, king crimson, and Peter Gabriel, and the scenes reflect that.

if you did update to 18 beta, give me some time to post an update.
 
Am I the only one disappointed that it's been forever since a new bass amp has been added? Still no GK, Ashdown, Mesa Carbine/Strategy, etc. I've never even heard of Bludojai but we get another of one them before we get a GK RB - an amp heard on thousands of classic tracks? Even though I'm returning my Helix, I did love that it had several more bass amp models than the AFX2 and even about a dozen bass-specific presets.
 
mixministermike said:
Am I the only one disappointed that it's been forever since a new bass amp has been added? Still no GK, Ashdown, Mesa Carbine/Strategy, etc. I've never even heard of Bludojai but we get another of one them before we get a GK RB - an amp heard on thousands of classic tracks? Even though I'm returning my Helix, I did love that it had several more bass amp models than the AFX2 and even about a dozen bass-specific presets.
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Nope.. not alone, I play both guitar and bass!!
Remember, Cliff is a guitar player so that has tended to be his focus.
 
I'm not. Here's why.
When I first got the Axe-Fx II, I knew exactly what I was buying into - the list of available amps was easy to find online. I held out hope that, through the constant update process, we would see a small trickle of bass-related stuff get added. Surely, if they can spend these thousands of dollars every time for a few new amps, surely every few major firmware versions, we can get a single bass amp or bass effect added, right? Surely, even though we're the minority use-case, we still could get something. I even offered (many times now) to help anyway I could - from sending gear free of charge, to becoming a volunteer employee and doing the required work myself (which, I fully understand why FAS would not take that 2nd option, even if I did offer to sign any NDA or other agreement).

So, of course, I'd pour over every update with hope. And, of course, a ton of disappointment that "my people" we yet again, ignored and trivialized. Rinse and repeat for every firmware from 12 or so on.

After quite a few firmware releases now, it's become clear as day that FAS does not at all care for or pay attention to bass players. Once I resigned myself to that fact, I stopped caring what was in new firmwares, and as such, can no longer be disappointed in FAS. Sure, there's a couple of bass artists on the list, but that obviously hasn't bought us anything at all.

Eventually, maybe FAS will throw us a bone. I doubt it, and will be genuinely surprised if it ever manifests. The Helix is very tempting since they have included way more bass amps from factory, and do seem positioned to listen to input for more requests. A lot of people will say "But the Fractal products SOUND (or FEEL) better!" - well, that may be true, if you're a guitarist... since the Helix actually has bass gear in it, I can likely dial up better tone for me with the Helix. I'm waiting for a used one to pop up cheap and find out for myself. Yes, I'll keep my Axe-Fx II and will be buying an AX8 - but those will be used for guitar and mostly just expensive screwing around, if the Helix turns out to serve my needs better.

It's a good time to be a bass player - at least one modeling company out there seems to listen, and understand the importance of our instrument, and gives it at least a little bit of attention.
 
ZOOM has created a massive cult following with their el cheapo B3 and MS30b pedals. The problem with them is that the quality is ok, but fairly unrefined, and the cab sims are really...meh at best. But man, they tick almost all the boxes in terms of what they offer bassists for building blocks. It's wishful thinking that they'd ever up their game and produce a similar "deluxe" bass unit that had better specs and features. Not holding my breath for that, either.

Helix is interesting but too damn big of a board for me. I'm with Selta, and enjoy the AxeFx for what it is, and try not to lament what it could be. My guitarist loves the crap out of it when I let him use it on gigs. It's almost more gratifying to hear it live on his guitar, in all its glory, as it is obviously intended to be used, than to use it on bass myself, only needing a handful of pretty basic sounds that use about 5% of its potential.

AxeFx will always be a valued part of my tool box. In the meantime, I'm hanging loose waiting for something - ANYTHING - that is made for bassists, has solid specs and flexibility, and is aimed at those who require more/better than ZOOM, but perhaps not so much as the Helix or AxeFx, $600-800 price range. Must be that the market for this kind of bass processor is a financial no man's land.

oh well.
 
So.... let's continue to ask for, and hope for some more bass amps and cabs. The way I see it, there's another 33% of the market just waiting for them (so many bands with 2 gutarists and one bass player :))

So - Cliff... how about engaging some Bass players to create some kickass presets for Bass guitars?

Thanks
Pauly
 
A lot of time has gone into asking for bass amps, cabs and effects. We did at least get an Ampeg 4x10 IR out of it (ML, I believe), which is pretty decent.
Believe me, too, that quite a lot of effort went into explaining the position and the possible benefits from spending some time on this topic. I'd have to look, but, I'm pretty dang sure FAS has not once replied directly to any of those requests. Just ignored them.

Yes, there's a big market waiting to be tapped. I engage people on TalkBass.com a couple of times a week, and I know I personally have sold a small handful of Axe-Fx II's, and got one person on the waitlist of the AX8. But, I also have had a high number of bassists turn away when they couldn't pull up a GK, Acoustic, Hartke, SWR, Ashdown, Aguilar, Mesa/Boogie (etc. etc.) and work from there.

You can get somewhat close to the tone from those amps, but it takes an extraordinary amount of patience and time to get even in the same ballpark. Even to get the SVT model from FAS to really sound like an SVT takes quite a bit of tweaking sadly.

It goes way beyond just presets... give me one amp from each of those manufacturers I listed, a handful of FX pedals that are crazy popular among bass players (but absent from Axe-Fx, and not able to be reproduced), and a couple more cabs, and these things will sell even better. ESPECIALLY now with the AX8 here and at a great price point. I don't need the presets - I can do that part quite well enough on my own. I need the blocks in there so I can even start to really make presets and the Axe-Fx shine.

A couple of endorsements from key players (Nolly and Henrik are monster players, but, they're not exactly great ambassadors that bass players look up to for gear) would also help. But, I imagine that is kind of a catch-22 situation... you can't lure in the top shelf players who'll directly generate sales and marketing without throwing them a bone... but FAS seems uninterested in throwing that bone to start with (if I had to guess, because they feel the time/cost to do so not worth it).

Again, I'm not going to spend time spinning in circles. I have playing and recording to do. I enjoy participating on the forums and trying to help other people, especially in this sub-forum. I have exactly zero interest in trying to convince FAS to do something they're against doing, and getting my hopes up that they might.


Edit: I just noticed that Nolly is no longer even listed as a FAS artists. I think that means Henrik is the only bassist, from an official standpoint. Kind of telling, that is.
 
I agree with everything that has been said. Not much happening on the bass side of the Axe.
 
pauly said:
So - Cliff... how about engaging some Bass players to create some kickass presets for Bass guitars?
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LOL. I have the utmost respect for Fractal Audio. I really do. However, I feel like the pimple-faced teenager who keeps asking the hot cheerleader out on a date, and rather than respond with a simple "yes" or "no", or even "maybe", she looks right over my head and heads over to the group of football players to flirt. I'm sure Fractal is aware that bassists are chomping at the bit for some acknowledgement, but it's obvious that they're much, much more interested in servicing the "football team". LOL.

But you can keep banging your head against the wall. More power to you. I'd be thrilled to see more bass-specific stuff. As I age, it's been more and more difficult to hang on to what little sense of self-esteem I do have. Constantly begging isn't something that I personally care to engage in any longer, regardless of the circumstance.

Good luck, though.
 
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