Sterling and Gain Questions

[shaver]

Hey all. It's been forever since I've posted, but I've run into a serious issue with my bass rig and maybe you guys can shed some light onto it. In the last year I've owned 3 different heads running into the same ampeg 810. First was a Hartke 3500, then a GK 2000 rb, and now an ampeg svt classic (tube). They are all shutting down on me. I have had the 810 checked and it seems to be in order. The rig shuts down or faults within 20 mins. I play a sterling and I had my eq to set max on the bass mid and high on the bass. I also detune to b f# b e. The problem
has seemed to subside when I rolled the eq on the bass all to mid.
So my question is, can my active EQ over drive the amp so much that it can fault the amp, or is there another problem I just haven't found yet?
Thanks.

 

[EBMM7181]

The Sterling bass would be the last thing I would suspect.

1. Are you running your amp heads at the right OHMS for your cab?
2. Are you using a SPEAKER cable to connect the amp to the cab?

 

[Big Poppa]

Please edit your title as it implies that we are the culprit....there is no way that our bass ccan cause your amp to shot down...it may be a problem with the cabinet and impedance

 

[five7]

It has got to be the speaker cable. Make sure it is a speaker cable and not a signal cable. Using a signal cable will shut down an ampeg amp. I have seen it happen many times.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

With very heavy bass EQ, either on the amp or the instrument, you can cause an amp to overheat. You can also blow speakers.

The bass EQ on the Sterling and Stingray is very powerful, and it's at 40Hz. Heavy boost will drive your amp way too hard. Most of that bass boost is just heating the amplifier and speakers; it isn't coming out as sound.

With that low detuning, it's no wonder you're having trouble. Try playing a standard-tuned instrument as a test; betcha you won't have any trouble.

And why are you boosting all the EQ bands? Just set it flat and turn up the volume. If you can't get enough volume with the bass set flat, you've got other problems.

 

[Psychicpet]

dude. really.



max'ing out your eq AND detuning like that... ummm, yep, that could cause a gain section or two to go "nuh uh, we don't like you"

especially if you're also running the input gain on the head a bit hot.

think of your onboard eq the same way you think of ANY AND EVERY OTHER EQ.... when eq's are set to "ba!!s out" they usually don't sound so good.

start with a bit of bass/mid/treble boost and then go from there.

 

[Psychicpet]

ps. What Rick said

 

[Aussie Mark]

I'm betting he's too young to shave.

 

[five7]

Come on? Maxing eq on a musicman and detuning=blowing amps. I don't believe it!

 

[Psychicpet]

I'm betting he's too young to shave.

Maybe this should be standard case candy along with the key and the cloth from Poland.

 

[Ed x TWWK]

I think I may know your problem.

I also tune to BF#BE and I have never ever had this problem. I also crank my EQ to the max, except on a Stingray.

You want to watch out what the input gain is set at on your amps. It's possible you're overloading the preamps on the different amps, causing it to shut down.

Even while using a SansAmp, in addition to the cranked pre on the bass, I never let my gain peak light even get close to peaking.

Try this: turn the gain completely down on your head, and turn the master volume completely up. Instead of pushing the preamp really hard, push the master. In other words, use the gain knob to adjust your volume, and make sure it doesn't peak.

Also, you may want to try running a compressor, just a thought.

Here's what I'm using for reference.

disclaimer:I know its frowned upon here, but I really like the tone I get when the EQ is cranked on the bass. I play in a metal band, and it sounds great for this application, if I were doing any other type of music, setting would not be how they are haha.

 

[Psychicpet]

disclaimer:I know its frowned upon here, but I really like the tone I get when the EQ is cranked on the bass. I play in a metal band, and it sounds great for this application, if I were doing any other type of music, setting would not be how they are haha.

it's all gooood. a buddy of mine who is 'Metal' used to crank his pre's all the time and has since switched to passive p/ups claiming that he digs the tone a lot better.... I think it was because he was cranking 18volt pre's to the nuts as to why he didn't totally dig his active basses..

it's all good though regardless and I think the lesson here is gain structuring. period. a pre can handle most any 'tone' that's coming into it, it just can't handle excess voltage

 

[shaver]

settings help

I'm betting he's too young to shave.

I'm in my twenties, go to music school on scholarship, tour, and have steady gigs, but thanks. Not sure if it was a joke or not, but I don't want anyone to get the idea that I'm 15 and just got my first bass.

