Bass through guitar amp?

NotMe

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

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

david

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!

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

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

John

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

NotMe

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

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

feylya

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

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

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

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

John

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

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

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

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

feylya

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

NotMe

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

NotMe wrote:

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

Funktacular!

eoin5

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