pawn shoppin for bass

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oh_the_blood

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im lookin to buy a bass to put through a guitar amp and pedals n shit to make a cool sound.
any good deals i could find on bass' at pawn shops do you think?
any certain types to look for?
and also, any guitar amps i should buy for it? or should i get a bass amp and just use pedals galore?
and if so , what pedals?

thank youuu
 
could you describe the 'cool sound' you are looking for? Rickenbacher 4001 basses were the choise to run through guitar amps. That was the Motorhead sound.
Tons of guys have used distorted bass tones, which one are you trying to do?
 
oh_the_blood said:
im lookin to buy a bass to put through a guitar amp...
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Don't.

If you turn the volume up at all, you'll blow guitar speakers so fast, it's not even funny.
 
Why through a guitar amp? And why pedals?

None of the bassists I know - myself included - use any pedals. And we all use bass amps. We're a stodgy lot, I know.
 
bongolation said:
Don't.

If you turn the volume up at all, you'll blow guitar speakers so fast, it's not even funny.
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I know a lot of bass players the run their basses through Marshalls, the speakers havent blown up yet. (it's been 25 years)

Running a 400 watt bass amp through a 1x12 guitar cabinet might do some damage, but a guitar amp can't blow the speakers it was designed to be used with.
 
AGCurry said:
Why through a guitar amp? And why pedals?

None of the bassists I know - myself included - use any pedals. And we all use bass amps. We're a stodgy lot, I know.
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I used to use a cry baby in the 70's. Everybody thought it sounded tits. I don't use any pedals today... I guess it sounds better these days without. Even while recording I seldom apply any effects to the bass.

Bass thru a guitar amp? Not a good idea. :)
 
gibson_eb2d said:
Bass thru a guitar amp? Not a good idea. :)
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You are assuming he wants it to sound like a bass. It won't hurt anything.
 
Farview said:
You are assuming he wants it to sound like a bass. It won't hurt anything.
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Yes, that's what I am assuming. If he wants it to sound like a guitar, he should get a bass amp and use a tube screamer.

Won't hurt anything? The act very well may cause some major damage to the speakers (blown to fuckdom) and it's worth taking extreme caution, especially if he plans on turning it up louder than "2". :)
 
kinda like a lo fi bass tone but sounds kinda like a guitar but way sweeter.
the bands im thinking of are like Pinback.
so should i get a bass and a bass amp to get a good distorted sound?
i wanted a guitar amp so i can get the strange highs from the bass.
 
bongolation said:
That's absolutely untrue.
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I meant simply by plugging a bass into it. This has been done over and over and over again. Plugging a bass into a Marshall is not going to blow your speakers. Hell, these nu-metal guys are tuning their guitars down almost that low anyway. There is nothing that different about a bass that will cause huge amounts of damage to a guitar rig.
 
Hmmmm... I want to see how this one turns out.

IMHO, I wouldn't shell out a lot cash on guitar transducers for real bass unless you are using enough speakers to to get the bass frequencies out at a level you need via acoustic coupling instead of amp power, or you will be popping the voice coils. And, you will be most likely revisiting the purchase again.
 
You don't plug a bass into a guitar amp to get a crapload of low frequencies. That isn't the point of doing this.
Ask Lemmy from Motorhead, Joey from Manowar, etc...

A 50 (or even 100) watt Marshall will not have the power or the voicing to reproduce the low end that would tear the speakers up. The sound will be midrangey and distorted (oddly enough, kind of like a guitar)

Another example is these nu-metal guys with there 7 strings tuned down a step and a half. That is A-flat. Only four frets up from the lowest note of a normally tuned bass. These guys are not having to dodge the speaker cones as they fly out of the cabinet under the strain of the massive low frequencies. Get real.

You guys are thinking about it as if I'm telling you to plug an SVT into a 2X12 with 25 watt Jensons in it. I'm not.

This has been done before (lemmy's been doing it for almost 30 years) In the '70s a lot of bass players were using guitar heads as a matter of course. In the '60s and '50s, a lot of amp companies didn't make the distinction between bass amps and guitar amps.
 
I've played thru a few guitar heads for bass, Fender, West, Ampeg, Sunn, etc...They certainly have the capacity to reproduce low frequencies, several enough that you could back the screws out of the cabinets with them, as well as pop the coils and dust covers, but that that was not a issue. Many guitar amps are fine for bass, I agree there.
Transducers are the issue, and their capacity to reproduce frequencies according what they are designed to reproduce without damage. Sure, if the low end frequencies are shelved prior to amping them, most guitar amp speakers would be fine even at loud volumes. I have seen a bassist live thru a stack of JBL radial horns with no subs, and it sounded ok..., loud, deadly, and with awesome pressure, but they did not give the feel of conventional bass because the low end was removed onstage, else the horns would have been silent in a very short time.
 
Toki987 said:
but they did not give the feel of conventional bass
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This is the point that everyone is missing, he is not looking for a conventional bass sound. He wants a distorted sound. West, Ampeg, and sunn were clean amps. The same thing doesn't happen with a Marshall or a Boogie.

I've been playing my bass through my Laney AOR 100 and a marshall 4x12 for the last 45 minutes. No smoke, no dustcovers falling off. The screws that hold the back on these things will back themselves out eventually anyway.
 
Farview said:
This is the point that everyone is missing, he is not looking for a conventional bass sound. He wants a distorted sound. West, Ampeg, and sunn were clean amps. The same thing doesn't happen with a Marshall or a Boogie.

I've been playing my bass through my Laney AOR 100 and a marshall 4x12 for the last 45 minutes. No smoke, no dustcovers falling off. The screws that hold the back on these things will back themselves out eventually anyway.
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Ok. I`ll buy into that. I know the tone your getting. Not a favorite for me, but it's genuine and will work in it`s own genre.
 
Farview said:
There is nothing that different about a bass that will cause huge amounts of damage to a guitar rig.
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There is. If you don't believe me, take this to www.talkbass.com and make your assertion on the amp forum.

Bass will wreck the guitar speakers in a guitar amp if you put any volume on it.

I've seen this happen so many times it's not funny. It was such a big problem at my local Guitar Center that they had to rearrange the store layout and take other measures so that boneheads trying out basses wouldn't plug them into guitar combos, crank 'em up and roach the speakers right on the spot.

Listen, it's not especially difficult to wreck the speakers in many bass rigs with a bass, let alone the speakers in a guitar amp.



.
 
I think that part of this controversy exists because you guys are not differentiating between open backed and closed backed guitar speaker enclosures. Open backed speakers are virtually undamped and are more vulnerable to damage from overexcursion.
 
I think most of this contorversy exists because people are ignoring the fact that I am not talking about getting a classic bass sound out of a guitar rig.

He is going for a heavily distorted, fuzzy sound. Like a guitar tuned down an octave. A sound like that will not have the dynamics that will rip apart the speakers.

If you stop imposing your idea of a good bass sound on this concept, your argument goes away.

Have any of you guys ever heard of Motorhead?
 
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