bass through guitar amps
11during one of our first band practices with a new bassist he didnt bring an amp and played thru an older guitar cabinet of mine, blew the speaker right out.
bass through guitar amps
12ExpresswaytoYRSkuLL wrote:during one of our first band practices with a new bassist he didnt bring an amp and played thru an older guitar cabinet of mine, blew the speaker right out.
I dont doubt it, but unless your cab was just a big stack of compression horns or something, this didnt happen because it was a bass. Guitar cabs get blown all the time by guitars too. The kind of 10" or 12" speakers you find in guitar cabs are more than capable of reproducing bass without damage from the frequencies.
"You get a kink in your neck looking up at people or down at people. But when you look straight across, there's no kinks."
--Mike Watt
--Mike Watt
bass through guitar amps
13Most guitar 'combo's' or speaker cabs are not meant to respond to the frequencies that a bass will put out, that I can agree with and I have seen the effects. Going through those speakers is a bad thing. But, I am curious as well if the amplifier it self will be harmed by these frequencies? I've done the V-4 thing also.. there are these killer guitar amps out there that can handle amazing abuse and sound great, but what about like... a Peavey 1-12 or something? Or I'm using an older Fender 2-12" 45w tube combo. What are the characteristics of something like that? How would it respond to anything below 200hz?
-Clyde-
bass through guitar amps
14here's my guess at where people are blowing up their amps...
bass has massive transients. little amps suck at being loud and filling your guts with bass, like the bass should. so you crank them way the hell up. they are inevitably underrated, wattage-wise. so you run them way hard. and then they're clipping your signal. so now you're running full-steam square waves into your speakers. you're throwing it massive transients. your speakers can't handle what they're getting from your clipping amp.
that's my guess. if you have a good two or three hundred watt guitar amp, you're not gonna blow it with bass, cause you're not gonna hafta crank it up to 10 and have it clip. so long as you have speakers that can really handle that 200 or 300 watt amp, you'll do fine.
playing bass through a smallish guitar amp is a potentially very bad idea. playing bass through a half-stack of good quality should not be a problem at all.
i used to play bass split into a 1x15 200W bass combo amp and a '65 fender twin reissue. for years. the fender never freaked out. i also had the bass knob turned down pretty low on it (like 2 or 3 or something) cause i was using it more for the mids.
simplest solution : tell the bass player to buy his own amp. peavey TKO. $100 or something.
i've never blown a guitar amp from playing bass through it, nor have i blown a speaker in a guitar amp by playing bass through it. i have, however, blown multiple 15" speakers in two different BASS combo amps, a crate B80XL (my first amp ever) and a peavey TKO. this was caused by, you guessed it, having the volume and gain cranked all the way up, and playing nice and hard, and clipping the preamp.
bass has massive transients. little amps suck at being loud and filling your guts with bass, like the bass should. so you crank them way the hell up. they are inevitably underrated, wattage-wise. so you run them way hard. and then they're clipping your signal. so now you're running full-steam square waves into your speakers. you're throwing it massive transients. your speakers can't handle what they're getting from your clipping amp.
that's my guess. if you have a good two or three hundred watt guitar amp, you're not gonna blow it with bass, cause you're not gonna hafta crank it up to 10 and have it clip. so long as you have speakers that can really handle that 200 or 300 watt amp, you'll do fine.
playing bass through a smallish guitar amp is a potentially very bad idea. playing bass through a half-stack of good quality should not be a problem at all.
i used to play bass split into a 1x15 200W bass combo amp and a '65 fender twin reissue. for years. the fender never freaked out. i also had the bass knob turned down pretty low on it (like 2 or 3 or something) cause i was using it more for the mids.
simplest solution : tell the bass player to buy his own amp. peavey TKO. $100 or something.
i've never blown a guitar amp from playing bass through it, nor have i blown a speaker in a guitar amp by playing bass through it. i have, however, blown multiple 15" speakers in two different BASS combo amps, a crate B80XL (my first amp ever) and a peavey TKO. this was caused by, you guessed it, having the volume and gain cranked all the way up, and playing nice and hard, and clipping the preamp.
LVP wrote:If, say, 10% of lions tried to kill gazelles, compared with 10% of savannah animals in general, I think that gazelle would be a lousy racist jerk.
bass through guitar amps
15Clyde2.0 wrote: Or I'm using an older Fender 2-12" 45w tube combo. What are the characteristics of something like that? How would it respond to anything below 200hz?
Well, considering that the low "E" string on a guitar is 80 Hz I think you'll be fine. 200 Hz is about a half step above your G-String.
I play bass through a Sunn Model-T guitar head. It sounds fucking amazing. I think bass amps will often have different center frequencies for their bass, mid and treble settings, but for the tone I like, the Sunn does an outstanding job.
Guitar speakers usually don't sound too hot with bass guitars, but it all depends on what sound you're looking for. I once tracked a bass through a little Fender Pro Jr and it sounded great. In fact, it sounded pretty huge... but it was recorded at a very low volume.