Guitar amp? PA? Bass Amp??? I'm wondering because I've been trying to sing and play bass in my band (I'm better at the second than the first), and it's tough to hear yourself and sing good when I got like freakin 220 watts of bass, 60 watts guitar, and a loud drummer, and I'm singing through a little forty-watt guitar amp...

So yeah, do I have to buy a PA? or could I get away with using a decent sized guitar amp? Would it hurt the guitar amp to sing through it, and would it sound decent? I am leaning towards this option since I am learning guitar too and am looking for an excuse to pick up a big ole' fender power chorus at the local pawn:)

But anyways I would love to hear what you guys use and some of your opinions. We've been playing some tiny gigs and these have been mostly instrumental stuff I've written. I'd like to get better at writing and singing lyrics with our tunes, because you can only get so many gigs as an instrumental group. Let alone a beginner/amature one: www.myspace.com/threepeaces

You can use a guitar amp for vocals as long as it has the proper handling. In most cases it's not going to be ideal, as the range reproduced by a guitar amp can be a little on the thin side, and also it won't be as easy to get a ton of clean volume out of most guitar amps like you would a decent PA. Acoustic guitar amps tend to work well for vocals because they generally have tweeters built in or a wider range. I've also seen keyboard amps used to pretty good effect. All that said, I've been in bands that used guitar amps for vocals at rehearsal, and then just put them direct in through the PA for live shows.

I don't know how much money you want to spend. I would try and get a powered PA cab like the Peavey Pr series. They have a built in mixer in the back that you can just plug a mic into. It should sound alot better than using a guitar amp. Another advantage is later you could buy another one and a mixer and you would have a small PA.

I've got a Fender Bassman 150 which has a 12" and a tweeter. I use a small Behringer mixer into the rca(CD)inputs on the back and guess what? It sounds ok.
Vocals land more in bass amp range freq. wise but if you have a bass heavy rig(410 without tweeter) then it will probably sound muffled no matter what you do with the eq. Anything that you could put a CD into and not have it sound like crap should do ok.

Generally a small, cheap PA is best. The keyboard amp idea can work as well but not as upgradable as PA components. See what's used out there.

I'm sure it's not at all what you are looking for, but just thought I'd mention the bose L1. I started as a singer and the bose L1 is bar none the best amplification I've heard for voice.

To me it works awesome for bass to with enough bass modules, but some bass players would argue that point.

Get something that reproduces high end like mad.

I have a berhinger B300. You can switch between mic and line level, so you can plug in a mic or run a mixer to it. You can also adjust the bass and treble.

Great on a budget. Certainly not spectacular, but it gets the job done.

Just thought I would update this by saying that I bought a Peavey xr-400b and a couple smaller monitor speaks at a pawn that will work for now for vox. I do need to pick up a bigger speaker though that will take all 100-120w (or whatever this PA has) power.