vintage tube head handling effects?

[punkrockmike]

How would a vintage ampeg svt head handle a heavily overdriven signal as opposed to a newer ampeg head (such as the svt 2 pro)? or would there be much of a difference at all? ive heard of certain amps not sounding as good/handling lots of effects as other amps do. or is this just another case of "what sounds good to me"?

[Mr. Foxen]

If you push loads of subs into a vintage tube head, they won't come out the cab. Loads of overdrive won't matter much, just a fiddlier input signal for them to reproduces. The associated boost might clip the input and make it ad more overdrive, which is another sound.

[nysbob]

I haven't had any problem with effects though my magnavox SVT. Bear in mind that any amp has limitations, and effects can really make them work hard...but it's a pretty robust amp.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Use a distortion/overdrive that has a HPF around 80Hz, preferably variable, and You're good to go. The same applies to any transformer coupled amp, not just SVT. 300W on lower frequencies is pretty low on volume, You don't want to rob that with "fuller" signal than the fundamentals and harmonics.

Regards
Sam

[punkrockmike]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

Hi.

Use a distortion/overdrive that has a HPF around 80Hz, preferably variable, and You're good to go. The same applies to any transformer coupled amp, not just SVT. 300W on lower frequencies is pretty low on volume, You don't want to rob that with "fuller" signal than the fundamentals and harmonics.

Regards
Sam

HPF...?

[Energy]

Originally Posted by punkrockmike

HPF...?

High pass filter. "HPF at 80 Hz" means that frequencies below 80 Hz are cut from the signal.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Yep, thanks Energy.

I don't use 'em, but AFAIK most of the more useful bass effects usually have one.

Regards
Sam

[anderbass]

Originally Posted by punkrockmike

How would a vintage ampeg svt head handle a heavily overdriven signal as opposed to a newer ampeg head (such as the svt 2 pro)? or would there be much of a difference at all? ive heard of certain amps not sounding as good/handling lots of effects as other amps do. or is this just another case of "what sounds good to me"?

I've compared my 72 blueline SVT to my SVT-II non pro model.

Mine both handled overdrive pedals equally well, but one big advantage my vintage SVT had is its dual input channels with separate tone/volume knobs for each. This let me split my inputs with a clean signal into one of the vintage SVT input channels, and my effects/overdrive pedals into the amps other input channel so I could easily blend the 2 inputs to taste. I've found when using pedals for a heavily overdriven tone it always worked out better to also blend in a clean signal to help maintain clarity and give a much more 3-D tone.

My SVT-II non pro has dual input jacks (a normal and a -10db) that I also used simultaneously for clean/overdriven splitting like this, but it only has 1 set of volume/tone knobs so I didn't have as much control over the settings as my vintage SVT gave. The 2-pro model only has a single input jack so you could never blend a clean/overdriven setup in the same way using the pro model.