Bass through a subwoofer?

[AkeJay02]

So I was messin' around with a bunch of speakers I had laying around the house, and decided to hook them all up to my guitar's half stack. It sounded alright, but the speakers weren't guitar amp speakers, so it was hissy.

Anyway, I got to thinking. There's that microphone, the subkick, for drums. It picks up really deep sounds really good, apparently. I was thinking about really deep sounds when I thought about subwoofers. And it made me wonder. Would it sound good to run a bass guitar through a low-band EQ, and then into a subwoofer. I figure that most bass amps don't release anything below about 50hz, and a sub would pump out everything from around 60hz way down to around 20hz, and sometimes 10hz. Would it be cool to have such low sounds coming out of a bass guitar or not? Anyone tried it?

[TheMachineRagesOn]

I ripped the head unit out of my practice amp (15w,cheap,nasty) and hooked it up to my cars subwoofer (Alpine S12) and it worked fine, subs can also act as normal speakers too..


If thats what you mean

[Crudd-Bucket™]

The problem I find is you lose all tone, because the speaker can't handle high frequency simultaneously with low frequences...

[wicked_child]

i tried it. yeah it was massive but lacks the tone.

[thelowsoundofbass]

ok most bass speakers respond down to around 20hz, which is fine because that about what a low B is. subwoofers gennerly on have a responce between 99hz and 5hz (you can get ones that repond all the way down to 1hz). a lot of the notes that a bass reproduces are higher than 99hz, therefore if you were to use ONLY a subwoofer it wouldn't sound that good. thats why bass cabs use woofers, not subwoofers. as the name implies, they are only made to reproduce the lowest frequencies and nothing else

lowsound

[Thunder Fingers]

i had to play through a subwoofer once, becouse some guys though "well, its a bass.. a subwoofer is a bass speaker"

It sounded so crap that i wanted to smash my bass...

[bbbbass]

If you notice, at live shows, a band will have subs, but the sound is sent to a crossover where only the lower frequencies are sent to the sub. If you want more low end, so active subs have a built in crossover; however, a sub should never stand alone.

[edgebass5]

Is it possible? Yes. Is it a good idea? IMO no. Honestly, anything below about 60hz is pretty much unuseable in a live setting. A good sound man will likely cut out everything below 60hz on your signal anyway. Also, the amount of clean headroom you're losing by running at that low of a frequency would be substantial.

Bad idea.....

[edgebass5]

Is it possible? Yes. Is it a good idea? IMO no. Honestly, anything below about 60hz is pretty much unuseable in a live setting. A good sound man will likely cut out everything below 60hz on your signal anyway. Also, the amount of clean headroom you're losing by running at that low of a frequency would be substantial.

Bad idea.....

[ebe9]

mud

[pitchfork]

i thought 20hz was the lowest we could hear.

[ebe9]

i thought 20hz was the lowest we could hear.

quite right

the human ear can hear from 20Hz to 20 000Hz

however one will hear the best at the age of 10 afterthat the little cillia (hairs) in the ear begin dying off and your ability to hear high frequencies diminishes, but you ability to hear low frequencies does not

suppose that means that we will all be bassing in our 80's which the guitarist fraternity will be a tad hard up

[AkeJay02]

So if I used like a combination of a sub and a woofer as like a badass cabinet, and then used a crossover, would it be cool-sounding?

Also, I'm not really referring to live music as much as recording. Does it make a difference?

[edgebass5]

^^^Recording it becomes bad too. Think of how many rap CD's you've heard in people's cars with factory stereo systems. Think of how bad it sounded. Anything below 60hz is a waste IMO.

[AkeJay02]

Okay, so to change the matter a little bit, a friend of mine bought a pair of PA speakers for our band a while back. I already owned a PA head or whatever you'd call it. So anyway, the band split up a while ago, and she didn't want the speakers anymore. So I bought them from her real cheap.

A few days ago, I got a crazy idea. What if I put the whole PA system in the back of my Jeep? Would that be badass or what? I've never heard of it being done before, but can someone give me some input?

[Tryxx]

I suppose you could...

I put a power inverter in my car, connected it to the battery so I could plug my amp in whenever I wanted. It was neat. Depends on what you want to do with it though.

[edgebass5]

A few days ago, I got a crazy idea. What if I put the whole PA system in the back of my Jeep?

So you want to use car audio gear for your bass rig...... PA gear for your car audio rig................... ummmmmmmmmmmmm............. I have an idea. Why not use the car audio gear in your car, and the PA gear for your bass rig?

..........seems simple enough to me

[AkeJay02]

Maybe I want to stand out and mess with stuff a little bit. Maybe I just want to see how much better music can sound when you tinker. If I don't like the way it sounds, then I'll go ahead and resort to normal

[dazzzed79]

I used a pair of 10" bass woofers in a car stero cab for a few years it was great. The sound was so clear I could just pop my trunk at parties and be the dj right there.

[doodooking]

I suppose you could...

I put a power inverter in my car, connected it to the battery so I could plug my amp in whenever I wanted. It was neat. Depends on what you want to do with it though.

Make sure your alternator is pretty beefy, unless you have a small amp.

[pitchfork]

Make sure you use a class D (used in car audio) pa amp or your batteries will die

[AkeJay02]

Thanks for the tip.

[doodooking]

Make sure you use a class D (used in car audio) pa amp or your batteries will die
Two points

1. The class of amplifier does not matter when talking about power draw. Class D amplifiers may be more efficient than Class A, B, or A/B, but it does not mean that the other choices are unusable.

2. Your battery will NOT die if you have a powerful enough alternator. If you don't know what I mean by this, go look it up.