What amps were people playing in the 70's?

[Eight_Stringer]

1978, 2 by 2x15 JBL spec boxs, 2x12, dyi 1KW ss amp rack. Blew up my glass water container on the floor atone gig....
The ss sounded horrible, changed for 2 by DYI 200W tube driving one 2x15 each...nice, still use the amps today with 1x15 ( have two TL606 )...soon to be fEarful 2 by 15/6. Still use the same basses from 1976 today....new.bah humbug....

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by bmc

Finally...a thread for us old folks.

Anyone remember the old Ampeg B25 with 2-15's and it only put out 55watts rms? What was that about?

And the old V6B that departed from tube and produced at staggering 240 watts.

What was the old Ampeg cab with the double folved 2-15's? Was it the V-4 cab?

How about that Acoustic monster with 4-15's?

I remember sharing GAS for those cabs at the same time for a reasonably priced van to come with it.


Fast forward 30 years and I'm getting paid way more money and using a Schroeder Mini 1-12 at 3 times the power.

If you had bought an Acoustic 408 living in (as you do) the middle of
a load of mountains it might have got away from you on its wheels
at load-out or something and laid waste to a small hamlet further down in the valley.
Also you have to be much safer all round with a one by twelve cab, however many watts you have, as A is for Acoustic and Avalanche!
at only about 300 watts.
PS there was Burman, Carlesbro, Davoli, Laney, Matamp, Roost, Selmer, Sound City, Simms Watts and Vampower as well back in the seventies.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by BillyB_from_LZ

There is something so right with having a big old Acoustic bass amp in the corner of a nice room!

[Cutty]

I played peavey,Orange,marshall,Traynor,but i loved my Acoustic 371 system,it belonged to Gary Thain of Uriah Heep,and it made my trousers move with the air that it pushed!!!

[AltGrendel]

I have a Peavey TNT-100 from the first year they came out ('76 I think). A synth player ran a very fast sine wave filter sweep through it and blew out a transistor and the speaker. I replaced the speaker with some aluminum coned thing. Still need to get the transistor replaced.

[no-logic]

I played a Gibson Atlas tube head into some kind of a 2x15.

[JimB52]

Starting out, I had a series of sucky Fender Bassman amps, and a Guild Amp that was two-tone brown and looked like a robot. Thunderbird, I think. !n 1975, I got an ARB, which was covered in a red flocked material. Really loud through my Cerwin Vega loaded 18" folded horn cab, which I think was made by Sound City. The cool amps back then were Ampeg SVT, Sunn Coliseum, Acoustic 360/370, and to a lesser extent, Hiwatt and Marshall.

[sedan_dad]

My first amp was a 100 watt Marshall bass with 2 Marshall 4-12's.
From there a Ampeg V-4b with 2 altec bottoms and then on to a SVT and 2 SVT bottoms.

[DAcat]

Originally Posted by BillyB_from_LZ

There is something so right with having a big old Acoustic bass amp in the corner of a nice room!

Agreed ...or three in our nice basement with the rest of the bands rig where we practiced when not gigging (usually 4 nights a week back then). But there was another feeling for me that was even more "so right" about about rolling (usually two) of the old Acoustic 360/361s off the Van/U-haul out onto the stage, plugging into them, and knowing and feeling the excitement... that with out a doubt, when the lights came on, there was going to be more than enough thundering bottom to fill those large venues we used to play, and the Marshall stacks could no longer dominate us!! Liberated ...Peace...DAcat

[jeware]

I started in the sixties with a Silvertone Twin-twelve. Progressed to a Haynes Bass King, several Fender Bassmans, Vox Super Beatle (What can I say? I am left-handed. I had to have one), Acoustic 370 and an Ampeg SVT with 2 8x10 cabs.

[ryco]

No love for the RadioShack Heathkit?

Never had one myself, but some friends built 'em.

My first amp was a BassMate Combo. 60w w/ 15" no name speak

[Sav'nBass]

I was playing a 410 head.. I think.. it had the equalizer on it.. and a 301 bottom.. and i used to take that on the subway when the band's van broke down for a spell.. to Brooklyn... from the Bronx.. around Belmont around Little Italy.. with a Jazz bass with a hardshell case..



That was.... tedious.

[denton57]

Originally Posted by Sav'nBass

I was playing a 410 head.. I think.. it had the equalizer on it.. and a 301 bottom.. and i used to take that on the subway when the band's van broke down for a spell.. to Brooklyn... from the Bronx.. around Belmont around Little Italy.. with a Jazz bass with a hardshell case..



That was.... tedious.

You deserve some kind of bass service award for that. On a subway? Really?

