I am a bass player which plays guitar for fun which Im sure some of you do to. I was wondering.. If I ran a guitar preamp(rack?mesa) and used the power amp in an SVT3 pro would that fly thru a guitar cab? am I missing a key piece in all of this because it would really open my options to utilize a working power amp. P.S Didnt quite know where to place a thread like this.. kinda off topic but not really..
Here's an idea: If you already have the SVT head and cab jsut use those. Does the SVT have an effects loop? If so, just plug the preamp into that. I would reccomend a Roland Cube-15 ($99) practice amp since the headphone out into another amp rocks and it has 4 BOSS pedal distortions on it.
I play guitar for fun too.....I used to practice through my bass amps. For me, it became a million times more fun when I finally got a guitar amp for the guitar! The way a good guitar amp (and speakers) responds is so much different than a bass amp. It's more than just the tone shaping in the preamp. Save your coin for a nice 40 watt all tube combo amp! IMHO, you'll be happy you did.
Not only does your average guitar cabinet have a big bump around 100 hz due to divers with a Qts of 1.2 or higher, that Q and the output usually mean things are rather underdamped. When you do play a guitar through a bass amp, it usually sounds cold and lifeless, even for clean stuff - and I think that's a lot of the reason why. With a guitar amp you're mostly just giving suggestions to the speaker about how to change what it's already playing.
So, if you have a Mesa Boogie rack preamp, and you have a guitar cab, and you just want to use the power amp in option on your SVT3, then yes, this should work. If you wanted to get a dedicated amp for this setup, the Peavey Classic 50/50 actually isn't too bad. Both guitar players in my main band used them for years. Another trick you may want to try is using the Boogie pre for a dirty channel in your bass rig. I have a stereo pre and amp, and I am considering using a Boogie V-Twin Preamp to power my "dirty" channel (using one side of my PLX 3002 and probably EA VL-208's for cabs). This will be my modified approach to what some guys like Tom Peterson, Doug Pinnick and Chris Squire have been doing. Later, Tom.
I appreciate the info and im glad somebody picked up that I am using just the power amp of a bass rig . Nuthing was said about a bass cab for guitar. I may just have fun on the guitar but i know that wont give me a good dirty guitar tone. And the option for the boogie being a dirty channel on my ampeg is a good idea to. I reallly appreciate the info I just wanted to make sure that the power supply didnt mattter.
I am very interested to hear how this works out, as well as how any experiments that you might do using the Boogie as a dirty channle on the Ampeg go. I am picking up one of my guitar player's preamps this weekend (either a Boogie or Marshall), so I should get to try out my experiment fairly soon. Take care, Tom.
Sorry to bump this thread, but have you had a chance to try the Mesa V-Twin as your dirty channel pre? I've been looking for a good bass overdrive/distortion effect and I noticed a couple V-Twin rackmount pre's for sale, wondering if I should get one of 'em. If you've had a chance to try it...can you describe the tone of the dirty channel? Can you get a slower sounding distortion (think a big engine) out of it? Or is it more fuzzy? Thanks
Our guitar player wasn't able to yank the V-Twin out of his rack before our last show (Aug 2), but we do have a show coming up Aug 23, and he is supposed to have it for me then. I think I hear you there. I am going for this type of tone as well. As Timmy C describes it, kind of like a "saw with a couple of teeth missing". I will report back once that slacker guitar player gets the preamp to me! Later, Tom.
I am using the Fulltone Bass-Drive, but I am always checking out my alternatives. The Fulltone is pretty darn good, but I am still not quite where I want my (dirty) tone to be. I am also having an electrical engineer/musician friend of mine (who makes killer pedals) build me a custom bass distortion pedal, with volume, tone, overdrive/distortion knobs like the Fulltone, but also with a variable crossover (with the effects on the high end only), and a blend knob. Depending how it turns out, this could end up being my holy grail. But until then, I am going to keep experimenting. Tom.
