Ampeg V-4, time for a new thread, mayhaps? Here is my sordid tale...

[Billy-Bob]

I got this out of the shop not too long ago and finally had a big enough gig to where I quit being a wuss and just hauled it out to the club. Now that I have I think I'm going to use it a lot more, even if it is heavy and a pain to lug around. V-4 really sounded good! My bro and I had re-capped it, put in some new tubes, diodes and resistors where needed and tried to get this back to spec. We also had to replace the fried PT, which almost never goes bad on these. Some goofus (way more goofus than us) had been into it earlier and really did some weird things (like pulling out a resistor here and there and jumping the missing part on the board). We never could get this working quite right (in addition, it was kinda hard hooking up the Fliptops cap kit when no instructions were provided--I'm sure we crossed a wire somewhere. Next time I'd use single cans). I finally gave up & took it to the local expert, who really got this working correctly for a bill. Of course it sounds way better than it ever did when I first bought it (with the tired caps and almost fried power transformer that the previous owner forgot to mention). The V-4 really works well with this 1510 cab. Now if this refurbished boat anchor lasts like an Ampeg should, I will be super happy





OK, now take your best crack at me for being marginally qualified to try and work on this. And no, I didn't kill myself--or my brother (and yes, there is a ton of voltage running around in there, for sure!).


http://www.talkbass.com/forum/attach...1&d=1270004190

Billy-Bob

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Billy-Bob

OK, now take your best crack at me for being marginally qualified to try and work on this. And no, I didn't kill myself--or my brother (and yes, there is a ton of voltage running around in there, for sure!).

hey, you're alive. that counts for something

reminds me of the sign at my guitar repair guy's shop:

Labor Rates:

$40 per hr.
$50 per hour if you want to watch.
$60 per hour if you want to watch and talk.
$80 per hour if you worked on it yourself.

[Billy-Bob]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

hey, you're alive. that counts for something

reminds me of the sign at my guitar repair guy's shop:

Labor Rates:

$40 per hr.
$50 per hour if you want to watch.
$60 per hour if you want to watch and talk.
$80 per hour if you worked on it yourself.

Yup, we coulda went out in blaze of sparks and glory...fortunately we didn't screw up much more than a crossed wire or two, and fixed a lot of what that shop sign was referring to. If the new caps would have been more intuitive to wire or a direct replacement, we would have been in good shape. We gave it our best shot, but came up short... I did score a really cool old variac (which I would have never thought about otherwise) to power this up after we re-capped it to see where we were at. We were down about 45-50 volts coming out of the inverter and never could find why--had to be the way we wired the caps. I learned a lot, didn't fry my amp or myself, so it was a good (but semi-frustrating) experience.

JimmyM, tell me what tone settings you like on yours--I want to make sure I'm getting the most I can out of this amp. I sure like the Ampeg sound and punch it puts out.


Billy-Bob

[johnk_10]

great that you got it running. V4's are one of my favorite amps. if it was repaired properly, it should go another 30 years. if you do end up having any problems with it, you can always contact me and i can help you with it.

have fun!

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Billy-Bob

JimmyM, tell me what tone settings you like on yours--I want to make sure I'm getting the most I can out of this amp. I sure like the Ampeg sound and punch it puts out.

dude, it's been so long since i owned a v4b that i can't even remember how i used to run it.

[Billy-Bob]

Thanks for the offer, JohnK, I will drop you a note if I have any further misadventures.

JimmyM, maybe an inadvertant cap drain will jolt that memory I thought you had one of everything Ampeg!

Rock on!

Billy-Bob

[JimmyM]

hardly! i've got an svt and a 64 b-15. used to own a v4b but it got burned up in a bar fire in the late 80's.

[coreyfyfe]

Originally Posted by Billy-Bob

JimmyM, maybe an inadvertant cap drain will jolt that memory I thought you had one of everything Ampeg!

That's JohnK.

I have a V4, not a V4B, but my typical settings are as follows, running through a 72 Ampeg 8x10:

Jazz bass - Treble noon (treble boost off), Mids 1-2ish (selector on 1K), Bass 2-2:30ish.

