Tube care, and distortion effects on amps..

[Kaspergreenday]

I am now the happy owner of an 2 year old used Ampeg Classic SVT Head and an 810E 8x10 cab.

Its my first tube amp, and since i used practicly all my money on it, i want to be carefull with it. Ive read alot about how you should treat your tube amp, (standby, ohms, temperature, speakers, and so on..) but i still have some questions regarding tube care.

Will i hurt the head or cab if i use distortion effects (mainly distortion effects that are meant for guitars) on my bass?

Will i hurt the amp if i turn the gain knob on 10, to get a nice chris squire-ish sound while playing?

Are their any other advice that NOOBS like me typically will forget to take in mind while using/taking care of tubes?

Thanks in advance, hope this is not to similar to other posts, but couldnt find any!

-Kasper

[Mr. Foxen]

The only harm distortion effects can do is by covering up the sound or something else distorting that shouldn't be, like your speakers. The classic is the Big Muff, its inherent mid scoop makes stuff sound quieter, so bump the level loads, loads of low end boost, pushes stuff a bit hard. Not really an issue with this stuff though.

[Mr. Foxen]

Oh, and major thing for tube care is maintenance, if something sounds a bit wrong or you lose some volume, find and fix why, rather than ignoring and turning up.

[Kaspergreenday]

Ok, thanks for the tips I hope my untrained tube ear will hear if something is wrong

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by Kaspergreenday

I am now the happy owner of an 2 year old used Ampeg Classic SVT Head and an 810E 8x10 cab.

Its my first tube amp, and since i used practicly all my money on it, i want to be carefull with it. Ive read alot about how you should treat your tube amp, (standby, ohms, temperature, speakers, and so on..) but i still have some questions regarding tube care.

(1) Will i hurt the head or cab if i use distortion effects (mainly distortion effects that are meant for guitars) on my bass?

(2) Will i hurt the amp if i turn the gain knob on 10, to get a nice chris squire-ish sound while playing?

(3) Are their any other advice that NOOBS like me typically will forget to take in mind while using/taking care of tubes?

Thanks in advance, hope this is not to similar to other posts, but couldnt find any!

-Kasper

1. No.

2. No but you will burn the preamp tube out quicker. But big deal...12AX7's are cheap and plentiful.

3. I think Foxen had you covered. I'd only add this...don't fall for the "regular tube changeout" gimmick. Change tubes only when they're bad, and only change the ones that are bad. The idea that you should regularly change all your tubes was started by former head of Groove Tubes, Aspen Pittman. Wow, a tube reseller telling you that you need to change tubes regularly...whoda thunk it???

And your untrained ear can easily hear when something is wrong. If you couldn't hear it, nothing would be wrong, now would it?

[Mr. Foxen]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

And your untrained ear can easily hear when something is wrong. If you couldn't hear it, nothing would be wrong, now would it?

Familiarity with your amp is kind of important to know what is a change, an what is 'wrong' as opposed to 'character'.