I have only ever owned solid state amps. But I want tubes, and to me Ampeg is the paragon of tubes.
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I Can Finally Say I Played Through An Ampeg
- Thread starter capnsandwich
- Start date
Everytime I play with my Fender MIA P-bass and my Ampeg SVT-CL + 8x10 my guitarists and sound engineers complain and say it's too boomy and sounds bad. Almost everytime. My settings are mostly flat - and this is with new strings aswell.
Am I cursed? I'm not sure I see that fantastic Ampeg tone anymore. I mean, it's very suitable for rock, but if I want to improvise during a rock song people probably won't be able to hear me because it's muddy. This has been my experience anywho, probably not the case of others since Ampeg has a pretty good rep. I guess.
Am I cursed? I'm not sure I see that fantastic Ampeg tone anymore. I mean, it's very suitable for rock, but if I want to improvise during a rock song people probably won't be able to hear me because it's muddy. This has been my experience anywho, probably not the case of others since Ampeg has a pretty good rep. I guess.
Watch for a V4B or a Traynor Mark II (YBA-1A) or any of a lot of old off-brand 100 watt bass tube amps. The SVT is nice and all, but boy is it a lot to schlep and a lot to maintain. A V4B will get a lot of use and help you decide if you really need that SVT. You'll probably break even if a previous owner has done a cap job and tube replacement for you within the last couple of years.
100 watts in an old tube amp with good transformers is a respectable amount of power and a joy to play.
Even my Mark II is ~45 lbs. Weight means good transformers though, so don't chump out on it.
KO
I'm not a big fan of the 810 cab either - have you tried your head through anything else?
Try boosting your mids, set the mid-selector on 2 or 3, and don't use the bass/treble boost buttons. My settings on my SVT-CL were bass and mids high, treble flat, mid switch on 2, buttons out.
I've been to most venues I think. Really big halls, small halls, reeeeally small pubs, outdoors .. I don't think there's anything wrong with the amp, because in band rehersal it sounds pretty okay (I still would prefer some extra clarity, though I know at those freq. it's hard nevertheless).
Edit: Thanks for the suggestion, coreyfyfe. I'll try that next rehersal. I haven't used any of the boost buttons, either. Mid-selector has been on 4 most of the time. I'll try 2 and 3. Do you think there's a big difference? I haven't really noticed that much of a difference.
...another-obvious perhaps-thought. Personally, most of the time I don't run a humbucking bass thru mine. Single coils+ SVT-CL is a better combo IMHO. For live stuff, you get the best of both worlds that way.
Jimbob
Jimbob
The positions are (1-5) 220Hz, 440Hz, 800Hz, 1.6kHz, and 3kHz. It's really a preference thing, but I found that boosting the low-mids worked better for me which is why I tended to use 440 or 800.
Something has happened to the 810E's speakers along the way. They've made them more capable of handling lower freqs but they've made them boomy and not near as full-range as they used to be. Still a favorite cab of mine but the ones of the past few years sound much boomier than the older ones.
FWIW, my point wasn't about full on distortion - you can eak out quite a few dB's if you're willing to go from .01% THD to 10% THD. You still won't have full on distortion, but you've gotten quite a few more dB's out of the rig.
KO
