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I've never tried an Ampeg. What's the canonical example of their sound for bass? I'm generally used to Fender 6L6 bass amps.
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Jan 23, 2014 23:14
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Me too. Been having to make do with Engl and the like. Wonder how different the new ones are from Thunderverbs. No reverb, and EL34s instead of 6550s on the big one, but otherwise controls look about the same.
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Jan 24, 2014 07:16
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Handen posted:Oh man that's a new trick I've never heard of. Might have to see about putting it to use. Apparently I can stack/jumper my two Legend heads (Rock 'n' Roll 50 and Super Lead 50) together for a combined total output value of 100 watts, whereby one of the amps acts as the preamp and they both share the output duty. Not sure how that works yet but these are the kind of interesting things I like to find out. I used to do something similar with a pair of Fender Supers: run guitar + distortion/overdrive/etc into one amp, out the effects loop into a stereo pedal, one side of stereo pedal into effects return, other side into effects return of the other amp. Nice separation, and let me control both sides with a single preamp. I always got some hum out of it, though.
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Jan 29, 2014 22:18
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I had a Twin for a little while. They are very heavy. If you're going to gig with it, you want a car that you can load it straight in and out of, not, say, trying to put it in the back seat of a 2-door coupe.
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Feb 11, 2014 00:18
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Twins in particular are heavy as gently caress. If you don't need a combo with reverb, consider a silverface Bassman and a cabinet. Much easier to haul. Or a Super Reverb, which is still heavy, but not as bad as a Twin.
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Feb 25, 2014 08:09
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You can also warm up a JC with something like a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic on a clean setting.
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Jun 1, 2014 19:43
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If you can find a JC-77, they sound as good as a 120 but with 10" speakers. Much more portable, but you give up some low end and power. Two 40 watt amps instead of two 60 watt. Same chorus. No effects loop, sadly. With the 120, if you have an effects loop, you could bypass the preamp and just plug your warmth/dirt into the effects return. Or get a head, like a cheap Bassman, run that into a hot plate and the line out into the 120. But way more fun is running a tube amp and a JC at the same time. I like to run a y cable or splitter box, use the tube as main, and have a volume pedal on the JC side just before the delay so I can bring in occasional repeats, or turn the delay off and just use the volume pedal to emphasize certain parts with chorus, fuzz chorus, phase chorus, etc.
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Jun 1, 2014 20:09
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Some pedals will do that. I think it has to do with how true bypass is done. Having it in the loop will send that pop straight to the poweramp. I've heard that pedals which do that may need to just be turned on and off a couple times before use, but with the power on, but for all I know that's specific to the pedals that had this issue. Volume pedal after dirt and modulation but before delay would at least let you suppress that noise.
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Jun 1, 2014 20:52
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There was a head version of the 120 called a JC-120H. Never seen one, probably pretty rare.
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Jun 2, 2014 04:32
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philkop posted:But for now what are some ways to run both amps? Someone mentioned a volume pedal to bring in and out the JC. Do you also run a volume on the tube amp? You can if you want to blend the two or just have the extra control. I usually want a volume pedal anyway. For a while I used an Ernie Ball stereo volume/pan, for fading between them, but there was too much volume drop near the middle so I gave that up. I generally would use a clean tube amp like a Fender, or an Orange with the gain down, distortion via pedal when needed, and use that for my main sound, adding clean JC or fuzz JC to taste, always with the chorus on. Volumes are after the dirt pedals so they get a full signal to work with (can still use guitar volume to clean up vintage fuzz, etc). I never use an a/b box. Either I'll split with a stereo phaser, or the guitar will be wired for stereo, one pickup to each amp. I have an EHx Switch Blade modified to swap the outputs with the foot switch, stereo cable in, two mono outs.
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Jun 17, 2014 08:55
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philkop posted:This seems best for me, do you get that hum everyone talks about when running two amps? Or out of phase problems. There's seems to be a lot of hooplah out there about what should be pretty simple, just a split signal path. You'll probably be all right if you aren't getting hum now. It seems to depend somewhat on the amps. I had great results with a bunch of combinations including Orange, Fender, Roland, and Eden. Two pairings stood out as not working: dual Fender Supers hummed kind of annoyingly, and the Engls just hissed like mad when paired with anything else. For what you're doing, I probably wouldn't bother with a volume pedal. It seems like you want one amp at a time and a clean transition between them, so maybe an a/b/y would be the thing. I use a volume pedal so I can vary the amount of extra chorus guitar, for instance in leads or to highlight a riff, and when the delay is on, I have the option to give it a signal that has no attack so it's less distracting when it repeats.
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Jun 17, 2014 19:23
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Get a second bedroom, then.
