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Guitar through bass amp distortion

C

CriminalCypress

Mar 19, 2011
120
2
29
NC
#1
I know there have been many threads like this already, but i can't seem to find what i need.



I have a hard time getting a nice pop-punk distortion tone through my bass amp. I play an Epiphone Les Paul Studio with Gibson '57 Classic pickups, a Peavey TKO 75 with a 7 band EQ and seperate high/low eq's.

For distortion I use a simple Boss DS-1.


I'm guessing i'll just need to get a guitar amp once and for all, but any help would be appreciated.
 
#2
CriminalCypress said:
I know there have been many threads like this already, but i can't seem to find what i need.



I have a hard time getting a nice pop-punk distortion tone through my bass amp. I play an Epiphone Les Paul Studio with Gibson '57 Classic pickups, a Peavey TKO 75 with a 7 band EQ and seperate high/low eq's.

For distortion I use a simple Boss DS-1.


I'm guessing i'll just need to get a guitar amp once and for all, but any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
I couldn't get past that. Good luck with the rest of your post.
 
#3
It's going to be hard to get a guitar tone out of a cabinet tuned for bass. It will be, for obvious reasons, too bassy and have less upper midrange response. You may be able to correct some of that with the eq, but those frequencies are going to be centered to work best with bass, not guitar.

Honestly, just find a guitar amp used somewhere for a decent price.
 
#4
ShiftyShift said:
I couldn't get past that. Good luck with the rest of your post.
Click to expand...

I had a feeling someone would point that out. I just started out on guitar after playing bass for only just a few years. I sometimes enjoy listening to pop-punk and i thought it would be a good place to start out with seeing as its relatively simple to play on guitar.

Now that we've got past that, can i get useful replies? Thanks.
 
#9
What about a distortion device designed to emulate the sound of pushed speakers? The Line6 pod series and the tech 21 character series come to mind right off the bat, I'm certain there are other options, but that's what I'd be looking into
 
#12
Hi.

MEKer said:
You might try something other than that DS-1.
Click to expand...

^This.

I'm surprised how uninformed most of the replies in this thread are, some even plain BS.

No offense to the clueless people who wrote them, the lack of knowledge is just unbelievable to me.


Actually, using a "transparent" amp is most times more feasible than using a highly "colorful" amp with the normal pedalboards the guitarists tend to use, the volume range is totally user selectable, unlike with a (big) rig that relies on power section distortion and saturation and cone break-up.

Now don't get me wrong, about the sweetest tone I can think of is a LP through a cranked 50W vintage Bassman or Marshall, through a 412 Greenback cab, WITHOUT ANY pedals in the chain, but to be quite honest, the SPL level is unbearable for most situations by then.


Much to his surprise, the tone difference between our guitarists -67 Bassman + 115 Fender cab and a cheapo Behringer kick-back bass combo was neglible once the 10 or so effects he uses was introduced in the signal chain (at rehearsal levels).
He had forgot his speaker cable, that was the very, very reluctant reason for using the Behringer.
And he ain't no spring chicken either, in his 50's and about 35 years of experience with nice amps.

So CC, just find a different (better ;)) stand-alone distortion or a bunch of boxes to further tailor the tone, Your Peavey will be just fine for amplification. No guitar amp in that same budget will probably be any better without the same effects anyway.

Regards
Sam
 
#13
Throwing pedals at tone only takes you so far. I think you still need a good sound to start with. And did you just refer to the TKO as a transparent amp? Sam....come now! You've been on here longer than any of us! ;)

EDIT: OK, no you haven't...but still...
 
#14
Hi.

JimmyM said:
Throwing pedals at tone only takes you so far. I think you still need a good sound to start with. And did you just refer to the TKO as a transparent amp? Sam....come now! You've been on here longer than any of us! ;)

EDIT: OK, no you haven't...but still...
Click to expand...

:D

Ok, the TKO (or any other Peavey bass amp for that matter) isn't that transparent compared to PA cabs for example, but compared with the usual way the budget level guitar amps are designed to acchieve the crappy distorted tone they have, it's damn near HiFi. To me anyway.

