I know rig setups have been discussed a lot, but I have a somewhat unique situation, and I honestly don't have much experience with electronic equipment. I have my Stick tuned in dual bass reciprocal, but a half step lower (goes down to low A if I play the bottom string open). I'm currently using a Phonic Powerpod 740 PA system, since I already had it lying around (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/phonic-powerpod-740-plus--s715-pa-package). It's good for practice, but I'm starting to save up some money to get something proper.

Here's where I'm not sure what to do. I've been thinking of going for a bass amp and cabinet direction, since I'm essentially a bass player. But I've also heard a PA might be good to handle the fuller range of the instrument. I've also been considering upgrading piece-wise. Maybe get a good bass cabinet (PA speaker?) and hook it into my current PA, then upgrade the amp later? Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks!

A PA, cabinet will not be ported, and won't have the kind of bass response you are looking for. Acme Low B, or Bag End, or even SWR, something with a port and a good-sounding tweeter will give you a much better sound than a PA speaker, which is usually designed for projection and high-frequency clarity, not yummy swimming bass freqencies.

Try them out first.

i play DBR 1/2 step lower (love those snakey strings). i currently am running it thru 2 JBL EON 515XT's w a PODX3 as the brain. still dont know if it'll cut the mustard live but it sure is LOUD. with your setup a powered subwoofer (with an active crossover) mite do the trick. from what i've been told the ACME Low B needs a LOT of power - not an efficient unit. keep us posted - my setup is relly starting to evolve. PM me if u wanna talk deep bass grooves...

Hi Nomad.

I use a half PA for my Stick. It works pretty well for me, but too monstrous to leave the basement. The 18" sub really kicks ass.
Pic in the gallery..
cheers,
kev

I bought a Bose Compact L1 a few weeks ago. It's light in weight, small for transport, and has a wonderful sound, very flat response (brutally honest I might add)
Haven't used it on a gig, hopefully that will happen next year (nothing planned yet)
Before the L1 unit, i tried to use a regular pa amp and a Hartke Hydrive 4x10" cab and a podx3 and Roland gr55 as the brains. I found that the cab colours the stick and synth sound too much (but it makes a killer bass amp though !!)



Cheers,
Bas

My thought is to think about what your end game is...


If playing solo, a PA or L1 would be great.
If you are playing with a band I would get a bass cab with beefy power amp. Showing up to a band set up with a PA would be strange and can't compete with the other instruments unless all the instruments in the band play through the PA...

I also think about where my tone/sounds are being made. I use a Line 6 X3 as my base and that has amp/speaker emulation so I want those sounds to be duplicated without coloration but maybe some EQ to compensate for the room.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice! That's a good point, Skydiver. I'll be playing in a band setting, filling out the bass role primarily. I think one thought I was having was that bass amps/cabs are designed for, well, basses. I think my range goes just a little bit lower and just a little bit higher than a typical 6 string bass, and I also tend to play a lot of chords. I assume a bass amp could handle this just as well as a PA, but like I said, I don't have much experience with this kind of thing.

From what I can tell, the primary difference between a bass cab and PA speaker is that the bass cab uses woofers primarily with tweeters for the cross over, but a PA speaker will also include a mid range horn to more accurately reproduce a full range. Is this right? I'm assuming there might be more to it than just that. I think if I could wrap my head around the primary differences and pros/cons of each, it might help me get headed in the right direction.

It's a lot to think about... I know I have spent many hours thinking about what I want to do...
When I was in a band as a bass player (year ago) I had an old solid state (400 watt bridge mono) with a SWR Goliath JR III. It was a great sound. My tone came from my preamp/DI (Avalon U5) so I didn't want the amp to color anything. The Cab was usually just for me on stage (usually played venues that they wanted me direct) but it sounded great on it's own in a small venue. I needed a rugged cab for gigging.
It's a common misconception that a bass rig only gives good low frequency output. The truth is that it replicates all frequencies very well because a bass guitar actually has a lot of high frequency information. Bass rigs usually need a lot more power because it just takes more energy to get that low frequency. (I remember many times playing with a guitarist who is playing a screaming 20watt amp and barely being able to hear myself with my 200 watt amp...)

A company I hears is very good is Euphonics Audio (EA). www.eaamps.com Gary Jibilian uses this and swears they are the best. He was explaining to me that their concept is to be more like a studio monitor sound. Gary is an NS player and would be happy to answer your questions. www.garyjibilian.com

Lots to think about...

Accugroove is coming back at NAMM. They have some serious thump.

If you are interested, I will review my speaker cab research and give you some details. In essence, I think the larger Greenboy designs deserve a lot more attention. Given that you are playing that low, I would think a Crown XLS 2000 bridged mono into a fEARful 15/6/1 would have you well covered. The maximum SPL would be enough to kill small animals, but—more importantly—you would have plenty of headroom regardless of how large the venue is. Using a single speaker cabinet would avoid all the intricacies of placing multiple speaker cabinets correctly in a venue.

For the preamp, have you considered a Sansamp RPM from Tech21? There are also two other models of rack preamp from Tech21, with plenty of output to feed that power amp, but that one has my eye.