What's the point of 100 watt amps?

[Duffy]

100 watt amps can be very cool indeed, like the Blackheart 100 watt head with six preamp tubes.

As far as great contributing bass players in rock bands, in a few "rock" bands of old the bass players were key players and irreplaceable, at least in terms of the band sounding the same. Three of these being Hendrix's Experience, Noel Redding; The Who's, John Entwhistle; Led Zepellin's, John Paul Jones; and the Stones', Bill Wyman. The Stones, in particular, just don't sound the same without Bill Wyman, in my opinion. Redding, Jones, and Entwhistle had unique styles and were integral to the overall sound of the bands. Of course, Paul McCartney's bass contribution can not be discounted, although he uses a guitar player to play bass in his current band on must songs - a beautiful Gibson SG bass.

Typically though, I would agree that in average gigging cover bands that a lot of different bass players could probably do just as excellent a job in supporting the band.

One thing I noticed in most modern real heavy metal bands, screamo, etc., the bass players and drummers are generally super excellent and super loud and the guitars and vocals sound buried behind their booming rhythm - at least in my observation listening to a lot of the music my son listens to and bands he has been in. A friend of mine has a 2000 watt per channel bass power amp and he uses it in clubs: super loud, including incredibly loud head busting drummer that is proud of breaking a snare head each show. Obviously a lot of people would not want to be in a band like this but you wouldn't believe how many super loyal fans they have. They are called "Farewell Rescue".

[NWBasser]

100 watt amps can be very cool indeed, like the Blackheart 100 watt head with six preamp tubes.

As far as great contributing bass players in rock bands, in a few "rock" bands of old the bass players were key players and irreplaceable, at least in terms of the band sounding the same. Three of these being Hendrix's Experience, Noel Redding; The Who's, John Entwhistle; Led Zepellin's, John Paul Jones; and the Stones', Bill Wyman. The Stones, in particular, just don't sound the same without Bill Wyman, in my opinion. Redding, Jones, and Entwhistle had unique styles and were integral to the overall sound of the bands. Of course, Paul McCartney's bass contribution can not be discounted, although he uses a guitar player to play bass in his current band on must songs - a beautiful Gibson SG bass.

Typically though, I would agree that in average gigging cover bands that a lot of different bass players could probably do just as excellent a job in supporting the band.

One thing I noticed in most modern real heavy metal bands, screamo, etc., the bass players and drummers are generally super excellent and super loud and the guitars and vocals sound buried behind their booming rhythm - at least in my observation listening to a lot of the music my son listens to and bands he has been in. A friend of mine has a 2000 watt per channel bass power amp and he uses it in clubs: super loud, including incredibly loud head busting drummer that is proud of breaking a snare head each show. Obviously a lot of people would not want to be in a band like this but you wouldn't believe how many super loyal fans they have. They are called "Farewell Rescue".

Interesting take on bass Duffy.

I wasn't aware that there was extremely bass heavy metal.

Funny thing, I really enjoy listening to the guitars when I'm playing, but not so much if they're burying me. IMO, a great mix is where everyone is heard clearly. With my 600-watt bass rig, I could bury my guitarist's combo amp, but I enjoy hearing him too.

[Eric***]

Funny thing, I really enjoy listening to the guitars when I'm playing, but not so much if they're burying me. IMO, a great mix is where everyone is heard clearly. With my 600-watt bass rig, I could bury my guitarist's combo amp, but I enjoy hearing him too.

I think I'm somewhere between you and deeaa. I do like things best when everybody can be heard and it's balanced, but I've found good, stable musical experiences to be fleeting. I think I'd probably take a backseat for a bit or play with a less-than-great musician if it meant that the whole band/package thing worked. Maybe with time I'll have more luck WRT bands, but it's been a tricky thing for me so far.

[Ch0jin]

I wasn't aware that there was extremely bass heavy metal.

Ever hear of a little indie band from the UK called Iron Maiden?

Listening to early Maiden made me want to learn bass because the bass was so prominent in the mix in most of their songs. Have a re-listen, the bass really drives their tunes.

[NWBasser]

Ever hear of a little indie band from the UK called Iron Maiden?

Listening to early Maiden made me want to learn bass because the bass was so prominent in the mix in most of their songs. Have a re-listen, the bass really drives their tunes.

Oh boy, talk about a tangent!

I thought we were discussing 100 watt amphs! ;-)


Maiden was one of my favorite bands back in the day. The early stuff was really good.

I better revisit their older material.

Thanks for reminding me of that Chojin!

[Duffy]

I think the frequency and the wavelength of a 40HZ bass note will remain the same no matter what. The wave will not move faster, that would change the frequency - the number of cycles the wave makes per second. The frequency of a bass E note is always going to be about fourty cycles per second and the wavelength is going to always be about twenty seven feet long. What changes when we add more energy to the speaker, watts, is that the amplitude of the waveform increases.

It might not seem to make sense, but frequency (cycles per second), wavelength, and the third component of a waveform - amplitude are involved. The amplitude is the variable that changes and makes the sound louder. Frequency and wavelength of a given note remain the same. In order to increase the amplitude there needs to be an increase of power at the speaker to make it louder.

For the sake of discussion this is interesting, but for all practical purposes it may or may not be of interest to a muscian, and definitely is not necessary to know in order to be among the best of muscians. It's kind of like noisy single coils - some muscians like them and some don't, and the reason why they are noisy doesn't really have anything to do with why a musician may have a personal preference. I'm sure there is more to the whole equation and what it means to how we hear sound, way more than I know.

For some people 100 watt amps intuitively sound great and others don't like them. You can turn them down or turn them up and satisfy just about anyone. And like Eric suggested, some muscians may not have any need for a 100 watt tube amp.