Using a Vintage Bass Amp For Guitar?

[petros]

Hey G-nuts! Been a long time since last post.

Regarding vintage tube amps that are originally intended for BASS (such as the Fender Bassman, Alamo Paragon, etc.), what kind of problems can you expect if you intend to use these for a guitar? I would assume that the EQ points on the tone stacks are voiced differently, but settings can probably be tweaked. There's no bright switch. Using an open back cab or smaller 10" speakers could be used to tame the bass frequencies.

Somone at the Telecaster Guitar Forum said: "Vintage bass amps are, however, some of the best guitar amps Made--Tweed, blonde, black and silver Bassmans, Alamo Paragon and Titan, Ampeg B15, Plexi Marshall Bass, Marshall "Bluesbreakers" were model Lead/Bass in the catalog, Traynor Bassmates plus others by Valco, Gibson, Supro whose model names I can't remember."

Any thoughts?

[newey]

Hey Petros, welcome back!

Just a hypothesis, but I think the early bass amps became popular with guitarists at first because the guitar amps of the time generally had less power and smaller, less heavy-duty, speakers.

Nowadays, it becomes known that Vintage Guy so-and-so recorded his classic "Such-and-Such" using a '59 Tweed Bassman, and every wannabe has to have one.

In my (very) short-lived 8th grade garage band, we all had puny little amps and a makeshift PA. But our drummer's older brother was in a band and occasionally we got to practice in their practice area, using their PA and amps. Our lead guy got to use their lead's Bandmaster Stack, and I got to plug into a blackface Bassman their bass player had (we had three guitars but no bass, I used to pluck out the bass lines on the last 2 strings of my guitar)

I remember thinking that amp was just about the most wonderful thing ever. And maybe it was, but, hey, I was 12.

[andy]

'Vintage' is the key word here! If we were talking about modern bass amps then you may expect problems related to tone control frequencies and such like, but most old bass amps are what modern guitar amps are based on! The Bassman is the most obvious example, as has been mentioned already, and has proved itself in so many situations that I needn't go into who or where it has been used. Jim Marshall of course copied Fender amps for his first models- I forget why he is supposed to have changed the valve type and tone stack later, but this makes Marshall guitar amps a pretty direct descendant of 'bass' amps. The first Marshall bass amps were just those same guitar amps with extra caps (I think) to reduce the highs a bit, effectively enhancing the low end.

So all in all, a vintage bass amp is, in many respects, a classic sounding guitar amp! What was a bass amp proved to be the best option for guitar in a lot of situations, and bass amps as we now understand them came about later with the advent of newer technologies and a better understanding of the requirements of the reproduction of bass guitar sounds, particularly in more specific EQ and cabinet design- and you won't have to worry about the effects of a HF horn in your vintage model!

The only 'problems', if you can call them that, are those relating to the age of the parts and the shortcomings of the technology, i.e. wear and tear, and the weight and relative fragility of a valve amp.

[lpdeluxe]

Bass amps represent a different voice, and can sound good, or otherwise, depending on the material and the axe.

Back in the day, I often plugged my '63 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gent into my '63 Ampeg B15N (it made a killer harp amp, too). You can't hurt anything, and bass amps are frequently voiced to emphasize frequencies that complement the tone of a guitar.

[toast]

The best guitar amp I ever had was a Fender Bassman. IIRC, it had solid state 100 watt head and either a 3x10 or 3x12 cabinet. I could show you a picture of it but I couldn't tell you much about it because nobody had ever seen anything like it. I was never able to get any info on it. When I traded it in, the guitar store gave me $150 + a factory-second Washburn BT-2.

[blueswaite]

I like playing thru bass amps alot myself. Back in the days alot of keyboard players used them. I use to run my keys into a Kustom K200-b with a 2x15 cab and the guys in the band couldn't believe the sound I got.

[Teleblooz]

Not quite the same thing, but I run my Crate V33H through a 1x15 cab that used to be a Sunn bass combo amp in a former life. It sounds great!