Poll of the Day > Musician Question: Can you plug one combo amp into a larger combo amp?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been trying to research this for a couple days, but everything I see isn't quite what I'm looking for. In short, when I play bass live I've been running through a Fender Rumble 75W and it sounds pretty cool. However when I record I've been running through a small Yamaha THR-10X guitar amp which gives me a lot of great tone (mostly slight distortion, gives SORT OF a Geddy Lee-ish bass growl).

I thought it'd be cool if I could plug my bass into the Yamaha for the tone, then plug that directly into the Rumble for the volume boost. But lots of things I've read have shitloads of warnings saying you could blow one or both of your amps out if you mess around and put stuff in the wrong holes (a lesson that carries over in other aspects of life!) I tried looking up "Can you use a combo amp as a head for another combo amp" and I'd mostly come up with tutorials on how on other things that are similar but not the same.

It's sorta' embarrassing but I've actually been playing bass for more than 30 years and have never messed with the effects loop (send / return) of these things, so MAYBE that's how you'd do it?

Here's a diagram of what I want to do, using pictures of the exact gear I want to try it with.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/0/0/AALeh_AADIJY.jpg

Try posting this on the rock and metal music boards.

In short: yes, you can.

The impedance may not match and you would get a pretty poor signal.

Also - you would have amplification on two parts of your system, and if you put the big amp first, you could blow out the second one. You also run into having to adjust the volume at two places until you get a sound you are looking for.

My personal opinion: at this stage of the game, invest in a signal modeler like a Line 6 system. Then just buy a clean amp or sound system to run it through. Most guitar amplifiers are pretty worthless in a live system unless you are running a classic tube system anyway. Really the only thing you have to worry about when playing live is monitoring - which is best done with in-ear monitors IMO.

One suggestion I saw was running them both using an AB/Y box, where the smaller Yamaha with the distortion was EQ'd high and the Fender was cleaner yet EQ'd low.

It's an interesting idea. As I say though I've been playing forever I've always just used the generic Bass -> cord -> combo amp this whole time. I HAD a great 300W Fender amp from way back but unfortunately it was stolen, so I've been trying to make up for it a bit with this stuff.

EDIT: Here's the one, a BXR300. I loved this thing- the first amp I owned that had wheels on it, as all my older crap weighed a ton and we were always lugging them up and down stairs at shows lol

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/5/AALeh_AADILp.jpg

Bass is a tough call.

If you are playing with a good sound system, an amp modeler will sound great. But many times with smaller systems you get stuck with tiny woofers that won't give clear bass sound.

You also don't want to lug a huge cabinet around.