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Bass through a guitar amp

primusfan1989

primusfan1989

Jan 17, 2005
1,273
1,651
new jersey
#1
I have been playing my Gibson EB-2 through a Marshall 1959 Superlead and i really enjoy the dirty distorted tone but I hear that this is not good for guitar amps. Would i be able to use the head through an ampeg 4-10. All the research I've done has said that this will only harm guitar speakers. Any advise is welcome.
 
#2
Check the frequency range on the guitar speakers. I play through EVM 12L's, which are technically guitar speakers, but they have lots of bass, and they sound great. I never really crank it to its utmost capability, though. Pretty much any guitar amp should be fine for bass as long as you don't play it too loud. (although it won't necessarily sound good!)

If you're thinking of playing a guitar head through an ampeg bass cab, you should be fine. It just probably won't go very loud, because guitar heads are usually only around 50 or 100 watts.
 
#3
Guitar amps are geared for guitar frequencies, whereas bass amps are geared to attenuate bass frequencies.

In other words, if you play a bass through a guitar amp, your "midrange" will be tweaked more with the bass control than a bass control on a bass amp would.

NEVER play bass through guitar speakers. They're not designed to vibrate at the lower frequencies, and especially if you have a low B string.

You can, however, play guitar through a bass amp....especially a jazz guitar. Makes it sound all warm and fat...mmmmmmmm (need some merlot to go with that.....)

Z
 
#6
Back in the '70s I used an Acoustic 400 series lead/bass amp set in the lead position and replaced the stock Acoustic 15's with Electro Voice guitar 15's. It gave my Rick 4001 and Gibson Ripper (with Rotosounds) that extra snap, yet had killer bass tone. And we played loud! Chris Squire also used to play his Rick through a Sunn Coliseum lead amp with two 6x 12 cabinets. Don't know that I'd want to run a bass through, say, a Twin Reverb, though.:)
 
#8
primusfan1989 said:
I have been playing my Gibson EB-2 through a Marshall 1959 Superlead and i really enjoy the dirty distorted tone but I hear that this is not good for guitar amps. Would i be able to use the head through an ampeg 4-10. All the research I've done has said that this will only harm guitar speakers. Any advise is welcome.
Click to expand...

You can play a bass through a guitar amp, just depends what tone you want. Guitar amps are not good is you want beefy lows, but are good if you like a dirty, chimy sound. It is best to blend the two, split the signal and get lows from a bass amp and distortion from a guitar amp.

NO, it is not "bad" for a guitar amp. That is a myth.
 
#9
Yeah, I was going to mention that, too. Some effects freaks will split their signal so that the bass rig maintains the low fundamentals while the effected signal with its twisted mids and highs runs through a guitar amp for better delivery of the whole spectrum. I haven't tried it and I only use a Q-Tron or some overdrive on occasion, but if I did a lot of stuff with funky effects, I'm sure that a guitar amp could really help them project.
 
#11
I've been useing this 1979 Labseries L2 bass head for both bass and guitar for anout 24 years. Put it on a bass cab and it's a great bass amp, Put it on a guitar cab, a 2X12" in my case, and its a great guitar amp. Still amazes me that this amp has never quit on me, I've never even blown a fuze.

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#13
I've played bass through guitar amps numerous times... And have blown up cheap guitar speakers before... But I played my 5'er through my 15watt Class-A tube guitar combo at practice this weekend ( my usual amps werent available ). Sounded sweet. As stated before, the EQ is in the wrong spot to be useful...
 
#14
Rob Martinez said:
You can play a bass through a guitar amp, just depends what tone you want. Guitar amps are not good is you want beefy lows, but are good if you like a dirty, chimy sound. It is best to blend the two, split the signal and get lows from a bass amp and distortion from a guitar amp.

NO, it is not "bad" for a guitar amp. That is a myth.
Click to expand...

It's bad (in general) for guitar speakers, especially those in open backed cabs. That's no myth.
 
#16
olaff421 said:
Then why can so many guitar players use octave down pedals? If you play a guitar an octave down isn't it in the same frequency range as a bass then?
Click to expand...

Typically guitar amps don't have the low-end frequency response that a bass amplifier does. If you run a bass through a guitar amp into a guitar speaker, it will probably be fine (within reason) because the amp won't reproduce the low bass frequencies.

If you run a bass through a bass amp into a guitar speaker, you run a high likelihood of damaging the speaker.

Asad
 
#17
ggunn said:
It's bad (in general) for guitar speakers, especially those in open backed cabs. That's no myth.
Click to expand...
It is a myth. Unless you're stupid and dime the rig and blast away, keep it below where it sounds bad and there should be no ill effect.
Open backed cabs are no more likely to have a failure than any other type of cab. Overexcursion from abusing the driver is the most likely cause of failure, as it will probably overexcurse long before thermal failure in a quality driver.

My stereo has 4 Eminence B15/channel in open backed cabinets, driven by a transconductance amp and will do about 115dB according to my ratshack meter flat down to 50Hz.
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/
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