[linux-audio-user] plugging a bass guitar in a linux box

[Paul Winkler]

On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 03:58:39PM +0200, caffeine wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> 
> I have a bass I'd like to plug in my Debian box. I know lots of people
> do it routinely with guitar, but I'm worried about the possible side
> effects on my hardware. I know that using a bass on a guitar amp would
> blow the thing off, but I don't know if it's just the guitar amp speaker
> which is not suited for such frequencies or if it's the electronic which
> suffer.

> >From what I understand, the "line in" soundcard input shouldn't have any
> problem dealing with the bass input,

if your bass is not active, you might want to use a direct box
with line-level output (might be hard to find, many are mic-level output)
to feed the soundcard line in.
Passive bass pickups might be loaded badly by the line in circuit,
and you'd get a dull, quiet sound as a result.

> but problems might arise with the
> output (ATM this would be my stereo). I don't know enough about sound
> processing to be sure my assumptions are right.

be careful with volume level going into the stereo speakers :-)
electronics should be fine though.
In the olden days (1960s) there wasn't much distinction between
amps for bass and amps for guitar, they'd just plug the same
100-watt tube amp into different speakers. Those amps are still good!
I still use a tube guitar amp for recording bass sometimes, it sounds
nice at low levels.

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com