Dunno if this will help or not, but my little 5 watt Epiphone it's-supposed-to-be-a-guitar-amp sounds great, but if your idea of good bass tone is the 'P-bass w/flats thru a B15' route, you may not like a guitar head.
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50w-100w Valve Owners Thread
- Thread starter faceinbass
- Start date
That it does! I've been there and done that. Except it was a Jazz Bass. I used the VJr + 112 + MIM J for recording for about a year straight. Great, great tones! Very full "round" bass if you use it at moderate volume and mic it.
The matching VJr 112 cab. It sounded great with bass or guitar, really. I'll attach a demo from years back where I ran the guitar and bass through the amp. MIM J both pickups picked, Jay Turser LP neck pickup. Ignore the vocals. It was from before I could sing well at all (or thought to use a click track).
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=1089216&songID=10349211
Awesome input!
The thing about The Sovtek 50w bass head is that it really won't distort with the toobs I have in there (sovteks obv.). Its all about the headroom.
Awesome input!
The thing about The Sovtek 50w bass head is that it really won't distort with the toobs I have in there (sovteks obv.). Its all about the headroom.
That's cool... I'm interested in particular brands of tubes (pre or power) that would allow for more clean headroom. Not really looking to change tone or anything, but recommendation on brands that stay clean?? 12ax7 and 6l6...
I find when using my 30watter that if i keep the volume down about 1/2 on the bass, and crank the amp a little past half or 3/4 up, with a light touch on the strings, I can get a really nice clean, but woolly, warm tone with plenty of volume. If I dig in on the strings, it starts to get nasty, and if I crank the volume knob and dig in a bit... well, we're getting into face melting territory!
Try swapping your V1 12AX7 with a 12AT7 to slow breakup. If that doesn't do much, try a 12AU7. You'll lose some of the meltdown capability but it should increase clean headroom a bit.
That's a pretty big mismatch...isn't the amp rated for a 16 ohm load impedance?
16 ohms from the main jack and 8 ohms if you use both jacks.
Don't do it. You're putting your amp at risk for damage, especially if you're just using the main out. If it's a 4 ohm cab with an even number of speakers you can rewire it for 16 ohms for safe use with the amp.
Yes. 8 ohms is you use a dummy plug and run the cab off of the secondary output. If you were running the second output and using a dummy plug and a 4 ohm cab you'd be presenting the amp with a 2:1 mismatch which some people say is ok, but I personally don't like to do.
Ok. Thats what I was thinking. Saw a great deal on a Avatar 410 that is only 4 ohms but not cool if it is gonna kill an amp. thanks Just curious though how would you rewire a amp from 4 ohms to 16 ohms?
You rewire the speakers in the cabinet. Either they're 16 ohm speakers or 4 ohm speakers. Either way, you can make the cabinet work for that head. It's just a wee bit of different wiring.
Man, I've been meaning to replace the 12AX7 in my VJr. with a 12AU7... maybe get a little more headroom out of it. I've definitely gotta find some time to do that.
5sg.
+1 to that. It's potentially an easy fix. If the cab is 4 ohms, it may be four 4 ohm speakers in series/parallel configuration. In that case, you can rewire them in series and you'll have a 16 ohm cab. If they're 16 ohm speakers in parallel then you can set them up for series/parallel to get a 16 ohm load.
Thanks for the clip!
Oddly enough, I bought the head here in town @ GC, but they do not have the matching cab.
What tubes came factory in yours? I've got a EHX pre and a Sovtek power, but I understand that they don't always have the same tubes at any given time.Man, I've been meaning to replace the 12AX7 in my VJr. with a 12AU7... maybe get a little more headroom out of it. I've definitely gotta find some time to do that.
5sg.
I used my Mesa 50 Caliber + for a few basement rehearsals through a 1x15. Sounded pretty sweet. Sometimes I'd use my VT bass and bypass the pre and other times I'd go straight into the front. Always sounded killer. I don't have pics but I have a video of me playing through it. Sounds like DeLeo's tone on Big Bang Baby. (At least I think so)
