Recording amp - tube combo - Pignose G40V?

[tonesponge]

I was wondering what people think about using a pignose G40V as a recording amp. It's basically a bassman clone, or so I hear, and I already have it for guitar, so I thought I would try it on bass. I have a Celestion G10 speaker in it.

I liked the smooth, middy, growly tone I got with some drive dialed in, but I'm not experienced enough playing and recording bass to know if there is something unsuitable about it, like maybe the speaker is only for guitar. But I don't know of any bass speakers low wattage enough to get pushed by a 40 watt amp at lowish volume.

Is there any reason to think that this combo might be good or bad for recording bass?

 

[Hellbastard]

The problem I see is that the speaker on that combo is designed for guitar, so it won't reproduce some of the frequencies that a bass guitar produces, this will result in a very thin sounding recording. I don'tknow the amo, but you could connect it to a bass cab and see if you like the tone of it.

But I don't know of any bass speakers low wattage enough to get pushed by a 40 watt amp at lowish volume.

You can drive any speaker with a 40watt amp, there no such thing as underpowering a speaker. What you need to be careful with is not clipping the amplifier.

 

[tonesponge]

Speakers distort too. A lot of iconic tones, especially classic tones, are the result of pushing the speakers into distortion. For guitar, I personally don't like tones that do all the distortion in the pereamp and/or power amp. It's the speakers that really do it. That's why airbrakes and hotplates and such that decrease the output to the speakers wind up changing the tone for many setups. And one of the things I really like about that speaker is the way it distorts.

But there is a little difference in the frequency response curve for the G10 Vintage

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versus the one for their 100 watt bass speaker

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It doesn't look like much difference to me though. What do you think?

 

[Hellbastard]

Well, Speaker distortion is something than I don't like to use or experiment because it puts a lot of stress on the mechanical parts of a speakers, and you can easily blow it out.

I would get the bass specific speakers, there's almost a 60hz difference between the speakers you posted and take into account that an open E string's fundamental frequency if 41.2Hz and you want a speaker that's capable of reproducing those frequencies without leaving any information out.

 

[tonesponge]

I have decided that the G40V is not making a good recording amp for bass, at least not with that speaker anyway.

 

[Ben Clarke]

mix it with a clean DI for low end and play with mic placement and I bet it could.