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Aug 27, 2014 05:32
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The JC-77 sounds just as good, but if you're worried about the weight of a combo amp with a single 6" speaker, you aren't going to want a 2x10.
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Nov 28, 2014 16:12
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I've got a few Oranges, but nothing solid state. Found a video demo where it sounds surprisingly good and Orangey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOb1YLfGTfk
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Jan 12, 2015 04:10
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Why no 18? They're big. I keep one on end and it's desk height. If you're hauling stuff in cars, will hog a lot of space and suck to unload. Also, I think some might find they're not "punchy" enough without a 2x10 or something to handle fast response and high end. Depends on how much you want the bass to cut through vs rumble underneath the rest of the mix. What kind of 18 is it, out of curiosity? I personally like big bass speakers, though for gigs I just used a 2x10.
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Mar 3, 2015 09:19
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You could probably find a used 2x10 bass cab.
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Mar 16, 2015 18:26
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Huh. Will I be able to just set my JMP outside and have it hauled away, or will there be a charge for making the trash men deal with such a bad amp? How do you mod the JCM800 to get back to the rawer sound of the JMP?
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Apr 22, 2015 23:46
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Spanish Manlove posted:Put a ts808 into a distortion pedal into the front of the amp. I get my distortion tones mainly out of a rangemaster clone, a fuzz face clone, and a distortion+, with the occasional HM-2 for variation, plus whatever I can get out of the power tubes via an attenuator. I don't own a tube screamer. Here's sort of an amp question: what are the options for guitars that go well with a modern high-gain amp? I've got an Engl that doesn't seem to like my guitars that much. I mostly have vintage mahogany Gibsons and Guilds with humbuckers, and they all sound a bit muddy. I don't do seven-strings, and I don't much care for super strats. What's important in a guitar for a tight modern aggressive sound? I'm mostly concerned about getting an articulate sound out of palm-muted riffs.
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Apr 23, 2015 03:49
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The Guilds have much tighter pickups than the Gibsons, and sound better with that amp. There's a built in noise gate. Do I really need an overdrive with an Engl? Loud is not a problem, it's 100W. I really have no idea what modern metal players use these days.
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Apr 23, 2015 06:18
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field balm posted:Anything cheapish with fender/american voicing that will keep up with a drummer? Marshall/orange tone is just not working for me anymore. Doomy folk/country through to 90s screamo type sound. Is a silverface bassman loud enough?
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May 27, 2015 04:07
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Looks like a JC-77, plus stereo input and effects loop, minus the high treble control. Huh. Weirdly, the effects send looks mono, so I guess they figure you're not using it if you're using the stereo inputs.
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Jul 17, 2015 04:29
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Bill Posters posted:Probably not much but they recommend that the attenuator be rated for twice the wattage of the amp. Since the amp wattage is supposed to be for clean power, if you're pushing the amp into distortion then the actual wattage can be a lot higher. I doubt it would be an issue in this case but there are higher rated units available. I don't know the VC30, but my A5012 and AOR don't sound particularly better with the master at 10. Anywhere past 8 sounds worse than below 8, and it gets really hissy. They seem to be complicated designs with a lot of interplay between the knobs. For contrast, Marshall JMP into hot plate is real straightforward: master at 10, control volume with gain and hot plate, sounds great. I'm not saying don't get an attenuator, just try different settings and like the man says, flat out might not be the thing to do, especially with that amp. My Laneys are all about balance and tweaking.
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Oct 6, 2015 06:24
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From what I can see on the internet, that direct out looks mono. You'd lose the whole point of the chorus then, and therefore a lot of the point of that amp. It's possible it is a stereo jack, but I haven't seen Roland do that. The line outs on the 120 and 77 are dual mono jacks. Yes, the line out is going to be line level. It is on the 120 and the 77. A JC-120H (head version of the 120) would do what you want, but also part of the sound of that series of amps is in the speakers, so it's not going to sound the same with whatever you got from craigslist. I imagine you can take the amp apart, look at the ohms on the speakers in the 55 and see if they happen to be 8 ohms, drill holes in the back and mount jacks for external speakers, but if you don't disconnect the ones in the cabinet, you'll be running at different ohms, and I have no clue how that works with solid state, but I wouldn't expect changing the impedance to go well. It might be possible to get the line out modded to stereo, without even cutting any holes in the back, but then yes, you'd need a little PA or something. I'd just look around for a 120H with speakers if you want to get that serious, or find a 77 and run the line outs into the house PA if this is for playing out. The one time I gigged with my 77, I did that. Here's a guy on TGP that wanted to do the same thing. Looks like he got told about the same thing I'm saying. I've wanted a wider spread too, and came to the conclusion that I'd need a JC-120H with the speakers that go with it, or I wouldn't be happy with the results. It's built to do what you're trying to do while sounding like the amp you love.