I also didn't want to express my undying dislike towards anything and everything with Peavey badge on it since they probably dumped their C or D-stock over here back in the day, and I got sick trying to fix all that crap. You guys got all the good stuff, at least it sounds like that from all the praise those oldies recieve on US sites.

It is also true that SS pedals only get one so far, but sadly (?) that's the direction guitarists, and some bassists, have been heading for a few decades now. And still claim it's the "tube tone" that gets them going.

Regards
Sam
 
#15
I'll tell you, that 80's and 90's Peavey stuff was really well built IMHO. I still see a lot of it in use. The 70's Peavey stuff is meh to me, but there is a lot of it still in service, too. Maybe we get the good stuff, I don't know, but if I wasn't always impressed with the tone of Peavey stuff, the stuff just lasts and lasts as far as I can tell.
 
#16
I do it all the time. I play my esp e50 through my 6x10 and hartke lh 500 all the time. I run a good fuzz to get that distortion sound. I love my green russian big muff as my guitar fuzz through a bass amp. The swollen pickle sounds good to distort a guitar too. try other pedals you will find one better if you try a bunch.
 
#17
Hi.

JimmyM said:
I'll tell you, that 80's and 90's Peavey stuff was really well built IMHO. I still see a lot of it in use. The 70's Peavey stuff is meh to me, but there is a lot of it still in service, too. Maybe we get the good stuff, I don't know, but if I wasn't always impressed with the tone of Peavey stuff, the stuff just lasts and lasts as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I mean.
The stuff that landed over here, in Finland at least, or perhaps in Europe in general, was probably the most problem prone "quality" gear there ever was. At least to my knowledge.

Of course we had FBT on the market as well, but only someone who was very high, or very drunk would consider those to be of any quality ;).

I can't believe that just the diferent PT caused all that, even though those sometimes blew up as well.

OTOH, it may just have been that the usual "MADE IN USA" price-hike at that time, made us assume and expect that the quality was better and the seemingly high failure rate was viewed accordingly.

Regards
Sam
 
#18
Most pop-punk bands play Dual Rectifiers or some kind of Marshall JCM (800, 900, 2000). But you don't need to spend that kind of money.

The DS-1 is one of the worst sounding distortion pedals out there. Can of bees tone. The old Made In Japan version was good (what Kurt Cobain used), but when Boss stopped having their pedals made there, they changed the DS-1 circuit. So it's not even the same pedal anymore. Most pros that you see with DS-1s on their boards either have them modded, or are just using them for the bypass buffer.

Now you're now going to get the greatest distorted guitar tones out of a bass amp. But I do it from time to time and you just need to be careful with your EQ. If it's too harsh, cut highs. If it's too boomy, cut lows. You probably don't want to be playing with a tweeter on if you're using distortion too. But my guess is what's killing your tone is the DS-1, not the amp.

The MI Audio Crunch Box is one of my favorite distortion pedals. Sounds just like an 80s Marshall, with more gain if you want it. There are plenty of other Marshall-in-a-box type pedals out there, but the Crunch Box nails it. You'll be hard pressed to find a pedal that sounds like a Dual Rectifier, but there is a DIY pedal out there called the DR Boogey that is actually a Dual Rec preamp with the tubes replaced with transistors. It sounds very very good. I also think a Tubescreamer sounds pretty good with the gain maxed, though some people might disagree.
 
#19
For the money your going to spend on a bunch of pedals to play trough a bass amp you can just pick up a fender mustang amp for $99 and just have fun or I would sell the bass amp and just get yourself a fender pro junior or something similar. Good Luck!
 
#20
One of my guitarists has a Line6 Spider head with a Marshall 412. The other has a Powerstate amp and Powerstate 212 cab (Powerstate is a Hungarian brand, not the best out there, but also not bad) with a Metal Muff. They have great tones. Once I plugged a guitar in my Ashdown MAG Evo II + Warwick 410 + Zoom B1X (cheap bass multi...), and they said: "one that tone is awesome!". And yeah, I'm talking about distorted tone.
 

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