Bass Amp Toast

[Evil-Smurf]

Hello everyone.
I am new to all this and very excited so sorry if I am asking the wrong things. I am willing to learn. This looks like a great community and have questions about everything right now since I am total beginner if anyone can help and correct me everywhere you can please do.
I am going to play bass with friends stoner band. I have some pretty simple Ibanez at drop C that is not active. The sound I was hoping to get suppose to be very low loud and absolutely not clean but still recognizable.
I have looked around this forum and some other places that have plenty of info and gave me a lot to think about. I most definitely willing to experiment but I guess i need to start somewhere.
So I thought perhaps I need a preamp pedal for better sound, (something like the one on this site: http://www.albertkreuzer.com/preamp_onboard.htm ) and then something to make the sound dirty like the big muff that some reccomended (found this: http://www.fredric.co.uk/blog/99-green-russian-big-muff,-only-smaller ). I guess that with all the information available at the beginners section I will be able to pull it off.
The thing that scares me the most is that I will somehow damage the amplifier head/speakers that I am going to use in the rehearsals. Is there any chance of that happening and is there any way to avoid that besides the basics (clean, bypass, lower volume checks). After thinking about all this and looking for some other stuff i read that there is a pedal called limiter... should i build that too or it doesnt matter?
Im open for suggestions any any help will be very appreciated!
Thanks

[bool]

For the bass-guitar part, I think it's time to start looking around for an (also Ibanez) ATK300 - or 305, but don't hurry too much, haha. The "paul gray" ATK signature model is already made for low tunings, so if you happen to find one, go for it ...

But, for the start, I would skip the kreuzer preamp and concentrate on the fuzz - or some other distortion if you change your mind.

I would also look at the ordinary fuzz-face circuit, but "flipped" for npn-silicon transistors (negative ground), with 2n2222's, and changed/increased caps for more bass troughput, esp. the output cap.

If you play through a fuzz or distortion circuit, it already limits your signal dynamics, so for the start, I would skip the limiter as well.

[Evil-Smurf]

Sweet! Thanks!
Thanks for the advise on the bass ill check it out.
I will try first building the fuzz then as you suggested and try to look up the fuzz-face too.
Should I worry about the amp/speakers or as long as the fuzz limits itself there shouldn't be any trouble?
Can you explain a bit more in depth why should i avoid the preamp? In which case would I need a limiter?

[ashcat_lt]

You cant possibly hurt the amplifier circuit itself with anything running off a 9V battery (or equivalent supply).  The output of the pedal cant be bigger than its power supply, and 9V won't make a decently designed amplifier explode.  It will, however, distort at some point.  Depending on the amp itself this distortion may not give the sound you're looking for.  Most bass amps are built to run clean, and when you do run them out of headroom it can be pretty nasty.

As long as the speakers are reasonably well matched to the amp you mostly wont have to worry about them either.  The power amp section can only kick out so much power.  As long as the speaker can handle that wattage there's no problem.  Even if they are a little under speced you will generally hear the speaker struggling before it actually takes irreperable damage.  But...

If the amplifier is, in fact, meant to run clean and flat, and you push it to clip itself - especially if you clip the power amp section - it'll end up putting square waves through the speaker.  Square waves look like little pulses of DC, squared bass frequencies are pretty long stretches of steady state voltage alternating from low to high and back, and DC kills speakers quick.  The cone will try to keep moving in one direction for as long as the voltage remains steady until it physically can't.  Worse, though, is that the DC ends up arcing across the voice coil and burning the sucker out.

That said, you shouldn't really have anything to worry about.

[Evil-Smurf]

thank you very much for the info. now i feel more comfortable with experimenting. hope i will not get too much of those square waves. i didnt quite understand the clip part or what it means and i repeat reading about the dc part but still dont get it  . I gueass i still have a lot to learn. thanks!