Over the holiday break, I’m going to be going out of town. I’ve got an iPad and iRig to bring with me and my bass, so I can continue practicing and going through the class.
But I’m visiting friend who has an acoustic guitar, with an electric output. But he hasn’t bothered to get an amp yet. What is a good way for us to be able to play together?
Some practice amps I saw have 2 inputs (like an Ampeg 110) - can we both plug into the amp and play together? Or is there some other setup that would be a better, cost effective practice setup (I’m guessing some other sort of box that we’d both plug into and then plug that into the amp)?
I am imagining gifting him and his family whatever this setup is…he’s got some kids that might enjoy learning more about instruments this way. And it’d be there for me the next time I visit too. Just don’t have any idea of what a practical setup would be like.
If you talk about bass amps with an active and a passive input, in fact those two inputs are not two different inputs. it’s only one input with two plugs for two different level/impedance. but there is only one gain stage right after the inputs, so it’s not made to plug two instruments at the same time. 'hope it makes some sense.
Some amps have two distinct preamps and in this case you can plug two instruments (one on each preamp), for example the Ampeg SVT CL, and for guitar amps all the Marshall pre-JCM800, all the Vox AC30s, a lot of Fender …
One option is to buy a little mixer or switch. For example, many switch pedals can be used to take two ins and send them to one out. Some have basic level blending too. Here’s one I am looking at (for a different reason) as an example:
So you’ll be sharing the amp. Now you need an amp that will sound good for both guitars and basses. This I don’t know about. It’s possible some small practice amps would work. I think it’s actually more about the cabinet/speaker here than anything, but someone who knows more will have to say.
In college we just used our stereo amp, which was pretty beefy. Basically we ran all of our instruments into a mixer and took its outs to the stereo in, just like a club would do to its PA, out to our normal stereo speakers backed by two 1x12" cabs we made from particle board. It was not optimal but worked fine for small gigs.
I was playing keyboards at the time and I think my Ensoniq basically shredded our normal stereo speakers, though
some amps could work either for bass and guitar ; of course I think about the well-known Fender Bassman.
but you can also use an overdrive (used like a preamp) in front of a bass amp and sometimes you’ll get a nice guitar tone. one day I used an Ampeg V4B, and if I remember at this time I was playing a Fender Telecaster 50’s reissue with a russian Big Muff. it sounded freaking good.