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Nov 10, 2015 03:57
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I had a Flying V modded so I could kill way more highs than the standard setup, so I could run it into the JC and feed its bright-rear end chorus with a super dark neck pickup, and run the bridge elsewhere. With just the neck going, washy soundscape like you describe, plus phaser, delay, etc. I like pairing a JC with a Bassman. For me, that's the ultimate clean sound. Not familiar with the Joyo stuff, but I got pretty good results warming up my 77 with some Seymour Duncan tube overdrive thing set with minimal drive. Same deal, it was the last thing in the chain, as a preamp. Like you said, not a tube amp, but sure is workable. Also you can turn the warm preamp off and get the nice crisp JC back. Mine is the brown one. There's also a blues-oriented blue one. Uses some tiny tube you supposedly never have to replace. Mostly I don't use overdrives; either I'm getting the distortion from the amp, or I'm using a Distortion+ and a Fuzz Face/Rangemaster clone. In fact, Rangemaster or Dist+ into the JC distortion gives it a good edge. I'll never get rid of my JCs, and I think what I am saying here is go find yourself a Bassman, Super Reverb, or whatever, because a big fat Fender plus a nice crisp Roland is a really good sound, and what you're doing in the meantime is pretty close to what I settled on. But JCs love to be layered on top of 6L6s, and that's better than anything you're going to do by adding speakers to the 55.
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Nov 10, 2015 07:24
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philkop posted:I really do need a bass amp since I fill in playing bass more than I ever play guitar out. See, Bassman!
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Nov 13, 2015 00:09
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philkop posted:I feel like a Rick through a bassman would be the perfect punchy bass tone. It's pretty glorious. The silverfaces are pretty cheap still. They'll fart out at higher volume, but it's loud enough for practice or playing with acoustics or an electric band that knows about space and doesn't have to be loud. For loud volume, use a 6550 amp for the low end, and use the Rick-O-Sound stereo jack to run the Bassman on just the bridge pickup. Add effects, don't lose your low end, sound cool. Or, get a modern Bassman 100T, enjoy silent recording mode (post power tube!), and enough power to deal with a drummer. Two inputs, so you can still do the stereo thing. So, uh, yeah, I agree. Mostly the internet will tell you Bassmans are lousy bass amps, but there are ways to make it work, and gently caress, I love the sound of them. The old silverface ones are nice cheap workhorses. The new ones are less cheap, still workhorses.
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Nov 14, 2015 18:20
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An attenuator will get you past that awkward volume window. It will also let you get into power tube distortion if you want, but the easiest use of it is just to soak up some of the volume so that the amp is not at that weird too soft/too loud point. Low-wattage amps tend to use different tubes, and therefore will sound different if you push them into power tube distortion. I prefer an attenuated big amp with the sound and features I want to a small amp, but lots of people feel otherwise. I haven't used a 6505, but it's got 6L6s in it, so my guess is it's built more around preamp distortion than power tube distortion. I'd probably just get a Hot Plate (same ohms as your intended speaker cabinet), run it at -12 dB, and just let the power tubes breathe and operate more within their good range, and not worry about pushing them into distortion. It's what I do with 6L6 amps, anyway.
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Dec 5, 2015 22:53
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Looks like THD is still in business, but they just sell their stuff on Ebay. I have a couple. They do the job well enough, especially for the sort of milder attenuation you're looking for. I have a couple of the Rock Crusher Recording ones that I use on some 100W Engls. They put out a much better line out signal than the Hot Plates, and they seem to sound better at high rates of attenuation. In my opinion, it's a good enough sound that you could consider recording with it, or not bringing a speaker cabinet if you have a PA to run into. They also do just fine at mild amp-taming. I'm sure the non-recording version would do that just as well, though I'd really consider springing for the recording one.
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Dec 6, 2015 01:13
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I like attenuators a lot, but I don't think I'd recommend one for that sound. It doesn't seem to be about power tube saturation. You could get a Thunderverb 50 to do Witchcraft. It's got about that sound, kind of what it's built to do. I'm not sure what the used ones go for, but I saw a listing for $1150. The "attenuator" in the TV50 would get you down to bedroom levels without changing the tone that much, but it works differently than a normal attenuator and doesn't really give that cranked amp sound. I'm sort of disenchanted with my TV50 because Witchcraft is about what it sounds like, and I had been naively expecting it to do more of a cranked Marshall thing, which it doesn't have the edge for. I keep trying to fall in love with it, then wishing like hell it had a presence control. But it would be a good stoner/doom amp. I think there are cheaper Orange options that try to be smaller Thunderverbs. Cheaper option: silverface Bassman + a good fuzz pedal, no attenuator required. You could also get an old Laney, which has the sort of dark hefty tone you're after, would still need a fuzz I think.
