# Can I run a Bass through a guitar amp?



## Thesius (Mar 23, 2015)

This is probable a dumb question but growing up I heard stories of people blowing out there amps because they ran a bass through it. I want to pick up playing bass and my friend is going to lend me one of his. I have an Orane Dark Terror and and Orange 1x12 cab.


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## Chi (Mar 23, 2015)

Bad idea. You can plug guitars into bass amps, but the other way around is indeed dangerous. I've never seen it happen, but I hear it all the time.

A guitar amp simply isn't built with frequencies like that in mind, bass amps exist for a reason.

Little bonus info: Plugging an acoustic guitar into a bass amp sounds amazing.


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## GunnarJames (Mar 23, 2015)

In my experience, using a bass through a guitar amp is perfectly fine. It's the speakers/cabs that you'll have the issues with. Nothing (that I'm aware of) can blow or go bad within an amp's circuitry simply from plugging a bass into it. I mean, let's remember that a lot of people are tuning their 8+ string guitars as low if not lower than a standard bass and going through guitar amps (still different frequencies obviously, lots of other factors there, but you get the idea).

My guess would be that speakers blow from the amount of vibrating the lower frequencies from a bass cause. Lower frequencies cause speakers to move slower but much further back and forth, while higher frequencies cause short and quick movements. If a speaker (guitar speaker in this case) is designed to move to a certain point and you put frequencies through that go passed this point, then you'll have a problem. 

This applies more so with clean bass than distorted bass. Distortion naturally cuts low end, so you won't have as much of an issue. It's why bass players will run their distortion in parallel to blend with their clean signal, to retain the low end of the clean but the grind of the dirt.

FWIW, I've had some really awesome results with Marshall JMP and JVM guitar heads (separately, not at the same time) through a Fender 2x15 bass cabinet for some killer bass tones. I actually think Marshall's tube guitar heads make for better bass amps.


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## bostjan (Mar 24, 2015)

Well&#8230;I don't know if the anecdotes about blowing the speaker are true or not, but the resultant sound quality might not really be worth trying to find out. :/


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## Promit (Mar 24, 2015)

Bass actually sounds awesome through guitar amps - keep in mind that some of the early guitar amps were actually meant for bass, most obviously the bassman. However with most speakers, as you start to turn things up the speakers cannot handle it and will start to sound audibly stressed even at medium volumes. At high volumes you will get large amplitude standing waves on the cone that will cause permanent damage. I think Celestion made a demo video of it, though I can't find it now.


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## Riverrunsred (Mar 24, 2015)

Guitar through bass amp- good (no damage)
Bass through guitar amp- not so good (possible damage)


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## 7stg (Mar 24, 2015)

For a bass through a guitar amp, the amp will be fine but the speaker can not be pushed very hard or it will likely be damaged.


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## danresn (Mar 25, 2015)

This is from Celestion's Youtube page. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiDoCGrCRUw

If someone cleverer than me wants to embed the link that would be swell.


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## Sumsar (Mar 25, 2015)

Well I use my guitar amp for practicing bass, and then when I record I just go straight to the interface but use the guitar amp for monitoring.

I think that using guitar amps to practice bass, i.e. playing bass at very low volumes will be totally fine for your speaker(s). However I wound't do it at band practice if lacking a real bass amp. The volumes is much higher and the chance of damaging the speaker seems real.


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## Zban (Mar 25, 2015)

I've heard of quite a few bass players that run a 6505 through a bass cab. My friend has a vintage Sunn Model T (drool worthy) that he uses for both guitar and bass, he just changes out the cab. I haven't personally messed with this myself, but I'm under the impression that the only worry is blowing out guitar cab speakers, just use a bass cab.

EDIT- Wow...looking online, bass 1x12 cabs aren't as cheap as guitar 1x12's. You might be better off just picking up a used combo amp somewhere.


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## Andromalia (Mar 25, 2015)

If you're reasonable on the volume and use it for home practice, no problem. It's better than playing without an amp and getting bad habits screwing your dynamics control.

