Beginner's Bass Amp Recommendations?

Beexter

My son is looking to learn the bass. Any recommendations for a small bass amp that is suitable for home use to get him started with? I'm not looking to spend a fortune in case he loses interest within a fortnight but equally don't want something so awful it puts him off. Quite happy to look at used.

As an aside,  I've got a Yamaha THR10 at home, has anyone run a bass through one of them with any success?

Bridgehouse

Preamp DI pedal with headphones out and Aux in so he can play along to tunes - some decent headphones and he’ll love it

bandmaster188

Beexter said:

As an aside,  I've got a Yamaha THR10 at home, has anyone run a bass through one of them with any success?

I use my thr10 for bass more than I do guitar now. Sounds absolutely fine. I set up a sound in the editing software to fine tune things and add a splash of reverb too. 
Never like how the guitar sounds through headphones on the thr but bass seems to work much better.

GuyR

The main requirement is a decent bass, well set up to play easily, which I guess you have sorted.

Using your amp would be fine to kick off, then maybe a used Fender Rumble 15, which can be bought used on ebay for around £40-50. Used Ashdowns in the same price range are also good.

Headphones through a Zoom B1 or similar is also worth considering as there are built in drum patterns and he won't feel self conscious about making a dreadful noise to start with (Or he may be at the age where that is appealing!!)

fretmeister

A used Roland Bass Cube 30

A superb amp and also useful on guitar with the bassman setting.

I have a silly money Darkglass + Barefaced rig and yet I often still use the Roland. It's a great amp. They come up used dirt cheap  almost always under £100, but sometimes sell even cheaper.

There's one on ebay with a starting price of £50

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Roland-Cube-30-Bass-Guitar-Amp/163567784314?epid=5024600815&hash=item261566517a:g:mpcAAOSwbh9cdcW2:rk:3:pf:1&frcectupt=true

Kebabkid

The Roland Cubes are good as they have fx, a looper and he can have some fun with that but as a straightforward, bloody good-sounding low wattage bass amp, the Fender Rumble 25W is great! Tried one recently and it's made me look at their bigger wattage ones for gigging.

Beexter

Thanks for all the suggestions, much appappreciated. 

deano

If you are looking for a heaphone solution, if you download the free version of Amplitube, it comes with a solid-state bass amp as standard, as well as a couple of bass amps.

I'm not sure if there is a free VST host, but Reaper comes close and there are quite a few free bass-amp VST that can be downloaded.

For both of those solutions though you will need an audio interface but you can pick up cheap ones on Amazon that will work well.

I got my first bass at Christmas and those are the solutions I use (as well as Jamup pro through an iRig Pro on my iPad, but I already had that for guitar anyway, and just paid £10 for the bass expansion pack).

thermionic

I find playing bass MUCH more satisfying through a real amp than any number of modellers (which are better for recording). Even a 25W, 8” speaker thing. Fender, Ampeg and Orange make nice small amps like that for around £100, which is a bargain imho. You’re more likely to find a Fender Rumble on the used market I’d guess.