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I need tubes!

Reace George

Reace George

Guest
Jan 25, 2012
65
5
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
#1
Hello Talkbass, I request your aid again.

I need a new live rig, and I'm strongly looking for tubes. I've been playing bass in a new band for a while now, and I've just quit my other band where my previous rig was planted, and now I'm looking for a new rig and a new sound.

This is our first single right here, to give you an idea of the sound I'm looking for live. The rig here is a '61 P-bass into an old Civil War Muff, into a HiWatt Lead 100 in a Marshall 412 bass cab.


The rig I've got now is an Ampeg PF-500 into a Fender Rumble 410, a stack of 500 watts. The rig I rehearse with is mostly an Ampeg B2 or an Ampeg SVT-3 Pro, and I can get them to sound similar to this by turning the gain all the way and the EQ to 2:30, 3:30 and 2:30 for bass, mid, treble (clockwise) and putting my LPB-1 in front of it (around 1:00). The preamp of the amps is enough to get the drive I need. However, my PF-500 is not capable of getting that drive, whenever I turn the gain past 1:30 it just gives me a terrible cracking, like ripping paper apart (and not in the good fuzz way). Oh, and I'm using a Squier CV 60's P-bass in fiesta red.

So I'm looking for a new rig, one that can actually match the drive of a Hiwatt or Ampeg SVT-3/B2. I was looking online at the vintage and secondhand market, and became interested in London City amplifiers; cheap Marshall clones from the 1970's, made here in Holland. They come as cheap as €300-450 for a all-tube 100 watts head. To quote Dr. Tube:
The London City brand was created in the summer of 1969 by the Dutch Sound Experience (DSE) when a music shop (de Waal) in Amsterdam wanted a cheaper alternative for the expensive Marshall amps of that time. The London City 100W heads were schematically very close to the Marshall model 1959 JTM100 Super Lead amps, but they were built using cheaper parts. The preamp section and the phase inverter (PI) are almost identical to those of the Marshall JTM100 amp, but the power stage was taken directly from the Philips EL34 datasheet.
Click to expand...

That struck me as a pretty good option for a bass head, listen to one right here. Oh, and they are SO BEAUTIFULLY TURQUOISE (Invalid Link Removed is the head I want to buy). I found some nice speakers from the same brand as well, they are equipped with JBL K130; even though they are PA speakers and come with a RCF horn as well, but I don't need that. Invalid Link Removed is a pic of the cabs, would it be hard to mod them to be 115's each? The seller wants €200 for these, if those JBL K130's still sound good then I think I want them :)

SO my question is: is it worth it to sell the Fender Rumble 410 and PF-500 for around €400-500 and get the London City head and cabs with that money? Would I get a sound similar to what I mentioned with them (with or without my LPB-1)? I'm also thinking of modding them with either a mastervolume or cutting the power to 50 watts to not piss off the soundguys with loudness.

I'm looking forward to your answer, thanks in advance!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
#2
Reace George said:
Hello Talkbass, I request your aid again.

I need a new live rig, and I'm strongly looking for tubes. I've been playing bass in a new band for a while now, and I've just quit my other band where my previous rig was planted, and now I'm looking for a new rig and a new sound.

This is our first single right here, to give you an idea of the sound I'm looking for live. The rig here is a '61 P-bass into an old Civil War Muff, into a HiWatt Lead 100 in a Marshall 412 bass cab.


The rig I've got now is an Ampeg PF-500 into a Fender Rumble 410, a stack of 500 watts. The rig I rehearse with is mostly an Ampeg B2 or an Ampeg SVT-3 Pro, and I can get them to sound similar to this by turning the gain all the way and the EQ to 2:30, 3:30 and 2:30 for bass, mid, treble (clockwise) and putting my LPB-1 in front of it (around 1:00). The preamp of the amps is enough to get the drive I need. However, my PF-500 is not capable of getting that drive, whenever I turn the gain past 1:30 it just gives me a terrible cracking, like ripping paper apart (and not in the good fuzz way). Oh, and I'm using a Squier CV 60's P-bass in fiesta red.

