How will a bass damage a guitar amp?

[s_mcsleazy]

proud owner of a bassman and a epiphone valve jr.

i prefere them over "real" bass amps. i like the amp to sound like its getting to hot. i still use bass speekers/p.a. speekers because they add somthing that guitar speekers cant do

 

[gnjpowell]

Like others said: driver excursion limits. Low freqs as with bass guitar require larger excursion (in/out) of the drivers Vs with std guitar. Guitar-specific speakers are not designed for the low freqs and long excursions required for bass guitar, they are optimized for the freq range of the guitar. Sure, you can get away with it at low levels where you don't exceed the excursion limits of std git speakers. A secondary consideration is over-all power handling; std git speakers may not be able to handle the additional heat-load of the high current and voltage required for bass for as long as larger, heavier bass speakers can handle increased temps.

 

[juggernaut7]

Has anybody heard of John Entwistle ? Chris Squire ? Robert Trujillo ? Geezer Butler ? check em out guess what they play through.

 

[rekesbass]

It has two outputs?

Yes..one is mono and both pups are wired to it like any other bass. The other is the Ric-o-sound,a stereo output that divides the pups(via the ric-o-sound box or a stereo to split mono cable)to send to two amps..

 

[IvanMike]

FWIW, a couple of things.....

In terms of the studio, you have a lot of control. It's not surprising that CK and others were able to use guitar amps. Also, the "bassman" is one of the most legendary guitar amps out there. (they sound amazing with a 6 string).

Second, the idea of having control over what's going on is a huge factor in all of the "heroes" who use guitar cabinets. You can bet that they and their staff make sure they don't blow those speakers. As far as guitar amps and preamps, it's no biggie - they know they aren't going to damage anything. Lots of metal guys use guitar preamps (and bass cabs).

 

[georgestrings]

Second, the idea of having control over what's going on is a huge factor in all of the "heroes" who use guitar cabinets. You can bet that they and their staff make sure they don't blow those speakers.

It's probably a safe bet that they went thru more than a couple of speakers during the process, too - and I doubt there's many here that can match the tour budget of Entwistle, Squire, Butler, etc...


- georgestrings

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It's probably a safe bet that they went thru more than a couple of speakers during the process, too - and I doubt there's many here that can match the tour budget of Entwistle, Squire, Butler, etc...

Not to mention packspace and roadies.

 

[AwkwardLoudness]

Well, I plugged one of my basses into my main guitar rig this weekend. The clean low bass tones sound great at polite to moderate volume. It definitely beats playing through a cheap bass combo. I can't turn the preamp gain or master volume up too much without turning down the 'bass' EQ knob...otherwise the farting out of rare vintage speakers commences. With overdriven mids, no lows, and master volume dimed, this rig enters Lemmy territory with sweet loud grind.

That full stack is the best guitar rig I've owned, but I'll stick to real bass cabinets for some loud & low authoritative bass tones.

 

[patiopup]

Thread bump, minor addition.

I just started experimenting with splitting signal through a DI (really a Zoom B2, which I mainly think of as cheap DI with volume pedal and tuner) as described by a few folks here. I've been running the dry signal through to a bass amp and the effected signal--with low and low-mids rolled all the way off and mids attenuated a bit--into the front of a little Pignose guitar amp I don't care about. When I mute the bass amp and just hear the guitar, the amp is barely responding to low frequencies, but when I get up in to the guitar range of the bass, it's coming through pretty nicely. Un-mute the bass amp, and there's a lot of possibilities there.

Main thing I'm looking for is to have a mostly clean bass presence on the low strings and break-up on the high notes, and I'm getting that. Very nice to me, because I like to play with some dirt at times, but I really don't much care for distorted tones lower than a guitar's voicing. The other nice bit is that I can use the volume pedal on the B2 to adjust the guitar amp signal without changing the signal to the bass amp.

I've got a VHT Special 6 on the way to monkey around with, I'll try that in place of the Pignose (on the low power setting), and see what the textures are like...

 

[radiomoscow]

A common response to "can I play my bass thru a guitar amp?"
seems to be "yes, but you might harm the speakers"
(after "yes, but it will sound bad" -but I'll ignore asthetics for discussion)

So can someone explain the mechanics of how bass will damage a guitar amp?
If I roll off the lows on teh guitar amp, will this prevent it?

It won't, how do you explain octave pedals that make a guitar 2 octaves lower, 1 octave lower then a bass

 

[Phlipper]

I've played bass thru Peavey guitar combos and Mesa heads nd Recto cabs for years. And once played an outdoor show without foh for bass thru a PV Classic 50 head and sealed 2x12 PV cab. Have never blown a PV nor Mesa 90 speaker with bass despite running them hard enough to get power amp distortion. And they sounded pretty damn sweet for classic rock too boot.