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Fender Bassman 100T Chapter 3

#401
Hmm... in that case I would say its the cab. I have a fender 610 pro. Its pretty much the same cab as the 610 neo with regular speakers. I find it to be a little boomy with my super bassman, even with your settings, but when sitting on my berg NV's it sounds glorious. I prefer my fender 300 pro sitting on the fender 610...
 
#402
Pako said:
Right now the bass and treble on the vintage channel is at 1 mids are in that 8-9 range. Running through a neo 410. All EQ on the bass is flat.

I have been running a Demeter pre into a Bergantino IP112/ex112 stack for the better part of 5 years. I am not wanting to duplicate the tone of that rig and I did want that all tube goodness, but I do find the bottom to be a bit problematic compared to the Bergantino setup where all the frequencies seem to be relatively flat and even in their output from the low B on up.

Right now the low B on up to the A sound a good degree louder than the rest of the frequencies.

Live I find I am turning down so the bottom is so boomy but find that my mid to higher frequencies get lost in the mix. Again, this "problem" is really only an issue when trying to run clean. As soon as I start to drive the amp, if feels like more power is diverted to the mids/highs where things start to balance out, like turning on a compressor.
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I don't know which Demeter you have, but I think some of them have tone controls based on the old Fender amps (similar to the Alembic pres). That means that flat on those preamps are 2-10-2 because the bass and treble controls are boost only. When I run my Showman into a Sunn 200S cab, I put the bass on 2.5 to 3 and there's plenty of low end.
 
#403
Pako, in my opinion the 100T is less "rounder" at the bottom end than other tube amps I have played. When I compared it side by side with an Ampeg V4B the Ampeg clearly had a fatter bottom end, albeit perhaps a little more clearly defined than the Fender. In other areas I preferred the 100T but that Ampeg fatness was very, very nice. Bearing in mind that this was in a shop, no doubt if I had taken the time to use the EQ section in the overdrive channel I could have got it to sound the same. Don't be afraid to use the overdrive channel as an EQ - just don't dial in the overdrive and you will find an incredibly versatile eq section on the right hand side.
 
#404
Tim1 said:
Pako, in my opinion the 100T is less "rounder" at the bottom end than other tube amps I have played. When I compared it side by side with an Ampeg V4B the Ampeg clearly had a fatter bottom end, albeit perhaps a little more clearly defined than the Fender. In other areas I preferred the 100T but that Ampeg fatness was very, very nice. Bearing in mind that this was in a shop, no doubt if I had taken the time to use the EQ section in the overdrive channel I could have got it to sound the same. Don't be afraid to use the overdrive channel as an EQ - just don't dial in the overdrive and you will find an incredibly versatile eq section on the right hand side.
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Yes, I have found that using the overdrive channel, I was able to achieve are more focused bottom that provided better sonic balance across the bass.

I've spent the better part of the afternoon looking at Berg cabs, ugh! Maybe I'll sit with these 410's for a bit more before I do anything too hasty. :)

Thanks for the input.

By the way, I plugged a strat into this rig and O-M-G, I didn't know I bought a killer guitar rig. Good gawd! The overdrive channel was amazing and enough volume to make any drummer cry for PA support. :D
 
#405
My baritone Tele sounds fantastic through the 100-T and 410 Neo on the clean channel. I managed to find a couple of great tones on the OD channel too - if you've ever heard the band Thrice, their later albums have less high gain guitar and more crunch, which this rig does so well.
 
#406
idoru said:
My baritone Tele sounds fantastic through the 100-T and 410 Neo on the clean channel. I managed to find a couple of great tones on the OD channel too - if you've ever heard the band Thrice, their later albums have less high gain guitar and more crunch, which this rig does so well.
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I have heard of Thrice. I'll have to go back and listen... :)
 
#407
Finally put on my big boy pants and bought a 100t. I gotta say I am impressed, an amazingly versatile amp that can do pretty much anything I want to do all in one box.

One odd thing I ran into when I was warming it up tonight. The tubes made a tinkling/pinging noise that I have never heard with any of my other tube amps. Is this something I should be worried about?
 
#408
Congratulations, glummoon. I think you have bought the best and most versatile 100watt tube head available. I would not worry too much about the tinkling noise - I have struck it before occasionally with new tubes. Not an expert but I have always assumed it is just the filaments/metal parts expanding on first heating up and it has gone away after a while.
 
#412
Freight Train said:
Welcome Nellarecneps, if that is your real name. (Dr. Strangelove reference. Anyone?)
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Outstanding description.
- For the OP, unless you've got the cash and space to go through different heads, it might make more sense (and cost a lot less) to stay with a MarkBass Class D amp (LMIII etc.) before committing to a tube amp. If you play a variety of styles (rock, country, R&B, jazz, etc.) you need a variety of sounds, and while the 100T does smooth jazz just fine, you're not exploiting the O/D at all.

