Bass with guitar amp?

F

full-nand

New member
Hi
I have a Mesa Triaxis with Simul-Class 2:90 poweramp and 4x12" Rectifier Cab.
I'm thinking about getting a (cheap) bass for recording purposes. Is it recommended to plug the bass into the Poweramp? Can it damage something, or will it sound good in any way?
Can I plug the bass directly into a mixer for recording, will it sound good?
 
Guitar speakers aren't designed to move much air. Running bass through a guitar cab will force the coils of the speakers to move too much, possibly blowing the speakers.
Get a DI box, plug your bass into that and run it into the mixer.
 
mharr is exactly right.

besides, pluggin a bass into an amp an recording that isn't done too often, well as far as the people i have recorded with. When we recorded our demo, i ran my bass directly into the soundcard, just into a line in. I think there may have been some sort of instrument pre amp though. as mentioned get a DI box, they are fairly cheap and they do wonders.
 
Bass is fairly easy to DI and it is used by many of the top names in the business. It doesn't hurt sometimes to put a compressor first in the line.
 
What is a Dl box?
I was just going to ask the same question, I am going to buy a bass for recording and needed to know if I could run it through my G-amp, I guess not.
I do have a peavey studio pro 40 that has an incredible amount of bass, when i first got it I thought it was a bass amp.
 
mharr552000 said:
Guitar speakers aren't designed to move much air. Running bass through a guitar cab will force the coils of the speakers to move too much, possibly blowing the speakers.
Get a DI box, plug your bass into that and run it into the mixer.
Click to expand...
I dunno, John Entwistle (the Who) used a bunch of high power Marshall guitar amps & cabs when he toured... ;)
 
Nicksan said:
What is a Dl box?
I was just going to ask the same question, I am going to buy a bass for recording and needed to know if I could run it through my G-amp, I guess not.
I do have a peavey studio pro 40 that has an incredible amount of bass, when i first got it I thought it was a bass amp.
Click to expand...

DI= Direct box. The basic ones just have a transformer that converts the signal from the guitar or bass from high impedance unbalanced to low impedance balanced, like a microphone. The better ones have active circuitry that boosts the signal and some have EQ controls.

The reason for using a DI is to plug a guitar "directly" into a mixer, and you can drive a balanced low impedance signal a long ways without (much) loss or noise accumulation.
 
bass for the non bassist

Judging from your guitar set up, DI would totally be the way to fly as I assume you're doing overdubs. Bellari makes a neat little cheapo unit called the MP105, not great for a mic preamp, but really nice for studio running direct. With a NOS nice preamp tube, and it's pretty nice.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Bellari-Tube-Mi...yZ119018QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Bellari-MP105-T...oryZ3278QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Presonus and ART also make them and Studio Projects makes a pretty nice one for like $100 shipped
http://cgi.ebay.com/Studio-Projects...7384200711QQcategoryZ3278QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Neat auction with a cheap ART DI and Audio Technica Mic :http://cgi.ebay.com/ART-TUBE-MP-PRE...7384500409QQcategoryZ3278QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Any of these should be pretty alright for what you want.

scott
 
As was mentioned you wanna be very careful with a bass in guitar cabs. Some will survive, and many will be shredded. Even if it works, most guitar amps/cabs sound absolutely horrible on bass unless you like a really dirty bottomless sound. Works for ZZ top, I suppose.

For recording, you can likely even skip the DI if you get a bass with active electronics, and just plug right into the board. I have done this before with decent results.
 
Just plug directly into your mixer line input on one of the channels. Your bass does not need to have active electronics. It will work fine with no problems.
Forget about the di unless you need to send the signal a long distance. Like more than the lenght of your guitar cable.
 
Herm said:
Just plug directly into your mixer line input on one of the channels. Your bass does not need to have active electronics. It will work fine with no problems.
Forget about the di unless you need to send the signal a long distance. Like more than the lenght of your guitar cable.
Click to expand...

True for some (maybe even most) mixers, but not all. Some won't supply enough gain to the 1/4 input for you to do that.
 
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