can you play any guitar in an amp?

Question

I know you physically CAN play any type of guitar in an amp, for example gibson guitar/fender amp...but my question is, will if affect the sound? Does it even matter?

Answer 1

1. some guitars are set up for amps. Some aren't. Some guitars have a pre-amp built in, as well as equalization. Some just have a pickup. There are many different types of pickups:

Coil - the type of pickup you see on electric guitars.
Transducer - usually placed underneath the bridge of an acoustic electric guitar
Condenser type mike - Not a pickup at all, but a microphone that usually includes some feedback canceling protection
Piezo-electric
etc.

Where you place the pickup affects the sound as well. some guitars use a combination of pickups, multiple pickups, or even a combination of a pickup and an internal microphone to mix the sound.

the type of signal you feed into the amp matters. You want the most signal with the least amount of noise you can get. You have to decide whether you want the sound of the string, or the sound of the guitar. You also have to decide whether you want to feed the raw or processed sound into the amplifier.

The amplifier is the next stage in the equation. You have so many options that I can't begin to get into them here, but here are a few. Warm analog tube sound, precise controlled transistor sound, digital effects, springs capacitors and old fashioned analog effects. Straight signal, processed signal, pre-amped signal, so many choices that you just have to try a few and make your own call. The last step is the speaker. Sometimes that choice is included with the amp, and sometimes you are running through a public address system, or are running through a "head," which is an amplifier that does not contain a speaker. In that case, you can get a cabinet, seperate woofer, tweeter and midrange (even on stage) or a "Bose type system that has baffles inside the cabinet to process the sound and make it sound fuller and more three dimensional.

If the guitar has no pickup in it, you can have one installed, put in a detachable pickup, or just mike the guitar. If you mike the guitar, you have to be prepared for feedback issues. Sometimes it can be solved by plugging up the sound hole,

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/TaylorSwift4.jpg

and sometimes you can solve the problem by using special mikes and filters. It is an issue that you definitely want to think about in advance however.

I hope that this addresses most of your questions and gives you a direction to go in to find the solution to the rest of them. I use an Ovation Adamas with special holes cut into the upper bout of the guitar instead of under the strings. It has a three band EQ and preamp that is powered by a 9 volt battery.

http://www.adamasguitars.com/#

I also use an old Yamaha FG-75 that has a transducer placed under the bridge, with the plug built into the endpin. It has no preamp, so I have to process the signal when I amplify it. It's an old friend, and spent many years on my back, so it deserves a place at my side as long as I'm around. My kids are already fighting over it. I round it all out with an East German Classical nylon string, a Gibson ES335 (jet black) and several house guitars for my various experiments (five string guitar tuned in fifths, etc.)

I use a Yamaha CG 40 and CG101 at school, along with a Yamaha strat copy and a Les Paul copy that Best Buy was selling for $99 bucks during a back to Christmas sale. It's an inexpensive guitar and I wish I could replace the bridge, but I haven't gotten around to it. My students like it though, and it gives us something to demonstrate with.

Answer 2

Any type of guitar may be connected to an amp. The point of an amplifier is to increase the volume of sound coming from a guitar. Notice if you dont plug an electric guitar into an amp its very quiet. It doesnt have a hollow body for resonance the way an accoustic does. Now if you plug an accoustic into an amp you get the hear the sounds of the guitar more fully. An electric guitar is going to have more feed back if it gets too close to the amp than an accoustic but it also has a better sound. You can get all those cool sounds by using the amp in connection with the electric guitar. With an accoustic you will still get some feed back but other than that you will just get the sounds of the guitar. There arent as many fancy things you can do with an accoustic.

Answer 3

You CAN NOT hurt a bass amp by playin' a guitar thru it..(you CAN damage a guitar amp by playin' a bass thru it, tho - hard on the speakers and input section of the preamp) However, a bass amp is not designed to express the higher frequencies that an electric guitar puts out, therefore you will lose much of the high end.........the audience won't hear what the guitar was designed to sound like. But if you only have a bass amp, or can't afford a guitar amp.....the bass amp should do the trick. I've done it.

Answer 4

As long as it's electric and has a plug on it why not give it a try, your not going to blowup anything by trying, your not going to know about the sound unless you try it. Some amps may say "to be used with ****** only, " but I doubt it will permanently affect the sound, it may sound awful if the amps too little for the sound that you want, so play around until you get the sound that your looking for, your not going to hurt anything. I don't use an amp, I play classical guitar, and when I play acoustic I don't like an amp. But I grew up with them, my Father was always plugging in some kind of guitar into his amps. Have you used Seymour Duncan's pickups, now that will give your guitar a nice sound, that's my nephew, and he's worked with amps and guitars etc since he was a kid.

Answer 5

Different guitars will sound different in the same amp, and vice versa. The type of wood the guitar is made of will effect the tone as well as the type of hardware i.e. plated, brass, or gold bridge and nut, and the type of pickups.
Different amps will effect the sound of the same guitar. There are solid state amps and value or tube amps. Even the type of speakers or speaker combinations will vary the sound of the same amp.
Go to this page http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/ampbasic.htm and look at the third chart down, the graph with the black background, the blue line that says Marshall, and the green line that says Fender. The chart shows the response of both a Marshall amp, and a Fender amp at the same settings i.e. Bass at 3, Mid. at 4, and Treble at 6. Using the same guitar playing the same note.
As a line goes up the sound gets louder, as a line goes down it gets quieter. Going from left to right represents the frequency of the note produced on the guitar. 10Hz. To 100Hz is bass, from 100Hz. To 1000Hz. is mid., from 1000Hz. to 10,000Hz. Is treble. Note that in the mid. range (which is where the human ear can hear the most sounds) the Fender amp has a significant drop in volume compared to the Marshall amp that provides a considerable amount of volume in that same range. So, you can see how different amps can effect the sound of the same guitar.

Review some of the other content listed on the top of the page. It will help you to understand the workings of an amplifier, how they effect the sound of a guitar, and will help you in choosing an amp that will give you the sound you are looking for.

Answer 6

There are some great answers here, but the only suggestion I might throw in is consider the type of guitar associated with its amplifier. If you play an acoustic in whatever form of pickup apparatus possible, always use an acoustic amplifier. Among the top brands is the Fender Acoustisonic amp that gives the warm, but strong projection in either a natural tone or with string dynamics of reverberation, echo, and other ear-candy switchings.

For solid body or hollow-body electric guitars simply use an amplifier that is intended for the electric guitar.

Answer 7

Yes it will affect the sound. No is doesn't matter in the least.