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Whoa! New appreciation for Ampeg SVT-CL

Chris 'Wighat' Jordan

Chris 'Wighat' Jordan

Apr 27, 2005
2,513
2,218
Port Aransas, Texas
#1
Gigged with my CL last night for the first time in a while. I have played this thing a lot in the past, at one point, 5 nights a week. I had it dialed in, mostly by accident, in a wonderful way. Without touching the amp or my bass, I was able to go from clean, smooth tone to all-out Ampeg growl with just finger technique. Changed my world. Of course, this probably speaks to my laziness in knob-twisting and/or poor musicianship more than anything else.

Anyone else had a similar revelation or experience?
 
#5
Had been happening to me with my VR. Was unhappy with it for a while, so I set it aside and used my PF500 for about 2 months. Decided I needed to noodle around with it last night, so I turned it on with all the knobs flat and it blew me away. Fell
Back in love with it. I also let a friend play through it while I played some drums and I was loving the sound I heard from it while I was behind the kit.
 
#7
It just goes to show you that it takes time to get to know what an amp can do and that it's best to not make snap decisions based on first impressions. Same with a bass.

tune in, turn up, and drop into the low end
 
#8
wighat said:
Anyone else had a similar revelation or experience?
Click to expand...

I picked up a Sound City 120 a while back to take the place of my SVT while it was in the shop and provide an 8 ohm option. After the honeymoon period I was really kind of meh about it. Spent some time figuring out the EQ, cleaned/fixed up some noisy parts here and there, and tried using the "sensitivity" switch. Totally different animal now. Great punchy bass sound, lots of drive, and with the sensitivity down a more manageable volume. Lots of peaks and valleys with that amp. Happy with it now though.
 
#10
wighat said:
I looked at my amp today to see where things were at. Had both gain and master at 12 o'clock. Touch of boost in the first mid-range band. Bass (Reverend BH5) had both pick ups in series mode, up all the way, tone knob pulled back a quarter turn.
Click to expand...
That'll get you an edgy and somewhat compressed sound that can be quite cool for certain things. If you want it to sound more like a vintage SVT, though, you can crank the master and use gain to set volume. Makes the gain knob super touchy, but it's pretty super touchy anyway on vintage SVT's and VR's with the single volume.

But just to illustrate the difference between your gig and mine, I usually have the master on 12:00 and the gain on 8:30 ;) I'll often boost the master to about 3:00 later on when the music gets a little heavier, but if I played at that setting you use, we'd be instantly canned from most of our gigs.
 
#11
I pretty much had this exact experience recently after playing through a PF500 for a year.

I noticed the dynamics immediately through the SVTcl that were missing in the PF500. I like the PF500, but it made me lazy with the built in compressor. I'll need to brush up on right hand dynamics.
 
#12
JimmyM said:
That'll get you an edgy and somewhat compressed sound that can be quite cool for certain things. If you want it to sound more like a vintage SVT, though, you can crank the master and use gain to set volume. Makes the gain knob super touchy, but it's pretty super touchy anyway on vintage SVT's and VR's with the single volume.

But just to illustrate the difference between your gig and mine, I usually have the master on 12:00 and the gain on 8:30 ;) I'll often boost the master to about 3:00 later on when the music gets a little heavier, but if I played at that setting you use, we'd be instantly canned from most of our gigs.
Click to expand...

I bet you have hotter or active pickups, Jimmy. We were loudish but not too, too loud. There is another thing, though...seems like I am getting the juice at lower volume. That's a good thing. Fresh retube with KT88's and all new preamp tubes, too. I think I have some reduced gain and/or earlier break up.
 
#14
Anyone else had a similar revelation or experience?
Click to expand...

I kind of had my own revelation with SVT's. I played SVT's casually, like at music stores or at NAMM shows. I repaired a '73, and the owner asked me to gig with it after it was repaired as kind of a test flight. I played it at full volume a lot in my basement, and I just thought, "well, it's a bass amp alright." I played a couple of shows with it. The thing that made an impression on me using it live is hard to explain, and was unlike any bass amp I've gigged. In my line of work, I get to play LOTS of amps. I didn't even feel like I was playing an amp, or another way of saying it, I felt like my bass was controlling a force instead of being amplified. On the one hand, it was VERY intoxicating, but on the other hand, I felt like I was missing natural bass tone and no matter what I did as far as EQ or technique adjustments the amp was all like, "NO! This is what I do, deal with it!" The experience of working on it over a period of weeks and then gigging with it made me appreciate it a lot more. It changed the way I think about bass amp voicing in some ways.
 
