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Using a bass amp with electric guitar?

321slash

321slash

Mar 10, 2022
11
13
41
Vancouver, BC, Canada
#1
Hey guys!

So I have a Fender GT40 for my electric guitar, and a Rumble Studio 40 for my bass guitar. Although both 40 watts, the Rumble Studio is far better, even aside from sound - it's got XLR and 1/4" line outs and FX send/return jacks on the back. It also has 1 10" speaker vs. GT40's 2x 6.5". The rest of the features are pretty much the same - effects, bluetooth, wifi, etc although I'm sure the effects and tones are more geared towards its respective guitar.

But I was thinking...how bad could it be to use my electric guitar on my bass amp? I could also even sell the GT40 and get a pedal or two (thinking a distortion pedal and a wah pedal) to compensate? I've never owned an actual pedal before (just a multi-effects board a long time back, but the built-in effects of the amps are better these days) so a lesson on how it works and comes together may come hand in hand in answering this.

I know not many, if any at all, have both these amps but any insight is appreciated.

Thanks!
 
#3
MonetBass said:
Using a guitar with a bass amp is fine. I've done it for years. It will give your guitar a different tone depending on the amp. But do NOT do the reverse: use a bass with a guitar amp. Unless you enjoy nasty sounds.
Click to expand...
nasty sound, and damaged speakers...
 
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#4
MonetBass said:
Using a guitar with a bass amp is fine. I've done it for years. It will give your guitar a different tone depending on the amp. But do NOT do the reverse: use a bass with a guitar amp. Unless you enjoy nasty sounds.
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah, I knew about going bass guitar into guitar amp, heard it was OK in low volumes or headphones but wouldn't dream of doing it for a gig.

Good to know guitar into bass amp is fine. But do you think the Rumble Studio 40 can completely replace the GT40? (assuming I'm happy with the tone, just want to make sure I'm not missing anything else!)
 
#6
I been using my PF-50T and Yorkville xc808 for treble geetar.

If I was only playing treble geetar, my Bastard Blues JR 2x12 is WAY easier to carry...
 
#7
The OM says the Studio 40 has a tweeter with an on/off switch.

The tweeter may not sound great with guitar, especially if you plan to use distortion. Also if you really crank high gain distortion, you may actually blow the tweeter. Either way you have the option of turning the tweeter off.

IMHO try it and judge for yourself. If it sounds good, it is good.
 
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#10
Thanks everyone for your responses! I got a brief moment to try it out and as many people mentioned, it sounds fine but needs some EQ tweaking - bass down and treble up and it starts to sound like a guitar amp again. The Studio 40 bass overdrive presets sound pretty terrible on guitar though so that’s gonna need a lot more tweaking to make work.

Will do more testing. As it stands, I feel I can’t replace the GT40, and with how cheap I got the GT40, almost doesn’t make sense to sell it. But I think I can make the Studio 40 work enough for my purposes if I need to use it for its line out jacks if I were to play electric guitar for my church.
 
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#12
Totally fine. It may sound meh but at the same time Jimi Hendrix use a bass amp I believe... anyway some pedals help shape the sound better on the rumble, I play mostly blues guitar for fun nothing serious so it's nice I can sell my old Boss amp since it's just collecting dust. Good luck and have fun!
 
#13
A lot of bass amps have ended up being highly desirable guitar amps: The Fender Bassman series, the Marshall Super Bass, the Sunn Concert & Beta bass heads.

The built-in effects on the amp would be designed for bass so it would make sense they wouldn't work for what you want. But a couple pedals into a nice clean amp should work fine.
 
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#14
In the tube world things seem to be somewhat more if not totally interchangeable. (The Sunn 200s & Ampeg V-4B I've owned have been said to be good for guitar.)
The feature sets vary of course (I don't generally need much reverb or tremolo for bass). And the voicing may or may not work.
But like they always say: if it sounds good, it is good!
 
#15
Jefenator said:
In the tube world things seem to be somewhat more if not totally interchangeable. (The Sunn 200s & Ampeg V-4B I've owned have been said to be good for guitar.)
The feature sets vary of course (I don't generally need much reverb or tremolo for bass). And the voicing may or may not work.
But like they always say: if it sounds good, it is good!
Click to expand...

From my limited understanding of...well everything, older amps are more interchangeable, probably owing to the "guitar" and "bass" versions being more or less the same amps with different voicing in the preamp. I've asked my local tech about this with respect to the Ampeg V4 and Music Man Sixty Five Reverb amps I've recently acquired. He said the voicing probably won't be ideal, but it won't hurt the amps themselves. And honestly, I though they sounded pretty great with bass except there's not a lot of headroom, so with gig volume they break up a good bit.
 
#17
seamonkey said:
This comes up all the time and the unofficial consensus is that using a bass with a guitar amp is you'll overpower the amp.
And using a guitar with a bass amp is you'll underpower the amp.
It is an unsolvable paradox as to which is worse. ;)
Click to expand...
There is no consensus on this because “underpowering” an amp does not exist. Neither does “underpowering” a cab. If either of those were true volume knobs would not exist. Overpowering an amp is also not true. If you run a signal too hot into an amp it will clip. Sometimes you can even get the power section to clip, sometimes this is even desirable. There is truth to overpowering a cab though, but you need to listen to know when it’s happening. You can run a 10,000watt amp into a 10 watt cab all day long as long as the volume knob on the amp is low enough. The reason basses do not work in guitar amps at any sizable volume is that the EQ point choices for guitar tend to sound like hot garbage on bass and also the speakers used in guitar cabs are not as robustly constructed and can’t physically handle all the big flapping they need to do to push bass frequencies at the volumes we need. It’s fine at low volumes usually, though generally still not as good as a dedicated bass amp.
To answer OP’s question; guitar into bass amp is fine and has a long celebrated history. The Rolling Stones all used SVTs on at least their 1969 US tour, Hendrix and countless other guitarists love Fender Bassman amps. You’re clear for takeoff.
 
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#18
At one point, trying to accommodate both with one amp setup at home, I ended up with a low wattage tube head for guitar (H&K Tubemeister 18) and a bass cabinet (barefaced one10).
In direct comparison, the bass cabinet sounded a bit darker and put less emphasis on the frequencies that are considered treble among guitarists, but it was a very useful sound. The oversized transformers gave the clean channel more than enough headroom to sound good on bass - of course the EQ of a guitar amp is useless for bass and vice versa, so if you plug in the respective other, it is a great help to know which amp settings yield a flat response and do the tone shaping with a pedal.

If I was to repeat that process today, I'd probably go for a bass cabinet with a tweeter that is close to FRFR and reign in the top end with a variable low pass filter for the use of distorted guitar.
 
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#19
I would be careful playing bass through any guitar amp because the low range can damage speakers. Others have said that already. But I will admit to doing it at home especially when I’m writing and I need to run a bass line in a looper. I know to keep the volume really low.
And Carol Kaye did it so we know how that turned out.

I have seen plenty guitarists using SVT bass rigs in the past and you know the famous Fender Bassman was not a fishing boat.

Anyhow, I have a PJB Double Four bass amp I bought mostly for home use and road trips and I play my Tele through it regularly. I run a Plexi pedal in front so it sounds better.

Just as a guitar amp doesn’t have the same bass response, a bass amp won’t have the same ripping high end so keep that in mind. I’m not a tech expert at all but I have never damaged a bass amp with a guitar. The fact that keyboardists sometimes use bass amps should give you some comfort.
 

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