For gigging, no. You need too much power to get through to get it via a guitar amp without blowing your speakers or, best case, sounding awful.


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## Abaddon9112 (Mar 25, 2015)

As others have said, its the speakers that you should be concerned for, not the amp. Bass->Guitar head->bass cab is fine as long as the impedance matches. Tone may not be ideal but nothing dangerous there. 

Bass->Guitar amp->guitar speakers you could blow something if you're cranking it to band volume. But for quiet (like TV level) practice it shouldn't be a problem. You could maybe get an inexpensive compressor pedal to help control spikey levels if you're really worried about that.


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## eyeswide (Mar 25, 2015)

There is nothing wrong with running a bass guitar through a guitar amp. You will not blow the amp. Running a bass head into a guitar speaker cabinet can cause it to blow, as the bass head will likely run much more power than the guitar speaker can handle. At lower volumes, you will have no issues. Any other permutation of head/cabinet/bass/guitar will not cause any issues.

/thread


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## TedEH (Mar 25, 2015)

As a bassist, some of my favorite bass sounds came from a good guitar tube head- just use the right cab.


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## cGoEcYk (Apr 1, 2015)

You wont get much volume out of the Dark Terror!

I have played around with bass through lunch boxes. Headroom will be limited to around a whisper. If you push beyond that there will be power section breakup and possibly also transformer clipping. Fine for practice but not much else.

In general guitar amps typically don't have a great voicing on the preamp for bass. Power sections are also designed differently too, generally with more mid/low mid emphasis rather than solidity and tightness on the lower frequencies (sub 100 Hz). Generally it will come out with the wrong type of mids and a soggy boomy kind of low end. Guitar cabs further emphasize these types of issues, so bass cab always. You can also plug into the FX Return on a guitar amp and run outboard preamps for bass into it to bypass the guitar preamp.


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## Mprinsje (Apr 2, 2015)

Bass--> guitar amp--> bass cab=Fine
Bass--> guitar amp--> guitar cab=watch out, don't play at loud volumes


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## Joe Harvatt (Apr 2, 2015)

'Guitar speakers' aren't designed to deliver the low end and attack that a bass-guitar can create. You can play bass into a guitar head through a bass cab. It's fairly common for modern metal bass tracks to be recorded through a guitar head as well as a bass head to get a dirty sound to mix with the wider spectrum bass amp sound.

Older valve bass amps (Marshall, Orange) are, as I understand, very similar to guitar heads, with more appropriately tuned EQs.


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## eyeswide (Apr 2, 2015)

Mprinsje said:


> Bass--> guitar amp--> bass cab=Fine
> Bass--> guitar amp--> guitar cab=watch out, don't play at loud volumes



No! This is *bull....* and is the reason why there's so much misinformation and people ask questions like this! There is absolutely no reason why this would harm the cabinet. Matching a guitar amp with a guitar cab will have proper power matching. Your .... will perform perfectly fine, regardless of if you have bass or a guitar in front of it.

Think about all the bands that play in low tunings. The guitar players are playing in the bass guitar range and aren't blowing up amps all of a sudden.

As I've said before, the only issue in any pairing has to do with a bass amp into a guitar cab, and that's because bass amps can put out more power than a cab can handle. And it has nothing to do with the instrument! I could go guitar --> bass head ---> guitar cab and blow it because of this.


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## TedEH (Apr 2, 2015)

eyeswide said:


> No! This is *bull....* and is the reason why there's so much misinformation and people ask questions like this! There is absolutely no reason why this would harm the cabinet.



I have trouble believing this without something to back it up. Guitar and bass amps aren't that different. Yes, you need more power in a bass amp a lot of times- but that in itself is a side effect of the differences in the input signal and which parts of that signal you're trying to deliver. A bass amp (or either amp, it doesn't matter) is only dangerous to a guitar cab if you're outputting a signal that the cab can't handle. A bass is more likely to make you push the low end beyond what a cab can handle, regardless of your amp. The extra low end doesn't come from the amp, it comes from the instrument and how you're using it.

