Most bass rigs are simple. After your bass, your amp is the other main element of your setup that will form your tone.
In our ultimate guide, we'll explore different types of bass amps available, and explain the key elements to look out for so that you can find the perfect bass amp for you!
Your amplifier is a core part of your sound as a bass guitarist. But what do you go for? Combo or stack? Valve or solid-state? There are so many different types of bass amplifiers out there from brands like Orange, Markbass, Ashdown, Gallien-Krueger, and Fender. So how do you find the right one for you? Throughout this guide, we'll look at all the different types of amplifiers that are available today, and discern which ones will suit you best!
There are two different styles of bass amp. You can either buy a combo, or a head and cab setup (often known as a ‘stack'). A combo has all of the parts of the amplifier in one unit, so that you only ever have to move one thing. With a head and cab setup, your amplifier ('head’) and speakers (‘cab’) are separate so that you can move them independently, which can be a real advantage if you need to travel a lot.
Unlike guitar amps, even on the pro stage you will still find a lot of solid-state bass amplifiers. Because of the lack of high-gain amp distortion and the incredibly high power of bass speakers, valve-driven bass amps do not make as much of a difference as they do on a regular electric guitar.
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Saying that however, there is still a constant debate on how much of an improvement in tone you get with a valve amplifier. So let’s look at all the little pros and cons of each type of amp:
Solid-state amplifiers have been around since the 70s, and have improved tremendously year-after-year to get closer to the traditional valve amp sound without any of the drawbacks. Solid-state amps make up a large portion of the bass amp market at the moment, thanks to their small, lightweight nature and reliability.
Valve amplifiers have been around about as long as the electric bass has and were the only option until the introduction of solid-state amps in the 70s. Valve amps produce their sound through vacuum tubes which gives them that tonal quality that makes them so beloved.
Hybrid amps attempt to give you the best of both worlds, with a part valve and part solid-state circuit. Normally, they do this with a valve preamp and a solid-state power amp, which gives you a perfect in-between of size, weight and quality of sound.
Cabs come in many configurations with varying sizes and number of speakers. A general rule of thumb for speaker sizes is that larger speakers have a fatter tone with more bass emphasis and smaller speaker have a more immediate response with greater midrange emphasis. This is why a common pro setup is a 4×10” cab with a 1×15” cab. You get the punchy sound and note definition from the 10" speakers with the benefit of the deep bass response from 15" speaker. You get the best of both worlds.
This isn't practical for many players (that's a lot of heavy equipment to move!) so you need to decide what cab will best suit your style. Playing jazz and blues styles of music? The robust low-end of a 15" speaker will provide a great foundation for the band. In a rock or metal band and want to cut through a bit more? The midrange emphasis of a 10" speaker will help you sound stand out in the mix. Other popular cabinets come in 1×12", 2×10", 2x12", and 8×10" formats, but systems using 8” and smaller speakers are also used a lot in smaller practice amps.
While different bass amps will all have slightly contrasting controls, there are often similarities between them. For example, you will nearly always have at least 1 input jack, a gain control, a volume control and at least a 3-band EQ. These basic controls are what create your basic sound, and everything else is just icing on the cake.
Some examples of extra controls are drive, compression, sub and enhance. All of these effect how the rest of the controls respond, and help to give your sound a bit of extra flavour depending on the style you are playing. For example, if you are in a metal band you may want an amp with built-in drive to avoid having to use extra pedals, while funkier slap players may want compression.
Generally speaking, you will quite often have multiple different outputs on any head or combo so that you can connect it as you see fit. DI out and speaker outputs will appear on nearly every amp you will come across. You can use these to connect up to your computer or a PA system, and external speaker cabinets respectively.
Bass guitarists have one really cool advantage that no other instrumentalists really have, direct input. Using a bass preamp or a DI box, you can take the DI out and go straight into a PA system. This is most commonly done from an amp head, but if that is still too much to carry, brands like Darkglass make amazing preamp pedals that are made to be connected directly to a mixer.
For a lot of small gigs, one of these pedals is all you need to fill out the mix, and in the studio they are generally good enough quality to record with. If you want a more substantial sound then you could look at a multi-fx unit that has amp modelling onboard. Some multi-fx units, such as the Line 6 Helix range, can model the sound of a variety of amps and cabs, as well as effects. This means you can get amp-like tone while enjoying the convenience of DI.
The only issue is that if there is not sufficient monitoring on stage, then you won’t be able to hear yourself very well. This is a serious downfall of not having a speaker on stage, and unless you know the venue and promoter well, going with a DI alone can be unpredictable.
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