The Steel Guitar Forum

How would a bass guitar amp shape the sound of a lap steel?Anybody using one?
Thanks,
Malcolm

I have used a Crate BX-25 for a practice amp. It sounds okay, but has no reverb.

This has been done for yrs. I used a fender bassman w/ an echo plex and it was fine. If my memory serves me right Curly Chalker used either 1 or2 while in Vegas. It would not break up under loud, heavy C6 chords. As other amps became better and Thinner E9 was the vogue, players had to change in order to get work. CC

At low volume it will probably be ok but most bass amps are generally voiced with a scooped mid-range and slightly boosted treble and bass frequenciesand prrobably aren't the best match unless it's a Fender Bassman tube amp IMHO.

I played a gig on my steel through a GK Bass amp...it was absolutely pathetic!

I just played through a Ampeg bass amp this weekend at a friend's party, and felt like I had the worst tone I've ever had. I've never been able to get a good tone through a bass amplifier.

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Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

With my 1950's Fender triple-8, I played thro' both a Fender 15" Bassman; as well as,
a Fender 4x10's Bassman and it sounded really quite nice. Listening back, the sound cut thro' nearly as nice as a pre-war Ric. The quad-10 was more to my liking.
I used this latter amp with my Bigsby Quad played thro' an Echolette affects machine. Again, I'm of the opinion that it sounded quite nice, even tho' it was in an out of a controlled television studio environment.
During these later years, I've drifted down to an 8-10 inch Rolla speaker for my Rics. I pair a Peavy Session 400 with a Peavy LA-400 thro' a Peavy ProFexII. I like the sound.

I use 70's 12 watt fender musicmaster bass amps for gigs. Excellent for blues. Very simple amp. Volume & tone. What more do you need? The trick is to replace the speaker and tubes.

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http://www.andreandthenighthounds.com/

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Andre Nizzari on 21 September 2005 at 08:49 PM.]</p></FONT>

I use a modified silverface Fender Bassman. Stock, it sounded horrible.

My Stringmaster and my Wright Custom both sound great through the 4 x 10 Bassman reissue I use.

I tried them also through my Ampeg B-100 for kicks and it's passable but you lose a lot of the tube warmth.

TL

The Fender Bassman hasn't been a "bass amp" for about 45 years. Guitarists discovered that it made an AMAZING guitar amp, especially when paired with the outboard Fender reverb box, and it's pretty much been a guitar amp since. And yep, they make GREAT steel amps. Well, at least straight steel. I'm not a P.S. player, so I don't know about how it sounds with those.

The most amazing amp for my steel that I've ever played through is my silverface Super Reverb that was "blackfaced" by a tube-amp tech buddy back to '64 era specs. Yowza! The only problem is that I hate to schepp that thing around, and don't really have any gigs to use it on anyway.

TJW

Actually, bass rigs make great steel amps. they are designed to be full-range like keyboard amps and can really fatten up lap or pedal steel. I've used both my SWR's and a buddy's Eden before and the Ric 59 really sings. And pedal steel through something like an Alembic preamp with a QSC power amp and Acme low B drivers would be killer. Talk about a clean tone that could knock down walls...

That being said, I usually go for 40-50 watt tube amps like Vibroverbs or Pro Reverbs. And as said before, the Bassman head isn't a bass amp - it's a guitar amp and set up right (good tubes, biased a bit on the hot side, good speakers) it should sound great with lap steel or Fender pedal steels (which have much lower impedance pickups than "Nashville" stels).<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 22 September 2005 at 03:34 PM.]</p></FONT>

One point of confusion in my mind that maybe somebody can clear up for me..........why do bass amps have a greater frequency range (and sometimes built in tweeters)than standard guitar amps have?

Since bass amps are supposed to amplify just the bass strings as opposed to amplifying*both* bass and treble strings on a standard guitar wouldn't it require a wider frequency range to handle standard guitar than it does bass guitar?
Apparently not,but I don't understand why not.

Musician's Friend has some crazy low prices on keyboard and bass amps and that is what made me ask the question as to how good they work with lap steel.
Malcolm