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Bugera 1960 for bass

#101
sammyfallen said:
Direct From Bugera CS

Dear Sammy.

Well, if 100 W rms are enough for what you want to do, then it’s a fine bass amp.

It’s freq range is from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, depending on the speaker cabinet it will be good for bass frequency.

It goes in direction of Mr. Kilmisters bass sound, let me say it that way ;o)

- This Really Peaks My Interest
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If I'm not mistaken, Lemmy uses one of these in front of his amps to drive them:
Link Removed

And I believe he rolls off most of the bass and kranks the treble, mids and volume. I just read he mostly uses the neck pickup of his bass on top of all that.

A good friend of mine uses a 1973 Super Bass with a Marshall 4x15 cab as his live bass rig and yes his favorite band is Motorhead and his band is very much influenced by Motorhead and old Hardcore Punk though he favors a Greco Thunderbird instead of a Ric 4001 for his bass.

That amp is so stupidly loud and brutal sounding and I think the big part of how great that amp sounds is the very rare set of KT88's in it. He and I use the same amp tech who flat out told him that if those tubes ever go, he might as well sell that amp because those tubes are so expensive and rare he might never find them or get that sound.

I would think to use that Bugera amp, you'd need a different OT and different tubes like a 6550 or KT88. I did read through the thread and the price confirmed to me that the sockets are mounted on a PC board which makes me wary. For 450.00, that's a nice deal but not sure I want to deal with a tube amp at the moment especially since I'm selling my SVT.

I did have a 1969, 200 watt Marshall Major for a while and I had the guitar model and by the time I got it all repaired (was in bad shape when I got it) I wasn't so keen to get the bass mod done so I sold it for double what I paid for it. Talk about loud though, as a friend who owns one too once said "that amp is so loud you'd go sterile using it!!".
 
#102
Rockit said:
A good friend of mine uses a 1973 Super Bass with a Marshall 4x15 cab as his live bass rig and yes his favorite band is Motorhead and his band is very much influenced by Motorhead and old Hardcore Punk though he favors a Greco Thunderbird instead of a Ric 4001 for his bass.
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Lemmy used to swap the pickups in his ric with t-bird pickups, look it up. He even did some tours with a t-bird. And lets see some pics of this slab body bass used in the vid, very curious to see it. Sorry to de-rail the thread a little :)
 
#103
ampegfuzz said:
Lemmy used to swap the pickups in his ric with t-bird pickups, look it up. He even did some tours with a t-bird. And lets see some pics of this slab body bass used in the vid, very curious to see it. Sorry to de-rail the thread a little :)
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Wikipedia is such a fountain of incorrect information. Not saying you're wrong but I wouldn't totally take stock in the info on that site. I'm sure he's modded plenty of gear over the years to suit his ears but I think the one thing that's stayed constant is the amp he uses.

In this older pic of him, it does look sort of like an EBO pickup in the neck of that particular Ric he's playing
Invalid Link Removed

85356167.jpg


Him playing his signature model:
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#106
Rockit said:
That amp is so stupidly loud and brutal sounding and I think the big part of how great that amp sounds is the very rare set of KT88's in it. He and I use the same amp tech who flat out told him that if those tubes ever go, he might as well sell that amp because those tubes are so expensive and rare he might never find them or get that sound.
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yeah, lemmy's always liked urban legends about himself, eh? ;)

you can find anything nowadays. besides, there isn't so much difference in power tubes that you can't duplicate it with another set. plenty of nos tube stores out there.
 
#107
JimmyM said:
yeah, lemmy's always liked urban legends about himself, eh? ;)

you can find anything nowadays. besides, there isn't so much difference in power tubes that you can't duplicate it with another set. plenty of nos tube stores out there.
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Plenty of NOS tubes out there if you have the cash too. Just what brand of RARE KT88's are these we're talking about?
 
#110
JimmyM said:
yeah, lemmy's always liked urban legends about himself, eh? ;)

you can find anything nowadays. besides, there isn't so much difference in power tubes that you can't duplicate it with another set. plenty of nos tube stores out there.
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The tubes in my friends 73 Marshall Super Bass are original GE 6550's which are $6-900.00 if you can find them and they aren't NOS, they are vintage (those tubes are probably older than me and I'm 43) and they are the Rolls Royce of that tube type. I paid 235.00 for 6 matched Winged C 6550's and while those are great tubes they don't touch the old school GE's.

Invalid Link Removed sells a matched quad of Vintage GE 6550's for 600.00
 
#111
Rockit said:
The tubes in my friends 73 Marshall Super Bass are original GE 6550's which are $6-900.00 if you can find them and they aren't NOS, they are vintage (those tubes are probably older than me and I'm 43) and they are the Rolls Royce of that tube type. I paid 235.00 for 6 matched Winged C 6550's and while those are great tubes they don't touch the old school GE's.

Invalid Link Removed sells a matched quad of Vintage GE 6550's for 600.00
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So price wise you buy a new amp almost every year?
 
#112
vene-nemesis said:
So price wise you buy a new amp almost every year?
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I think the point my tech was trying to make that the odds of that amp sounding exactly the same as it does now aren't huge if my friend had to re-tube it. Who knows, he could re-tube it at some point and totally love the sound but it's a gamble.

As I recall, my friend said he didn't pay anything near what it's worth now when he bought it years ago. There's a 1970 Super Bass on ebay for 2300.00 right now.
 
#113
Rockit said:
I think the point my tech was trying to make that the odds of that amp sounding exactly the same as it does now aren't huge if my friend had to re-tube it. Who knows, he could re-tube it at some point and totally love the sound but it's a gamble.

As I recall, my friend said he didn't pay anything near what it's worth now when he bought it years ago. There's a 1970 Super Bass on ebay for 2300.00 right now.
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You missunderstood me, what i meant was that if you wanted to have top notch tubes you'll be expending a lot of money yearly (especially if youre a heavy gigger), to the point were it would be almost like buying a new amp every year or two.
 
#117
Hi,

newbie here (forum that is)

Just thought I'd share some superbass experience for anyone interested ?

I bought a 67 superbass 100 in 82 with the original 4x12 - it was my main amp for 15 years and I played everything from classic rock (which wasn't classic in 82) to funkadelic and fusion etc..

I was never 100% happy with the superbass for the following reasons:
Not very loud when playing with a band at full tilt (a guitarist with a 50w amp will kill you)
Not very bassy

I had the amp moded after a few years to try and improve the bass response (this was a common mod at the time).

Eventually it blew up big time around '97 to repair it would have seen nearly all of the original amp replaced (a warning to vintage amp lovers - they're just old electronics)


With regards to the Bugera 1960 I think it looks on paper to be as good as a superbass (perhaps even better with regasrd to the OT) but for me bass amps start at 300W with a cross over.

cheers
Deja
 

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