By the way, Colonel Bat Guano really is my name...and if you don't get the President of the United States on the line, you're going to have to answer to the Coca Cola Company.
 
#417
Pako said:
Excellent description indeed.

Do you guys find this amp to be a little rounder in the bottom than other amps?

This is my first all tube amp and am finding I want to tame the bottom so it's less boomy and round.

I will say when I'm driving the power tubes, the low mids and mids start to become more present which seems to even things out a bit, so it's mainly on clean tone settings I'm having issues with.

Thoughts?
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Hey Pako -
Regarding your bottom end question, my 100T/410 Neo is no way bottom heavy. And that's normally setting the vintage channel tone at 6-6-5; I'm still not buying that 2-10-2 is flat. I'll just say that when I switch between the vintage and overdrive channel, with the overdrive channel's bass eq set flat, the bottom end matches. And that's with no overdrive, just using the OD channel as an optional eq for a touch of upper-mid boost on songs that need it. But I'm using standard, 4-string, passive basses. G&L L-1000 with flats, Jack Casady Epiphone with rounds.
Plus, I am no way a sub-low freak. I much prefer a punchy mid-bass sound, which the 100T/410 Neo gives me exactly that. So I'm puzzled how you're getting too much low end, while obviously setting your vintage tone for less bass than I do. Where do you set your tweeter level?
Could it be that you are mis-matching technologies? Meaning, could it be that the bass is designed to have extended lows that might be perfect for studio use, but that do not translate well to a 100w tube amp? It could be that an excessive amount of sub-lows are choking down the tube amp, and what is suffering is upper mid and high frequency definition.
Just one man's opinion, so don't start throwing rocks, but by the late 80's I had gotten rid of all of my active basses, as I never liked how they translated onstage, even though they sounded great in the studio. For live, give me a well designed passive single coil anytime. :hiding:
 
#418
Freight Train said:
Hey Pako -
Regarding your bottom end question, my 100T/410 Neo is no way bottom heavy. And that's normally setting the vintage channel tone at 6-6-5; I'm still not buying that 2-10-2 is flat. I'll just say that when I switch between the vintage and overdrive channel, with the overdrive channel's bass eq set flat, the bottom end matches. And that's with no overdrive, just using the OD channel as an optional eq for a touch of upper-mid boost on songs that need it. But I'm using standard, 4-string, passive basses. G&L L-1000 with flats, Jack Casady Epiphone with rounds.
Plus, I am no way a sub-low freak. I much prefer a punchy mid-bass sound, which the 100T/410 Neo gives me exactly that. So I'm puzzled how you're getting too much low end, while obviously setting your vintage tone for less bass than I do. Where do you set your tweeter level?
Could it be that you are mis-matching technologies? Meaning, could it be that the bass is designed to have extended lows that might be perfect for studio use, but that do not translate well to a 100w tube amp? It could be that an excessive amount of sub-lows are choking down the tube amp, and what is suffering is upper mid and high frequency definition.
Just one man's opinion, so don't start throwing rocks, but by the late 80's I had gotten rid of all of my active basses, as I never liked how they translated onstage, even though they sounded great in the studio. For live, give me a well designed passive single coil anytime. :hiding:
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No stone tossing here my friend. I am a creature of habit and found myself running my active bass the way I always have expecting a similar response from my other rig and in the studio but what I got was much different and unexpected. Stepping away from the "but I've always ran it this way" attitude, I found other usable tones that's weren't always that sweet spot direct or through my other rigs but carry a whole different tonal texture through this rig. I had a bass student a couple evenings ago and had him plug in his $200 Ibanez with flats and it sounded great! So....not ready to pass complete judgement and will give it some time. I just need to forget any preconceived notions of what it should sound like and have an open ear to hear what it can sound like. Experiment with pickup selections, active vs passive, etc. :bassist:
 
#419
Pako said:
No stone tossing here my friend. I am a creature of habit and found myself running my active bass the way I always have expecting a similar response from my other rig and in the studio but what I got was much different and unexpected. Stepping away from the "but I've always ran it this way" attitude, I found other usable tones that's weren't always that sweet spot direct or through my other rigs but carry a whole different tonal texture through this rig. I had a bass student a couple evenings ago and had him plug in his $200 Ibanez with flats and it sounded great! So....not ready to pass complete judgement and will give it some time. I just need to forget any preconceived notions of what it should sound like and have an open ear to hear what it can sound like. Experiment with pickup selections, active vs passive, etc. :bassist:
Click to expand...

Whenever possible, I like to feed my all-tube bass heads with a passive axe (or at least one in passive mode). That's not to say that active basses can't sound great through tube rigs, but I find that passive is a much better starting point, for me, at least. YMMV.
 

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