Ubass through a guitar amp

kissing

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Hi folks,

As I am saving up for a Ubass, it just occured to me I won't be able to afford the bass amp I want right away. So i'll have the Ubass first, and get the amp later.

So I suppose I would have to play it mostly for practice.

Then I realised my Roland Microcube can be played through headphones.
I know that you're not supposed to play basses through a normal guitar amp, since the low frequencies can damage the speakers, but if I used the Microcube with a Ubass just to listen to it through headphones (not speakers), would any damage be done?

If this doesn't cause any damage to the amp, I guess I could record through the headphone output too before I can afford a good Bass amp.
 
If you only play through headphones it won't be an issue since it's only the speakers that take the hit from bass notes.
The amp on its own is fine.
 
I ran my UBass primarily through the house PA. I did use a small Line6 bass amp mostly as a monitor and fed the sound out the balanced output directly into the PA board. When I tried it in the store they only had an acoustic guitar amp, and frankly it sounded very good through this amp. I never tried it through a regular guitar amp, however I did not like the sound as much when I played it through my bass rig.

Larry
 
Bass amps are voiced for electric bass guitars, Larry. There are acoustic bass amps that do well with piezoelectric pickups. When you play a bass through a guitar amp. You'll notice a hissing noise and a brighter sound. The speakers in most guitar amps are generally not built to handle the throw and heat generated by powerfull low frequency notes. This can damage the speaker cones and/or speaker coils. The low frequencies can also generate more heat in the amplifer's electronics, causing thermal cutoff/shutdown or damage the electronics. Find a store where you can test your U-Bass through their bass amps. Good luck and happy shopping! Ric
 
Don't think you'll hurt the micro cube unless you turn it up to 11. Might not get the sound you want but the micro cube is virtually indestructible, have played my Hofner and Fender basses through mine with no ill effects. Good luck finding a U-Bass, been looking for a while, found one at Sam Ash few weeks ago, ordered it and they sent me an empty soprano case but that's another story.
 
Ric,

Reread my post. I had and played a Ubass for several months, and played it through my bass amp. Finding a Ubass to play at a music store was not easy when the first came out, so you took what you could get. It happened that the store I found one in (70 miles from my house) only had an acoustic amp, so there was no option. That was their normal demo amp since they primarily sold acoustic instruments. I sold the Ubass and went back to my fretless Carvin, since it fit my needs better than the Ubass, although I miss the easier portability.
 
Aloha. Larry.

Playing an acoustic/electric bass through some acoustic amps works well. My Carvin S400D does well with all acoustic electric instruments:

http://www.carvinguitars.com/manuals/s400d.pdf

as it was designed as a multipurpose amp/P.A.. Speaking of Carvin, I live about 15 miles from their factory/showroom - which is only about 5 miles from the San Marcos Guitar Center and about 20 miles from the Murrita Best Buy musical store. My wallet is in the center of a proverbial Bermuda triange when it comes to musical instrument purchases. Ric
 
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