P bass - Treble 1-2ish (boost off), Mids 2:30ish (selector on 1K), and bass around 1.

Gibson G3 - pretty much the P settings but with more bass.

Those settings give me about the same amount of punch and clarity from the two basses. I've always been a jazz bass kind of guy, but since I picked up my A-necked P I've been playing that for the most part. Although, my eq settings with the P are pretty much me trying to get the same/similar type of sound I get with my jazz....

[Destructobot]

I have a V2 and totally love it. Great bass amp, INCREDIBLE guitar amp. Right now I'm running bass through the V2 into an 8x10 with the amp dialed for quite a bit of overdrive, then a Traynor monoblock with a 2x15 set clean to augment the low end. Together it's pounding with tons of grind and texture.

[anonymous02282011]

Originally Posted by Billy-Bob

JimmyM, tell me what tone settings you like on yours--I want to make sure I'm getting the most I can out of this amp. I sure like the Ampeg sound and punch it puts out.


Billy-Bob

I like to boost around 3K on my V4B of similar vintage. Bass knob at noon and treble I keep around 3 or 4 o'clock with the HI/Ultra switch above it bumped up.

I do that on my SVT too.

[MAMMOTHvolume]

woah glad this got to a tech eventually sounds like you were doing ALOT of unnecessary work and got very lucky with not blowing the amp up.

[Billy-Bob]

Originally Posted by coreyfyfe

That's JohnK.

I have a V4, not a V4B, but my typical settings are as follows, running through a 72 Ampeg 8x10:

Jazz bass - Treble noon (treble boost off), Mids 1-2ish (selector on 1K), Bass 2-2:30ish.

P bass - Treble 1-2ish (boost off), Mids 2:30ish (selector on 1K), and bass around 1.

Those settings give me about the same amount of punch and clarity from the two basses. I've always been a jazz bass kind of guy, but since I picked up my A-necked P I've been playing that for the most part. Although, my eq settings with the P are pretty much me trying to get the same/similar type of sound I get with my jazz....

Thanks for your insight. I'm close to your jazz settings as my usual settings for everything including a P-bass, but I'll try your P-bass tweaks as well.

Billy-Bob

[Billy-Bob]

Originally Posted by MAMMOTHvolume

woah glad this got to a tech eventually sounds like you were doing ALOT of unnecessary work and got very lucky with not blowing the amp up.

Maybe. My brother has a lot of electronics experience so we wanted to give it a go before taking to the shop without opening the V-4 up and taking a look. The caps were original and were way overdue for replacement. Since they don't make multi-caps like that anymore, it wasn't very straight forward, at least with the Fliptops kit. Other than that, we tried to get this back to the original specs as per the schematics. I replaced some of the diodes (in the rectifier, I think--it has been awhile) per a tip I got from a bass player who had done that mod and liked it. Whether that was worthwhile, who knows, but it didn't hurt anything. At any rate, we learned a lot, lived to tell about it, and didn't knock out the power to everyone within a six county radius when we fired this up (with a Variac so we wouldn't melt anything too expensive), so it was all good. Next time things will go much easier from what was learned on this one.

Billy-Bob

[johnk_10]

Originally Posted by Billy-Bob

The caps were original and were way overdue for replacement. Since they don't make multi-caps like that anymore, it wasn't very straight forward, at least with the Fliptops kit.
Billy-Bob

hmmm? they do still make multicaps, and they're made on the original equipment. and replacing them is a very simple procedure. anyway glad you got it running.

i used the new CDE multicaps in all of my vintage ampegs in the pic below, and they work great:

[Billy-Bob]

Originally Posted by johnk_10

hmmm? they do still make multicaps, and they're made on the original equipment. and replacing them is a very simple procedure. anyway glad you got it running.

i used the new CDE multicaps in all of my vintage ampegs in the pic below, and they work great

JohnK that is an awe inspiring collection!

Simple? That is exactly what I needed Where do you source your multicaps? I could not find similar value caps at any of the big electronics places, nor could I find any info on Ampeg related web pages for direct replacements...which is how I wound up at Fliptops. I still don't understand how those work, but they do if you can figure out the wiring.

Thanks,

Billy-Bob