THE CAB:
1973 810 with CTS alnicos
THE BASS:
Pieces parts PJ with DiMarzio Model PJ's strung with Elixir rounds
THE HEADS:
1969 SVT, all NOS tubes, 6146B power tubes
2010 Micro VR
Our band opened up for two shows with The Turtles tonight at a 650 seat theater. I had to bring my SVT, so I figured I would do a shootout of these two heads. I set them both to have similar tones and volumes, and did the first show with the Micro VR and the second with the SVT. I also switched during our soundcheck a couple times.
Well, as I thought, the SVT is still king
but we were all surprised at how well the Micro VR hung in there. The last time I did a live AB, it was with the SVT and the Markbass LMII, and the band and crew told me they could all notice the difference. At the time I thought it was slight, but I noticed it, too. The LMII felt kind of compressed, almost like a hard limiter kicked in once you dug in on the strings at a certain level.
This time, not so much. It felt way less compressed than the LMII did...more responsive to digging in. There was still a little compared to the SVT, but not as much as you'd think. I'm thinking that the Micro VR has a circuit that provides a little breakup when you dig in with the gain up, which might have (surprisingly) contributed to the feeling of less compression, as the LMII is all clean all the time. I could also match tones a little closer than I could with the LMII. Really dug the Markbass for its Ampeg-copping abilities at the time, but the Micro VR surpasses it IMHO. It doesn't surpass the real thing, of course, especially mine, but I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very far off the mark at all.
I don't have any vid of me playing, but there was a clip of the Turtles doing "Elenore" an audience member shot with their bassist using my rig and bass (when he got there, he informed us that he doesn't travel with a bass, and I only brought one, so he used it...I didn't mind...he was a nice guy and a really good player). He opted out of the AB challenge, but he said he loved my crap bass I made out of cheap parts from Ebay, and thought my SVT was the best he ever played. He had my rig cranking so loud they didn't run him in the PA. I was jealous...the soundguys always yell at me to turn down, but they let him blast. Sounded really great in the building...a little less dramatic on a cam mic:
YouTube - The Turtles - Flo & Eddie - At The Villages
BTW, their guitarist used to play with John Entwistle when he'd do solo gigs. He's all over the documentary about him.
