Risky to play bass through a guitar speaker. Guitar speakers are not designed for the low range and can easily be damaged. We’ve all tried it and while it sounds good at low volumes once you turn it up the damage can happen quickly.
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Bass into a guitar amp
- Thread starter RattlebackBass
- Start date
one way to check a speaker to see if it is blown is to move the cone by hand if you feel any scraping at all it is BLOWN ! just one way , the other is with an OHM meter , but seeing as you admitted no knowledge of electronics forget it LOL !
It happened to me recently, I went to a "rehearse room" (excuse the broken english) and used 50w guitar combo amps to play pitched bass on it, then I returned next week and the owner told me that he had to send his amps to repair.
The explanation was that lower wattage guitar amps (up to 100w) can't handle bass frequencies properly, and the use of distorsion in the pitched signals just masked the damage done to the speakers. Luckily, the damage was not extended and the amps were back in a week; so he didn't ban me from rehearsing in his space (but he told me to NEVER use his amps again).
I suggest you to go direct to console with an amp+cab sim on the pitched bass signals, to avoid any problem with the speakers of the amp you will be using in a rehearse space or in a gig.
The explanation was that lower wattage guitar amps (up to 100w) can't handle bass frequencies properly, and the use of distorsion in the pitched signals just masked the damage done to the speakers. Luckily, the damage was not extended and the amps were back in a week; so he didn't ban me from rehearsing in his space (but he told me to NEVER use his amps again).
I suggest you to go direct to console with an amp+cab sim on the pitched bass signals, to avoid any problem with the speakers of the amp you will be using in a rehearse space or in a gig.
Sweet music! Everyone else seems to have you covered with the amp stuff. When I set my rig up to do the guitar amp/bass amp thing I run my Mesa TT-800 into my 410 and my Marshall DSL into my peavey 412 bass cab. Guitar cabs just can’t handle loud bass but my Marshall sounds sick into a bass cab!
Yup, this. Old Music Man heads sound pretty great with bass, too.
This is a great forum for advice!Thanks for all the responses so far, I'll be trying a few different things out that have been suggested.
Thanks again, I'm surprised by the amount of responses
Yeah y'all do! Glad you posted so I got to check your band out! Also there's really no guitar player? Can't tell!
I was being lazy during one church service and because my guitar amp was on stage and I swapped to Bass at the last minute, plugged my bass into that. It lasted for half the service and then stopped. I thought I had blown the speaker but it turns out that something further back up the chain did go pop! Never did sort that out, I now have a cabinet with a perfectly working speaker with no amp (I lie, I did buy a replacement amp) to drive it! ANd, Yes, the speaker is OK.
Back in the 80's I was playing equally, bass and guitar. Working with a skinny budget, couldn't afford both, bass amp and guitar amp. At the time, Yamaha was offering a solid state amp with guitar controls (reverb/tremelo, etc) with a 15 inch speaker. Hmmmm...might work for both? After a while this was my opinion: amp did not work for bass or guitar. Why? Speaker and speaker cab. The open back on the Yamaha provided a weak bass delivery. Zero punch playing bass through it. The guitar deficiency was the 15" dullness in the high range. Very midrange. My take-away: guitar amps deliver better with 10"/12" speakers. Bass needs fully enclosed cab back.
