sandman27959

Technically any guitar amp will work with a bass, but with differing sets of limitations and outcomes. I've plugged my p-bass into my Amplifi 75, and it sounds OK for living room practicing, but I'd never attempt to crank it up to even rehearsal volume because it's not made to do that. Wrong tool for the job.

Bass frequencies require a transducer (speaker or speakers) that can handle low frequency notes in order to sound good at a reasonable volume. Bass amps have speakers designed to regularly handle these extended lower frequencies. Most guitar amps aren't required to reproduce extended low frequency notes on a regular basis, so they're not designed to reproduce these lower notes at high volume with good tone. I'm certain that the high and mid frequency drivers in the Amplifi are crossed-over so that damaging bass frequencies are filtered out, so playing at low volume won't damage them. It's why PA tweeters don't blow out even though a bass is played through them - same thing - crossover points.

The short answer is yes, an Amplifi will make any instrument that's plugged into it louder, but not always with the best sound quality. If you crank the volume and over-extend the speakers with bass frequencies they're not designed for, you can also damage the speaker (8" or 12"). So you're OK the play in the bedroom, but don't crank it at a gig with a bass plugged in. It wasn't designed for this, and a proper bass amp will do a much better job. Hope this helps.

..... I've been playing through since 1988 with the torn-off corner of a Duracell battery box stuffed under the grill so it won't rattle.

 

 

Ah Sandman .... I see you used the "deluxe solution" ... beautiful.

LOL. Yup, the "working musician" solution is more like it, and I'm glad somebody got a kick out it like I did. Actually I've been meaning to fix it... since 1988. I'm definitely going to get to it one of these days. ;)

Seriously, it just never became a problem again so I didn't worry about it. I read somewhere that Pat Metheny toured for years using a toothbrush to hold his guitar strap on after the strap button pulled out of his guitar. I must have been subconsciously inspired.

Hate the vibration and I know I will eventually loathe this amp over it. 

This statement is what made me want to tell the story because if I had given up on my rattling bass cabinet early-on, I would have passed up on the best bass tone I ever heard. I really liked the cabinet, so I waited until it wasn't so "new" anymore and finally "fixed" what was bothering me about it.

I have the 75 with no buzzes, so I really have no dog in the fight. Having said that, if it were me and I really liked the amp I'd hang on to it until the "new" is worn off of it and eventually track the buzz down and fix it with a shim, some epoxy, or whatever it takes to make it stop. I have a single 15" bass cabinet that I've been playing through since 1988 with the torn-off corner of a Duracell battery box stuffed under the grill so it won't rattle. That thing rattled from the day I bought it, and one day I couldn't stand it any longer and crammed my "temporary" fix under the grill. It became the sweetest, most sexy, round bass tone I ever heard, and since then it's been all over North America, and can't imagine playing a gig without it.

I experimented by running my Pod HD bean stereo into the aux in. It worked great, and I agree with the statement above about a very flexible piece of gear. I found the best sound from "studio/direct" mode, which is what I was expecting given the FRFR capability of the amp. I haven't spent a lot of time balancing the output of my patches on the bean, so output levels were all over the board, but I was able to get plenty of volume from my Amplifi 75 with the amp and master volumes in their typical settings (somewhere between 50 and 95%).

I don't know if I'd ever gig with the amp in this configuration, although one certainly could. I'm not crazy about the input being a 1/8" jack because of my own hang-ups, but it works fine and sounds good. I still find the greatest value of the Amplifi to be the fact that I can plug in a single cable and be able to practice without setting up other things - plug and play. I'm sticking with the bean and Tech 21 Power Engine 60 for playing out, but around the house it's Amplifi. I also find myself using the Bluetooth capabilities a lot.

It's a nice, good-looking, pretty darn good-sounding piece of gear. Is it the answer to all of my amplifier needs? No, but it does what I think it was designed for reasonably well, so I'm happy with it. I find myself plugging in more often because it's so easy to do, and that's a good thing.

Amazing Slow Downer from www.ronimusic.com is another great one. Full of features and works great. I've been using it for years to learn stuff.

