re Tubes and hybrids

[Chef]

very, very good.

anther Mesa question:
how are they at customer service?.

 

[Chef]

Nah, it was that new reverse-antigravity pad.

The other day I saw an SVT2 Pro at GC. I tried to lift it to see how heavy it is, but somone had bolted it down.

 

[Chef]

mambo; that link in your first post:
that's an open backed guitar amp, yeah?
that's never gonna work well for bass.


there are a lot of hybrid amps that put very, very little plate voltage to the tubes, and therefore the tubes have very little effect on things, overall.

 

[mambo4]

yes the wizard was a guitar amp i was noodling with for kicks at the studio.
It certainly lacked the booty of a bass amp.
But the touch response reflected in the level of distortion , without drastic volume changes, was amazing to my ears.

If I can find a rig that lets me go from smooth / clean to dirty/distorted with just my fingers, that would be a holy grail for me.

 

[Chef]

i bet guitar center seattle has a walkabout you can audition.
you might wnat to try the big block 750 too.

 

[hennessybass]

I think a low watt, all tube head is what you are after. What about a bassman (50 watts) or an Ashdown Little Bastard (30 watts).

Crank one of those puppies up, and the only thing you need is your volume knob and your fingers.

 

[main_sale]

Maven Peal makes a pedal called The Howler that adds SAG to an amp, like what you find in a saturated tube amp when you are digging into it. It might be a step in the tone direction you are looking for.

 

[Johnny Crab]

A Line 6 BassPODXTLive comes VERY close if you use the SVT sim and spend a few hours tweaking it. I had to set it like I set my 70's SVT to get it to work like that as the factory patch sounded very un-inspiring. What you experienced is what I call "playing on the edge" where an preamp/amp is set to be clean until you dig in.

Besides the constant maintenance/expense/weight factors, the SVT I had seemed to be like most tube amps where they "kick a$$" one night(voltage and ability to crank the V knob to 10 o'clock) but wouldn't at another venue(smaller place, couldn't crank it, possible stage power issues). Guitarists had the same problem with their amps until I put "masters" between the pre and output stages for them. Never did that with my SVT....maybe I should've?

A Bassman with 2 main output tubes still lives here but needs another rebuild to act right.

Tubes RULE when they work right IMO, SIMs are close.

 

[bongomania]

Maven Peal makes a pedal called The Howler that adds SAG to an amp, like what you find in a saturated tube amp when you are digging into it. It might be a step in the tone direction you are looking for.

Hmm... Interesting... http://www.mavenpeal.com/gearhowler.html

 

[Chef]

huh....that's an interesting read, and, an interesting company.

 

[FUCHSAUDIO]

Fuchs will be showing a new hybrid bass amp at NAMM. The Bruiser has 600-W (2-ohms) class-D output stage driven by an all tube preamp featuring high, parametric midrange, low, plus bright, deep and two gain settings for passive and active basses. A front panel mounted DI send level control and stage level control/master volume. 30-Lbs in a head somewhere around 2-K Map.

 

[tombowlus]

Fuchs will be showing a new hybrid bass amp at NAMM. The Bruiser has 600-W (2-ohms) class-D output stage driven by an all tube preamp featuring high, parametric midrange, low, plus bright, deep and two gain settings for passive and active basses. A front panel mounted DI send level control and stage level control/master volume. 30-Lbs in a head somewhere around 2-K Map.

Excellent! We will stop by, for sure. What is your booth number?

Tom.

 

[FUCHSAUDIO]

Booth 4130, sharing with Coffin Case and using speakers by Jorg Schroeder http://www.schroedercabinets.com/ .

 

[JimiLL]

Where are you in Jersey?? Any stores or demos set up?

 

[DJJazzV]

Fuchs will be showing a new hybrid bass amp at NAMM. The Bruiser has 600-W (2-ohms) class-D output stage driven by an all tube preamp featuring high, parametric midrange, low, plus bright, deep and two gain settings for passive and active basses. A front panel mounted DI send level control and stage level control/master volume. 30-Lbs in a head somewhere around 2-K Map.

I've been to the Fuchs shop. Only 15 minutes away. He fixed my Mesa Boogie Strategy 500. I know a few guitarists who rave about his guitar amps. I've been waiting for a Fuchs bass amp! Can't wait to hear more about this new one!

 

[JimmyM]

http://www.fuchsaudiotechnology.com ...in clifton.

 

[will33]

Not really a Versus thread, but an honest query

I use a hybrid amp (tube pre + power amp)
subscribing the often repeated idea that you get that "tube sound"
in the preamp and boost it with the power section...saving money and weight.

Made the mistake of playing through a tube amp this weekend
actually a guitar amp : [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

And I noticed one thing that I haven't been able to replicate:
I play light it sounds clean and smooth
I dig in and it sounds wonderfully , aggressively dirty and distorted but not louder
I have looked at various pedals and effects, channel switching ect to allow me to change up my tone on the fly
but this level of responsiveness & compression, this ability to adjust my tone so drastically with only my hands, was a revelation.

Is that something you can only get from power tubes?

The amp you linked to is a guitar amp. What you were hearing was likely a lot of speaker breakup, designed into guitar speakers on purpose. You'll likely fry them trying to get that sound up to gig volume with a bass.

The tube power section makes the difference in bass amps. There's modeling stuff out now that can sound like that and likely fool a lot of listeners but it won't fool the player. The tubes still have natural compression and just plain feel more responsive to your playing. Once you find the amps sweet spot, you can get anything you want out of it just using your plucking hand and the volume knob on the bass.

To be practical, this is mostly for the enjoyment of the player, there's plenty of good SS and hybrid stuff out that the general listener probably won't appreciate the difference.

 

[mdogs]

The beauty of that warm tube compression....

 

[JimmyM]

To be practical, this is mostly for the enjoyment of the player, there's plenty of good SS and hybrid stuff out that the general listener probably won't appreciate the difference.

right, and that's why i always say "my rig is for me and me only." i mic it, but make no mistake...it's there strictly to whack myself off. honestly i don't care if it makes a difference to the audience or not. makes a difference to me, and if i'm not happy, nobody is.

having said that, my micro vr stack will be getting a lot more play in the near future, and ain't nary a tube in it

 

[R Baer]

And I noticed one thing that I haven't been able to replicate:
I play light it sounds clean and smooth
I dig in and it sounds wonderfully , aggressively dirty and distorted but not louder
I have looked at various pedals and effects, channel switching ect to allow me to change up my tone on the fly
but this level of responsiveness & compression, this ability to adjust my tone so drastically with only my hands, was a revelation.

Is that something you can only get from power tubes?

This is exactly why I have always been a tube guy. I like having the gain set right on the edge of tube break up. This let's me vary how hard I dig in as a way to go in and out of breakup. As part of my style, I tend to back off a bit in the verses for a cleaner sound and then dig in harder on the chorus. Really fills the chorus up a lot.

Call me a traditionalist, but I'm just not into the whole emulator thing. No matter how good they make them, I will always use tubes instead.