I know what I'm talking about and doing, and this is why this is puzzling to me. Trust me, I've exhausted ever other resource before coming here. I've gone through 3 heads, i've had every speaker joint re-soderd on my 810, changed cables (and yes I use a speaker cable to connect the amp to cab, I was even using a speakon for a while which I had to rewire for the GK in order for it to run in bridged mode, changed power adapters, and tried changing settings on my amp.
I thought that it was a thermal shut down issue at first, so I had my Gk authorized serviced but they couldn't find anything wrong with it.
This is what makes me believe its something with my bass and I. I never meant to imply that the music man was defected. Rather, that something that I was doing to the bass was wrong, hence the title being "problems." I'm sorry if I offended you Big Poppa, I know who you are and would not want to do that, and I'm trying to figure out how to change the title now. However, I have been a loyal music man player for the past six years and am seeking help here and I hope you see that I am in no way bashing the bass.
The Sterling is my main and only bass and I love it. I use it for jazz, R&B, Hip-hop, and Rock, and I do like the settings of it maxed out for the rock sound.
I dont understand how my settings could be an issue since my tuning is basically a 5 string tuning minus one string, so this is why I'm asking you guys for help, and I dont want this to turn into a flame war. I know my settings seem odd, and that it seems odd that EQ can overdrive an amp so much for it to fault, but I figured that I would at least try and see if anyone had heard or experienced this.
However, I guess that I am making the mistake of running my tube ampeg's gain to high and the master to low. I'm new with tube amps and haven't even had it for a week yet. But it has cut out on me, and when I changed my 3 band EQ on the sterling to the center position, which I'm guessing is 0 db gain, there has been no issue with signal loss. I like the sound of the grit with the EQ maxed and have been compensating that with tube gain and it seems to be fine, but I really do not need my rig to shutdown again during another gig, so I will reevaluate this.
Thank you to those who have taken an interest in my problem, and I hope you guys do not take offense in anyway to my postings. And if anyone could tell me how to change the title, that would be great also.
Thanks

 

[Psychicpet]

Shaver, buddy, I reeeeally hope you don't see any of this as a flame war, just slightly older 'dudes' being a bit sarcastic

in all seriousness though, hopefully you're at a school with a recording dept./program, ask anyone there about gain structure and unity gain. It doesn't matter that the Ampeg is tube, if I drive my Avalon U5 (Class A solid state) with my Bongo pre cranked the Avalon will not like me, if it doesn't have a -20db pad(at least) on the front of it... you're gonna do it some kind of harm or at the very least get some gnarly unwanted distortion in the signal.

pretty much any piece of gear will work this way. I do think it might just be the sum of a)cranking your EQ b)the tuning you're using and c)running the "pre" hot and the master cold. (reverse those last two a little bit and it might be much more goooder

anywho. that's about my 2 bits.

 

[shaver]

will do. Thanks a ton.

 

[strummer]

This is what I'm thinking: There are sensitive input stages in amps, sure, but since the shut down takes place after playing a while, and with therr different amps, I will put my money on the cab.
It could be as easy as a defective voice coil, one that checks out for dc resistance but has issues when heated. Or it could be the internal wiring, or the speaker cable, or anything beyond the speaker output on the amps.
SoO my syggestion would be to use the amp with another speaker box, one capable of handling a lot of power, and with the same amp settings see if the amp shuts down. My guess is it won't.
The 8x10s are often wired in really strange ways to achieve the proper load, and this can mess things up. good luck

 

[Duarte]

The problemhas seemed to subside when I rolled the eq on the bass all to mid.

Well then there's your solution.

And do what poppa says, edit the title.

 

[Big Poppa]

you didnt offend me I was just pointing out that in this google search capture world that when someone searches Sterling and Music Man they will get the titke of this thread....

 

[mynan]

AFAIK, it's not possible to edit your own thread title...it's something a mod has to do.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

I think the +15dB/40Hz bass boost on the MM is going to really slam most amplifiers. Remember that's the center frequency of the bass EQ; it rolls off at 6dB per octave, which means it's still boosting about +11dB at 20Hz, and +5.5 at 10Hz.

With heavy boost, every touch of your fingers is being amplified as a subsonic thump. You can't hear that and the speakers can't reproduce it, but an amp is going to run very heavy current trying to reproduce those extreme lows, most of which simply won't happen with a sealed 8x10 cabinet. (If you had subwoofers, you might hear or see the thump, though most subs have subsonic protection to keep the cones in the cabs.)

The Ampeg 810AV and HE, for example, have a -3dB point at 58Hz, and it's -10dB at 40Hz. Making up that 3dB requires twice the power, and 10dB requires 10x the power. The 58Hz point is about Bb, 40Hz about Eb on a standard-tuned bass. You're tuning down to about 31Hz with your low B, similar to a 5-string, which is way below the cab's -10dB point. I suspect 31Hz is closer to 20dB down; you can't put enough power into the cab to get those low notes to a reasonable volume.

Much of the low-end power is simply heating the amp and especially the voice coils. As the speakers heat up, their resistance increases dramatically. When that happens, the volume drops off, because now the amp is seeing a higher-impedance cabinet.