After owning my 75 for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd share what I've settled on for now. It helps me to understand the amp a little more if I think of it in configurations. I find that I tend to use the amp in one of these three configurations so far.

a. Bluetooth speaker and portable full-range cabled playback system. Even the haters can't deny that it sounds pretty damn good as a powered stereo speaker. I've used it to enhance my TV audio for movies and XBox games too. I almost always have a use for a great sounding, adequately powered, fairly loud playback speaker for something, and this one fills the bill nicely.

b. Nice-looking, great sounding practice amp. While none of us early adopters are exactly sure what kind of black magic DSP or voodoo speaker routing is taking place inside the box, my experience is that it sounds pretty good - even at low volumes. For me, after everything else is said and done it's really about how the thing sounds. For practice I don't have to spend any time hooking up cables or effects. I just plug in one cable and grab my phone in case I want to play along with a track or enter edit mode.

c. Small/informal gig mode. I have a Pod HD bean, and I use an adapter to go from the outputs of the bean into the aux in of the Amplifi. This way I can use the HD tones I've spent a lot of time and effort tweaking with a powered FRFR cabinet (the Amplifi). This sounds surprisingly good with the bean in "studio/direct" mode, gives me true stereo effects (where they exist) and allows me to use all of the switching capability of the HD bean. In a perfect world the Amplifi would have HD capability and have multiple banks of presets I could switch through, but hopefully that stuff will someday be a reality through firmware updates. Well, that AND a dedicated direct out. Then you'd have a serious gigging amp.

So far I'm enjoying owning it. It's not the answer to everything, but I do find myself playing more because I don't have to hook a lot of stuff up. Just plug in one cable and go. I tend to view anything that gets me playing more as a good thing.

If that doesn't solve your problem, I also hear/read good things about the Tech 21 Power Engine 60. It basically takes your Pod tones and makes them louder without excessive (Tech 21 says "none") coloration of the tone. Well-built, cheap (about $340), attractive vintage look, and sounds great. That's a hard combination to beat.

I thought I'd answer my own question and give it a try. Short answer... No. The 2-button FBV footswitch does not work with Amplifi. It's not compatible. I received mine today and it doesn't switch channels reliably, so it'll be going back to Amazon. Disappointing. It looks like there's no simple solution to switching channels remotely without spending a hundred bucks for features I don't need.

Ah Ha! So THAT'S how you can delete favorites! Just for the record, I do tone switching the same way as AE does - by using My Tones. The inability to easily delete favorites has had me stumped for a while. Of course there's no way I can remember which song I selected the favorite for so I'm still basically unable to delete it, but at least I now know it can be done. Same here - if anyone knows a simpler way to delete Favorites, I'm all ears. Thanks guys.

I'm pretty sure this works...

On the "now playing" screen, you have the player controls at the top and the suggested tone matches at the bottom. On the left side of each suggested tone match is the "devil horns" logo. Tap the logo, which adds it to your favorites, and will now bring up that tone whenever you play that song.

I have the iPhone app. Hope this helps.

Thanks Eddy. Very helpful. I've been tinkering with using the volume fader on each amp model with varying results. Sounds like yours is the way to do it.

Hi all,

Can someone please confirm for me that the little L6 FBV 2-button footswitch will allow you to switch between A,B,C, and D on the Amplifi? I know it's an FBV switch, but I never see it mentioned in any of the compatibility specs. Maybe it's just an attempt to market the more expensive FBV's, but I just need to be able to use the 4 presets on the Amplifi. Thanks in advance.

Currently there is no way to view all of the tones. I posted a request on their IdeaScale site requesting this very thing though. I'd love the ability to browse tones online - perhaps even with samples. Clearly this is not a fully developed product, but I was aware of it's shortcomings and bought it as a practice amp. I'm hoping they'll add more features as it evolves.

What he said...

"Love it for what it is, don't hate it for what it isn't..."

Just received my 75 yesterday, but based on my observations so far I found this to be a pretty fair and accurate review. I still have a few unanswered questions, but more time with the amp will answer them I feel sure. So far I like it for the ease of use and full-range capabilities. My biggest beef? No dedicated line output. My most requested feature? Give the USB jack the capability to be used as a recording I/O so I can connect it to my DAW for recording and playback.