So I'm looking for a new rig, one that can actually match the drive of a Hiwatt or Ampeg SVT-3/B2. I was looking online at the vintage and secondhand market, and became interested in London City amplifiers; cheap Marshall clones from the 1970's, made here in Holland. They come as cheap as €300-450 for a all-tube 100 watts head. To quote Dr. Tube:


That struck me as a pretty good option for a bass head, listen to one right here. Oh, and they are SO BEAUTIFULLY TURQUOISE (Invalid Link Removed is the head I want to buy). I found some nice speakers from the same brand as well, they are equipped with JBL K130; even though they are PA speakers and come with a RCF horn as well, but I don't need that. Invalid Link Removed is a pic of the cabs, would it be hard to mod them to be 115's each? The seller wants €200 for these, if those JBL K130's still sound good then I think I want them :)

SO my question is: is it worth it to sell the Fender Rumble 410 and PF-500 for around €400-500 and get the London City head and cabs with that money? Would I get a sound similar to what I mentioned with them (with or without my LPB-1)? I'm also thinking of modding them with either a mastervolume or cutting the power to 50 watts to not piss off the soundguys with loudness.

I'm looking forward to your answer, thanks in advance!
Click to expand...


Before you do all that, try the Tech 21 Leeds pedal through your rig. You might be surprised, or you might not. But at least you will still have your rig to keep or sell for a tube head.

To be honest, that head in the video vs the Orange sounded very thin. It may have been the controls though.
 
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#3
I have several tube heads, including a JMP 100 watt Superbass, and the sound from the video reminded me quite a bit of this head. Not a tone of deep low end, good mids and great overdrive when pushed. I would play it for a while as is before modding, as you can control your volume quite a bit by the cabinets you use. Given a lot of efficient speakers the Superbass is a beast, but it can be tamed running through a 1x15 cab of average efficiency.
The K130's are the guitar 15" speaker from JBL - I have heard they are not the best for bass, and my guess is that they would not mate really well with an overdriven bass head. K140 is a better choice IMO. But those cabs look cool. Maybe you could buy them without drivers and find some that speakers would work for you.
 
#5
bassgod0dmw said:
Since you're looking for an amp that can get a similar sound to an Ampeg SVT-3, why not just get an Ampeg SVT-3?

If you want an all tube amp with an Ampeg sound, how about an Ampeg SVT-CL, SVT-VR, SVT-II, SVT-II Pro, or SVT.
Click to expand...

Budget! I wish I could afford one of those, but they are too expensive. I either need to sell/trade my current equipment or make the best out of what I have.
 
#13
You definitely need to be looking at used gear. All tube amps aren't cheap by any means. If you can big up a Peavey VB-2 or a Traynor YBA-2 or YBA-3 you might luck out as they are usually less expensive, but I don't know how difficult it would be to find something like that near you.

I have no idea about the London City stuff you mentioned, it's not a manufacturer that I'm familiar with.
 
#15
I have a Super City, its kind of interesting as a design, runs dual HT at high voltage, awaiting some testing, see if its squeezing the 200w 4 EL34 will do run like that. Thing is, its not a very high quality amp, construction wise, suspect the London city ones are similar. Can get better quality for the money, just means shopping for quality rather than brand.
 
#16
Mr. Foxen said:
I have a Super City, its kind of interesting as a design, runs dual HT at high voltage, awaiting some testing, see if its squeezing the 200w 4 EL34 will do run like that. Thing is, its not a very high quality amp, construction wise, suspect the London city ones are similar. Can get better quality for the money, just means shopping for quality rather than brand.
Click to expand...

I'm planning to do a serious checkup in terms of reliability anyway, I wouldn't want it to crap out before a gig.
 
#17
Hm...thought about this for a bit and wondered about a bass that sounds like that right out of the box, rather than an amp. The sound in the clip has Gibson EB-3 written all over it (to my ears, anyway), regardless of amp or signal chain.

Rather than looking for an amp with an EB-3 kind of sound, why not just get the EB-3?

Kind of a backwards approach to your original question, but hey -- maybe that's the better answer.
 

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