Tech 21 VT Bass

[JimmyM]

How is the VT pedal if used with an actual tube amp? I mean, would you even notice it. I'm wondering if it would be worth buying if I will be playing a tube amp already.

That all depends on your needs. I like power tube distortion, but I can't do it by cranking my SVT all the way up or else we'll get thrown out. So I use it to emulate that sound. Other people have been using it as a clean boost for their Ampeg rigs. But if you're digging your tube amp and have no need for a pedal to emulate it, not much point in having one.

 

[skychaserhigh]

I use the VT with my Marshall VBA400 to give me more tonal range. Also as Jimmy said it can be used to get that cranked sound without ridiculous volume.
Using it through a valve amp just sounds amazing and you can really feel it punching through.
I usually leave the VT on all gig and use it as my pre amp with the mid contour switch boosted to 3 on my Marshall.

Awesome.

 

[Eublet]

i cant tell if the bass in that clip is ONLY a cranked SVT or what.

can the VT get THAT tone.

That's a studio recording, so it would be hard to give credit to any one piece of gear for that tone. I doubt it's an SVT though because of the volume issue with cranking an SVT to get the overdrive and then recording it. It could have been recorded clean, and then reamped with some external gear, or even something like a Protools plugin.

 

[sonic assassin]

That's a studio recording, so it would be hard to give credit to any one piece of gear for that tone. I doubt it's an SVT though because of the volume issue with cranking an SVT to get the overdrive and then recording it. It could have been recorded clean, and then reamped with some external gear, or even something like a Protools plugin.

i know its been processed, but that sound is all over the record, and i wanted to know if the core tone was an ampeg stack, and if so, could that level/flavor of overdrive be dialed in via VT bass.

up until the album that followed that one, his setup was P-bass --> svt. studio.. who knows. i cant pick out ampeg tone when i hear it like a lot of guys around here.

one of my buddies is interested in a tone like that and if 150 dollars gets him ballpark, im sure hes in.

 

[robgo]

Used the VT practising with the band last night for the first time.

Absolutely blew me away!!!

I was expecting something good after all the talk on here, but I wasn't expecting it to have quite such an impact on the whole group dynamic. Not many bits of bass kit get the rest of the band going as much as that did!

I was playing old P-bass > VT > crappy old Realistic 20 watt PA amp > GK 2x10, kept the tone controls pretty much the same (slight mid and low boost/high cut) dialling the character knob between about 9.00 to 12.00 on its own got an awsome range of sounds, adding a bit of dirt with the drive (generally around 12.00 ish) and balancing it with the level. Still feel there's a lot more sonds in there to get out. I think the tone controls on my amp and bass are going to get used a lot less from now on.

This pedal really thickened up my sound, I do a lot of the melodic work in our band and the sound it gave me was a perfect sound for what we were doing. A 'band sound' emerged last night which we were all very excited about, acoustic guitar, electric drums, and dirty bass, it's one hell of a combination, apparently!!

Everything should have a character knob.

 

[Eublet]

i know its been processed, but that sound is all over the record, and i wanted to know if the core tone was an ampeg stack, and if so, could that level/flavor of overdrive be dialed in via VT bass.

up until the album that followed that one, his setup was P-bass --> svt. studio.. who knows. i cant pick out ampeg tone when i hear it like a lot of guys around here.

one of my buddies is interested in a tone like that and if 150 dollars gets him ballpark, im sure hes in.

A lot of bass players in groups like that have several of their favorite distoration pedals, and they'll use them in differing combinations to get a certain sound, even with an SVT on the back end. For example, the SVT will be running with a clean (for an SVT) sound, and then some pedal(s) provides the overdrive. So while I wouldn't expect a $150 pedal to do everything a person wants in terms of distortion or overdrive, it does get you into the SVT tone without having to actually have an SVT. That's way cool!

Have you checked out the Youtube demo of the VT, which is also linked from the Tech21 page? That's what it sounds like more or less. Of course the bass you push it with changes the sound. But that should let you hear the pedal clearly in a solo setting.

 

[One Drop]

I've been experimenting lately with the Character knob set wide open. With treble rolled right off, bass boosted way up, drive at 9-10:00, I get a killer reggae tone, juicy and fat, but clear and growly. Pure heaven!

This pedal works great with Eden amps, set flat.

 

[Essthreetee]

Just ordered mine from my local GC...can't wait for it to get here and start messing with it....

 

[PluckyThump]

Got mine a couple days ago, nice pedal! It will do anything from clean boost to crazy fridge-with-blown-speakers-sitting-on-loose-wooden-planks-distortion. I've got it dialed in for light grit and it adds that certain something to the tone. It's going to be an almost-always-on pedal for me.

 

[JazznFunk]

I got my VT Bass late this week and experimented first with it in my home studio... in headphones at first so I could really hear what it was doing. Needless to say I was impressed, and was blown away when I finally tried it with an amp today. I am not a player who likes distortion on any level really (I'm an Eden/SWR player for the most part), so I was prepared to not like this pedal as much as I really wanted to. The prospect of easily adding natural tube warmth and tonal body was what really grabbed my interest early on. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it truly does deliver clean tube warmth with just the right hair on the note that makes any amp I use sound better. The active EQ on the pedal is amazing as well... very powerful, so use sparingly! I can't wait to see the sound guy's face on the next few gigs when I feed him the direct signal with this in the mix. What I'm extra excited about is using the VT Bass along with my tube preamp that I usually run in front of my combos and heads. The VT Bass in conjunction with some real tube warmth has me all excited. I can think of very few occasions when I'll need full-on distortion or grind, but this pedal delivers that in spades.

I can honestly say, coming from the perspective of someone who is not really an SVT guy, that this pedal does much more than cop an SVT tone. I think anyone wanting to liven up a solid state amp would do well to pick this up... I think it will be an 'always on' pedal for me!

