FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Yamaha Bass Amp

Question:
Whereas: - I sold off all my bass heads last year to fund a guitar amp purchase, and... - I'm beginning to get more bass gigs lately and need a bass head (something more convenient than bringing a Twin Reverb to drive a bass cab), and... -I don't have a lot of money for purchasing a bass head -I pulled a Yamaha G100-212 amp out of its cabinet to turn my Dual Showman Reverb head into a combo, and now have the unused Yamaha amp in the attic... I am therefore considering making a plywood box and putting the G100 head into it for use as a bass head. Questions: 1. Is there any reason to believe this head can't be used for bass? E.g., is the circuitry somehow voiced for guitar such that it's incapable of putting out a solid bass (despite all the EQing possibilities on that amp)? 2. It's a solid state amp so it should run pretty cool, but is there a minimum clearance needed around some parts to allow for proper cooling? I'd like to make the box as small as possible but don't want to make it *too* small. 3. Anything I'm not considering?

Answer:
Your ears will tell you if you can live with the EQ in the tone stack. Yeah, I thought of that, but that way I won't know until I put the work in. If there was someone out there who knew off the top of their head whether there was going to be a problem, that could save me some work. Will it give you enough power? I might be watching local ebays and craigslist for a decent used PA power amp, min 300 true watts. Actually I also have an eye on eBay, HC and Craigslist, looking at old Peavey and Acoustic heads and the like. But if I can do what I need for the cost of scrap lumber... My other limitation is that my best bass cab at the moment is a closed, ported 2x12 Ampeg VT-22 cab with Weber Alnico Californias in it. The Alnicos are rated at 60 watts. Ted told me to lower that somewhat for bass use. I figure 100watts is pushing it as is. I'll probably put some Eminences in there that are rated for more watts. I realize that a 300watt amp and a speaker cab that's actually intended for bass would be ideal but at the moment I don't feel I can justify the expense, and don't have the room in my house for it even if I could. Plus most places I've been playing are pretty small. I do have one other possibility - I've been using a Roland keyboard amp that I pulled out of a dumpster (but it works fine). It's about 300 watts, IIRC. I've used it a few times for bass but it doesn't get very loud and doesn't have as much bottom as I'd like. I've used it in the past with a Maxon stomp compressor to boost the input and it was OK. I suspect that a preamp (like the Sansamp) might help with both the volume (it's looking for a keyboard signal which I imagine may be stronger than a P-bass signal) and EQ issues (it has no EQ, therefore no ability to boost the bass). If I buy a preamp then another possibility (I suppose) would be to haul out that 125 watt BGW power amp I've been holding onto just in case.