Playing bass through guitar amps

[Securb]

I know you have to be gentle playing a bass through a guitar amp, it is very easy to blow the speakers. I have been playing my bass through my Fender Excelsior (gently) lately and it sounds great. 15 inch speaker and 13 watts of tube power. I am wondering if any of you bass players use guitar amps occasionally and what your results were.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

you wont blow the speakers unless your amp can put out more wattage than the speaker can dissipate.
Ive run my bass through a twin on occasion, but the frequency response is quite uneven, so some notes are louder than others and low notes are kinda blurry and indistinct (compared to my 500watt hartke bass amp).
Ive run a bass thru a tweed bassman too. Personally i thought it sounded pretty bad even tho these were the first dedicated mass produced bass amps. Of course we all love them for guitar tho. Regardless, many bass players managed to get usable sounds out of them and there are countless recordings from the early days of rock and roll where the bassists employed one. So there is nothing wrong with you using your excelsior if you want a vintage low powered/low headroom kind of bass tone. The only issue is that you will use up your tubes a bit faster than you would playing guitar only.

[Securb]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

I thought guitar speakers had a shorter travel than bass speakers?

[threechordcharlie]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

My head unit croaked out in the middle of a gig one night. There was an old Peavey Session 500 that wasn't being used, so I used it and ran it through my 18/2-10 cabinet. I didn't like it, but I was able to finish the night with it. I would much rather use a powerd PA for a head unit if ever faced with the situation again.

[uOpt]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

Uh, you can kill the speakers really good with a lower watts amp then what the cab says.

Guitar tube amps put out a very dense signal in overdrive. A 50W Marshall head has a lot more actual volume than a much stronger P.A. solid state amp.

Second, if the cabinet has an open back the speaker can easily get damaged from too low frequencies, even with low wattage.

Having said that, as long as it's a closed cabinet and as long as you stop doing whatever you are doing when it sounds weird it is fine. Problem is, during band practice with mad keyboarder you might not be able to tell.

[Chickenwings]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

Wattage for amps pertains to how much energy it can output.
Speaker wattage purely pertains to how much energy (in the form of heat) measured by watts that a speaker can dissipate safely.
Both of these are usually measured in RMS ratings in the world of guitar and bass.

[uOpt]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

Wattage for amps pertains to how much energy it can output.
Speaker wattage purely pertains to how much energy (in the form of heat) measured by watts that a speaker can dissipate safely.
Both of these are usually measured in RMS ratings in the world of guitar and bass.

No, it's really not that simple.

The maximum effective energy put out in a given amount of time between a clipped 50 W marshall head and a 50 W PA amp or whatever is very different.

I mean are you people deaf? A 50 W Marshall full open makes an unbelievable ruckus. A solid state amp just sounds ****ty once you go over but it doesn't do much more power.

[jon the art guy]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

A tube amp puts out a lot of information, kind of like how commercials are always so much more loud than anything else. They actually aren't very good for dealing with bass frequencies either.
The real problem doesn't happen in the amp section, it's the speakers. Speakers for guitar are not made to handle that deep shimmy of low frequency playing, as the video from Celestion shows.

If you ran a head into a bass cab, you're okay. Same with running an amp into a full range speaker that can easily handle the wattage. Running bass signal into a guitar speaker however...you'll need to have a speaker handling waaaay higher than the amp output, and at that point, what's the point anyway?

[Chickenwings]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt

watts are a unit of measurement.

Saying "marshall watts have more effective energy than solid state watts" is simply incorrect. Its the equivalent to saying "Texas miles are longer than california miles" or "mt Rainer is actually higher than Mt Everest because american feet above sea level are actually bigger than asian feet above sea level".

You guys are confusing wattage with other important factors such as decibels and frequency. All your emotive words such as "unbelievable ruckus" or "deep shimmy" are actually measurable too and can be expressed in these terms. An "unbeliveable rucks" for example might be sound pressure levels of over 102decibels, whereas a "deep shimmy" might be expressed in terms of sub 100hz frequencies.

Volume and frequency are different concepts to wattage. They are inextricably connected as being part of the myriad of elements that combine to create a sound, but they are component and measurable parts, not the same thing nor are they interchangeable.

Wattage is a measure of energy pure and simple. Amplifiers maximum wattage is the maximum energy they can produce and for speakers wattage pertains to how much energy they can safely dissipate and operate normally.

ps. That video said nothing whatsoever about the wattage ratings of either the speaker nor the amps.

[uOpt]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

It's not incorrect. If you look at the definition of RMS you will see that it is an attempt to average out some form of "effective" energy put out over time. A clipped tube amp can go way beyond that, for the same formal RMS rating.

There's at least half a dozen common loudness definitions, that has nothing to do with energy put out.

To clarify, you threaten you speakers two ways:
- no single 50 W rated speaker will survive on a fully clipped 50 watt rated Marshall tube head for any length of time, not even on a guitar
- even besides that, excessive movements will make the speaker coil hit the back wall of the magnet housing and/or cause damage to the paper cone. Your lower bass frequencies will easily cause this. It's a bit better with a closed cab.

[GuitarStv]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

So, something that has always confused me . . .


With 7 and 8 string guitarists down-tuning to well into the bass range, do they have to play bass amps? Or do they use guitar amps? Because I always see them using guitar amps, but maybe I'm crazy.

[jon the art guy]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt
watts are a unit of measurement.

Saying "marshall watts have more effective energy than solid state watts" is simply incorrect. Its the equivalent to saying "Texas miles are longer than california miles" or "mt Rainer is actually higher than Mt Everest because american feet above sea level are actually bigger than asian feet above sea level".

You guys are confusing wattage with other important factors such as decibels and frequency. All your emotive words such as "unbelievable ruckus" or "deep shimmy" are actually measurable too and can be expressed in these terms. An "unbeliveable rucks" for example might be sound pressure levels of over 102decibels, whereas a "deep shimmy" might be expressed in terms of sub 100hz frequencies.

Volume and frequency are different concepts to wattage. They are inextricably connected as being part of the myriad of elements that combine to create a sound, but they are component and measurable parts, not the same thing nor are they interchangeable.

Wattage is a measure of energy pure and simple. Amplifiers maximum wattage is the maximum energy they can produce and for speakers wattage pertains to how much energy they can safely dissipate and operate normally.

ps. That video said nothing whatsoever about the wattage ratings of either the speaker nor the amps.

If you'd like to nail down a more scientific experiment using one cab with a guitar speaker of your choice and two tube heads, one bass and one guitar, by all means go for it. Sounds like it'll work, and you'll be doing the guitar world a service by proving your hypothesis.
I apologize for not using engineering jargon. My bad.

[threechordcharlie]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

Let us put a bow on this:
Bass through a guitar amp (noodling, practice) = ok at low levels
Bass through guitar amp (gigging, band rehersal) = use a bass cab for the speakers
simple enough?

[Chickenwings]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

The real question is: How much power can the 15 inch speaker in the OP's amp handle?

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Playing bass through guitar amps

Honestly, you are not going to hurt ****. I run bass guitars through guitar amps ALL the time at louder than stage volumes and its fine. Stop worrying. You don't see dudes with 8 strings tuned to drop E having to run through bass amps, do you?

Seriously, a bass guitar into a 5150 or Krank and Mesa cab is the grit track for 90% of my productions. Zero issues.

Just don't run a bass head into a guitar cab - that's where you'll run into problems.