Anyone ever hear of...

Seany

....playing a guitar through a bass amp in a live situation??

Was jamming with a guy last night who did this. Never seen it before and didnt really notice until he told me (he uses a **** load of effects as well).

-=al=-

Im sure its aok, but a bass through a a gutiar amp isnt the best idea

Doctor J

It's been done, but not an entirely great idea, the amp is designed for lower frequencies than the guitar is putting out.

jcoote

yeah didn't a load of guys use a fender bassman as a guitar amp in the good oul days...it will handle the low end baetter but might not be too crisp on the higher frequencies

feylya

Fender Bassman...

Damn it J

jcoote

feylya wrote:

Fender Bassman...

Damn it J

its normally me sayin dammit fey...

it was a good day

Seany

Well its a fender bass amp anyway....not sure what model though.

Just curious :rolleyes:

jcoote

how do u think he sounded seany

Seany

Sounded just fine...I didnt notice it was a bass amp.

Perhaps the effects he was using were contributing higher frequencies so it sounded like a guitar amp..but then again I could be talking out of my arse

jcoote

yeah the eq on the effects may have helped what kinda style was he playing

Patricide

You can get some really heavy bone crushing tones out of it but unfortunatly it can turn to mud when theres 2 guitars playing simeltaniously

Eoin Madsen

EQ is going to have little to no effect on the differences between a bass amp and a guitar amp tbh. You can't boost a pickup or a speaker cab beyond its frequency/amplitude response.

Stories of how you should never use a guitar in bass amp or a bass in a guitar amp are greatly exaggerated.

steveland?

I've got a bass here and no amp (yet)... how "dangerous" is it to play a bass through a guitar amp? Someone was saying it's not a great idea because it can damage the speaker or something...
Btw it's a Marshall G30RCD

david

It doesnt matter a f*ck of you play a bass through a guitar amp as long as you dont REALLY crank it. You'll definately notice extreme breakup before it blows though if you play it too loud. You wouldnt believe the tones i can get from an ENGL thunder 50 with bass.

Patricide

What are you nuts, DO NOT PLAY BASS THROUGH A GUITAR AMP, trust me from first hand knowlege my amps speaker got totally ****ed, if you must and i mean MUST play through a guitar amp keep it really really low.

John

Doesn't Josh Homme play through a bass amp? I think Adam Jones uses a bass amp too (one of his amps anyway). I have a 15W practice bass amp that has a lovely clean tone for guitar.

Doctor J

Homme did in Kyuss, not sure if he still does in QOTSA.

feylya

No, he's still playing through an Ampeg with a volume pedal to clean up his tone.

david

Playing a bass through a guitar amp will work fine as long as it has a decent sized/powered speaker, ie not a 30w marshall mg etc. There are lots of myths out there warning people about not doing it but its BS imho.

ferdi

i play guitar thru bass amps all the time with the mids and treble up high.

i loose some sustain in the higher register but i get lovely thick n' crunchy lows and mids, which i like.

Alter-Ego

Yeah i personally like the tone of a guitar through a bass amp. Josh homme and the guitarist from the yeah yeah yeahs use bass amps a lot of the time.

Also Qotsa usually play tuned down 2 steps so the guitar is Much lower and heavier, sounds kick ass.....Qotsa fan in case you havent guessed!!!

Eoin Madsen

Unless your amp has badly mismatched speaker impedance and wattage (in which case all you need to do is crank it with anything plugged in and it will get totally frakked up anyway), there's no reason why a bass should cause major damage to it. It goes without saying that you don't boost the bass eq into causing huge distortion or clipping anyway.

Besides, if your amp is a piece of **** you're probably doing yourself a favour by destroying it.

Gaspode

As a bassist who plays electric also too as well I always play my guitar through the bass amp. I love the deep tones it gives - great for heavy metal stuff, and one less amp clogging up the garage!
I've done this since I swapped from guitar to bass in the 80s and I cant imagine playing without the crunchy bass sound. Although, maybe a good guitar amp will give you that too....

Anyway, bottom line, if you like that sound, go for it.

With regard to playing bass through a guitar amp, its OK if you dont overdo things, but there not a whole lot of bottom end thump in em.

punchdrunk

i use my tweed bassman,two channels,four inputs but with shared EQ

plug the guitar into the bright channel,bass into the normal channel

EQ the amp for the guitar then use a boss EQ into the normal channel to boost the lowend of the bass and yer sorted