bass through guitar speakers?

gutsofgold · Post by **gutsofgold** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:07 pm

i recently acquired an old solid state 150 watt bass head. my 15" bass cab is rated at 100 watts. to be safe (and to be LOUDERRRR) i'm going to run that cab along with a 4 by 12" cab. the 12" speakers are guitar speakers rated at 35 watts each.

now for the kicker. can i do this without blowing the guitar speakers? i'm sure it will sound cool so i'm not worried about that...i just don't want four dead speakers.

weatherbox · Post by **weatherbox** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 7:49 pm

Erm, I think you're going to want to keep the amp volume pretty low, which sorta defeats the whole "louder" goal. I've blown bass speakers, much less guitar speakers, trying similar stuff. In yer position I'd probably look for a $70 Peavy TKO or something in a pawn shop and take out the amp section, & wire up that Sheffield/Black Widow as a second cabinet.

gutsofgold · Post by **gutsofgold** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:34 pm

I appreciate the response.

I could always put bass speakers in the 4x12 cabinet too. Any recommendations on 12" bass speakers?

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:00 pm

Eminence and Ev both make great bass speakers. As does Peavey.
If you have the scratch, old Altec and EV 12" pa speakers (Altec with the white frame, EV's with the chrome frame). For cheap you ca pick up PV's Pa woofers which are decent for bass. The hard part is wiring them. You will need to wire the cab to be 8 ohms most likely.
But honestly, 150 watts is a danger zone for bass amps. It gets you to that league of loudness that you just may push the amp too hard, and blow all your speakers. It took me along time to learn this. You dont normally blow speakers from running a large wattage into speakers that cant handle it. Well its possible, just not common. More often you blow speakers from overworking an underpowered amp. This creates a square wave output. which is very harmful to the voicecoils. Thats how you get those great blown speakers that look fine but the voicecoils are screwed.
I switched to tube amps about 15 years ago. I stopped blowing speakers around that time!

A little off topic; I like to record bass thru guitar cabs. It gets rid of that supr low mud and give up the grunt of the bass. I will oftne pair this with a DI track, or with the Summit 2ba221 I can mix then both into a tube. sounds awesome.

m.koren · Post by **m.koren** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:03 pm

Works for Lemmy and Rob Wright (Nomeansno). As long as the wattage and ohmage is in order, you're good to go. Good luck.

dwelle · Post by **dwelle** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:28 pm

i record bass thru guitar amps and cabs all the time.

if you're gonna blow a speaker, you're gonna know if you're listening. they'll tell you if they're uncomfortable. if they start to sound like you're pushing them, back off...

weatherbox · Post by **weatherbox** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 10:35 pm

P-bass into an AC30 is crazy fun come recording time. Just don't turn it above 3, or it's crazy expensive.

gutsofgold · Post by **gutsofgold** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:19 am

makes sense. my guess is that i could be safe running the 100 watt bass speaker along with 4 35 watt guitar speakers (140 watts). that's 90 watts of headroom.

ampguy · Post by **ampguy** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:24 pm

I have a variety of low wattage tube guitar amps, and am thinking of playing some bass through a 1x12 (sealed, ported) cab. There's an 8 ohm Celest. V30 in there (UK pre MIC) that I think can take double or so the wattage of the amps.

Has anyone had a bad experience with this kind of setup?

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 3:44 pm

ampguy wrote:I have a variety of low wattage tube guitar amps, and am thinking of playing some bass through a 1x12 (sealed, ported) cab. There's an 8 ohm Celest. V30 in there (UK pre MIC) that I think can take double or so the wattage of the amps.

Has anyone had a bad experience with this kind of setup?

For the past year I've been using an Ampeg Reverberocket 2 and a Vox Pathfinder into a (closed or open, it's convertible) homemade 1x12. Not only has there never been an issue with it, but it does exactly what calaverasgrandes said, getting rid of the low mids that personally I usually end up taking out later, and giving nice clarity on the high end. Often paired with a DI just like he said, has everything I need come mix time.

I've got a homemade 4x10 now, but I like the 1x12 just as much for bass as the 4x10.

markmeat · Post by **markmeat** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 1:45 pm

TWO CENTS: I've gotten some of the BEST bass sounds I've heard running a p-bass into a 5150 head and (matching) 4x12 cab... those tracks just always sit right without any fuss and they stay the hell out of my kick drum range... I love it.

MEAT

GREGL · Post by **GREGL** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 2:03 pm

I heard someone get a fantastic bass sound with a P Bass plugged into a Pignose (with the AC adaptor). He had the volume set pretty low but it went to tape awfully nice. No kidding....

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 4:12 pm

I've got some nice sounds with a P-Bass into a 100 watt Fender combo.

Message Board

bass through guitar speakers?

bass through guitar speakers?

question

Re: question

Who is online