Keeping in mind as well that in almost all cases I've seen of drop tuning low enough to enter bass range, the guitar is heavily distorted, and much of the audible "tone" comes from the midrange, not from the bass. An actual bass, especially if you're playing with a clean tone, is specifically trying to deliver it's performance in a range that takes more power to get to the same perceived volume. Is a bass through a guitar cab going to instantly explode the cab? Of course not, but it makes it much easier to abuse the cab.


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## eyeswide (Apr 2, 2015)

TedEH said:


> Keeping in mind as well that in almost all cases I've seen of drop tuning low enough to enter bass range, the guitar is heavily distorted, and much of the audible "tone" comes from the midrange, not from the bass. An actual bass, especially if you're playing with a clean tone, is specifically trying to deliver it's performance in a range that takes more power to get to the same perceived volume. Is a bass through a guitar cab going to instantly explode the cab? Of course not, but it makes it much easier to abuse the cab.



No. If a speaker, for example, handles frequencies at 100 hz and above, if you put a 50 hz signal into it, the speaker isn't going to explode. The speaker just won't play the sound, because it won't operate at that frequency. Plain and simple. 

FYI - speakers made for guitar cabinets are typically going to approximately have the same frequency range as any other speaker, including bass speakers. They are, however, tuned to have different response curves. That is, there might be a boost at 250 hz, cut at 750 hz and another boost at 1,500 hz. This just gives a tonal characteristic to the speaker - like a natural EQ. Again, just because you play a bass guitar into this speaker, it doesn't explode because of the frequency.

The problem is in the amp connection to the cabinet, and only when you have a power mismatch. Run a 200 watt bass amp head at 4 ohms into a 200 watt guitar cab at 4 ohms? No problems. Pump everything as loud as possible and you'll have no troubles. Why? Because it's not overloaded.

Now, run a 1,000 watt bass head at 4 ohms full throttle into a 200 watt guitar cab at 4 ohms, you're going to blow up the speaker because of the POWER not because of the FREQUENCY of the signal. Do the same into a 200 watt bass cab at 4 ohms and you're going to blow it up. Hell, run your guitar into that 1000w bass head into a 200w bass cab and you'll blow it up. Why? Because of the guitar? No. It's because of the power handling. ....ing power handling people.

The reason that bass amps have higher power requirements is due to human perception of audio signals and the nature of the lower frequencies. In the bass guitar range, it takes roughly 4-5 times as much power to make the frequencies of a bass guitar as perceptible as that of an electric guitar. Humans "like" to hear things that are around the frequency of a human voice, which is closer to the frequency range of an electric guitar vs a bass guitar. This is why your standard (stage) guitar cab is around 100-200w and your standard (stage) bass cab is 400-1,200w.

Bass guitars don't just magically make guitar .... blow up. File out the nut slots and bridge on your guitar and put bass strings on to it in a bass tuning. Is your guitar amp going to blow up now? No. No, it isn't. To prove this, listen to most Djent bands. Any guitarist that tunes an octave below E or lower is tuning at the same (or lower) than a regularly tuned bass guitar.

The onus of proof isn't on me, it's on you. Do you really think bass guitars magically blow up guitar amps? Show me a single scientific article on the subject.


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## Baelzebeard (Apr 2, 2015)

Eyeswide, you are only talking about the electrical "power handling" of the speakers and it seems completely ignoring mechanical power handling. If a speaker is pushed too hard mechanically it could very well physically fail before being overloaded electrically.

Saying that a speaker that only specs out down to 70 Hz won't put out a 50 Hz signal is patently wrong. The speaker will not simply ignore the electrical signal sent to it outside of its published specs. It's not as if it has some sort of crossover incorporated into its voice coil, or cone, etc. The speaker will attempt to reproduce anything sent to it. The published specs are representative of how the speakers will respond to an input signal, and as a result inform you about the "appropriate" signals to send to the speaker. 

