The illusive SVT sound, from the VT

[ticol07]

I think there's a lot less treble then most people think.
I have a spectrum analyzer on my stereo, and while that's not exactly professional gear it still gives a nice idea on what sound looks like.
On No one knows I see a huge boost on 60 Hz, from there it steadily slopes down to 2.4kHz, with very little action above that, 6kHz hardly shows up at all.

My best guess for a homebrew version would be: a P-bass with a pick, boosted lows and low-mids, flat high-mids and reduced treble.
Some compression is nice, and definetely some medium gain overdrive.
And play it like you mean it!

The problem is that once there's distorsion in the tone, frequency curves don't tell everything. The distorded frequencies sound more present.
And so it's hard to cope a tone only by watching these graphs.
As the distorsion on the VT Bass with the character set high will be more present in the 1 kHz area, maybe there's a need to boost a bit the treble to compensate a bit the very present mids generated by the distorsion.
And regarding this 60 Hz boost, it could be achieved in a non instinctive way on the VT Bass, by lowering the mids and the treble while letting the lows at noon. That way it's the lower end of the spectrum which will be boosted, while by boosting the lows as I did tends to create a bump focused on the 100 Hz area.
I base that on frequency graphs I did on the VT bass which showed how the different eq points acts.
On the attached file you can see how the mids set to min act. There's a nice bump in the lower lows that way. There shouldn't be needed such a mid cut. But playing with them and the treble should fatten the low end.

 

[keatz]

Thread resurrection!!!
Was about to post a new thread but found this one that touches a little bit on what I was after.
Absolutely loving the v4b sound while youtubing tube amps. GASing for tube break-up sounds atm but no way I can afford an actual amp or even a real tube preamp. I have got myself a vtbass ver.2 though and was wondering where in the character range I would find nearest to a v4b from those with real experience with the actual amp itself. I see the 12:30 position has got a bit if mention. Anyone else got anything to add on the subject?

I have been running it cleaner with drive at 9oclock and character at 11:30 because I just love what the vt does to the dirt before it. I've got dirt running into vt on 1 channel of my ls-2 and adding a clean blend with the other(because to me blending fuzz and distortion is a must). This has been working great but falling in love with tube sounds now and have no real experience with them (in 16 years).......

 

[Mr. voodoobass]

The big thing about tube amps is when you push them harder. You can have a decent but rather thin sound dialed in. Then just raise volume until power tube breakup/ compression starts kicking. And suddenly you got a fat and full sound that grinds slightly when digging in.
Getting that with just a pedal is harder i think. Or well it depends on how loud you play too. Playing at home with resonable levels just wont sound right. And it's the bottom that will most likely sound weak.
You could try and put a compressor in the clean loop to get closer tho.