# Will a Bass work on a guitar amp?



## thedestroyerofall (Jun 2, 2011)

I have a small question concerning the Bass, Do i require a Bass amp or Can i use the guitar amp with it?


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## Empryrean (Jun 2, 2011)

Can a small balloon be filled with bricks?


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## thedestroyerofall (Jun 2, 2011)

Empryrean said:


> Can a small balloon be filled with bricks?



Depends on the elasticity i guess, Unless it's like a water balloon, Then you could like fill it with legos, Which are kinda like bricks.


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## Empryrean (Jun 2, 2011)

thedestroyerofall said:


> Depends on the elasticity i guess, Unless it's like a water balloon, Then you could like fill it with legos, Which are kinda like bricks.



high possibility of ripping though, as you will with your guitar speakers


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## theo (Jun 2, 2011)

Meshuggah have done it in the past


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## highlordmugfug (Jun 2, 2011)

Keep the bass and the volume low and you should be okay, but you're going to want bass speakers if you start playing loud/want lots of low end.


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## TRENCHLORD (Jun 2, 2011)

On that show HOW IT'S MADE(I think that's the name of it) Mettalica's current bassist tries, to no avail, to blow some guitar speakers(V30's I pressume) by running the bass through a dual or triple rec head and totally blasting it. Of coarse they only gave it 20 or 30 seconds.


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## 7StringedBeast (Jun 2, 2011)

1:35



no speakers blown nor anything wrong with the head after hours of loud recording


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## Isan (Jun 2, 2011)

it is very very unlikely it will harm the cab or amp


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## vampiregenocide (Jun 3, 2011)

I think it depends on how you EQ it.


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## Rich Rice (Jun 3, 2011)

vampiregenocide said:


> I think it depends on how you EQ it.



*Bingo*

A guitar amp can generally handle bass, but is _usually_ lower power and voiced differently. Basses need more power to reproduce the low frequencies well. It will be fine for practicing, but if you plan on gigging you will likely want a bass amp (unless the house system is available for either mic'ing or for DI into the big board).

Guitar speakers are voiced for much less cone excursion than bass speakers, and usually have smaller voice coils. If you run too much current into a speaker (any speaker), the voice coil will heat up, warp, rub, and give out. That's why speakers quit working. A bass speaker is designed for heavier current loads, and the cones will have more excursion (they move front to back farther) in order to move more air- due to the lower frequencies associated with the bass. It is possible to use guitar amps and speakers for a bass, they will definitely work, but use caution not to play too hard, too loud, or too long. An underpowered amp driven hard will result in distortion, which is very hard on the output transformer and tubes. A distorted signal fed into a speaker can kill a sensitive speaker in just a note or two. Usually, guitar speakers have a narrower frequency response than Hi-Fi speakers, and are built with heavier duty components and coil wire. Bass speakers are even heavier duty, with even less frequency response, but with much higher power handling capacities. 

In conclusion, yes- it will work, but be careful. It is safer to run a guitar through a bass rig than the other way around. (I like playing guitar through bass amps from time to time, as the higher power affords more clean headroom).

Hope this helps...


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## ZEBOV (Jun 3, 2011)

I knew someone who played bass through a guitar amp. It sounded like shit. He's a dumbass too.


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## 7StringedBeast (Jun 3, 2011)

I like the idea of mixing the clean sound of a bass through a bass amp with a bit of the distorted sound from a guitar amp that sounds like shit, like the JCM900 in the video I posted. Killer tone for metal/hardcore or whatever style that has distorted guitars. As you can see in the video, the signal that runs to the JCM comes from the Hartke bass amp with some low cut.

When you run bass through a 4x12 and a 100w head you get plenty volume to record and not damage speakers. If you use too small and too few speakers and crank it to recording volume they are going to blow.


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## Hollowway (Jun 3, 2011)

OK, so I totally expected to open this thread and see, "of course you can. Think of how many ERG guitar players tune down to F# or E." So on my 10 string I have a C#1, which is way lower than a standard bass amp. So what am I missing here? Is it that the thicker strings and lower tension create more fundamental on a bass?


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## Rich Rice (Jun 3, 2011)

Hollowway said:


> OK, so I totally expected to open this thread and see, "of course you can. Think of how many ERG guitar players tune down to F# or E." So on my 10 string I have a C#1, which is way lower than a standard bass amp. So what am I missing here? Is it that the thicker strings and lower tension create more fundamental on a bass?



Thicker strings generate more signal, which translates to more current. Since an amplifier's output is directly proportional to the strength of the signal, it stands to reson that you will still hear the notes from a thinner string, but not as loud. Basically , it comes down to equal frequency and wavelength, but diminished amplitude by comparison to a heavier string with the same pickup.


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## Sephael (Jun 3, 2011)

in my opinion the only issue I had when running my bass through guitar amp was the difference in EQ controls, a guitar amps treble is probably closer to a bass amps mids.


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## TemjinStrife (Jun 4, 2011)

The shorter scale of an ERG carries less fundamental and more higher harmonics/midrange, which causes far less stress on speakers than a full scale bass guitar. Trust me, if I can blow speakers in a dedicated bass cab accidentally, I can blow them in a dedicated guitar cab.

The guitar amp itself works fine for bass though. It might sound good, or it might not; it all depends what you're going for and which amp it is.


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## R0ADK1LL (Jun 14, 2011)

I used to have a little guitar/bass combo amp. I can't remember if it was 20W or maybe 35W, but it was just the size of a standard 15W practice amp. It didn't sound amazing & the gain basically meant distortion, but it wasn't bad for a practice amp. Unfortunately I lent to to someone years ago I haven't seen it since.

I haven't been brave enough to plug my guitar in to my 4X10 bass cab yet. I'm sure there isn't any danger of underpowering the amp/speakers but I'm a bit chicken.


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## Rich Rice (Jun 14, 2011)

R0ADK1LL said:


> I haven't been brave enough to plug my guitar in to my 4X10 bass cab yet. I'm sure there isn't any danger of underpowering the amp/speakers but I'm a bit chicken.



Absolutely won't hurt the amp/speakers to plug a guitar in there. You might find a fuller/cleaner/mellower tone, depending on the EQ controls and freq response of the amp/speakers, but you would have a really hard time doing any damage to a bass rig with a guitar.


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## Konfyouzd (Jun 14, 2011)

I do it... But I don't turn it up very loud and I EQ out some of the bass...


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## Rich Rice (Jun 14, 2011)

You can go ahead and crank it 'til your ears stop working- won't hurt a bass amp with a guitar. I occasionally get the urge to hurt myself a little, and play my Lester through a Carvin 4X12, pushed with a Gallien Kreuger RB800. That's a cop-caller setup.


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## georg_f (Jun 15, 2011)

IT WILL EXPLOD!


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## Spinedriver (Jun 18, 2011)

Years ago I used to use a bass with a Marshall Valvestate head and a Peavey 1x15 cab. I didn't crank it by any means but played it loud enough to jam with a band and it sounded pretty good. Obviously, I didn't have a 'traditional' bass tone with it like an Ampeg or SWR but it was a punk band so it worked very well.


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## thedarkoceans (Jun 19, 2011)

yes,it will work.for 20 seconds.and then the amp will explode,and you'll die.


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