I'll make an extreme case to hopefully make clear what I'm trying to say. If you were to get yourself a 100 watt 1" tweeter with a published frequency response of , let's say 2.5kHz-20kHz, and you connected that to a 100 watt amplifier with a full bandwidth signal, (music, pink noise, whatever) and I guarantee that poor little speaker would have a catastrophic mechanical failure in very short order. That's one of the main purposes of a crossover; protecting a speaker from damage by keeping it in its intended bandwidth.

Scaling it back up to 12" guitar speakers, and things become less sudden and dramatic, but still very real. 100 watts of 40'ish Hz, (bass low E) won't instantly turn a 100 watt 12" guitar speaker inside out, but it does cause the speaker to overwork itself mechanically, and that will cause the speaker to wear out prematurely. 

I hope that didn't come off as rude, but I couldn't not say something.


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## beneharris (Apr 2, 2015)

I've never understood why people think you can't run a bass through a guitar amp. What about guitars that are tuned low? Its not like we aren't running 10 and 11 string guitars through the same amps, I don't understand why running a bass through the same amp would cause an issue.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Apr 2, 2015)

It's possible.  A lot of bass amps back in the day were slightly-modified guitar amps, such as the Marshall Superbass and Laney Supergroup. Only problem I can see is running very low-powered speakers like Celestion Greenbacks.

With a 1x12, though, I'd keep it low volume unless you can find a proper bass speaker cab.


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## pushpull7 (Apr 4, 2015)

It appears someone started a thread that they forgot about 

Long story short: There is nothing really wrong with it. Ideally, a guitar amp is biased/designed for guitars and thus is not the ideal choice for tone. But you can. If you push something too hard, she's gonna blow. Use common sense (i.e. don't just turn everything to 10 and just expect it to be fine  )

HOWEVER (and it's a big one)

If you trying to play bass in a band, I'd SERIOUSLY consider a bass rig. Something less expensive that can handle those frequencies at higher volumes is better than ruining your favorite guitar amp.

One thing too. For minimal coin, you can get the Kuassa "cerebrus" VST if you just want to record bass (since I'm assuming you have a host and it's likely that format) For about 40 bucks through April (a bit on sale) it's a very nice sounding bass amp sim. In fact, I think it's better than the markbass one. This gives you the option of simply recording the parts as you see fit and then doing all the tone tweaks when you mix something where the parts are right.


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## Thesius (Apr 6, 2015)

I totally forgot I posted this lol. I've been reading and from the mixed responses posted here I decided to just run it through my ....ty line 6 practice amp. It's been working out for me but it doesn't sound good at all lol.

Thanks for the help guys.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Apr 6, 2015)

Pretty much what'll happen.  It'll sound passible, but will sound like ..... 

If you want a cheap but good amp, check out the Fender Rumbles. Make sure it's the V3 versions with the traditional Fender grille cloth and the cream knobs. They're a lot better than the old Rumbles, and are extremely, extremely good for the price.


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## TedEH (Apr 6, 2015)

Just for the sake of clarifying, my point before was not that bass will explode guitar speakers just because it's a bass.

My point was that a lot of bassists use more of the bass range than a guitarist would. And that bass takes more power to sound like it's the same volume, so it's likely that a bassist will use more power, potentially to the point of abusing the speakers.


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## eyeswide (Apr 6, 2015)

Baelzebeard said:


> I hope that didn't come off as rude, but I couldn't not say something.



Not rude at all! And my response to the other guy above had a lot more attitude than yours (TedEH, apologies if I came off sounding too much like a dick). And what you are saying could very well be correct. But, I would like to say, from what I know, the frequency threshold wouldn't have this drastic of a mismatch in guitar/bass amps to cause fatigue (but I'll concede that it could).

Another example of this is straight up bass into bass amps - most bass amps will go as low as around 30 hz (I can't think of any with lower handling), and the fundamental of a low B on a five-string is 31 hz. So guys that tune lower, like in A, are completely missing on the fundamental of the note (yes, they are still getting the overtones, but the speaker is physically incapable of reproducing the fundamental).

