Does anyone else use Bass amps in their rig?

[Drew-jweVZ]

I have been playing through an aguilar tone hammer or an ashdown rootmaster 420 for a year with my band ever since I started getting more into octave effects and baritones/bass, other low instruments. I imagine this setup would work really well for 7 strings with the right pedals...I used to use a peavey vtm or an orange tiny terror all the time but I gotta say I love the extended frequency response of bass amps. It has changed my playing and made me really appreciate the value of a simple and effective bassline/rhythm part on guitar. its really toned down my weedleedleee playing which I got from metal and punk growing up. I've since slowed down a little and reach more for the heavy/fuzzy psychedelic/cool noise arena of guitar. I find myself reaching more into groovy bluesy, reggae, catchy riff territory and It's been a welcomed style to my band. Speakers obviously make a huge difference but for all the hate on 15 in speakers for guitar I find them really clear and bassy and beautiful for my style.. I love my 410 for punch as well though! So just curious if any Harmonites use bass for their guitar rigs or in conjunction with a guitar amp?

[DeepEnd]

It's not unusual to play guitar through a bass amp or bass cab. I started out playing a Strat copy through an SWR bass amp until I got a real guitar amp. I'd do it again if I had a reverb pedal and maybe an overdrive.

[Drew-jweVZ]

I find that bass amps really do love pedals and in my own opinion give less color to the pedals sound than a guitar amp. It can be a great way to hear your pedals true tone

[WRGKMC]

I've owned a Fender Bassman since 1967 and its a great guitar head. They were originally designed for bass players or maybe bass players who also played guitar but guitar players found out they produce nice rich guitar tones too.

 

The treble range gets up in the guitar range which is the key item. Not all bass amps do well above 2K and neither do the speakers. There's practically no bass content above 3K and many bass speakers roll off above 2~3K. Guitars on the other hand have a strong response in the upper mids between 1~5Khz then roll off above that so both the head and speakers are able to handle those frequencies.

 

I have 4 different bass heads and cabs. A Crate, A Sunn, and Ampeg and the Bassman. The cabs range from an 18" + 2X10's, A single 15", a Dual 15" a 4X10 and a 6X12". The speaker head combination make a huge difference in what you can dial up. The JBL's have a better response range and can sound wonderful for guitar chords on their own. The Ampeg head has enough highs to work as a guitar head as does the Fender.

 

The Crate will get some lows but its a pretty rank sounding head for guitar. Its 100% clean and has allot of lower mids. I suppose if you don't have a bass player it can fill some of those frequencies in but with a bass player you have to watch out for tonal masking. You start pumping a bunch of frequencies in the bass players range and you're going to piss him off. That's his turf and he's responsible for producing those tones. Having a guitar player with sound that's too fat Its like having a big fat guy on stage blocking you from being seen.

 

you have the same issues on the top end. You go up above 5K and you start competing with the Vocals, Keys, Snare and Cymbals, etc you're going to wind up making those players upset with your tone too. No man is a one man tone machine in a band. He has some set parameters to work within. Luckily those mid bands a guitar hit are the most flexible for tones. This is because the ears are most sensitive to changes within that range so it only takes small tweaks to be heard.

 

For those reasons, I usually limit my lowest frequencies to the first harmonic of the lowest string. For a six string tuned to concert pitch that's about 166hz through 5K max. I leave everything below that for the bass player and everything above it for vocals and cymbals. I notch out at snare frequency whatever that may be for the drummer or drum loop. From there I can get great chords or leads without having issues stepping on others players tones in a mix. It really doesn't matter which amps I use so long as I can tweak them to meet those ranges.

[Pine Apple Slim]

I have one almost together. My old 71' SF Bassman head is getting recapped, just built a 1-15 open back pine cab and a Weber California is going in it. Then I'm ordering a Catlinbread Topanga reverb.

 

 

 

I'm playing in an oldies (50s-60s) band and need an uber clean rig. Should do the trick.

[Pine Apple Slim]

I have one almost together. My old 71' SF Bassman head is getting recapped, just built a 1-15 open back pine cab and a Weber California is going in it. Then I'm ordering a Catlinbread Topanga reverb.

 

 

 

I'm playing in an oldies (50s-60s) band and need an uber clean rig. Should do the trick.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I've owned and used 50W Bassman heads as guitar amps. They're great little heads for use with guitar. Occasionally I'll still route guitar stuff into my SWR bass amp if I have something with a lot of low frequency content - say for example I was splitting the signal with a crossover and wanted to process the highs and lows differently and record the two amps separately, using something like an octave down pedal on the signal feeding the bass amp, or using a guitar amp for the high frequency signal from a Strymon Lex and sending the low frequency output (below 800Hz) to the bass amp - stuff like that.