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anyone use a guitar amp for bass?


0175westwood29
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[quote name='0175westwood29' post='769592' date='Mar 9 2010, 07:18 PM']im still getting my dual rig together but im thinking bout grabbing a combo amp to give some edge to my tone.

ill put the my effects thru it, and then i can put more bass into my aggie 610hlf rig.

but ive been told not to try this as i'll just be wasting money? and replacing speakers all the time but rob from metallica has mesa dual rec's in his bass rig? and also so does the girl from clatter!

andy[/quote]

I used to use a Fender Twin equipped with EV speakers back in the 70's as my small rig for rehearsal - only weighed 80lb !!! - but then my Ampeg SVT/8x10 was heavier and physically a lot bigger!!!!!!! The twin sounded good with decent headroom.

Boy, how things have changed

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Don't forget that it wasn't too long ago that bass and guitar amps were the same. Ditto some 'guitar' speakers were originally designed with bass in mind (i.e. celestion G12H).

The biggest issues are undersized transformers and open backed cabs (been reading up about this now). Sealed cabs will permit - to a certain extent - a guitar speaker to be used without killing it. Just don't push it hard.

FWIW my first bass amp was a Vox AC30 back in the 70s.

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[quote name='joegarcia' post='769654' date='Mar 9 2010, 08:17 PM']Absolutely fine then. Why should it blow amps up? That's absolute rubbish as long as you're not trying to push loads of low end from it which you've already said you're not.[/quote]


Totally agree. Guitar amps in the majority of cases actually have some form of low end filtering in the preamp section, inherent or by design to enable a tight focussed distortion sound. I have many schematics that support this in my collection too! If the lowend is boosted enough, then yes, puny guitar speakers can't handle it - but many bass players for years have been adding guitar combos to 'big rigs; to their bass stacks to add that all important dirt and bite to their sound.

I don't have the luxury of having a nice valve guitar amp to play with, so I currently use a Line 6 X3 to model a driven guitar amp sound to mix with a big fat bass tone. Sounds great in the mix!

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I play bass at low volumes at home through a 70s Fender Vibrolux Reverb. The valves haven't been touched since 1987 (and then only one, I think). Frankly my bass never sounded better. I wouldn't rehearse or gig with it though. It does make me want to try a bass valve amp.

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Early Marshall's Ampeg's Fender's bass or guitar were very similar internally, I think they didn't put too much thought into the differences (maybe they knew they didn't need to), but they all sounded fantastic, it's just later on people started designing bass amps to sound like they thought they should sound, bit of a generalization I know, but I have played through channel one on a Burman Pro2000 for a while now,and it really knocks most bass amps into the old cocked hat.

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I think nickzinner of the yeah yeah yeah's has a pretty cool looking rig with the guitar signal being split between a fender twin de-vile and a ampeg bass amp. massive sounding.

If i wanted the 'guitar amp' sound I would split my signal and feed it into a bass pod or something. then from that into some poweramp and a small cab. If you manage to blow up a POD it would be cheaper than a valve guitar amp

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[quote name='LukeFRC' post='773402' date='Mar 13 2010, 09:15 AM']. If you manage to blow up a POD it would be cheaper than a valve guitar amp[/quote]

How on earth could you blow up a POD like that?

Most people seem to still be missing the point, he isn't putting 'bass' through the guitar amp. It's being used alongside a bass amp. If you can eq an amp ok and hear when speakers aren't happy there is no reason you should have ANY problems doing this.

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[quote name='joegarcia' post='775122' date='Mar 15 2010, 12:28 PM']If you can eq an amp ok and hear when speakers aren't happy there is no reason you should have ANY problems doing this.[/quote]

Thing is, you are trying to hear unhappy speakers over the sound of the bass side, and the distortion from the guitar amp.

Simplest safety would be a bass eq with the 50hz slider right down, but using a crossover, such as are found in some bass preamps, is better. The Peavey Max pre and the Ashdown RPM (in for sale, that I was tempted by) both have them, you can run full range to bass side, and >100hz to guitar side.

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im looking at getting a cross over so that i can use a guitar combo, and not have to worry about damaging it, thing is im thinking of still using one even if my dirty amp is a bass amp, to maybe try and stop the sound from being a bit much.

im considering getting a second 210av cab and using my lm2 for the time being, im thinking if i only send it highs and mids, with distortion the 400/500w should be plenty to cut thru.

what do people think of this would it do the job?

[url="http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/behringer-x-pro-cx2310/8427"]http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/behrin...pro-cx2310/8427[/url]

andy

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