This is the source of aggressively low tuned basses sounding like mud, but it is a direct parallel of the "bass guitar into guitar amp" discussion, but no one says that tuning your bass too low into a bass amp will make it blow.


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## All_¥our_Bass (Apr 6, 2015)

beneharris said:


> I've never understood why people think you can't run a bass through a guitar amp. What about guitars that are tuned low? Its not like we aren't running 10 and 11 string guitars through the same amps, I don't understand why running a bass through the same amp would cause an issue.


Guitars, even when tuned low have much less power in the fundamental frequencies than compared to bass. They put out way less low end, and many guitar amps have some kind of filter to super low frequencies out as a form of noise reduction.


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## cGoEcYk (Apr 6, 2015)

Running bass through guitar gear is pretty much a last resort.


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## pushpull7 (Apr 7, 2015)

cGoEcYk said:


> Running bass through guitar gear is pretty much a last resort.



To add to what I posted earlier, I agree with this. 

@....ty line6 practice amp: Please read my previous post. If you are recording to a daw, there are gazillions of options.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Apr 7, 2015)

eyeswide said:


> Another example of this is straight up bass into bass amps - most bass amps will go as low as around 30 hz (I can't think of any with lower handling), and the fundamental of a low B on a five-string is 31 hz. So guys that tune lower, like in A, are completely missing on the fundamental of the note (yes, they are still getting the overtones, but the speaker is physically incapable of reproducing the fundamental).



Hell, _most_ bass amps/cabs don't even go that low. I was recently trying to find a cab that could produce the fundamental of my low B, and the vast majority of the stuff I looked at didn't even go down to 35hz, let alone 30hz or lower. Even Ampeg's 8x10s only go down to 40hz, which is barely low enough for a low E, and bassists seem to love those things.


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## TedEH (Apr 7, 2015)

cGoEcYk said:


> Running bass through guitar gear is pretty much a last resort.



I know some guys who use guitar heads for bass by choice, as their first choice. Because with the right amp and the right player, that setup can sound amazing.


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## TedEH (Apr 7, 2015)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Even Ampeg's 8x10s only go down to 40hz, which is barely low enough for a low E, and bassists seem to love those things.



I don't think those rating have much real-world meaning. I've played through plenty of those ampeg cabs and they handle anything you throw at it. My traynor cab with 8" speakers is supposed to handle only as low as 50hz, but I can still hear a low B pretty clearly. It's more than likely that the cab is reproducing at least some small amount of the sound below the rated cutoff, but I think most of what you hear from a bass played that low isn't the fundamental anyway.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Apr 7, 2015)

cGoEcYk said:


> Running bass through guitar gear is pretty much a last resort.



Although running one in stereo with an actual bass amp sounds pretty damn awesome. Use a bass amp with a major scoop in the mids, and run a guitar amp with the mids dimed and bass rolled back, and you can get some pretty brutal sounds.


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## VBCheeseGrater (Apr 7, 2015)

eyeswide said:


> There is nothing wrong with running a bass guitar through a guitar amp. You will not blow the amp. Running a bass head into a guitar speaker cabinet can cause it to blow, as the bass head will likely run much more power than the guitar speaker can handle. At lower volumes, you will have no issues. Any other permutation of head/cabinet/bass/guitar will not cause any issues.
> 
> /thread



This. Bassists started out using guitar amps from what I understand (before my time). I'm sure it's a little harder on the cab running a bass vs running regular guitar, but as long as the cab is rated high enough for the amp, the amp should fart out tonally before it puts out anything to blow the cab.


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## danresn (Apr 18, 2015)

On using a bass through a Marshall tube amp, the original marshall circuits were souped up Fender Bassmans (It's funny now that we have souped up Marshalls). It won't change how it actually sounds but it's an interesting little fact.


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## JeffTD (Apr 20, 2015)

There is a ton of really bad info being posted. Simple guide:

Bass -> bass amp -> bass cab = normal.
Bass -> bass amp -> guitar cab = bad.
Bass -> guitar amp -> guitar cab = fine.
Bass -> guitar amp -> bass camp = probably sounds amazing.


