Bass through guitar amp?

NotMe · 14-01-2005 10:49pm #1

Is it okay? I know it won't sound as good as a bass amp but could it damage the speaker or valve or is it safe enough?

Doctor J · 14-01-2005 11:01pm

I wouldn't push the amp hard and avoid doing it at all if I could.

david · 14-01-2005 11:20pm

AFAIK, there is no problem with using a guitar amp for bass, but DONT use the speaker(s) cos they will blow with the low frequencies.

It wasn't me! · 14-01-2005 11:48pm

Basically it's not worth the bother. You'd have to change the speakers, and playing through a guitar amp means the EQ won't have the range to deal with the bass's frequencies and it'll sound like muck

NotMe · 15-01-2005 12:54am

Right I'm going to stop doing that so. Don't want to damage my amp.

John · 16-01-2005 5:04pm

No! No! No! No! No! No! No!

NotMe · 16-01-2005 7:12pm

I have the bass plugged into my Boss ME-50 and that hooked up to my stereo and it's working well.

I would just buy a bass amp but I'm a bit poor at the moment.

david · 16-01-2005 7:19pm

I'd imagine that's worse! I'm not too sure how safe it is to run bass through a stereo

feylya · 16-01-2005 7:20pm

NotMe wrote:

I have the bass plugged into my Boss ME-50 and that hooked up to my stereo and it's working well.

I would just buy a bass amp but I'm a bit poor at the moment.

How does it sound? I'm kinda interested in doing that. Although I did just sell my bass...

John · 16-01-2005 9:48pm

I wouldn't think running it through your hifi is a good idea. Bass speakers are generally much bigger and heavy duty than hifi speakers. I think dabhoys damaged his hifi speakers using something far less powerful through them. If you can't afford a bass amp, just play it unplugged for now, you'll have to buy new speakers if you keep playing your bass through them.

NotMe · 16-01-2005 10:57pm

It sounds okay. I imagine it would be safe enough because the signal is coming from the line/phones output on the ME-50. It's designed for headphones so it's not likely to damage the stereo speakers, is it?

I like the setup because I can plug my mp3 player or laptop into the ME-50 aswell to play along with songs or midi backing tracks, and have all the sound come out of my stereos speakers.

david · 16-01-2005 11:07pm

Yeah but dont forget that the ME-50 is not designed for bass.

John · 16-01-2005 11:08pm

NotMe wrote:

It sounds okay. I imagine it would be safe enough because the signal is coming from the line/phones output on the ME-50. It's designed for headphones so it's not likely to damage the stereo speakers, is it?

Oh right, I thought you were running straight out of it. That should be fine, I've used my stereo like that before while recording bass to MD. I just noticed that it was you (NotMe, hehe) that was posting, how is the bass going apart from speaker confusion?

feylya · 16-01-2005 11:09pm

I was wondering about that. Does the ME-50 output a signal that can be used for straight into a PA or is it a guitar amp signal???

John · 16-01-2005 11:11pm

freakonaleashx wrote:

Yeah but dont forget that the ME-50 is not designed for bass.

I don't think that'll make much of a difference, there's no speaker in an ME-50. The worst I can think of happening is the tone not sounding quite right. I've used lots of guitar effects in the past without damaging them.

ferdi · 16-01-2005 11:12pm

if its a small amp its fine. i play bass thru a little 25watt guitar combo all the time with no pbobs,

feylya · 16-01-2005 11:13pm

I used to play bass through my little 15W Ibanez. Nearly blew it up

NotMe · 16-01-2005 11:42pm

John2 wrote:

Oh right, I thought you were running straight out of it. That should be fine, I've used my stereo like that before while recording bass to MD. I just noticed that it was you (NotMe, hehe) that was posting, how is the bass going apart from speaker confusion?

Ah it's ok. I managed to lower the action a bit. I like playing bass (when I should be studying for exams next week:() and I can see myself buying a proper bass and amp in the future.

feylya wrote:

I was wondering about that. Does the ME-50 output a signal that can be used for straight into a PA or is it a guitar amp signal???

It does both. It has line out and it has left and right guitar amp outputs.

ferdi wrote:

if its a small amp its fine. i play bass thru a little 25watt guitar combo all the time with no probs,

65W Laney. I'm not gonna risk damaging it.

feylya · 16-01-2005 11:52pm

NotMe wrote:

It does both. It has line out and it has left and right guitar amp outputs.

Funktacular!

eoin5 · 17-01-2005 9:29am

I like the Line 6 flextones, good bass distortion on that insane mode.

Bass through guitar amp?

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