Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Yea your right Capt, its a VT-40

I plugged my LP and wah/tubescreamer in that puppy and it was like molten cream! Great Amp for Cream type material too.

Capt this guy that had it, now get this, I show up to sit in and he says you can use my spare, I said what do you play thru, a Peavey Bandit, and this ampeg is sitting there he said use it. I used to have an Ampeg Bass rig and no not an svt, the old V-4 I think its was. So I plugged my sh*t into that amp and they broke into White Room and gave me the lead at the end and that sob just did it. I wound up playing with these guys the whole night.

When it was over I tryed to buy it from the guy he wouldnt sell it, I offered him 450 for it, said if you ever want to sell it get in touch.

Thru the years Ive run into him here or there and he still never played it played thru wahtever else he had. He plays bass with another band now and they opened a show for us and afterwards I talked to him. He hardly ever used that amp and hot water heater busted and basically ruined it, so he gave it to some guy.

Man what a wasted amp that was, I could have made that puppy sing for a few years.

If i found a decent one I would still give 3-400 for one, but the ones Ive seen are higher than that on ebay and craigslist

JW you did better than I did..

The guy that was selling the one I played wanted 900$ and he wouldn't take my paltry, insulting offer of 750$. (he did bitch about it)

I bought him a shot of 151 and then tried again, 1/2 hour later.

He still wouldn't budge, so I let it slide..maybe sometime down the road we'll see one that's more affordable.

For the moment I attribute it to QOTSA. The lead player is using one and now all the kiddies think it's cool, so the price is going up..

(uggh shoot me now) lol

Capt I think there is a head version of that amp also, I bet it would make a 4x12 cab sing.

It is a great sounding amp, very simple just plug and go unlike some amps Im fond of ugh ugh Mesa's, but I sound the same on whatever I play on so if I buy an amp I make sure I get it for a good price or I just pass on it.

But the VT-40 is the combo on my list and a 50 watt JMP Marshall head is another that I really like.

If you are looking for a cool club combo, find a early 70s Ampeg VT-10, I think thats the model, it has 4x10s but is super compact around 60 watts, it gets that old Stones Sound, Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, etc

I borrowed one, one night for a 150 seat club and that thing just blew me away, Ive always wanted to get one to have, just never ran into one, but that amp is jewel if you are searching for those kinds of tones.

hey jw123... you rock. I am CERTAIN that for you 60watts IS low wattage!
hehe
I imagine you cranking your marshall and going "but I wish it went to 11"!
wish I could crank my 40watt combo... but alas... a bedroom is no place for 40 tube watts.
I guess I wouldn't have pegged you for an ampeg fan... but they do indeed make some great sounding amps... and specifically some great clean tones IMHO.
keep on rocking in the free world bro.

Mikey, you would be suprised the tones I can get out of my Triple Rec, 150 watts. It has a global volume control where I can dial in as nasty a sound as I want and play at basically bedroom levels, now that Ampeg is an old school amp to make it work you have to open it up, maybe an attenuator would help.

This mornin I got up and practiced at 5am for a weekend gig for an hour, I could hear the weather on the tv over my triple thru 2 4x12s.

Ive shared before my little amp, is a Mesa Subway Rocket, 20 watt EL84s, great little amp and will actually work in most of the clubs Im in.

Most of the time when I practice at home I just play an unplugged electric, I figure if I can articulate and cleanly play notes without an amp, then it will kick thru an amp.

Mikey, you would be suprised the tones I can get out of my Triple Rec, 150 watts. It has a global volume control where I can dial in as nasty a sound as I want and play at basically bedroom levels, now that Ampeg is an old school amp to make it work you have to open it up, maybe an attenuator would help.

This mornin I got up and practiced at 5am for a weekend gig for an hour, I could hear the weather on the tv over my triple thru 2 4x12s.

Ive shared before my little amp, is a Mesa Subway Rocket, 20 watt EL84s, great little amp and will actually work in most of the clubs Im in.

Most of the time when I practice at home I just play an unplugged electric, I figure if I can articulate and cleanly play notes without an amp, then it will kick thru an amp.

right on brother... was really just making a joke about the "60watts being small" (hope that came across the right way).

I can get my amps to play quiet... but you know I'm a low gain guy and we tend to love that "semi clean tone" you can only really get when the tubes breakup.

an attenuator would probably be great for me...

60 watts is small to me! LOL

I have a weber mass attenuatar that does the trick but if you really open an amp and crank it way down its too noisy, I used it for a bit, but on my amps, you have a gain and a master, then engage the loop and use the loop as a global master as they call it, it works really good. I can do this without adding all the gainy noise that happens when you attenuate it down.

