I'm interested in getting a very deep bass sound. I have some Fender basses and a Workman 4004 stack (4x10s + 2x 10's at 8 ohms). I am a newbie at really trying to develop specific tones, and I would rather not add additional equipment to the mix--keep it simple, stupid. I would be willing to trade in my amp for something that runs closer to what I want--I got it because it sounds good, and fits my current needs.

Any helpful hints?

I believe Jah Wobble often used the tuning of B E A D.

Most dub sounding cabinet I ever heard was a giant Acoustic folded horn with a single 18" speaker, but you had to be about fifteen feet away to appreciate it. It was as big as an ampeg 8x10.

Rotosound 110's (or bigger) sound pretty Wobbley to me.

Use the neck pickup. Turn the tone down on the bass. Treble and Hi mids down on the amp. Play with your fingers.

Is it true that Wobble used an Ampeg Scroll Bass?

Your cab should work fine. if not, an SVT Ampeg 8-10, or a 4X10 and a 1X15 (or 1X18 if you *never* want to go back to having a cutting bright tone). I am sure there are others. stay away from Hartke.

I have used a GK RB800 head and a Magnavox era 1969-70 Ampeg SVT. They both get plenty deep with a little bit of tweaking.

I have heard good things about the Traynor MonoBlocks.. they are pretty cheap too.

The idea is to turn down the tone on the guitar. Even when the amp is on flat it will get you the deep sound.

Yea he played a Ampeg Scroll Bass at one point in PIL it has a special type of pick up in the bridge. As well the scale of the ampeg bass is super long you can use upright strings on it as the sound is not related to a magnetic pickup. My frend Lisa has this bass and it sounds great although she tends to use a custom black rick.

I think you can get that sound out of any bass everyone has had good suggestions on setting the guitar and amp. I have a Persision with Bartolini pick ups and I think that having the highs rolled off is important. SVT's sound great and the Cerwin Vega folded horns are hudge (I think they might be based on a Acoustic folded horn design).

When I used to record at reggae recording studios (I don't play reggae but the guys who owned the studio were super nice and had a great sound.) The bass amps tended to be ones with graphic EQ's on them. Sometimes they had the MXR 10band and a B-15. The standard setting was a big "u" boosting the lower frequencies and some of the highest to get some attack and cutting all the mids out.

Although most of you probibly know the Metal Box recordings from the CD's it originaly came out as 12 inch single format since the songs were pretty much 1 to a side they were able to use the mastering process to give them deeper groves. The 12 inch single formatt had a reputation for being able to reproduce lower tones in reggae, disco and on the PIL record.

I used a Reggae mastering house for a LP and the mastering guys really could reinforce to bass power using mastering equipment. I wish I could remember exactly what they did but my memory is foggy from all the second hand smoke.

From what I've read, while he used an Ampeg scroll bass live at times, he often (if not mostly) used a Fender Jazz in the studio, through that rear-facing SVT, and of course still got that sound.

Bounceing the soundwaves off the wall might be to increase the distance from the amp - mic for recording like for the standing wave consept?

Or would the wall depending on its construction give some natural reverb, resonance and eq?

Or both or is this a "Off the wall idea?'

Bouncing off the wall kills a lot of the high-frequency content. Bass frequencies are omnidirectional, or very near to it. Higher frequencies are highly directional. So instead of having the treble frequencies shooting out of your cabinet toward the mic (or the audience, live; or you the band in your practice space) you're firing them into a wall, where some get absorbed, some reflect back into the cabinet face and get absorbed there, etc. It's a great way to waste a little bit of your volume, and to get rid of a lot of the higher frequency information your speakers are putting out.

A guy I knew played an 800rb through two 1-15 cabinets. the 800RB is bi-amp-able and has two power amps built in. One is a 300w for lows, and the other is 100w for highs. The bi-amping is switchable, and you can run both power amps full range as well.

He ran both 15th through the 300 watt power amp at full rage. However, when he wanted a really deep sound, he'd turn the bi-amping on. Since he only used the low frequency power amp, all the highs were rolled out by the crossover network.

I was suprised by how well it worked.

Cheers!
Ben Adrian

It's all about the tone knob. Roll it back. Pretty simple.