Bass Amp?

[Zatx]

I'm a newb to electric guitar, but I've been playing Bass for a couple of years now. I've got a Fender Rumble 350 bass combo amp with twin 10 inch speakers. Before I go investing in a guitar amp I'd like to practice/play with what I have. Can I use my bass amp with my guitar running through a modeling pedal like the Zoom MS-50?

Really this is just a question for when I'm practicing at home as when I perform (church band) I can plug directly into the soundboard until I find a purpose driven guitar amp.

Thank you!

 

[Danerada]

purpose driven guitar amp.

I see what you did there....

oh - and I don't know why not.

 

[Zatx]

I see what you did there....

oh - and I don't know why not.

My initial fear is that most guitar amps I see are fairly low power. Was afraid I'd plug in the guitar and pull a Marty Mcfly the first time I strummed a chord!

 

[AP515]

Bass speakers are made to withstand the lower frequency response that would damage guitar amp speakers. As such you may find that the high notes sound a little dull, but it won't hurt anything to use it.

 

[Zatx]

Bass speakers are made to withstand the lower frequency response that would damage guitar amp speakers. As such you may find that the high notes sound a little dull, but it won't hurt anything to use it.

That is good to know. The Rumble 350 has a seperate cone I can turn off and on for higher/cleaner notes. Never used it with my bass, but sounds like it will come in handy for my SE.

 

[László]

That is good to know. The Rumble 350 has a seperate cone I can turn off and on for higher/cleaner notes. Never used it with my bass, but sounds like it will come in handy for my SE.

Most modern bass amps are closer to hi-fi amps than guitar amps, with high power to give the bass punch and to allow it to cut through at all frequencies. They also have a more linear frequency response. This is why you have tweeters on bass cabinets that you'll never find on a guitar cabinet. In fact, in the studio we often goose a bass track at 7KHz to bring out the attack of the instrument.

Guitar amps, on the other hand, are designed to push a guitar speaker that rolls off at around 5KHz. They aren't really high fidelity devices at all.

A modeling pedal can sound good with a bass amp, provided it has amp modeling. In that case, the bass amp simply becomes a studio monitor of sorts.

If all the modeling pedal has is effects modeling, and doesn't include amp models, you're better off not using the high frequency driver on the cab.

 

[Zatx]

Thankfully The Zoom 50 I mentioned before has a bunch of different amp models to choose from. So basically the Rumble 350 will just become a speaker cabinet for the guitar?

 

[Zatx]

So last night I decided to set theories aside and plugged my acoustic straight into the Rumble 350. Once I fiddled with some settings, and turned on the additional high freq horn, it sounded great.

Thanks for the help.