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Jan 12, 2016 07:59
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Distortion+ -> fuzz face -> treble booster. In before two pages of tube screamer.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:53
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If you're trying to push a lot of low end, or you like the sound of big tubes. Otherwise, if you're happy with the sound of an amp that has a headphone out and you're getting enough clean headroom, probably don't need a bigger amp.
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Feb 7, 2016 01:38
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Silverface Bassmans are abundant, cheap, reliable and good. Find a '69 - '77, and I'm pretty sure you're set. Earlier than that and you're paying extra for blackface or near-blackface specs, which you should maybe hold off on until you're not on your first tube amp. Later than that and it might be too sterile-sounding, but still worth checking out. Listening to the first two bands you mentioned, I don't think you need the Marshall sound in particular. Bassmans are great pedal platforms. Edit: the post above reminded me that if you prefer the EL34 sound, Orange OR80s or OR120s are also great pedal platforms. Gorgar fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 22:18
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Not my first tube amp, just my first BIG tube amp. My recording amp is a Gibson Explorer, for instance, with a 3 6V6 power section. Bassman won't have an effects loop or any preamp drive, where an Orange might. Probably doesn't affect your situation. Bassman will be generally warm and round sounding, kind of mid scooped unless you compensate for that. Orange will have more bite, tighter lows probably, may have a presence control. The OR-50 I've never tried, but it has the same FAC knob the OR-80s/120s had. It lets you change the voicing of the amp from thick and woofy up to thin and trebly. Can't speak for the preamp distortion; my OR had a 12AY7 instead of the 12AX7. Worked better for my habit of leaving the volume way up and using the gain as a volume knob, and pedals for distortion, and also made it a good bass amp. Bassmans are inoffensive, Oranges are more interesting. Both are good, but if you're not specifically going for the Fender sound and you can afford an Orange, they're worth checking out.
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Jun 7, 2016 16:58
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Mr. Wiggles posted:I may get more into that Orange, then. I love Bassmans, and I've got a blackface I was going to use as my main guitar amp, but then I rediscovered the Thunderverb and mostly just use that. Still using a modern Bassman 100T for recording away from home though.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:53
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Bassman 70s are after a change to the output stage, I believe, which made them suck. It was an attempt to make them better bass amps I think, but they wound up sterile and awful for the most part. Or so I've heard; my Bassmans are blackface and early silverface, don't have that change, and don't suck.
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Jun 30, 2016 21:06
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Declan MacManus posted:I understand wanting to have a vintage amp that was overbuilt and capable of monster sound. Plus, it's really neat. That's pretty much where I'm at. Amps are cool. I'm not much of a fan of master volumes. I have one in a Marshall JMP 2204, but I leave it maxed and use the gain for volume. Preamp distortion isn't really my thing, with the exception of Engl and Laney. Otherwise, I tend to prefer amps without a master. I got my start on this road when I lent a Fender (kind of a Super Reverbish thing) to a guy for a gig and saw that he turned the volume all the way up on it and fed it very little guitar volume. Sounded much better than I ever did. From then on I started turning the amp volume (master or otherwise) up to where it sounds best to me, which is not always 10, then control actual volume with a volume pedal.
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Aug 22, 2016 18:54
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Run the axe fx into the effects return on the amp and you'll bypass the preamp. Should be flatter.
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Sep 30, 2016 23:23
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True story: I got interested in and eventually bought a Strat largely because Fast Eddie used one to cut through and be heard over Lemmy.
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Oct 5, 2016 02:49
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It would probably sound a lot better running them in parallel. If you're just going to use the other amp as a preamp, you could just get a tube preamp pedal. This thing has a "poweramp mute" and a speaker simulator on the XLR out. Not sure if that's including the poweramp section or not. It might sound pretty good as a recording out, similar to what's in the Bassman 100T (which I like a lot). I don't think I'd necessarily run that into another amp though. Speaker simulator into guitar amp, even a clean JC, might sound odd. Just run them in parallel, maybe eq the JC for highs, the Fender for lows, mids wherever, and it should sound good. Gorgar fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 01:36
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 10:15 |
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Apparently these come in head versions too. No, you won't blow anything up. It might sound kind of strange, but might sound good. Parallel would still sound better (to me), but now I get it: if the amp is safe to run with the poweramp muted, you should be ok. If the poweramp isn't part of the direct out, then you have a very expensive and large dual tube preamp pedal that won't have any el84 chime in it. A lot of what you liked about the sound won't be there. Unless they put the direct out after the power stage.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:57
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