Playing a Bass guitar on a guitar amp?

Is it fine to run a 4 string bass guitar through a guitar combo? I have a traynor 80 watt with 2 12's in it. The speakers are 70 or 80 watt...i think 70 watt celestions. My primary goal is to play with a drummer...where ive been told that you should have at least 50 watts. My concern really is for the speakers...i dont want to damage them as i suppose the amp can take it.

Originally Posted by: PoleraIs it fine to run a 4 string bass guitar through a guitar combo? I have a traynor 80 watt with 2 12's in it. The speakers are 70 or 80 watt...i think 70 watt celestions. My primary goal is to play with a drummer...where ive been told that you should have at least 50 watts. My concern really is for the speakers...i dont want to damage them as i suppose the amp can take it.

Well, forget judging things based on wattage specs cause it doesn't really work that way. Basically there's two different ways to blow a speaker.

One is to use too much distortion (which is usually caused by 'clipping' the amp or using too little wattage and trying to turn the amp up past it's designed level.. and yeah, I mean too little. You can blow a 100 watt speaker with a 20 watt amp if you clip it for long enough.). This heats up the coils in the speaker and literally burns them out.
The other way is to physically blow the cone off the speaker by using either too much volume through a speaker not designed for it, or using extremely low frequencies. The cone rattles back and forth so much that it literally blows apart at the seams.

In your case, you're more likely to do it the second way... the small speakers on a guitar amp are not designed to take the low frequencies of a bass guitar. You could get away with it at low volumes, but if you're talking about playing with a band..forget it.

Don't even try playing through a guitar amp unless you want to buy a new guitar amp A.S.A.P. If you want to play Bass get Bass gear.Every musician is on a budget but don't sacrifice sound with junk.The second part you mention is playing with a drummer. Well here is my outlook. Even if a drummer is dampening his kit a 50 watt bass amp will have to be turn up full in order to hear. Now along with drums you have 1 or 2 guitar players and vocals. You will need at least 150 watts to hear yourself clearly with good sound. I reherse with a 300 watt head & cab and with 2 guitar players and vocals it usually is turn about 1/2 way, perfect sound without any distortion at all. The best way to judge what size of amp is needed double what your guitar players are using. if they use 75 watt amps your bass should be 150 watts. If money is a object try renting amps. if it is for you to practice on buy a 20 watt practice amp. hope this helps it is just my opinion.

What about playing guitar through a bass amp?

Because I've got a decent bass amp... but the only guitar amp I have is this dinky little battery powered thing. I'm thinking about getting one of those Vox practice amps, though... the one that goes for roughly $140 on musiciansfriend.com

you need to be careful both ways, but a guitarist playing through a bass amp has fewer worries.
You shouldnt be able to do too much damage with a guitar if you are careful and clever about things...

With a bass, you can play through a guitar amp, but dont even think about jamming with a drummer...thats just stupid volume to be testing your speakers at such low frequencies.

Originally Posted by: Vegas WierdoWhat about playing guitar through a bass amp?

Because I've got a decent bass amp... but the only guitar amp I have is this dinky little battery powered thing. I'm thinking about getting one of those Vox practice amps, though... the one that goes for roughly $140 on musiciansfriend.com

Guitar through a bass amp wouldn't hurt anything, unless maybe you had active emg pickups or something. the guitars signal is somewhat weaker and a higher frequency, and bass amp are built to deal with strong signals and low freq's.

new here, first thread..... but I can say from experience that the guitar into a bass amp idea doesnt work nearly as well as it sounded at first, at least for me.... I think i read somewhere that buddy guy or someone used to play through a bassman (i could be wrong), but regardless, i sort of made a move from bass and drums into the guitar and so i had a big peavey tnt 160 bass amp bt no guitar amp for a while... i thought it would give me a great low end growl and bassy sound for my nice slow bluesy sound i like but i ended up with a huge sound issue getting a good EQ and tone out of it.......

long thread short: i would suggest bass amp for bass and guitar amp for guitar.... anything else has only given me problems.....

ps sorry for the long thread........

I run my electric guitar through a bass amp, and it sounds great, but I think that doing so may have permanently affected the amp somehow. I don't really know jack about the technical aspects of guitars or amplifiers :o , but I've noticed that since I've been using the bass amp for my six-string, it sounds overly fuzzy and distorted when I try to play my bass on it. Is that possible, or is it just my warped imagination?