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I got myself a Mesa Express 5:50 2x12. Dark as hell, like a ninja in a black hole. Anyway, I need to upgrade my bass amp, which is a little 65W Marshall Valvestate (solid state). I just want to be able to play loud enough be heard over a noisy drummer.

(The Marshall gets a really nasty overdrive because everything apart from compression is on full. I don't use any compression mainly because it lowers the volume. And I've got an active bass going into the passive channel. I'm a philistine and actually quite like the sound in an annoying No Wave kind of way, but it isn't loud enough.)

I wanna play bass through the Mesa, thinking that the more than ample bass response should handle bass guitar well. I think I've seen Aen say that he plays bass through his Fender Twin with a 1x15 cabinet? Does that mean that he disconnects the two 12 inch speakers?

I might look at buying a bass cab, any suggestions/tips/warnings? I haven't actually tried my bass through it yet due to latent fear from old wives tales I heard in high school, which I am certain are bollocks. An octave isn't really that much difference, is it?

Apologies if this is a question that comes up on a monthly basis, I tried searching. Also, getting teh Kurdtz as much as a bass player can. Noveselic did something like this, right?

hugh wrote:Apologies if this is a question that comes up on a monthly basis

Haha, it definitely isn't.

I'm interested to see what answers people have on this.

hugh wrote: I think I've seen Aen say that he plays bass through his Fender Twin with a 1x15 cabinet? Does that mean that he disconnects the two 12 inch speakers?

Yep. Otherwise the transformer would DIEEEEEEEEE!

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Huh?
I thought the common (mis)conception was that the speakers would get tears in them.
So the transformer fuses together like when you don't have a speaker/load connected?

Do you think 1x15 with a 50W amp will be loud enough for a small gig?

You can as long as your speakers can handle it the low end without farting. In the end the bass-ness or treble-ness of an amp is in the speakers. Tone stack plays a part but the speakers are the ones asked to reproduce a sound. Get at least a 15" speaker.

hugh wrote:Huh?
I thought the common (mis)conception was that the speakers would get tears in them.
So the transformer fuses together like when you don't have a speaker/load connected?

Do you think 1x15 with a 50W amp will be loud enough for a small gig?

You need to have a speaker load connected when you turn on an amp. I'm not sure for solid states but for tube amps (even hybrids, I think) this is a must.

Any amp needs a load connected, an appropriate load. If you add a speaker to the stock setup, your ohms are going to be off.

aen wrote:Any amp needs a load connected, an appropriate load. If you add a speaker to the stock setup, your ohms are going to be off.

Yeah, I realise the need for a load bit. Most amps have multiple outs for extension cabinets and whatnot. I thought that you could hook up multiple cabs. I need to read the manual again.

So Aen, you just run your amp and a 1x15? No use for the speakers in the combo?

Cheers.

Well, I finally got my speakers replaced, so I go back and forth. It's kind of a bummer to go back to the 2x12, it seems almost bass-less after the terror of the 1x15.

Cool. Thanks Aen. Will keep an eye out for a cheap 1x15 cab.

aen wrote:Any amp needs a load connected, an appropriate load.

Most solid state amps are simple voltage amplifiers and are fine with any load from the specified minimum up to open circuit. A badly designed amp may go into oscillation when open circuit; a Zobel network is usually included to prevent HF instability (Doug Self's well-known book on audio power amp design describes his experiments with this >>here<<).

I used to play bass through a Laney solidstate guitar head into a Peavey 1x15 bass cab. It works fine, but you don't get the dedicated low end that you will out of a proper bass amp. I all depends on the sound you're after, I suppose.

Tod Ashley played bass exclusively through guitar amps in Cop Shoot Cop.

I've run guitars through both a laney head, and a vox ac30 with an appropriate bass cabinet paired up. No issues, and for some stuff it sounded pretty good.

if you use a bass or pa cab, you'll be fine. guitar speakers have short throw voice coils. bass and full range pa speakers have long throw coils so they can put out the longer/lower bass frequencies.

Sloan wrote:if you use a bass or pa cab, you'll be fine. guitar speakers have short throw voice coils. bass and full range pa speakers have long throw coils so they can put out the longer/lower bass frequencies.

What he said.
The speakers are all you have to worry about; you have to push more air over longer wavelengths for bass frequencies, not all speakers can move far enough to do it reasonably.

Really, the origin of the signal doesn't matter, bass, guitar, electric accordion... to the amp it's all just electric pulses. Unless you're putting something that produces too hot a signal that might overload the signal path (would have to be an active system with a LOT of gain) it's not going to be a problem for the amp.

That said, as mentioned, the tone path is different between guitar and bass amps; the range of the "bass", "treble" and "mid" controls for a guitar amp is a bit different than in a bass amp, reflecting the respective normal frequencies of the instruments. You might not be able to find your sweet tone mismatching instrument and amp types, but, on the other hand, you may discover whole new vistas of tone shaping too!

I play my guitars through my bass amp all the time when jamming; I play bass and when jamming, if I swap over to a guitar, I just plug into the bass amp that's already there, I don't lug my guitar amp along with me too. I've been able to find some pretty nice settings with this setup. Likewise, at home I love to plug my bass into my Fender Twin Reverb... reverb for bass is an all too uncommon option! The tone controls with the Twin don't always let me get quite what I want out of it, but it does provide other benefits that I haven't found in bass amps; I really can get some sweet tones from it. I don't play the bass through the Twin loud, though, just at livingroom levels... I wouldn't trust the speakers to hold out at jam/gig volume. Hooking into a bass cab, like you say Aen does, however, should work just fine.

/\ /\ Makes sense.

Another question for you guys. I've been looking at bass cabs, they're a little more expensive than I would like them to be. Anyhoo, should I get one with a tweeter? Most of them seem to have one. I'm thinking no.