fender p bass (powerful mf)

wiggy69

got my usa fender p bass , i'm currently using a hartke systems 350 head with a 4 x 10 alluminium cone cab , it's blowing the absolute sh*te out of it , the power is allot diff , even with the compressor on the low notes are distorting slightly , like a dirty sound , i know the guitar is fine , is my amp too crappy for the guitar , im getting an ampeg classic head next week and i'm hoping that this will solve my prob , can't afford a new cab though , will the 4 x 10 cab hold up or will i have to go for the bulky 8x10 no mon no fun , any views ??

ferdi

i'm stumpped. must be some problem between cab amd amp obviously. whats the max wattage on your speakers?

Doctor J

Are you getting the distortion at low volumes? If it's a decent amp, it should have input and output gain. Turn down the input gain, if the bass has a higher output than your previous bass it could be running too loud through the amp and it'll distort at any volume. You could also try lowering the pickups away from the strings to decrease the output from the bass. Also, make sure you don't have all the EQ's turned up, keep them as neutral as possible (5 on a dial - 0 on a graphic) so as not too boost the signal running through the amp greater than it can handle. Just tweak the eq to get the sound you want, don't turn everything up, it won't change the sound it'll just make it louder. Keep your output gain up as high as possible and the input gain as low as possible to get a clean tone. Your 4x10 should be sufficient to deafen you, so there's no need to worry about that.

Dancing_Priest

300 watt 8 ohm , never did this with my aria though

JJSolutions

I hope your not going to get the ampeg hoping it will fix the problem, - take the bass into a music store and try it out on a few amps /heads to see if it does happen on other systems. is it an active bass?

BTW you selling your hartke when u get the ampeg?

wiggy69

i think that maybe the bass is just so much more responsive to my playing than my aria , i used to play really hard on my aria , now i just have to chill a bit and not beat the crap out of the thing , i found that when i played a bit softer i started to get better results , suppose it's prob like going from driving a fiesta and jamming it into gear to driving a merc , bit of bonding required i think , gonna keep my hartke for the reg gigs when its gonna be banged into the trailer , not gonna do that with the ampeg , not sure if the guitar is active , didn't think the p bass was

feylya

This might be a stupid suggestion but are you sure the amp and cab impedances match?

wiggy69

no but i know thw the ampeg head is 4 ohm and the cab i have is 8 ohm , sure if some starts rising i'll know for sure

wiggy69

some ? duhh , i meant smoke , ah well , never was the best in school

feylya

Yeah, I was wondering about that!!! I think a 4 ohm head into an 8 ohm cab should be ok. Also, have you checked your speakers for damage and have you tried another bass through it? Active basses are going to have a higher output but they shoudln't be distorting too much. Try rolling back the volume a bit, see if that fixes it.

wiggy69

will do , cheerz