can you play a bass on a guitar amp?

[Timba]

Can you?

 

[Conti]

uhh I guess...mabye? I think it would sound really bad and you would have to keep the volume way down in order to not break it.

 

[Timba]

I can wait until my bass amp comes in if it might break it.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Lemmy from Motorhead plays through old Marshall stacks, but I don't think it's advisable if you wanna take good care of your guitar amp.

 

[facial debris]

I've done it before, but I wouldn't recommend it... when I did it it sounded like shit and I had to keep the volume low (it still sounded like shit with the volume low). So yeah you can do it but its not advisable.

 

[Warheart666]

Well, the guitarist in my band switches over to bass for one song, and puts it through his amp. It's a JCM2000, so powerful amp yes. Haven't seen any problems with it so far.

 

[Jaen]

a bass amp and a guitar amp work on entirely different frequencies, so its not going to sound very good. I have heard of cases where the speaker in the amp blows out, but i have never witnessed this for myself or actually know anybody who has, so i cant say if its true.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Can be done, but not advisable, as bass typically needs a lot more power to get heard, and more power to the speakers at frequencies they weren't designed for can mean you end up blowing out the poor speakers if you drive tyhem too hard. Plus it'll not sound terribly good, as the power needed to compensate for low frewquency sag (the amount of power the amp can basically draw at peak to deal with low frequencies) won't do it any favours.

That and depending on the amp, you may find that the speaker just does not cope with low frequencies and just makes the bass sound like shit.

 

[Lorem Ipsum]

If you're just practicing at low volumes, it can work. In fact, it can help if you want really bright tone.

I tried playing bass (5-string, no less) through my friend's small cheapo guitar amp, and it not only worked, but actually sounded better than a similarly-sized cheapo bass amp I used once! It was fine for playing along with an acoustic guitar inside an apartment, but that's probably the limit of the usefulness of the setup.

 

[HellWolf]

you can, but i certainly wouldn't recommend it. guitar amps speakers aren't designed to handle the kind of low-end that a bass puts out, and you can easily blow a speaker on higher volume settings

 

[DeadlySinners]

not a good idea to play bass on a guitar amp i learned the hard way

 

[jgpgw]

Of course you can... Take the Hiwatt Custom 100 for example, it's used for guitar and bass in equal measure. The amp will be fine, the speaker may suffer if it's not good and heavy duty, but if your ohmages match on the speaker and the amp, and the speaker is rated a few watts (like double) higher than the amp, which is common sense even for guitar then you shouldn't have any problems.
A proper nice thick bass cab, 4x10 or similar, will sound better as it will reproduce the bass frequencies better than a cab built for guitar, but you really shouldn't experience too many problems...
Likewise you can play a guitar through a bass amp...

 

[jgpgw]

If it's just a little crappy 10 watt transistor amp, it deserves to break anyway... Long live the valve!

 

[Scarchest]

You can but it does n't sound goo unless you have a nice amp and it's bad for the amp too. Just get a cheap bass amp and bass does not need to be that loud. You are suppose to blend into the music.

 

[xenophobe]

Generally no. You'll probably end up blowing your speakers out...

It is okay to play guitar through a bass system though.

 

[MurderForProfit]

Yea bad idea... my friend plays bass and he has some shitty ibanez. He decided to plug in through my madison divity head and 6505 cab... uhh he blew a fuse in my head and blew 2 speakers out... uhh dont do it. and yes bass amps make great clean amps.

 

[Death658]

dont do it kid, you can easily blow a guitar amp w/ a bass, or really damage it.

 

[Sabin Frost]

Hey, how about this one, guitar through a bass amp

I am pretty sure this can be done as I am sure I have heard it in the Drone scene before.

 

[Death658]

yeah guitar thru bass amp would work, because the Bass amp was made to handle a bigger punch, which the guitar will probably not be able to give. The only real problem you may have is the highend, but you should be able to boost it on the eq or with a wah and have it sound fine.

 

[MurderForProfit]

why would you need to boost it with a wah... ultimately just get a real guitar amp for a guitar and a bass amp for a bass... i wouldnt realy tamper with it to much... but its always good to experiment.