There are certain amps that have been designed to be both guitar and bass amps and there are others that were originally meant to be used on bass but then got very popular as guitar amps.

The early tube amp designs by Marshall and Fender are great examples of this. The Fender Bassman being the obvious one. Designed as a bass amp, then used and loved by countless guitarists.

Basically these are just very good tube amps with a lot of headroom and power that can be used to amplify any instrument. They won't explode if you plug in a guitar instead of a bass.

The thing with some of these is, though, that they have really cool unique distortion characteristics when cranked. Also, they can take pedals very well and they have the headroom to reproduce a really massive, clean low end at high volumes.

The Ampeg V4-B has made it into many of my productions and mixes. On guitars.

To me the Ampeg Amps have that special something and while the original Ampeg V4 is a great guitar amp (and was designed as one), I especially love the V4-B on guitars, which is a bass amp. It has a 100 Watts power amp, which is fairly low for a bass amp but makes it awesome on guitar, as you can actually and drive it. It has an insanely cool midrange character and if you've ever cranked the input and the midrange knob on one of these to the max, you know what I mean. Magic.

An unpopular opinion

I know that many purists dislike the reissues like the current V4-B, but I honestly really love it just as much and have used it over and over again. On bass and guitar. Even for super high gain stuff. You'll be surprised by the amount of distortion you can get out of it and as I said, it takes pedals like a champ.

And now to say something even less popular:

The plugin version is awesome, too. There you go, I said it. I'd say try the Plugin Alliance V4-B on your DIs, maybe blend it with another amp, play around with it for a while and if you enjoy it, try the real thing and see if it's worth getting it.

Thank me later.

-Benedikt

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