Tom Curry Guitars

Amp Pointer

March 10th, 2010

Amp Pointer

What size bass amp do I need to play in a small venue?

I have a fender jazz bass a few good friends and the desire to play a gig within the next few months. Problem is I just have a practice amp. My drummer tells me i need something bigger. We have a half stack for the guitar. Do I need something similar? I heard you can play guitar through a bass amp but you shouldn’t play bass through a guitar amp… true? Any suggestions/pointers?

It really depends on a few things…probably most importantly, how loud is your guitar player planning on playing through that stack and how much you’re looking to spend. You don’t necessarily need a half stack…a combo amp will do but I personally prefer a stack. When we play small venues I use a 4X10 Carvin cabinet powered by an Eden Nemesis head (pushes about 275 watts @ 8 ohms) and I rarely have turned it up to 12 o’clock. My personal preference if I wanted to make sure I could handle small to moderate sized venues would be a 2X10 cabinet (8 ohms) and a 1X15 cabinet (8 ohms). You can get 2X10 combos and that would work just fine but I would make sure the amp is powerful enough to power another cabinet in case you need it in the future. My recommendation would be a 400-500 watt amp (@ 4 ohms, around 250-350 @ 8 ohms). I personally like the Markbass LM-III and the Eden WTX500…Carvin is very good as well for both amps and cabinets. Clear as mud?