non-clean tone with Hartke lh500

[DWBass]

Get a Sansamp and be done.

 

[blindrabbit]

I understand that I need a pedal to get what I need. Thanks though for clearing everything up! I'm now looking for that one pedal to give me that push. Most likely a mild overdrive.
I will look into all the suggestions given!

Aguilar Tone Hammer
Fairfield Barbershop
ss/bs Mini
Solidgoldfx Beta

...and a gazillion others that will get suggested to you, I'm sure.

 

[Thijsklaps]

I'm going to go to my nearest music store next week and test everything they have, thanks for the help!

 

[svlilioukalani]

A 3bk from darkglass will help, and it goes great with a Mesa Prodagy. I use the same 2 amps you have. A tone hammer is great for the L500 but less so for a mesa. I sold my sans amp the day I got a darkglass pedal.

 

[AdamR]

Hartke Bass Attack.

 

[Crystalman85]

I own a hartke lh500 through a gk cx115 and I got a killer sound using an amptweaker bass tight metal jr. I also own a digitech bass driver. with the gain and tone at a low setting, I got a nice tube overdriven sound. my next experiment will be testing my rig with a joyo golden face. it would be awesome if I was able to match this guy's sound when he used the golden face.



golden face demo at 1:21

 

[crapusername]

I tried my cream pie and bi fet preamp in the front yesterday.
WOW!!
Huge valvey tone!! With the vmt as well for more gain, it was seriously cooking!!

 

[andruca]

I have extensive experience with the 3500 head (same paradigm, lots of clean volume+EQ+compression) and have gigged an LH500 some times. I also own several old trusty Peavey combos and the thing is the same, great clean volume and EQ. So for me a SansAmp RBI before the amp (or a Zoom MS60B emulating it what I gig with combos) has always been the way. Doesn't even need to be a proper preamp, any decent OD (that doesn't thin the sound too much) with a dry/wet blend pot usually does it for me too. Last time I gigged with my full SansAmp+3500 rack the guy who shared his 810E cab for the event (also used some tube SVT head) was appalled to hear the authority my way cheaper amp setup had thru' his fridge and had never even thought it could go that wild.

 

[Climax]

When I had my LH500, I used to run ebs multicomp in tubesim mode with it. Warmer sound, and a bit more compressed tube amp feel. VT Bass is great too with it, but a bit more baked sound in it of course.

Great amp.