Bass into acoustic amp - will work?

[GibbyPrague]

I was wondering whether plugging in either an electric or acoustic bass into my marshall AS100D would work?

Specifically in terms of tone and possible damage.

Anybody tried such an approach, yout thoughts?

Cheers.

[marioed]

I've run both an acoustic bass guitar & an EUB through a SWR California Blonde and it works ok. The California Blonde allows you to take the tweeter out of the mix which gives a much better sound to the bass. I experimented with running an electric bass guitar through the Blonde and did not think it sounded very good. A couple of other points, The California Blonde has a 12 inch speaker, the tweeter can be switched off, and it was supposedly designed for use with all acoustic stringed instrument including an upright bass. I've used the Blonde with my ABG & EUB for acoustic gigs but if I'm playing electric I'll use my normal bass rig. Also both my ABG & EUB are 4 string, I once tried a 5 string ABG and the low B was very tubby through the Blonde but sounded fine through my bass amp.

Try out your Marshall at low volumes and see how it sounds. I looked at the Marshall site but it didn't give any specifications for frequency response on either the amp or the speakers so it's hard to get an idea of how it might sound. If you can switch off the tweeters I'd suggest doing that at first. The big concern for damage would be blowing out the speakers but if you keep the volume low it should be ok to experiment with. Once you get a feel for how it sounds you can try raising the volume a bit but be careful.

Regards,
Ed

[alexevans917]

Originally Posted by marioed

I've run both an acoustic bass guitar & an EUB through a SWR California Blonde and it works ok. The California Blonde allows you to take the tweeter out of the mix which gives a much better sound to the bass. I experimented with running an electric bass guitar through the Blonde and did not think it sounded very good. A couple of other points, The California Blonde has a 12 inch speaker, the tweeter can be switched off, and it was supposedly designed for use with all acoustic stringed instrument including an upright bass. I've used the Blonde with my ABG & EUB for acoustic gigs but if I'm playing electric I'll use my normal bass rig. Also both my ABG & EUB are 4 string, I once tried a 5 string ABG and the low B was very tubby through the Blonde but sounded fine through my bass amp.

Try out your Marshall at low volumes and see how it sounds. I looked at the Marshall site but it didn't give any specifications for frequency response on either the amp or the speakers so it's hard to get an idea of how it might sound. If you can switch off the tweeters I'd suggest doing that at first. The big concern for damage would be blowing out the speakers but if you keep the volume low it should be ok to experiment with. Once you get a feel for how it sounds you can try raising the volume a bit but be careful.

Regards,
Ed

I absolutely love my jazz bass through the Cali Blonde. For a neutral bass tone (sort of a DIed tone), I think its great.