Acoustic guitar fail through bass rig?

ampcarfan · #1 08-14-2010, 05:45 AM

Was having an impromtu jam session with a couple buddies last night (one on electric/one on acoustic), and the guy playing acoustic was using the tuner in my rack to tune as it's easier to see. After he was done tuning I thought it would be cool to see what he (Ovation acoustic) sounded like through my rig, so I pulled the mute switch on my head, unplugged my cable, plugged him in and kicked the mute off. I had previously had my gain @ 1:00, and Master at 8:00 (Mesa M6 Carbine). He started to play and it made a H U G E POP and he had nothing! Initially I thought it was the head, but I pulled the mute unplugged him and plugged my bass in and all was good. His guitar had no power, the light on the preamp in his guitar was out and he had nothing when he plugged into his amp. Tried changing the battery to no avail. You guys have any idea what may have caused this? Hope it wasn't anything "I" did

T-Bird · #2 08-14-2010, 06:56 AM

Hi.

Doesn't make any sense to me.

An amp is an amp, regardless of the intended use. No commercial 1/4" equipment I've ever seen has had so bad an impedance mismatch that there's no sound.

What I don't get though, is why You didn't set the gain level with the master at 0 first?
A standard procedure IME.

Regards
Sam

lbwdog · #3 08-14-2010, 07:10 AM

Sounds like a coincidence to me. His guitar pre-amp decided to fail at that moment. If there's no light even with another battery, try one more brand new battery just to make sure.

There's no reason the amp would have caused this.

If still no signal, take it to a tech.

pasta4lnch · #4 08-14-2010, 07:23 AM

signal flow only goes one way. I also think it was a coincidence . . . fwiw I use my MB minimark as an acoustic guitar amp all the time for cocktail gigs, w/ a tweak of my SABDDI it sounds amazing actually

ampcarfan · #5 08-14-2010, 08:11 AM

Follow up: Talked to him this morning and he said he disconnected and reconnected the wires from the preamp in his guitar and installed a new battery and it powered up. He also said the input jack looks pretty grody so he's going to pull that out, clean it up and possibly replace it.

I don't put my gain at 0 because on the M6 Carbine, the gain controls how much "grit" you want on the pre-tube. 1:00 or slightly higher is perfect for me. No need to ever really fiddle with it.

lunarpollen · #6 08-14-2010, 11:03 AM

Acoustic guitar can sound amazing through bass rigs once you get the EQ dialed in

T-Bird · #7 08-14-2010, 12:08 PM

Hi.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ampcarfan

I don't put my gain at 0 because on the M6 Carbine, the gain controls how much "grit" you want on the pre-tube. 1:00 or slightly higher is perfect for me. No need to ever really fiddle with it.

I guess it's the language barrier or something, but that's not what I meaned.

Whenever I plug in an unknown (or known) signal source into anything, i set the levels so the pre is happy. I do that with the master attenuator or level at 0, in order to prevent annoying speaker movement. Nothing should break if the amps power output is somewhat in line with the cab(s), but it's nicer that way.

An acoustic instrument is also pretty good at terrible howling feedback, even more reasons to start it from 0.

That's all.

Regards
Sam

ampcarfan · #8 08-14-2010, 04:55 PM

Gotcha Tbird.. No harm, No foul. May have done that, but it was one of those "spur of the moment" things