One of the other forums I visit, theres a guy that swears by one called the Ultimate, wheneve I have mentioned webers he nails me about it, so you might check out the Ultimate as another alternate. I think the weber is better than the hotplate you can adjust the ohms and it has some tonal controls on it too add that thunk sound guys like me like!

thunka-thunka-thunka-thunka-thunka-thunka-CHANG! ooops

My 50 watt Carvin Nomad screams ... the VT-16 head I recently purchased gives me the same tone and responsiveness at 5 or 16 watt.
The ohms output is adjustable from 8 to 16 ohms, or switched on internal load it requires no speaker at all for use through my PA.
It was exactly what I was looking for in a guitar amp.

right on... good to know about the weber... I was kind of thinking of one.
then again, any attenuator beats on your transformers, or so I've read.

sans... good to hear from you.
a lot of amps have the built in attenuation and it's a nice feature, but 5 watts is still just too much for me and all of the amps that I've tried with lower wattage(under 5) options just don't sound that great to me (tiny terror, jet city micro, night train).

ultimately, I think a 1.5-2.5 micro tube amp is going to be my best bet.
the demos I've heard of gerhardts gilmour jr are stellar... just check this out when you've got a sec...
http://www.gerhartamps.com/gilmorejr/builds/brent_hammel/audio/bhammel_1.mp3

side note: laughing that your "little" amp is a subway rocket... those things will take your head off!

I'm lovin'my little 1482, It's great with the clean and chimey and is a real screamer boosted. I tried a modded MT2 with it today and was very surprised at the results. I installed a Monte Allums kit in it a while ago and experimented with a few different LEDs and gemanium diodes in the clipping section. The mods got rid of the nasty nasal tone but I wasn't all that impressed with the pedal until now.

Here is a short little clip showing the amp with and without the MT2. It's got some serious grind with the pedal and thats with a single pole loaded
strat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M3PWZQPX5w

Cool

How do you like that 10 band EQ.

Been looking at that for about a year now myself wondering how well it works.

I'm real picky about any ambient noise when I'm not playing coming from my system.
I don't mind that " feel " of something powerful just waiting to be unleashed.
But any hiss or truly audible hum ...bug the crap out of me.

The EQ doesn't add any noise. I'm sure it could if you run it with the gain slider all the way up but I don't ever use it that way. That's the only one that adds a lot of noise when it's set high. The M108 is a great EQ pedal.

Cool

How do you like that 10 band EQ.

Been looking at that for about a year now myself wondering how well it works.

I'm real picky about any ambient noise when I'm not playing coming from my system.
I don't mind that " feel " of something powerful just waiting to be unleashed.
But any hiss or truly audible hum ...bug the crap out of me.

Come On George dont you remember concerts in the 70s and when they kicked all those Marshalls and Ampegs off standby, that sound you hear, the sound of power about to be unleashed! I love that sound! LOL

Until one of em picks up a police band or something! LOL

Mikey actually if I want to play at bedroom levels I have a POD PRO which I just plug headphones into, its so weird playing with headphones cause I will be rocking out dancing around and look up and my wife or kids are looking at me like Im a crazy guy!

Rock N Freakin Roll, 50 years old and it still gives ma a hardon, that sound when I kick off the standby is just foreplay to my ears!!!

Got a gig tonight and cant wait to get my hard rock on!!

Cheers

Good info . Thanks

Yeah JW that,s what I mean by feeling the power.

Making the hair on your arm ( or something else ) stand up is one thing sounding like you have a pissed off cat in your cab ... not so good.

Cool

How do you like that 10 band EQ.

Been looking at that for about a year now myself wondering how well it works.

I'm real picky about any ambient noise when I'm not playing coming from my system.
I don't mind that " feel " of something powerful just waiting to be unleashed.
But any hiss or truly audible hum ...bug the crap out of me.

Come On George dont you remember concerts in the 70s and when they kicked all those Marshalls and Ampegs off standby, that sound you hear, the sound of power about to be unleashed! I love that sound! LOL

Until one of em picks up a police band or something! LOL

Mikey actually if I want to play at bedroom levels I have a POD PRO which I just plug headphones into, its so weird playing with headphones cause I will be rocking out dancing around and look up and my wife or kids are looking at me like Im a crazy guy!

Rock N Freakin Roll, 50 years old and it still gives ma a hardon, that sound when I kick off the standby is just foreplay to my ears!!!

Got a gig tonight and cant wait to get my hard rock on!!

Cheers

hehe, I get those looks without headphones! lol

checked the vid... amp sounds great clean... love it. metal zones are noisey... but "with great gain comes great high freq noise".

doesn't sound bad as an overdrive but there are a lot of pedals out there that will have a LOT less noise and perhaps more transparency IMO.
the mt does have a nice mid cut/boost. (I guess it's apparent that I have an ingrown hatred towards metal zones!)
cheers,

How old does a Amp have to be in order to be vintage amp?

Can you take a new amp and put vintage tubes in it?