LMIII through an SVT 810

[Russell L]

Holy schmokas, what a sound!! I finally did it last night at practice. Actually, practice was called off, but I went anyway just to mess around with my bud. We jammed a bit, talked a bit, and then I went out to the truck and got my new Little Mark III head. The SVT cab is an old one from around 1969, or so, I think. Anyway, it's 4 ohms, so I put 500w of clean A/B digital power through it with the LMIII. It really sounded good, and I could dial in a sound that was very much like the old V4 head sitting on top of it, that I had been playing just minutes before. The LMIII head does have a warm sound just like what I hear everyone saying. This is the first time, though, that I've played it through anything other than my Markbass 151P cab or my old Trace Elliot 115 (briefly).

With everything set flat, no filters, it had the sound I've become familiar with, that Markbass sound. But, with some tweaking I was able to get a pretty good rendition of the Ampeg sound, I thought (I mean, I was already half-way there using the SVT anyway). When I got through playing my bass through it all, my bud, who owns the SVT and V4, played some bass while I played with the knobs. After a bit I rehooked the SVT to the V4 for a comparison. I tried to eq the V4 to as nearly the same tone that was coming out of the LMIII. Couldn't get it quite as bright, for that particular sound, but close enough. What I found is that the two sounded nearly identical, the V4 being just a tad warmer. I attribute that to the tubes, I guess. I could hear a slight difference in texture, but it wasn't like night and day. My bud was astonished at the sound of the LMIII. I was, too, but I'm used to its sound, but was moreso pleased at what a big sound it had using the 810s. We turned it up, too, and began to rattle the rafters. We could get either amp about as loud as the other. The speakers never complained.

Anyway, just wanted to share the experience and say that the Markbass/Ampeg combination was a huge success. As good as it sounded, though, I'm still pleased enough with my lightweight Markbass rig, usually gigging right now with the LMIII and the single 151P cab (soon to be two 151Ps), considering how mobile it is. But, man o man, what a sound we had last night. Big fun, ya'll.

Thanks for readin'.

[RickC]

Can you describe how you had the knobs set on the LMIII to get close to the Ampeg?

/rick

[Russell L]

Originally Posted by RickC

Can you describe how you had the knobs set on the LMIII to get close to the Ampeg?

/rick

Dear me, dunno if I can remember exactly, but seems I had to go from everything at noon (with no filters on) to cutting the high mids a bit and boosting the lows just a tad. That, or setting the VLE around noon and turning the VPF up to maybe 10:00. Dunno how accurate that is. We played around so much it's hard to remember. But, at some point I remember looking at my bud with eyebrows raised and commenting that it almost sounded like it did with the V4. And, also, like I said, the tone was dead clean and didn't have that particular edge to it that the tubes in the V4 had. The last test when I said it sounded like the V4 was when my bud was slapping. I tried to emulate that sound that the LMIII had when I switched it back to the V4. It really sounded similar except for the tube warmth. Speaking of which, the warmth and grind of the tubes didn't sound as different as I expected, or so it seemed at that time. I'm gonna try it again maybe next week and see what other differences there are.

Of course, my goal was not to see how similar in sound the two heads were. I just wanted to hear my LMIII through that cab. The fact that I was as pleased with one head's sound as much as the other says a lot to me, though.