Bassist in NY, loud aggressive music

[Aaron315]

Hello everyone! Just wanted to introduce myself as I'm sure I'll be checking in a bunch over the next couple years and wanted to get some input from any of you with experience. Commence the wall of text...

I've been playing bass guitar in the punk/hardcore/metal world for the past 25 years or so and I'm still always trying out new gear at what my bandmates would call a ridiculous pace. I think I've only played maybe two shows in a row across a couple dozen shows over the past year with the same rig, I'm always experimenting. My most recent change has been switching from my Peavey Mark IV amp to a Fender Super Twin head conversion (the Super Twin was originally a 180watt tube 2x12 guitar combo which is absolutely ridiculous, so a lot of people chop the combos down and put the amps in their own boxes and use them as bass amps, which is what mine is). It's a great tube amp for bass. Close to 2/3 the power of an SVT but 1/3 the cost and much lighter weight. It's my first foray into tube amp territory and I'm very happy with it. The issue I'm running into now though is with my current cab. It's an old Peavey 2x15 that I refurbished and put an Eminence Legend CB158 and Celestion Pulse15 into. Peavey made two versions of 2x15 cabs, one deeper and one shallower. I have the shallow version and with the solid state amps I have been using I love the sound of it. But with the tube amp it sounds like the cab is going to tear itself apart. Not from volume, as far as dB's go I feel like I'm close to the same as I ever was, but the tube amp feels a lot punchier...like it has more "oomph", to use a technical term and the cab sounds like it's choking the sound the amp is capable of...that's the best way I can describe it.

For reference, I'm not a fan of crystal clean bass guitar. I like a little grit on it almost all the time. Think Jesus Lizard, Unsane, Shellac...Shellac bass tone would be the cleanest I'd ever get. I'm not interested in sub lows. 80-120hz is where the meat of bass guitar should sit, with some grittiness up in the 800-1000hz range. I bought plans for the Jack15 and the OmniTop15 yesterday. I'm thinking a couple Jack15's are what I want. I'll start with building one with piezos to see what I think and add a second without if I like it. Anyone have any thoughts on that plan?

I like the dispersing/anti-beaming effect of the melded piezo array, but I'm not sure I need to go that advanced for the frankly brutish music I play...I'm thinking a flat array of 8 piezos on the top Jack15 would be plenty. Agree? Disagree?

Additional pertinent info: We mainly play venues that only put the vocals and occasionally the kick drum through the PA. 100 to 300 cap rooms. Occasionally we play clubs with full PA's and I have a cab sim pedal with some good IR's loaded in it that I send to front of house, but for the vast majority of shows we play my rig isn't being sent through a PA. The style of music we play is very heavy handed drumming and bass with one loud guitar going through a 4x12 on his side of the stage and a 2x12 on my side of the stage. As I said, I'm currently using a heavy Peavey 2x15 cab and I also have an Acoustic 408 cab sitting in my basement, its a 4x15, and I've been considering heaving that thing out to shows again so I clearly don't mind carrying around big and heavy gear...though it is getting to be more and more annoying as I get older...but it's not a huge concern, I'll deal with weight and bulk to achieve the sound I want.

[Bruce Weldy]

Based on the frequency range you mentioned, I'd go with Jack 12s instead of 15s. The 12 will go down where you want to and is much easier to transport. Build a couple of those.... Playing through that Fender head, you'll probably not want to go below 4 ohms, so it's either build just two cabs or you'll have to do some series wiring. If you built a Jack 212 with series wiring x 2, you'd get 4 speakers with an 8 ohm total output from the amp.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

My Jack 15 Lite has been used once, an outdoor gig where I thought my Jack 12 Lite might not be enough. Indoors the J12 is all I need. Two of them would be formidable, easily the equal of any 4x12 on the market.
A bit of advice: Invest in PA. It's not about volume, it's about dispersing your sound evenly through the room. The backline should drive the stage, the PA the room. IMO any guitar player still using a 4x12 is insane, but there's a lot of that going around.

[Aaron315]

Based on the frequency range you mentioned, I'd go with Jack 12s instead of 15s. The 12 will go down where you want to and is much easier to transport. Build a couple of those.... Playing through that Fender head, you'll probably not want to go below 4 ohms, so it's either build just two cabs or you'll have to do some series wiring. If you built a Jack 212 with series wiring x 2, you'd get 4 speakers with an 8 ohm total output from the amp.

Damn...now you've got me thinking. Just ordered the Jack 212 plan. Haha

[Aaron315]

My Jack 15 Lite has been used once, an outdoor gig where I thought my Jack 12 Lite might not be enough. Indoors the J12 is all I need. Two of them would be formidable, easily the equal of any 4x12 on the market.
A bit of advice: Invest in PA. It's not about volume, it's about dispersing your sound evenly through the room. The backline should drive the stage, the PA the room. IMO any guitar player still using a 4x12 is insane, but there's a lot of that going around.

We are absolutely insane...and partially deaf.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Playing through that Fender head, you'll probably not want to go below 4 ohms

Back in the day we ran Fenders at 2 ohms all night long with never a complaint. Tuba amps have maximum impedance loads, not minimum.

[Bruce Weldy]

Playing through that Fender head, you'll probably not want to go below 4 ohms

Back in the day we ran Fenders at 2 ohms all night long with never a complaint. Tuba amps have maximum impedance loads, not minimum.

Yep. My concern was trying to push that many drivers with that head playing punk at ear-splitting levels.....I can already see that Fender letting the smoke out. But then, that may be a positive in front of the right crowd.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

That seldom if ever happens with tube amps, one of their advantages.

[Aaron315]

Assuming I build a Jack212 to start with, should I include piezos or not? I see mention of excluding them for bass cabs on the Speaker Hardware site.

If I do include them I would probably start with a flat array for simplicity, in which case, would 6 tweeters centered on the upper section of the 2x12 be adequate? Or if I include any tweeters at all should I go with the full 12?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Easy question. Do you play round wounds? Tweeters. Do you play flat wounds? No tweeters. Six tweeters would be enough unless you want to do a pair of 2x12. In that case twelve in the upper cab, none in the lower.

[Aaron315]

Round wounds with a pick and various dirt boxes. Tweeters it is! I'm going to start with one 2x12 and see how it goes.

Here's a question about stacking cabs...I've read that cabs with multiple drivers should have the drivers stacked vertically because there will be cancellation between the two drivers, and if they are spaced horizontally that cancellation will be noticeable as you move left to right, but nobody is going to be moving up and down so the cancellation won't be noticeable if stacked vertically. So two 2x12 cabs stacked horizontally on their sides would be not a good idea, correct? Two 2x12s standing upright next to each other would have the same issue? A super tall stack of vertical 2x12s seems unstable. Would it be better to run one 2x12 on each side of the drummer? Am I over thinking it and none of this matters?

Edited to add: I remembered what got me thinking along those lines... https://youtu.be/EUvttyKA6RE?si=oq5Kj-ok-wiBJuL3&t=512 And now that I've watched it again I think I'm majorly overthinking it.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Don't split cabs, that leads to low frequency cancellations. A pair of 212 vertical isn't much taller than an 810. What you might want to do with a pair of 212 is to aim the lower cab at the drummer, so he can hear your mids. It doesn't affect dispersion of the lows, which is 360 degrees.