Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum

Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: GuitarIv on March 20, 2017, 01:48:33 PM

Title: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: GuitarIv on March 20, 2017, 01:48:33 PM

Hey everyone,

so last night I had a few guys over I'm starting a band with and apart from your general discussion and bonding process we had a little jam in my bedroom, I had a steel string guitar and two guitar amps at my disposal, my JCM 2000 DSL 100 and my Orange Micro Terror. So I played acoustic, pluged the other guitar player into the little Orange and my bassist into my Marshall Halfstack (for the lack of a bass-amp)

Now the sound that came out of the Marshall obviously wasn't as good as you'd get it from a proper bass-amp, but with a few EQ tweaks and adjustments it did the job just fine. On the OD channel I even got some nice sounds out of it that made me instantly play the Hysteria bass line by Muse. So all cool.

Now I'm just wondering, if this happens more frequently, am I at risk of damaging my JCM or my 412 cab? I know the obvious thing is sound here, there is a reason why we have amps for bass. But for such situations when my bassist is over and I don't have any other amps at my place can I safely let him plug in and play through my guitar halfstack?

Cheers

Title: Re: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: Dave Sloven on March 20, 2017, 03:41:52 PM

I know there can definitely be issues playing a bass amp through a guitar speaker cabinet, but I think that playing a bass through a guitar amp into a guitar cabinet is not such a big deal, at least at bedroom volumes.

Guitar amp into bass cabinet is definitely no issue as long as the impedance of the cab suits the head.  The issue is just whether you like the sound of the bass through that guitar amp.  But I am not 100% sure on how guitar speakers handle bass frequencies.

Title: Re: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: Plenum n Heather on March 20, 2017, 04:40:33 PM

The bass player in my old band played through a guitar amp and cabinet: a 1972 Traynor Bass Master (NMV plexi clone) and Mesa 4x12 loaded with Eminence Swamp Thangs. He also used an EBS bass pedal and EHX valve compressor (Black Finger?) ... the sound was growly and punchy as hell!

SOUND CLIP, CLICK HERE (https://soundcloud.com/phantomisle/misfortune-test-mix11)

Title: Re: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: GuitarIv on March 21, 2017, 09:39:39 AM

Ok... so sound is not the deciding factor here as we have a bass amp in the rehearsal space, it's just for home practice. So my amp should be safe guys?

Title: Re: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: gwEm on March 21, 2017, 01:14:51 PM

Lemmy famously played his Rickenbacker bass through a Marshall 100w Superlead of course

Title: Re: Bass into guitar amp
Post by: GuitarIv on March 23, 2017, 12:09:30 AM

Well... in that case I will try not to crank the amp too much and enjoy the distorted bass sound to play some cool riffs with  :grin:

Cheers!