 

[ScottB.]

Am I the only one who doesn't use the VT for (consciously) trying to get SVT/fliptop sounds?

I just use mine to get some nice tube grit, not trying to get as close as I can to an X model SVT dicontinued in X year?

 

[Surly]

Am I the only one who doesn't use the VT for (consciously) trying to get SVT/fliptop sounds?

I just use mine to get some nice tube grit, not trying to get as close as I can to an X model SVT dicontinued in X year?

Me too. I like Ampeg, like the pedal, but don't actually know what a real OEM '69 SVT is supposed to sound like.

 

[zippydog]

ok, subscribed and just about to order!

 

[Essthreetee]

Well I just got mine today...unfortunately I haven't had a single second to play it until....well...right now. Gotta go...

 

[mrkreuzschlitz]

I really would like to replace my PBDDI with one.

 

[JimmyM]

i know its been processed, but that sound is all over the record, and i wanted to know if the core tone was an ampeg stack, and if so, could that level/flavor of overdrive be dialed in via VT bass.

up until the album that followed that one, his setup was P-bass --> svt. studio.. who knows. i cant pick out ampeg tone when i hear it like a lot of guys around here.

one of my buddies is interested in a tone like that and if 150 dollars gets him ballpark, im sure hes in.

I think it would cop the tone on that recording. Sounds like Precision --> cranked SVT to me. And even though it would be screaming loud to get that sound with power tubes cranked in a studio, I wouldn't put it past a producer to do it. They could just stick it in a closet or something and let it blast in front of a dynamic mic. But it could also be a number of any other things as well. There's always more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[jufros]

This thread never dies. I'm using a Sparkle Drive in front my sansamp RBI (rack) and I'm getting considerably better than descent mild OD.

But I'm under the impression that the VT is no only capable of mild gritty overdrive, but that it offers a large amount of overdrive colors. Works well with passives and actives, you can use it as a high gain OD, but more importantly, it CAN actually give you a flat eq with a bit of extra OD mucho. I mean isn't that what we look for in an OD? Something that doesn't color your tone TOO much but just noticeably warms it up and adds a little punch and edge?

I love my Sparkle Drive. It's transparent, it adds a little fizzy and gurgly warmth to my clean tone and I run it first in line on the board. Everything about this pedal is awesome: you can tweak in the clean/OD balance and the overdrive effect will respond much differently depending on how much clean blend is being used. What woud make the Sparkle Drive the ultimate Bass OD would be:
1) More gain on tap
2) Netter EQ controls than "tone", which is surprisingly responsive and useful. The tone knob is where you can dial in some personality on the SD. Mids would be AMAZING on the Sparkle Drive.
3) An effect that that was delicate enough to your clean tone that a clean blend wouldn't be necessary (very skeptical that any overdrive pedal could actually overdrive a bass guitar in a totally organic way without some kind of blend capability)

The VT just seems like its a light overdrive machine built with impressive and intelligent features. A clean blend should have been one of them. Still, you get very powerful 3-band EQ, Tech 21 Drive (my RBI's drive circuit is downright amazing at what it does but I have to keep it at 0 for most things so that my pedal board sounds clean and clear. The character feature on the VT looks interesting but I'm not sure that I like my controls to be quite that vague. Can you do funk with this thing? I'm not playing a pick, I'm playing busy acrobatic fingerstyle stuff or more reserved driving rock bass lines. That's what I need OD for. Burpy spanks from high notes and extra fizz/punch.

Me? I've always wanted a subtle fizzy low gain Overdrive that stayed true to my basses' sound and gave me a touch more oomph to hits and more zing to runs and such. I wanna keep it light, funky, but in your face.

I'm about to have nightmares about this Sparkle Drive / VT Bass switch business. I haven't been on the fence about any other pedal choice ever. Wish I could try to VT so badly. After much research, the VT and SD seemed the best overdrives. I've considered getting the SD modded but I definitely do like it a lot. I'm really really ocd and insane about mild overdrive tone because it's what I use for almost everything. If I made the wrong choice with the SD, i will accept and become a proud VT owner but I just haven't heard an explicit VT vs: SD case.

 

[joeydavidson]

I don't see the VT as an overdrive, rather an Ampeg emulator, I purchased it on the strength of it's clean sound, the slightly overdriven sound was something that I explored a few months later but ended up becoming part of my tone even though I wasn't conciously wanting a non-clean tone, it just sounds really good on the verge of breakup.

 

[zippydog]

Hey, guys...

Where do/would you put the VT in the signal chain?

Currently, my setup goes:

Tuner >
Compressor >
Xotic X-Blender >loop out>
Phase >
Chorus >
Back to X-Blender >loop in> Amp

Would you put the VT after the compressor?
In the Xotic loop (so you could dial in amount of soak? - I like this idea best without trying it)
Last before amp?

How do you run yours?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

[sonic assassin]

I think it would cop the tone on that recording. Sounds like Precision --> cranked SVT to me. And even though it would be screaming loud to get that sound with power tubes cranked in a studio, I wouldn't put it past a producer to do it. They could just stick it in a closet or something and let it blast in front of a dynamic mic. But it could also be a number of any other things as well. There's always more than one way to skin a cat.

im 90% sure it was american P into SVT classic, as that was his rig up until the next album. my issue was that i didnt know if that WAS an ampeg tone in the first place. and if it was, i couldnt tell if the front end was pushed or something.

new recording pictures show him with his SVT fridge and an old B-15. maybe thats how hes getting the dirty end without deafening anyone?

but knowing that is IS an ampeg tone is good news. the bassist in my band will be happy to know that hes 150 dollars away from some almost thrice bass tone.

thanks again, jimmy.