#15
BbbyBld said:
I kind of had my own revelation with SVT's. I played SVT's casually, like at music stores or at NAMM shows. I repaired a '73, and the owner asked me to gig with it after it was repaired as kind of a test flight. I played it at full volume a lot in my basement, and I just thought, "well, it's a bass amp alright." I played a couple of shows with it. The thing that made an impression on me using it live is hard to explain, and was unlike any bass amp I've gigged. In my line of work, I get to play LOTS of amps. I didn't even feel like I was playing an amp, or another way of saying it, I felt like my bass was controlling a force instead of being amplified. On the one hand, it was VERY intoxicating, but on the other hand, I felt like I was missing natural bass tone and no matter what I did as far as EQ or technique adjustments the amp was all like, "NO! This is what I do, deal with it!" The experience of working on it over a period of weeks and then gigging with it made me appreciate it a lot more. It changed the way I think about bass amp voicing in some ways.
Click to expand...
That's a very interesting way of looking at it. Never really thought of it that way, but I get it. For me, it's one of the few amps that lets me do what I want when I need it, but I suppose if you haven't had a mind-meld with it before playing a lot of different amps, your way of looking at it would probably be the way many would look at it. I like it that way. Keeps me out of trouble ;)
 
#16
BbbyBld said:
I kind of had my own revelation with SVT's. I played SVT's casually, like at music stores or at NAMM shows. I repaired a '73, and the owner asked me to gig with it after it was repaired as kind of a test flight. I played it at full volume a lot in my basement, and I just thought, "well, it's a bass amp alright." I played a couple of shows with it. The thing that made an impression on me using it live is hard to explain, and was unlike any bass amp I've gigged. In my line of work, I get to play LOTS of amps. I didn't even feel like I was playing an amp, or another way of saying it, I felt like my bass was controlling a force instead of being amplified. On the one hand, it was VERY intoxicating, but on the other hand, I felt like I was missing natural bass tone and no matter what I did as far as EQ or technique adjustments the amp was all like, "NO! This is what I do, deal with it!" The experience of working on it over a period of weeks and then gigging with it made me appreciate it a lot more. It changed the way I think about bass amp voicing in some ways.
Click to expand...


Weird, I've always felt that an SVT *WAS* a "natural bass sound". I plug any bass into it with the amp set flat and I feel like it really lets that particular bass shine on its own. For example, using the same amp setting, I can swap from one of my P's to my Stingray and get a completely different tone. Sometimes the simplicity is beautiful because it lets little nuances of an instruments "vibe" shine through. It even shows differences between all my P's with different years/series of pickups.
 
#17
thedudebrah said:
Weird, I've always felt that an SVT *WAS* a "natural bass sound". I plug any bass into it with the amp set flat and I feel like it really lets that particular bass shine on its own. For example, using the same amp setting, I can swap from one of my P's to my Stingray and get a completely different tone. Sometimes the simplicity is beautiful because it lets little nuances of an instruments "vibe" shine through. It even shows differences between all my P's with different years/series of pickups.
Click to expand...

Just because you can hear the inherent tones of different basses through an SVT does not mean it doesn't color the sound. A/B the SVT vs DI/PA for an easy comparison.
 
#18
thedudebrah said:
Weird, I've always felt that an SVT *WAS* a "natural bass sound". I plug any bass into it with the amp set flat and I feel like it really lets that particular bass shine on its own. For example, using the same amp setting, I can swap from one of my P's to my Stingray and get a completely different tone. Sometimes the simplicity is beautiful because it lets little nuances of an instruments "vibe" shine through. It even shows differences between all my P's with different years/series of pickups.
Click to expand...


I did like my SVT when I was doing lots of stoner rock gigging but I got rid of mine because of the fact how much it colours your tone. The weight factor didn't help it any in my books either. Don't get me wrong, I did constantly have that "wow" moment, it is a great amp but the colour was too much for my liking. I get my "wow"'s elsewhere these days.
 
#19
wighat said:
Just because you can hear the inherent tones of different basses through an SVT does not mean it doesn't color the sound. A/B the SVT vs DI/PA for an easy comparison.
Click to expand...
I can flatten out the SVT pretty well when I need it. Never graphed it, but did compare it to a Markbass LMII set flat once (which is near-flat), and I could get pretty much the same EQ. Just have to move knobs.

But I don't think dudebrah was referring to it being near flat with the knobs at noon. He just likes that sound.
 

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