MESA guitar head for bass?

[livewire78602]

Hey I just saw Robert Trujillos bass rig online, it states he uses two svt 2 pro's and two Mesa Guitar Heads. Does anyone or has anyone ever used a Mesa Gutiar head for there bass? Is this possible? Will it work, running your bass thru say a triple recto guitar head and into a bass cabinet?

 

[zenabI]

Of course it will work. I don't know if it will sound good tho but "good sound" is totally subjective so my advice is to try! 8)

 

[Sebby123]

Mesa started out as a bass company i think :roll:

 

[eulogy77]

i think hes using the effects loop of the rectos for distortion,

 

[marshman]

I'd read that another current hard-rocker uses a guitar head for distortion tones. The catch is the cabs...distorted bass tones are probably lethal to guitar speakers, so make sure you don't try to dime a bass through a recto into a 4x12...at least not one you're fond of, anyway.

 

[boxnife]

I play live & recorded our second album with a Boogie Mark I. Our guitar player bought it at the Dallas guitar show. It was part of the rack setup during David Bowie's 'Tin Machine' project.

I fell into it when my Sunn died and he was using something else. Eventually it came to be my sound. I had an SVT that I hated, it just wasn't like the little Mesa. I'll probably still record with it, but it had a lot of trouble with mid sized clubs that didn't have a full PA. It was getting a lot of wear & tear, and didn't belong to me, so I just got a 400+ to keep the vibe. You can hear the Mark I on the songs 'Bond Girls', 'U Needed Action' and 'Unholy Ghost' on our myspace. I used it on the whole 'Lean Times' album.

www.myspace.com/grandserenade

 

[infinitedreamsix]

Its very common for bassists to use guitar heads for dist sound or even "cleaner" ones. Most times, they will blend the guitar amp with a bass amp to give it a full sound. Lots of guys do this, John Myung of Dream Theater has a moded Triaxis and even a Roadking that "may or may not" be part of his sound.

 

[calaverasgrande]

I tried my guitarists triple recto thru a boogie 1x15 once. It was good, gainy and loud but very loose in the low end. Certainly wont do a b string justice.
Oh and hi, I just signed up.
That capcha was hard as hell to read!

 

[tmac]

You need a few things at least: A preamp that don't cut the bass too much, a big output transformer (OT) with good bass response, and enough power. Not many guitar amps fulfill these demands. Of course, this depends A LOT on if you have a low B-string or not.

That's why I use a Hiwatt DR103 (clone). It is modded with bigger coupling caps in the preamp, so as to provide more bass. Part of the Hiwatt design is a powerful OT with good low end response. I play a six-string bass, so I have a B-string... It also still functions beautifully as a guitar amp. It's the bees knees, as some say.

You probably need more than 100W tube power if you can want to play together with really loud guitarists Me, I would refuse to get more ear damage.

Torquil

 

[calaverasgrande]

Also, Les Claypool used to use an ADA guitar preamp that was modded in the same fashion, caps increased, for his bass tone. But that was many amps and many Carl Thompson basses ago. Back when he used a crown power amp and EV 2 way cabs. Funny thing is I dont think he had a very bassy tone then even with the caps "fixed" for bass.

 

[YellowJacket]

Whelp,
I currently use my dual rectifier through an ashdown 210 for a bass practice amp. At boogie, they strongly recommended using bass speakers instead of guitar speakers for a bass. It actually sounds reasonably good but just not very loud, contrary to what you might think. It is basically a very good sounding practice amp! It would be interesting to run the dual through a 610 and see if the extra air moving makes a difference.

I think if I was going to use a multi-purpose head, I'd run one of the reborn triple rectifiers so I could use the 50watt setting for my guitar and the 150watt all balls out setting for bass.

The only difficulty is that the guitar amp isn't necessarily robust enough to cope with a bass so it might be wise to upgrade the power transformer, choke, and output transformer with mercury magnetics parts so that the head can keep up with the demands of the bass guitar better. As someone else mentioned, the caps also are not robust enough and 'should' be changed. This would add a bit of punch and headroom but in the end, you still have a tube bass amp that puts out a max of about 180watts with the solid state rectifier. Definitely not enough power for any terribly demanding gigs. Here, you effectively end up with a $2500 - $3000 project so unless you want one multi-purpose head, you'd be better off to buy a Dual Rectifier used and a Markbass LMII used, having the whole deal run you a max of $1800 for the pair.

Turns out I'm an asshat and I was believing miss information from a bunch of guys who don't know what they are talking about. I spoke with an amp tech here and he informed me that guitar components have balls enough when a guitar head is doing double duty as a bass rig. He suggested running KT88s or 6550s for power tubes while operating an amp as a bass amp. Apparently they work correctly with the Dual or Triple bias set to 6L6 and they would ensure maximum possible headroom for the given power of the head. i.e. you won't get 200watts with a dual, you'll get 120watts +. Similarly, you won't get 300watts with a Triple, you'll get 180watts+
He also suggested to run a 12AT7 in the phase inverter of the amp to minimize clipping and maximize headroom.

The last piece of advice was to use enough speakers for the bass cab. Neos that put out 103db / watt / metre are the best since they allow for maximum headroom. He recommended a 210 + 115 minimum or a 410 + 115 was better. Basically any combination that moves more air makes the bass heard much better.

Tone: Well, it sounds very similar to an ampeg or any other tube head. The TRICK is to EQ the darned thing right. Guitar tone is inherently scooped -even with the dials all set straight up- so first things first, you have to dime the mids. It may be weird to say this, but for bass tone I actually roll the bass back on the dual, down to about 9:00 or a bit lower. This keeps things from getting muddy and helps them stay tight. My clean channel looks like Gain: 9:00 (clean bass tone sounds best) Treble 12:00 Mids 5:00 (dimed) Bass: 9:00 Presence: 12:00. Volume: as loud as necessary without getting into distortion. While this is a great practice amp, a dual running at 50watts through a 2 x 12 with a jackson totally obliterates it.