Guitar amp and tuner with a bass?
I’ve got a little 10 watt guitar amp and a cheap little guitar tuner, and I’ve decided that I want to play bass. My question is does a bass need it’s own amp and tuner? Or will my electrics’ work just fine?
The Bass Guitar Player Resource
I’ve got a little 10 watt guitar amp and a cheap little guitar tuner, and I’ve decided that I want to play bass. My question is does a bass need it’s own amp and tuner? Or will my electrics’ work just fine?
its acutally the vice versa that works out better. a guitar through the bass amp. although i dont know what exactly happens, i heard that playing a bass through a guitar amp can mess it up. try looking into it on some bass and guitar forums.
Some tuners will work with a bass. The really really cheap ones, probably not. If you plug your bass into it, and it just jumps around on the low E string, then you’ll probably need a better tuner.
Bass through a guitar amp…electrically it will work. However, in order for a bass guitar to be reproduced properly you need power and speaker area.
I’m guessing that your 10 watt amp probably has an 8" speaker in it. This is totally inadequate to play bass through at anything above "bedroom" levels. Playing a bass loud through a small guitar amp will, in all likelihood, damage the speaker. That small speaker was never made to handle the large excursions (back and forth movements) that a bass guitar will generate.
If you’re going to play with a group or ensemble, the minimum wattage I recommend for a bass is 100W, and that’s a bare minimum.
Goo luck.
Greetings from Austin, TX
Ken
I’ve heard the same thing as Deepy and Ken, that you may damage your amplifier. I would recommend getting a small amp designed for a bass guitar.
As far as the tuner goes, my $10 electric tuner has a button on it that says "Bass" which I push for tuning my bass. Works great. Go figure.