[Sav'nBass]

Yeah... and sometimes I'd have to go on the IRT .. you know at 34st I think it was, maybe Times Sq.. (It was a long time ago and I haven't been on a subway in almost a decade.... left NY in '00) where you had to go down at least 3 levels.. I was being watched over... this was in the late 70s.. and I never had any issues, not once, and this was when NY had a bad reputation for being unsafe. I'd take my bass & head down.. go back up get the cab.. clunk.. clunk.. clunk.. one step at a time.. That big one with the wheels.. I think it was a 301.. I know the head was either a 401 or a 410 but it had a equalizer on it.. Sometimes I'd be going home at 3AM.. and not once did I ever have any problems with people. Sometimes I'd even get help.. .. this only was about 3 or 4 times.. but it was memorable.. and once was enough... We used to do dance stuff.. Boogie Ooggie Oogie.. You & I... etc... it was around that era.. I sold all that stuff except the bass around 82... and basically I only played at home... till I moved to Va and started to play at my church in 01.. I did a few things for friends.. and played in a dead band for a spell.. but I didnt need my own equipment.. the band I was playing with had an amp that I would use on gigs.. mostly in bars in Jersey & Brooklyn..

[GRISSLEHEAD]

Originally Posted by markjazzbassist

why did the acoustic brand ever go under?

They're now owned by Guitar Center..........

[JohnMCA72]

Way back when, I had a '73 (?) Fiat 124 coupe. I could fold the front seats down flat, tip my 406 bottom over sideways onto the front seat backs, push it in, then slide it back into the back seat. It was a perfect fit! Even the angles in the back of the cabinet matched perfectly into the bolsters on either end of the back seat back. I got to where I could get it in & out by myself in about a minute.

Now, I have a '08 Chev. HHR & it's just too easy! I can carry 2 301s on their sides, with plenty of room to spare!

JM

[JTE]

Originally Posted by GRISSLEHEAD

They're now owned by Guitar Center..........

Well, sorta. GC owns the rights to use the NAME and to cosmetics, but they don't have any but a most tenuous connection to the people and products from the original Acoustic Control Corporation. Why'd ACC go under? Could be lots of reasons- not keeping up with the changes in the market, mis-management, poor choices in financing, loss of key people, etc. I know that shortly before they essentially disappeared they'd introduced an all tube guitar amp that seemed to be marketed squarely at the Mesa-Boogie customer. But given the company's reputation as THE quality solid-state amp company, most guitarists weren't interested in checking it out.

John

[DAcat]

Originally Posted by ryco

No love for the RadioShack Heathkit?

Never had one myself, but some friends built 'em.

My first amp was a BassMate Combo. 60w w/ 15" no name speak

Definately some Love...My cheapskate brother(our eventual amazing lead guitarist)got one and we both built it ...definately not a tone-monster but a good cheap starter amp and a good intro to soldering and basic electronics...Peace...DAcat

[AnchorHoy]

My very 1st bass amp was a black-face Fender Bassman 50 with the matching cab - 2x15 IIRC, maybe 2x12. Paid $200 cash for it. That was in the summer of '75, when I was 15 years old. Gorgeous tone if you didn't push it too hard. At higher volume levels the speakers got farty on anything below low A

That same amp and my first bass (a cheesy Epiphone short scale) got stolen less than a year later, from the church basement that we used to practice in

About a year later, I finally raised enough scratch to replace the stolen bass with a nice Fender Precision fretless. Never enough money for another amp until I turned 18 and cashed in some Savings Bonds to buy a brand new Acoustic 136 combo - solid state 100w head and 1x15 in a ported cab. Played that combo for a couple of years until I blew up the head, then started using the same cab with a Traynor 100w tube head that weighed about one pound per watt. Man, that Traynor was heavy as a pallet of bricks, but it sounded great with the Acoustic cab - 10x better than the original SS head, IMO

All of that stuff's long gone now, casualty of a rough marriage and even rougher divorce

These days I'm running a rackmount rig
Ampeg SVP-Pro > QVC 1450 > Hartke 4x10

A reasonable compromise between newfangled weight and oldfangled tone, that suits me pretty well so far

[TomB]

I started the '70's with a weird Fender first generation 100 watt solid state Bassman and a folded horn bottom... It was a bizarre little amp that sounded the same no matter how you set it... what a dud!

I next worked a couple of years w/a Standel w/2 1X15 bottoms, and then picked up a V4-B w/ the monster 2X15 cab and used it on the road for a good bit. ...nearly killed me hauling that thing around.

I was thrilled to pick up an Acoustic 140 + 406 bottom ('77?) which weighed about half as much and it seemed like it was plenty loud enough (as long as there were no Twin Reverbs on stage, anyway).

Fortunately, the V4B head (the cab's long gone) just sat around until the mid-nineties when I rediscovered how good it sounds... and how its 100 watts compared w/the Acoustic's 125 watts (which I promptly sold). Both actually seemed quite loud in their own way.

I still use the V4 on occasion today. It turned out to be a rock!