Can I plug my UBass into a non-bass amp?

I have a little Roland "M-Cube" (Micro cube) that I bought to go with my theremin. It is designed for keyboards really. I'm wondering whether plugging my ubass into it might damage the bass or the amp.

Anyone know if it's a bad idea?

I ran my ubass through one of those battery powered microcubes for guitar. It sounded shite and wasnt able to handle the lows. It didn't damage it, but the sound was just horrible.

Bad idea. But hey, I'm a bass player so maybe I'm biased. I just love the sound of my ubass through my 600w Ashdown stack or my Ampeg combo. The ubass produces tons of low and it'll only sound good of your amp is able to do something with those lows, so a bass amp sounds a lot better most of the time.

By the way: Theremin! I wants it...

As we tigers says - a dedicated bass amplifier is optimised for bass. I don't think you would harm either the ubass or the micro cube but you will probably get better sound out of a dedicated bass amplifier.

I don' know how much second hand bass amps go for down under but here in the uk the seondhand and pawn shops seem to have a lot of used amps for sale and you can pick up a second hand bass amp really cheap. I got a Fender bass amp for very little money a few months ago from a pawn shop.

Katz-in-Boots said:

I have a little Roland "M-Cube" (Micro cube) that I bought to go with my theremin. It is designed for keyboards really. I'm wondering whether plugging my ubass into it might damage the bass or the amp.

Anyone know if it's a bad idea?

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Check out gumtree. Picked up a near new 20w bass amp off of it last year for just $20!

If the speakers are big enough, yes. But you will need at least 10" speakers, 12-14 is better. Problem is wavelength: low frequencies are larger, so smaller elements don't replicate them well.

Normally keyboard amps are made to also handle lows really well, the low notes on a keyboard are in the Bass-guitar range, so if the things is made for keyboard it should work. I know there are people out there using peavey keyboard amps as bass amp.

I keyboard amp should be okay but not so sure about the microcube specifically. I test drove the Roland micro bass cube and it was pretty inadequate for bass.

Keyboard amps and PA amps should be "safe" for bass but you do want to be cautious about using a bass through a guitar amp, even if it has several large speakers. The bass can cause the drivers to "over extend" in some cases even when below the power rating of the drivers. Also, using a bass through a guitar amp frequently doesn't sound too great because the resonant point of guitar cabs is generally designed to be slightly below the E string on a guitar - meaning much of the bass range will fall below the resonant point of the cab.

Edit to add: Oh, there's one other reason not to go this route. The bass really requires a huge damping factor for good bass response without flabbiness. The designers of most guitar amps (and probably many cheap bass or keyboard amps) don't give this much thought. For example, many guitar cabs are wired in series or series/parallel and they work fine for guitar - you will probably never see a bass cab wired in anything but parallel. When you wire speakers in series each driver sees the impedance of the speaker in series with it as part of the amps output impedance and that drastically lowers the damping factor. So, a 4X10 bass cab will usually be wired with four 16 ohm drivers in parallel for 4 ohms cab impedance and an 8 X 10 cab is usually eight 32 ohm drivers in parallel for the same 4 ohms cab impedance.


In general, many bass amps make great guitar amps (just think of the Fender Bassman, which has probably been used with more guitars than basses) but going the other way is a pretty poor idea.

John

Roland says that the microcube RX is OK for a bass: http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/939

Anyone tried it?

I'd be worried about damaging the cone with a non-bass amp. Not designed to flex that much, even if it didn't buzz like crazy.

Hmmm. Sounds like I do need a proper bass amp. Thanks for your help everyone.

Sadly, this morning I took it to a music shop to buy a lead & I asked them the same question. The guy said I should get a bass amp, he plugged it in one to demonstrate the amp, and we discovered the pickup isn't working on the bottom string. The guy reckons it needs a whole new pickup - which of course they don't stock cos they'd never seen or heard of a ubass before.
:wallbash:
Now I have to discuss with the ebay seller in the US.

Ouch. Yeah, the UBASS has individual pickups for each string. A guy at UWC last year had tried to modify his or something and it kept cutting out on him when he was playing. Piezo pickups are pretty delicate and not to be messed with if one can avoid it. If it's not under warranty you might want to take the little cover off the back and peek inside and see if anything is obviously amiss.

John

Katz-in-Boots said:

Hmmm. Sounds like I do need a proper bass amp. Thanks for your help everyone.

Sadly, this morning I took it to a music shop to buy a lead & I asked them the same question. The guy said I should get a bass amp, he plugged it in one to demonstrate the amp, and we discovered the pickup isn't working on the bottom string. The guy reckons it needs a whole new pickup - which of course they don't stock cos they'd never seen or heard of a ubass before.
:wallbash:
Now I have to discuss with the ebay seller in the US.

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Ahh, what a disappointment. I hope you can work things out with your seller.

I think I'd talk to a technician at Kala before I made a final decision.

That's what I would do as well. Let them sort it out. Kala was very goed with costumer service when the tuners started to fly accross the room when people had too many windings on the pegs (spruce model only). They simply sent new ones to people experiencing these problems.
So I would first try Kala.

Katz-in-Boots said:

...we discovered the pickup isn't working on the bottom string. The guy reckons it needs a whole new pickup...

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Bad luck, but this is a known problem to have one of the four segments produce low or no output. It happened to me.
And yes, the solution is that you must replace the entire pickup-saddle assembly.
But it's available as a replacement part and is an easy plug and play changeout.

Kala's official warranty policy is that buyers contact the seller, not them directly. Hopefully you have a good seller.
It would seem to make more sense to get a one-ounce pickup mailed to you rather than shipping ukes back and forth halfway around the world.

Kala has good folks at their service department in Petaluma who were very responsive and accommodating to me.
contact@kalabrand.com

Thanks. I did contact Kala directly, as well as the seller. Between us it looks like we'll get it sorted. Plug & play changeout? Lol, I think I'll let someone who knows about pickups do that.

I have a little Rocktron Rampage bass amp, to use when I can plug in. I also have a Pignose Hog 30, for those times I cannot plug in. Heck, I even bought a little Pignose for strolling, although the sound is not near enough, but it does give the bottom string just a bit of amplification, which you need!

DaleR said:

I have a little Rocktron Rampage bass amp, to use when I can plug in. I also have a Pignose Hog 30, for those times I cannot plug in. Heck, I even bought a little Pignose for strolling, although the sound is not near enough, but it does give the bottom string just a bit of amplification, which you need!

Click to expand...

Are either of those battery operated? I kinda like the idea of being able to play away from a power point.

The Pignose Hog 30 has rechargeable batteries in it and comes with a power cord. I think the Hog 20 would have been enough, but did not try one. A regular Pignose just runs on penlight batteries, but that would be my last choice for sure. Really, I can walk to a spot and stand within ten feet of my amp...when would I really need to purely stroll? But, I have that option. The U Bass, without the new amp stuff, is not powerful enough to blow a Piggy...a regular electric bass could though.