Clueless Question: Playing bass through my guitar rig? Dangerous?

[WireLine]

Hundreds of hit records recorded with Carol Kaye (among others) playing bass thru a Fender Concert or Super Reverb. Keep the volume down, tweak tones, and rock on

 

[FortyEight]

My guess is it would sound pretty good through 2x12's. I've done quite a bit of recording through a guitar amp. This thread is making me want to go back to that.

But yeah, there's always a possibility of killing your speaker if you're blasting it. I've played live through a friends guitar amp. He said he tried killing it with his bass and it never happened. So he didn't seem to care and I was using it at not overly loud levels at church.

Only you can determine how adventurous you wanna be on that front.

 

[kuch]

+1 should be ok with 2x12s

 

[ChicknPickn]

And another option: Does your guitar combo have an extension speaker out? You could disable the internal speaker and power a bass cab instead.

if you are on CL or FB Marketplace or wander into a pawnshop and a great deal on an orphan bass cab smacks you in the pie hole, maybe grab it and power it with your guitar amp. Then you could play loud too.

I have done this with my (4-ohm) Peavey Special 150 as a backup solution a few times: once into a 4-ohm bass cab and once or twice into a pair of 8-ohm Scorpion 15-loaded Peavey PA cabs, with the horns disabled.

It worked pretty well and was loud enough, and had flexible enough EQ, to do the job (in my case, keeping up with a loud drummer and a guitarist with an LP and 100-watt Marshall).

I’d read of others doing the same with Peavey Bandits in a pinch, and a Special 150 is essentially a Bandit with a big block swapped in, so...

The Special 150 does not have an extension speaker out, so I made an adapter cable with a male 1/4” on one end and two male spade terminals on the other, and just plugged the twisted pair speaker wires into the spade end of the adapter cable and away I went. Now I keep that cable in that amp, so it can pull backup bass amp duty if I ever blow part of my actual bass rig.

This is a doable option. I have a Quilter 50 watt head that could drive a little bass cabinet well, I’d think.

 

[mexicanyella]

This is a doable option. I have a Quilter 50 watt head that could drive a little bass cabinet well, I’d think.

If it’s just for home jamming/recording, you have many options because getting over live drums is probably not a concern.

I have powered my 800-watt 4 x 8” cab with a 15-watt Dean Markley guitar practice amp before, as a bass guitar tone experiment, and it sounded tight and clear and surprisingly loud.

The 50 watt Quilter May surprise you, through any of a variety of cabinets!

Please post whatever you end up going with; interested in what you decide.

 

[FlatAffectCamper]

Used bass cabs often sell really cheap locally because you can't ship them. When people need them out of the garage... you can drive a bargain. Worth it because you can blow guitar amp speakers with a bass really easily. The bass tone pot on a guitar amp will be voiced too high at 100hz or so; if you use an EQ to get a real bass tone at 40hz where it should be, the speakers will not give you a warning before they just rip.

 

[pbenn]

Amp maybe but guitar speakers... idea is that bass stresses the g speaker voice coil, causing it to lose impedance more and more as it heats up. Your amp will "think" it is running into less and less ohms, then an open short.

FWIW a BluesJr hooked to a bass speaker sounds kind of ok.

 

[MyLittleEye]

I was considering a Hofner ignition club bass for my first foray into the instrument. It has a similar structure to the viola bass but a different body shape (without the Beatles connotation).
However I now have my eye on the semi-hollow bodied Harley Benton HB-60 W.
My thoughts are that this should sound slightly better acoustically than a solid body when practicing unplugged. Both are short scale -

 

[Fiesta Red]

Thanks, all, for the guidance. Will start the search for the bass in the Squier and Ibanez realms? Under $400? Maybe $500 if I think louder than my conscience speaks?

The Ibanez Soundgear basses are available in several different price points, and all are decent-to-good-to-very-good…they are modern-looking (if that’s a good or bad thing, you decide—I’m a little afraid to state an opinion any more).

 

[ChicknPickn]

I was considering a Hofner ignition club bass for my first foray into the instrument. It has a similar structure to the viola bass but a different body shape (without the Beatles connotation).
However I now have my eye on the semi-hollow bodied Harley Benton HB-60 W.
My thoughts are that this should sound slightly better acoustically than a solid body when practicing unplugged. Both are short scale -

Almost went that way myself. But knowing next to nothing about basses, I decided to 1) go with Almost-Fender; and 2) what looked cool.

 

[guitarsophist]

I just bought an Ibanez TMB30 short scale bass and I love it. I have a review of it on my blog here:

Ibanez TMB30 Short Scale Bass

For years I have had a Douglas violin bass, a Hofner inspired Beatle bass clone that is very similar to an Epiphone Viola Bass. I’ve had flat wounds and round wounds on it. It plays well and …

guitarsophist.com

I was tired of the thump of my Douglas clone of the Viola bass. It does that thump well, especially with La Bella flats on it, but it is a one trick pony. This Ibanez has a both a precision bass pickup and a Jazz bass pickup. It is really solid and quite versatile.

 

[arlum]

A much less expensive option that works well. I use this for bass parts when looping.

 

[W.L.Weller]

The Bass9 doesn't solve the issue of an amp & speaker cabinet built to reproduce the frequencies below 100 Hz though.

 

[PhredE]

The Bass9 doesn't solve the issue of an amp & speaker cabinet built to reproduce the frequencies below 100 Hz though.

Yes. Good point.

In general, playing guitar through a bass amp is much safer than the converse (bass through guitar amp) -- simply because a typical guitar speaker range only extends down to about 80-70hz (E2, D string 2nd fret on 4 str bass).
Playing any notes below that (especially with volume and / or force) imposes some real risk to the speaker (s).
Many bass speakers or PA / sound system speakers can reproduce those low notes without problem ~= they can work really nicely for guitar.

 

[t-ray]

Great thread. I had the same question. Thanks, @ChicknPickn

 

[suthol]

I've played my bass through my Mustang 1, only a bedroom levels while jamming quietly with mates and it was fine.

Through an Eminence loaded 700W 4x10 quad box it sounded rather large and ready for a fight that it definitely wouldn't be up for.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

My main guitar amp is an old Bassman. They LOVE basses.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Update: Found a Squier Classic Vibe 70's Precision bass for $449 and free shipping.

View attachment 1056703

I think mine was about $200.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

If the speaker can handle it, it’s fine.

If you push any kind of amp too hard you can ruin the speaker.

And "ruin" is subjective. Lots of the old Chicago blues players, as well as rockers who liked their sound, loved playing through torn speakers. Organic fuzz.

 

[cyclopean]

And "ruin" is subjective. Lots of the old Chicago blues players, as well as rockers who liked their sound, loved playing through torn speakers. Organic fuzz.

It does kinda limit the usage, and it often can’t go as loud as it used to.

We used to run our backing track through a Roland keyboard amp and that speaker is toast now.