Bass amp for gigs

Frankiestylee

I'm posting this here for an engineering point of view rather then a musicians one, but would a 65watt bass amp be sufficient for gigging?

My problem is I have a 65watt trace elliott amp, I'm playing a gig this Saturday and we're the headliners, so I don't want the support act to have to drag in too much gear. Would I get away with the 65watt? I know normally the basses are DIed anyway.

Opinions?

unclebill98

what size speaker is on the cab?

I really doubt its going to be any use. You'll hear something, but the likelyhood is someone is just going to crank it up to hear themselves and just make the cab fart all night long..

If its got to make do,

15" cab, just get bassist too stand on top of it.
10" cab, point it towards bassists ear.

turn all guitar cabs away from bassist too.

eoin5

If its it a decent place with plenty of monitors you can always get the bassists monitor to just mainly be bass and vocals. I've played a few gigs with no bass amp by doing this.

Frankiestylee

To be more specific, it's a trace elliott boxer 65, dunno how big the cab is, it's a combo and I got it second hand so didn't really take note.

The venue is The Hub, they tend to have decent monitors but I've never had to play there as a bassist.
Might just see if the support band can bring in the amp rather then risk it goin' down badly.
I've seen bands play in The Village for example where the bass wasn't even going into an amp, just a monitor, so would that work for a fully electric band too?

eoin5

Frankiestylee wrote:

To be more specific, it's a trace elliott boxer 65, dunno how big the cab is, it's a combo and I got it second hand so didn't really take note.

The venue is The Hub, they tend to have decent monitors but I've never had to play there as a bassist.
Might just see if the support band can bring in the amp rather then risk it goin' down badly.
I've seen bands play in The Village for example where the bass wasn't even going into an amp, just a monitor, so would that work for a fully electric band too?

I had one of those amps years ago. Theyre 12" as far as I can remember. They wouldnt be great for a loud band with 2+ guitarists and as unclebill said some knob will turn it up and itll just be of no use except to add noise. For peace of mind Id try to get a hold of a decent 100watt amp or more with a nice big cab, or if not just use the monitors.

Royale with Cheese

I don't bring my amp to gigs, couldn't be arsed carrying it around. I just use me eq pedal and go through the p.a. or use whatever amp is on stage if there is one.

I played the hub once years ago, small enough place. Went straight through the p.a. that day, or perhaps it was through an amp already on stage into the p.a. I didn't think it was necessary to have a big amp for gigging when you're a bass player. Bring the 65 watt amp to use as a monitor for yourself (still not 100% neccesary) and there should be a d.i. box on stage for you to run the bass into the p.a. with like you said.

Frankiestylee

I still have to hear back from the support band, but hopefully they can bring in an amp, I know the p.a. works, but I'm just a bit uneasy about it for some reason. People turning it up shouldn't be a probem since there's only ourselves and the lads before us that'd be using it, the rest of the acts are acoustic.
Hmmm... what'll happen will happen I guess. Looks like I'm gonna need to invest in a new amp if this gigging malarky keeps up.