Acoustic guitar...into an electric guitar amp?

It works fine. Can't possibly harm your amp. Keep the gain down if you want it to sound "acoustic."

I plug my acoustic into an electric amp all the time. You may need to adjust your settings a bit -- especially if your acoustic is an electric-acoustic with tone and volume controls. The sound is never as clean as it is through an acoustic amp (I think because the guitar's pre-amp overloads the circuits a bit and causes some distortion), but it will work fine. I don't think you need to worry about damaging the amp or speakers at all.

Or you could try what I did a while back.....playing the acoustic through an amp with distortion. I wasn't very good at guitar back then, and what I wanted was the same riff played on electric and acoustic. So I plugged the acoustic in and cranked the gain up, with the volume fairly low, and put the recording mic half way between the amp and the soundhole of the acoustic. Hey presto - one track, two guitars, one acoustic, one dirty both playing exactly the same riff!

:D :D :D

Vic

Of course, something I recently bought off a Musicians Friend Stupid Deal of the Day was a magnetic soundhole pickup that when I get around to installing it on my old Washburn dreadnought will be played through an electric amp with more or less distortion. Worked for Elmore James.

I find a bass amp sounds really nice with an acoustic plugged in.

Might be the other way.... I can plug my acoustic into my neoghbour's amp without any problems but I have a Crate acoustic amp that states in the manual (yes I actually did read it) that an electric guitar should not be plugged into it.

it's built the same way, there shouldn't be a problem unless there is one specific to your guitar or amp.

I don't think you can hurt an acoustic amp with an electric guitar per se, but if you overdrive an acoustic amp you'll smoke the tweeter(s). Clipping produces increased higher harmonic content that gets routed by the crossover to the tweeter, overloading it while the total power's still well under what the speaker system as a whole is rated for. I've seen that happen with a small stereo cranked at a dance party, blowing the tweeter in a speaker rated for several times the amp's output. If you play an electric through an acoustic amp (which I've done without problems), you have to play it clean & low gain. No pedals that boost or distort the signal.

The speaker in a typical electric guitar amp can add a fair amount of coloration to the tone, often a midrange bump, sometimes not very tight bass response (also a factor with the open-back design of most guitar amps.)

If you don't want to deal with that, then an acoustic amp or a PA monitor might be a better choice, though you can probably use EQ to offset. Or use an amp like the Roland Jazz Chorus, or Fender Princeton Chorus, both of which have relatively flat, clean (some say sterile) sounds.

I run my acoustic through my DIY tube amp all the time, and it sounds great but I do find cutting the mids helps.

I don't think you can hurt an acoustic amp with an electric guitar per se, but if you overdrive an acoustic amp you'll smoke the tweeter(s). Clipping produces increased higher harmonic content that gets routed by the crossover to the tweeter, overloading it while the total power's still well under what the speaker system as a whole is rated for. I've seen that happen with a small stereo cranked at a dance party, blowing the tweeter in a speaker rated for several times the amp's output. If you play an electric through an acoustic amp (which I've done without problems), you have to play it clean & low gain. No pedals that boost or distort the signal.

+1

And a distortion pedal will make blowing the tweeter in an acoustic amp all the more likely.

On an acoustic guitar into an electric amp: My Taylor T5 (a hybrid, hollowbody electric: two active, stacked humbuckers and one magnetic body sensor similar to Taylor Expresson system pups) blows the snot out of by Blues Junior if I am not careful. The strumming and picking transients (attacks) radically overload the input and cause a nasty horrible clipping. I have to keep the T5 volume turned down. This doesn't happen with any of my Roland amps. Never tried it with my Peavey Classic 50 (tube), but expect it might do the same. In addition to having active electronics, the T5 a very lively guitar with lots of hamonic content. I assume these features/characterics have something to do with it.

Do it all the time. I play thru my Marshall with my acoustic. Its velvety smooth. Not samne as acoustic amp, but so what.