SVT-VR: Flast EQ???

[alfredpunkjazz]

What do you guys think, how to get a flat EQ on an SVT?

I really feel its EQ is no flat at all..

[Tim1]

Not sure what you really mean here. if you want "flat" you may have the wrong amp. For me the VR is the best plug and play amp I have come across, but does have the sound built into it that I want. There are some sample settings with the manual. FWIW I normally have the mid switch far left with the knob at one o'clock and the bass switch in the middle and the knob about two o'clock (from memory, amp is not here at the moment).

[alfredpunkjazz]

Of course I know the SVT sound is nowhere near as flat sond as, let us say, a neve strip preamp... hehehehe, I know that, what I want to know is which position would be the closest to a flat eq on a classic SVT amp?

I am having this weird interaction between myself and the middle knob...

[alfredpunkjazz]

anyone?

[benmoore88]

i set my VR eq all to the 12 oclock position and think it sounds pretty awesome?
i'm not sure a SVT is every going to sound 'flat' how you want it to.

[JimmyM]

Sure it will sound near flat, if my LMII (which IS near flat) is any indication.

Bass 11:00, treble 2:00, mids 3:00 @ 800, all rockers off. That's how I matched tones with the LMII in my SVT. Now as the volume gets louder, the mids get a little boosted so you might want to back off it. Also, there might be slight differences in models (mine's a 69 with 6146B power tubes) but it seems to work about the same in all of them, give or take a click.

[alfredpunkjazz]

I tend to eq' it like this: Bass 11:00, treble 11:00, mids 8:30 @ 220Hz...

I know what everyone says about mids being the secret weapon to cut trough the mix, but I go agains 2 guitar players with small combo amps (fender deluxe and bugera 25 watt amp), a heavy handed drumm player, one synth and two vocals (my god, my band is an orchestra!), so I tend to roll off some of the mids to the point where I have more bass and some treble to back it up, but I definitely feel a lack ofupper mids to cut trough the mix. I sometimes wish it had a 4 band EQ (Bass, Mid Bass, Mid High, and Treble), if you know what I mean, but I will give a try with the 800 HZ band.

[alfredpunkjazz]

Bump.

[mikepaulhamus]

I set my bass to 12:00, the reason this thing has a natural low end to it because of the 6550's, the treble at 1-2 :00 and mid selector at 800 htz and midrange knob at 10-11:00 this I found sounds the best for vr's with fender jazz basses, keep in mind the speaker deterime the outcom of the midrange and bass, I use 2 ev evm 15L's so it has low end already and great bump in mids from 400-800 so I cut those 2 frequencys a little, the high I boost slightly because the response of the 15's is about 5 k maxed, strings and pickups also change things, I used d"addario nickles and fralins for my fender jazz

[nysbob]

I play mine through a pair of JBL K145 15"s and I generally set all rockers centered, treble at 1:00 - 1 :30, bass at 1:00 and mid 1:30 - 2:00 - with a fender P/J bass.

[MrChrizmo]

Nobody seems to mention the switches for Ultra Low, Ultra High Boost and Mid-Freq-Boost above the knobs on Channel 1.

Channel 2 only has High and Low Boost I think (don't play channel two very often).

I find that those switches have the most immediate response on tone, so for flat setting I would guess... Ultra High off, Ultra Low off, then select which mids you want to boost and adjust the Mid knob.

Most of the time I have the knobs on Ch1 at 12 for Bass, 12 for Treble and about 9 for mids and leave it that way.

When I jam with our drummer alone I take out the Low Boost and put in the High boost, with the band vice versa.

Maybe I'm completely off here since nobody mentioned the switches ?

Edit: I'm sorry, Tim1 and Mikepaulhamus mentioned the Switches, can't read in the morning it seems

[rodl2005]

When I use a VR-switches off, 11,1 & 11 bass, mid, treble-with an Ampeg 810.
Depends a lot on yr cab/s
With my NV412 about the same, perhaps a li'l more on the bass knob.
With my 2x115's- 12,2,1.

[Steve Dallman]

In theory, the bass and treble are Baxandall types, and straight up should be "flat." The mid range is also boost and cut (frequency switch changes the frequency the mid control changes) and straight up should be flat. Straight up, the frequency switch should make no difference. Ultra lo cuts mids, so that should be off. The bright switch is like on a Fender combo amp, so keep off. Lo cut off. You are left with the sonic effects of the coupling caps (which can roll off low end), cathode bypass caps (which boost certain frequencies), the tonal effects of different tubes and the output transformer. The SVT was never meant to be "flat" and with the matching 8X10, is not designed to reproduce the fundamental of a low "E". Ampegs do have a "signature" tone. With an SVT the rather aggressive, inductor based, active midrange is a major part of it's tone. "Flat" is not very relevant with musical instrument amps. Rooms are not flat. Every amp has a characteristic tone and that contributes to the sound of modern music we all know and love. The closest you can get to "flat" with say a Fender Twin Reverb is with the bass and treble at 0, and the midrange cranked. Who wants a Twin to sound like that? My GK set "flat" sounds different than my Ampeg set "flat". Speakers aren't flat...rooms are not flat. Instruments aren't flat.

[dincz]

Set for a sound you like and forget about the shape of the frequency response graph.

[Alex1984]

Instead of hunting around for flat, I normally just start with all knobs at noon, and end up with a slight boost in mids and treble with a small cut in the bass.