Ampeg SVP-BSP

Hey, I'm in the same boat you're in buddy. Click my profile and you can see the my rig in progress. At the beginning, I was only looking at 3 preamps in my price range and for what I wanted, the Ampeg SVP-PRO, the Ampeg SVP-BSP, and the SWR I.O.D. The 1st I eliminated what the SWR I.O.D. because I heard an overwhelming amount of reviews that pointed out the I.O.D. to have touchy electronics and that the tube took hours to get "hot" and sound great, which it was great when it was hot, but then only sounded "hot" for a few minutes and then it was gone. I didn't want to fool around with thinking of getting new tubes for it, so I just scrubbed that idea.

Thus I'm left with the only 2 competitors, the Ampeg SVP-PRO and Ampeg SVP-BSP. Personally, I'm more of a modern, hi-fi, low mud, high definition, clean, clear bass kind-of-guy. At stores and from friends and others, I hear that the PRO would not be to my liking because of it having 5 tubes. I knew this, but never really thought it would make a non-hi-fi sound. Whatever. PLUS it only has 1 channel! Since my rig will eventually be composed of 2 SWR Goliath IIIs, I would like to have the option of running stereo eventually, thus I will need the 2 channels. This situation might differ from yours, keep that in mind. The other preamp, Ampeg SVP-BSP, is the preamp I am left with, not negatively. This preamp has only 1 tube. Don't get discouraged by this that you're not going to get a nice sound, you're just not going to get that vintage classic Ampeg sound, which is what I'm somewhat against. And the best part is the BSP has 2 channels. CHA-CHING!! Overall, this a great preamp for the money, and since its my first rig, it'll be one hell of a rig.

Hope you can learn something from my recent revelations.

 

I love my SVP-BSP, sure it only has one tube but really that makes it more road worthy and lighter in weight. It has great sounds both clean and overdriven, making it great for mild boost increasing the presence and helping you cut through. Its harder settings are very cool I'll scoop out the mids (560Hz) for a truly gnarly, crunching sound (turning the horn's level down). Each channel has it's own volume knob which is useful for dialing in more volume each channel, you can mix the channels.

It's a real fun preamp.

 

hey, you realize that the 2 channels are "clean" and "distorted".. that's what billy sheenan used to do.. he had 2 svt's, one with distortion, one without.... anyway.. if you're a fan of clean hi-fi sound... ampeg isn't the way to go, you won't use over half your preamp, since most of the BSP is about making distortion sound good... if hi-fi is your goal... go get your hands on a used SWR grand prix, or an Eden navigator... cuz ampeg rocks.. but it's dirty..

 

the pro is capable of doing distortion, and IMO it does it very well... in my case i just want the sound to be a little more gritty, but not noticably distorted to anyone else... that is what i think of in the "ampeg" sound... gritty and ballsy,not really distorted... but it makes one sound like a badass

if you want full on distortion, give the pro a shot, unless you want distortion and clean sounds at the same time, I feel that the pro is a better choice. For clean or anywhere below full blown distortion, just tweak the drive knob.. if you want industrial crunchy distortion, just blast the gain and drive knobs, and bring the master down to compensate. The peak light won't go off, but that's what it's supposed to do (as the manual agrees). It just lets you know when you're overloading the preamp tubes, which it what it takes to get distortion...

plus the pro has the footswitchable graphic eq which comes in handy...

I guess the choice here is whether you want to be able to switch between a clean or dirty sound quickly,(bsp) or if you want to keep the warmth/overdrive at a constant, and be able to switch between different eq settings quickly (pro)
i'm more than satisfied w/ the pro, but i'm interested to know what you end up doing... do give it a try though, and understand that you don't need the BSP to have overdrive or distortion, they both can do it, just differently..

keep in mind that the BSP was designed by Billy Sheenan (sp.) who used to have 2 identical SVT full stacks. He just used one with distortion, and one without.... if you were to have both preamps, you would effectively have 3 channels, and 2 would be very similiar... more in the spirit of the BSP would be to buy two SVP-Pro's and keep one nice and clean while overdriving the other... this is what the BSP was designed to do, but using only one preamp. Ofcourse in the consolidation, compromises were made, such as the lack of a graphic eq, and somehow it only got one preamp tube.

sorry for the rambling format of my post... its late and i tend to do that... i hope i could be of help though..

 

hmm, falsehood, you got me thinking. i really like the clean, low tones that you can get with hi-fi preamps, which you say is like a SWR Grand Prix or Eden Navigator. hmmm, yet i do like that "grit" as you say, that extra punch to be heard in the band, rather than just felt, like a jazzish band, i.e. Dave Matthews Band. Correct me if i'm wrong. Also what would you consider these bands bassists to primarily use, hi-fi or "Ampeg 'Grit'"?

STP - R.A.T.M. - 311 - A.T.D.I. - R.H.C.P - Primus - Pearl Jam - Incubus

Thanks for everything


edit* added "be" in a sentence

 

Cookie....
in my humble, personal, biased opinion.. I think you should get and SVP-PRO and a poweramp.. then if you like the sound and really find it necessary have 2 seperate sounds, one distorted and one clean, buy another PRO and a nice a/b/y switch.

IMO the svt4pro is pointless unless you absolutely don't want a rack system. otherwise, any commercially available poweramp would be at par or better than the one built into the svt

I don't like the bsp very much... but truthfully, i don't have a good reason. A friend of mine has a b5r, which is similiar to the bsp but not 12ax7, and i don't like that...

once again i'm rambling... my advice is get a svp-pro and a pre.. and then expand as you feel necessary.. but don't buy anything until you've a/b ed both preamps into the cabinet you're gona be using....

 

ok les claypool (primus) is sponsored by ampeg

Flea(rhcp) plays Gallien Kruger, ultra clean reputation, although i've never heard one extensively

the guy from incubus plays a warwick bass.. i'm not sure what amp he uses, but he has sooo many processors it probably doesn't matter

P-nut from 311 uses an SWR IOD

i don't know about drivein or pearl jam...

i know you stated previously your distaste for the swr iod, but SWR is known for its hi-fi sound, and the iod is like swr clean plus tube grit.. might be what you want.... what you hear about things might not be true, so go make sure for yourself if you like or don't like a particular preamp... most if not all out there are quality pieces of equipment, so its not a matter of if its good enough, but more of what YOU want...

hope i could be of help...

 

The guy from Incubus uses Eden.

ATDI uses Ampeg SVT (all tube)
Pearl Jam uses SWR gear... I saw an article about his side project - he had 2 SVP-BSP's in front of it.

Hope that does more to help than confuse!

 

falsehood and bandbaby, thanks. you're right, falsehood, maybe I should ACTUALLY try out the SWR IOD before I say no to it, the only problem is I can't try it out anywhere, because I believe no one carries them in stores. And about the tube warming up problem about the IOD that I stated, maybe just maybe it might be a physical tube problem, so maybe a replacement could help (I'd just put in some 5751s, the nice shiot ) Thanks for the motivation, dude. Once again, you open a new door for me.