RT2/50 + Bass guitar

[gwenchlan]

Hi everyone!
I absolutely love my RT2/50 for guitar... I bought a 5 string bass and plugged it threw a ENGL 570 preamp -> RT2/50 -> Randall 2*12 & 1*15 guitar cab, at VERY VERY low volume in order not to destroy the HPs. The sounds is amazing to me for the style i play. I was then thinking of buying a 15' bass cab for that setting.

My question is then, with that bass cab, will i damage something into the amp or preamp,or the only problem could have been about the cab?

Thanks for that,
G.

 

[Soulinsane]

I'm not sure what you mean by HPs. You will not hurt anything by playing a bass through a guitar amp. Even with bass speakers, as long as the Ohms are matched on both the amp and cabs you are not going to damage anything. Some parts will run a little warmer due to the average lower frequency ( mainly the output transformer ), but a few PC fans should cure that. I always thought my RM100 seemed more designed for bass than guitar anyways.

If you dig your tone then use it.

 

[jlbaxe]

david gilmore uses a bass pre amp for his sound.found it by accident,i think ."It was during this gold-and-platinum-laden period that Gilmour's core equipment philosophy began to take shape. In accord with the high-fidelity sound of albums like Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, the guitarist also adapted an almost 'hi-fi' mentality to his rig. Instead of just plugging into a 100-watt tube amp and cranking the bejesus out of it to get overdriven distortion, as many other '70's guitarists did, Gilmour set out first to create a strong clean tone and then blend in any fuzz or other effects on top of that solid clean sound (again, harkening back to the clean Strat tones of Hank Marvin and other early rock'n'rollers). His main pedalboard during the Dark Side Of The Moon era contained an array of fuzz boxes and MXR pedals; ironically, this same board was being used in the '90's by Gilmour's live co-guitarist, Tim Renwick. The turning point in the creation of his amp rig was the discovery of an Alembic F2-B bass preamp, which had been used by Waters for his bass rig. One day, the techs tried it out on Gilmour's revolving speaker cabinets (at the same time, Yamaha RA-200's) and Gilmour liked its warm sound. The Alembic soon became an integral part of his main guitar rig. The signal then traveled to the output (power) sections of the Hiwatt heads and finally out of a series of 4x12 WEM cabinets. This powerful clean tone has been the heart of Gilmour's tone ever since, especially for live work."just goes to show experimentation can be a good thing.

http://www.pinkfloyd-co.com/band/interviews/djg/djg96.html

 

[gwenchlan]

Thanks a lot for this! I'll post back then ;-)

 

[NCdan]

The only issue with plugging a bass into a guitar amp is the fact that guitar amps are specifically designed to work with guitar frequencies, however, if you like it, go for it. Just don't use guitar speakers, as you might blow them if you play slap, and then there's the fact that guitar speakers just sound like crap for basses . The only other thing is that just about every bass amp today has built in limiters, that is, I hope your technique is smooth as butter or that you have an external compressor/limiter.