anybody use guitar/bass stacks

i was thinking of pushing my synths through guitar and bass stacks. using my mixer to route the highs and lows seperately. does anybody use this or tried it? guitar/bass stacks look way sexier than str8 p.a.'s. the distortion on the amps and gain also make me curious. i was gonna use like a sunn or ampeg stack for bass and maybe a peavey for highs. is this a waste of money and time. by the way i'm into industrial/ digital hardcore/ noise

well, i personally would recomend just trying it to see if you like the sound.

Esp since you're into more noisy stuff.

and of course it will look dope...

The thing you have to remember is how it will sound, so how "cool" your stack looks is secondary (tertiary ... irrelevant)

I've run my DX-700 thru my Hartke rig out of curiosity. I run it thru a pa for good reason.

But if you want to experiment with sounds that's different ...

jm2cw

Some keyboard players love using Accugroove bass cabs. Note that this is a high-end brand - quite different from your cheap Behringer, Hartke, etc. bass cabs.

The other guitarist in our band is interested in a 2x12 guitar amp combo made by Ampeg. It's 100W for very good clean headroom and supposedly responds very well to pedals.

I'm leaning towards a Traynor K2 keyboard amp myself. 200W with a tube channel, 20Hz - 20Khz frequency response.

Don't bother with bass cabs unless you are playing left hand bass.

If you're playing piano parts, guitar amps do not have the headroom and you won't like the distortion.

Guitar amps have worked very nicely with Clavinets and Rhodes in the past, "Jump" was recorded through a Marshall stack. Depends on the application and the sound.

As for looks on stage - don't waste your time. No one cares. Your amp should be on the side and not pointing out front, otherwise you're making the soundman's job harder and annoying the customers in the first few rows because they're getting blasted with your amp pointed right at them. Too many guitar players are guilty of this when they place their full Marshall stacks behind them.

i get the feeling from what the guy lists as what he's into, that horrible distorted piano might just be what he's into.

mm, some bass cabs have horns in them.. which might make them a bit more useful.. however you might also loose all of your mids...

if its mostly about looks, then it probably doesn't matter _what_ you use.. it'll probably sould pretty aweful though, but if thats the path you want to take.. then by all means..

if you just want to see what they sound like, then just go out and try them. Nothing simpler.. if you like what you hear, then go with it.. if not, try something else..

I was thinking about doing that too, but with the added complexity of taking the output of my previously-recorded softsynth (Reason) and routing the balanced line out into a Reamp device in order to convert the signal into a Hi-Z, unbalanced, instrument-level signal before going into the Mesa Triple Rectifier tube guitar amp. It's got 150 watts of RMS, so there's plenty of headroom. I have powered monitors, but the whole point is to see what sounds I can come up with by experimentation.

This is also a means with which it is possible to use guitar effects pedals/devices/racks to bastardize my MIDI-based compositions. Since I can loop a track and play it over and over again, I can add some wah, etc while tweaking the guitar amp and hearing the affected output in real-time (as opposed to having to play the guitar, screw around with the pots on the amp to taste, strum again, repeat).

this is true. the patch makes all the difference. A guitar amp will actually make patches like rhodes, wurly, and clav sound MUCH better than a keyboard amp or a PA, in my experience. Don't forget the original instruments used magnetic pick-ups (just like electric guitars) so tube-driven guitar amps gave them some very warm, overdriven character. it will have the same effect on digital patches.

As far as bass amps go, they tend to be somewhat similar to keyboard amps in my experience. I've played through a few and, as long as I futz with the EQ, I can get them to sound quite a bit like a keyboard amp. So they really won't sound any different than a keyboard amp or a PA.

So, if you're serious about doing this, don't waste your time with a bass amp - it won't really change your sound at all. A guitar amp with tubes is the only thing that will really change the character of your tone to any noticeable degree.