How to Play an Electric Guitar Through a Bass Amp
It's perfectly fine to play a guitar through a bass amplifier. In fact, Fender's famous "Bassman" amplifier was used by many famous guitarists, including the Who's Pete Townshend, who used it on many early Who recordings and concerts. Jazz guitarists often use bass amplifiers to reproduce the signature bass-laden "jazz" tone. The primary difference between bass amplifiers and guitar amplifiers is the tone circuit and speaker, which are optimized for bass guitar reproduction. Bass amplifiers also lack many of the popular built-in guitar effects such as reverb, tremolo and distortion.
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Instructions
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Plug your guitar into the amplifier with a standard guitar cable, and turn the power switch on.
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Adjust all of the tone controls to the center (12 o'clock) position, and set the volume to the desired playing level. Depending on the amp, the tone controls may consist of treble, bass, mid-range and other "in-between" tone controls such as sub-bass, low-mid or high-mid.
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Experiment with different tones by adjusting the controls up or down until the desired tone is reached.
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Tips & Warnings
If the bass amp has a separate head and cabinet, you may want to experiment with speaker cabinets made for guitar by plugging them into the amplifier head. Make sure that the amplifier wattage and recommended speaker ohm rating printed on the amplifier head matches the cabinet.
External guitar effects connected between the guitar and amplifier can be used to further modify the guitar sound to your liking.
Using a guitar with a bass amp is completely safe and will not harm either component.
Plugging speakers into amplifier heads that do not match the amp's printed ohm rating may result in severe amplifier damage.
Plugging speakers into an amplifier that are rated lower on wattage than the amplifier's output will result in speaker damage at higher volume levels.
References
Resources
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