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## stevexc (Apr 20, 2015)

JeffTD said:


> There is a ton of really bad info being posted. Simple guide:
> 
> Bass -> bass amp -> bass cab = normal.
> Bass -> bass amp -> guitar cab = bad.
> ...



Most things sound amazing at bass camp.


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## JeffTD (Apr 20, 2015)

not even gonna correct it now.


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## eyeswide (Apr 21, 2015)

JeffTD said:


> There is a ton of really bad info being posted. Simple guide:
> 
> Bass -> bass amp -> bass cab = normal.
> Bass -> bass amp -> guitar cab = bad.
> ...



This was said and illustrated simpler and a bit better than what I was saying. I'd like to append that:

Bass -> bass amp -> guitar cab = has solid potential to be bad if you exceed the power handling of the cab, and if you have to ask the question of whether a bass into a guitar amp is bad or not, you should not be experimenting with this.

Bass camp is the .....


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## Partario (Apr 21, 2015)

I play my 5 string bass tuned to low F# through my guitar setup all the time. Compressor, gate, OD808, 6505+, Vader 2x15. It sounds amazing paired with a DI signal! The cab can handle something like 500 watts, so I'm not worried about damaging anything.


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## russmuller (Apr 24, 2015)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Although running one in stereo with an actual bass amp sounds pretty damn awesome. Use a bass amp with a major scoop in the mids, and run a guitar amp with the mids dimed and bass rolled back, and you can get some pretty brutal sounds.



I will often run my bass in parallel through the same amp/cab as the guitar. I find that using the same amp for grit and blending it into the bass tone helps mesh with the guitars better (harmonically speaking).


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## Stoutness762 (Apr 24, 2015)

Yes you can cliff burton did and I do. If you want distortion turn the drive up but if you play it on clean it'll sound like normal. Word of warning if you tune your bass too low and use distortion you may get a really ....ty tone


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## HaMMerHeD (Apr 24, 2015)

A low-frequency rating of 40hz (for example) on a bass guitar cabinet does not mean that the speaker is not physically capable of moving slower than 40hz. It means that the magnetic field generated by the voice coil in the speaker will lose amplitude in a logarithmic curve as you move lower than its sweet spot, which produces a corresponding loss in volume of very low frequencies. You may still get your 31Hz B-string fundamental, but it will be muted compared to the harmonic content at higher frequencies.


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## iron blast (May 3, 2015)

eyeswide said:


> Not rude at all! And my response to the other guy above had a lot more attitude than yours (TedEH, apologies if I came off sounding too much like a dick). And what you are saying could very well be correct. But, I would like to say, from what I know, the frequency threshold wouldn't have this drastic of a mismatch in guitar/bass amps to cause fatigue (but I'll concede that it could).
> 
> Another example of this is straight up bass into bass amps - most bass amps will go as low as around 30 hz (I can't think of any with lower handling), and the fundamental of a low B on a five-string is 31 hz. So guys that tune lower, like in A, are completely missing on the fundamental of the note (yes, they are still getting the overtones, but the speaker is physically incapable of reproducing the fundamental).
> 
> This is the source of aggressively low tuned basses sounding like mud, but it is a direct parallel of the "bass guitar into guitar amp" discussion, but no one says that tuning your bass too low into a bass amp will make it blow.



In regards to this most bass rigs utilize a crossover


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## iron blast (May 3, 2015)

Many guitar and bass setups aren't rated properly for the tuning we use I guarantee you'd all be floored at how good it sounds when you run cabs that are properly rated for the Hz Response of your lowest tuning a good example is I've ran my bass tuned down to drop E on my Ampeg cabs rated at 45 hz and it was decent sounding but run that same bass thru a Phil jones cab rated to 25 hz and it was devastating


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## Adrian Magler (May 8, 2015)

I was looking for a nice sounding bass distortion for a while years ago and I ended up by using a small Marshall guitar combo as additional amp to my Warwick Sweet15 with splitting sounds. I never had an issue with that as this combo ran on low volume, but it sounded great and different


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