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Turning a guitar amp into a bass amp
- Thread starter jdwhitak
- Start date
I played an active bass through my brother's little Orange Crush practice amp... It sounded surprisingly good. Now I have one of those little Ampeg practice amps for at home.
I'll put a +1 up here for the Valve Jr. as well. Great little amp. Run it through something as simple as a Beta8 in a sealed box, or your favorite 10,12,15, whatever. I play mine through it's openback little guitar speaker. Starts getting dirty about 9:00-10:00 on the dial but sounds good there. Better through bass cabs. Mine is a version 3? I think. Anyway, some of the later ones were supposed to have a transformer that's good enough for bass. It's a guitar combo, but the internal combo speaker is still connected to the amp with a 1/4" plug. Can unhook it if you want and plug in any bass cab. Amp part has 4,8, and 16 ohm plugs on the back. It's cool. Just a volume, that's it. No tone control. Doesn't need it with a good sounding bass.
Unfortunately, the 2 low watt combos I use aren't "cheap" anymore. But the mid 60s Deluxe and Princeton Amps work great for recording and rehearsing bass! For recording, I typically use either plugged into a 2x12 (sealed) cab with Celestion Vin 30s (guitar speakers), and its the best recording bass amp I've ever recorded! IME/IMO, YMMV, etc etc etc...
I'm rather fond of a certain Hartke B90 that one open mic I attend provides. I'm fairly certain its relatives (B60, B30 and B20) would also work for your purposes, and cheaply as well.
It's mostly clean throughout the range with a regular output passive bass. (Although the Champ's "clean" is in the style of a 70s Fender tube amp, rather than a modern hi-fi SS clean.)
I'll have to give one a shot. What year did you use? I was thinking about one of the newer ones to have for guitarist at the house.
Maybe I could kill 2 birds with one stone.
Maybe I could kill 2 birds with one stone.
In another thread another user points out the VHT Special 6, which is a 6 watt all tube guitar head that you can buy on ebay for around 200$. The construction is that of the older tube heads. It doesn't use the PCB boards and circuits like many heads these days.
The VHT website states its very 'mod-friendly'. However when i emailed them asking this question the reply stated they could not discuss how to mod it into a bass head lol
I figured they would want to help, especially since they say themselves its Mod Friendly.
oh well... Perhaps this is good candidate for that all tube tone in a bed package?
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Heres the amps Schematic just to save the searching [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Anyone with amp modding knowledge see a potential to turn this into a bass head?
The VHT website states its very 'mod-friendly'. However when i emailed them asking this question the reply stated they could not discuss how to mod it into a bass head lol
I figured they would want to help, especially since they say themselves its Mod Friendly.
oh well... Perhaps this is good candidate for that all tube tone in a bed package?
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Heres the amps Schematic just to save the searching [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Anyone with amp modding knowledge see a potential to turn this into a bass head?
I just plugged a bass cab into the Special 6 and received a nice bass tone. It drives a bass can very well for such a low wattage amp. I used a Hartke Hydrive 115.
My Champ's a '72. Nice little straight-ahead amp (and a good pedal platform for guitar).
aetheriac said:
When you turned it up did it lose low end? And how did the tone knob function tuned for guitar frequencies ?
With volume up the low end was there, but the tone knob didn't do a lot. I'll try it out again tonight and give an update. I did it a while ago.
Thats awesome, if you could do some sound clips, or Youtube review or something it would probably really help a lot of people. These threads come up like every 3 months here lol
Tone knobs not a big deal, i think most people just want that tube amp dynamics and feel, and accurate transparent tone from the bass.
If i can get the sound of my pickups amplified through a clear tube amp I am happy
Also, that tube amp breakup and warmth is very important.
Thanks Aetheriac a bunch of us would love the review
Tone knobs not a big deal, i think most people just want that tube amp dynamics and feel, and accurate transparent tone from the bass.
If i can get the sound of my pickups amplified through a clear tube amp I am happy
Also, that tube amp breakup and warmth is very important. Thanks Aetheriac a bunch of us would love the review
sometimes you can get a nice musicman hd 130 for about 500, 75 watt head for less. made for both bass and guitar.
I used a 1974 Marshall JMP 50 watt into a sealed 212 for years as a practice/small gig amp. Worked great with a piano and my fretless. And it was much lighter than my svt.
Carvin makes some decent little tube amps. And then there's the ashdown little bastard 30.
Carvin makes some decent little tube amps. And then there's the ashdown little bastard 30.
Mid '60s Princeton is spot on IME. Very well voiced for nice bass tones and sounds great through a bigger box.
Someday I'm going to build me one of those as a head version and up the transformers/power section to beef it up. Drop the tremolo, solid state rectifier, and add a mids control. Then I'm going to start selling them
kills through a 2x12 or 4x10 setup!
Someday I'm going to build me one of those as a head version and up the transformers/power section to beef it up. Drop the tremolo, solid state rectifier, and add a mids control. Then I'm going to start selling them
kills through a 2x12 or 4x10 setup!
That's a bummer that they don't wanna help out. It would be super nice if someone with technical knowledge could point out all necessary modifications.
As far as my (next to nothing) knowledge and research goes, to make it more bass friendly we would have to change:
- output transformer (preferably bigger one
)- heater fuse (so it can handle some bigger tubes)
- some caps (?)
I'm really tempted by the price, in Europe it costs same as Valve Junior...
