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Ampeg SVT. Distinctly underwhelmed.


NancyJohnson
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Gigged last night and after schlepping my quite modest Barefaced/rack through narrow corriders and up five flights of stairs, I'm told the first band on were supplying the bass ampage.

My eyes beheld an Ampeg rig; an old SVT nestling atop a pair of tatty cabinets. Compared to the gear around it, it looked like Chicago's Willis Tower viewed from Lake Michigan. Never even touched an Ampeg in 30 years of playing and on the orders of the sounds guy, I returned my amps to my car.

You know, the name of Ampeg is surrounded by legends...didn't Geddy use Ampeg? Great, I thought, let's drive this motherf*cker and see what my Thunderbird sounds like. Or not.

I had about five minutes with it before our set and couldn't get any kind of drive or dirt out of it, the tone/presence controls barely did anything and it didn't seem to own it's frequency if that makes sense or 'throw' in the slightest. Sure it was loud, but that was about it...there was none of this monsterous tone that has been alluded to in the countless articles I've read over the years.

Having used the same bass for recording via DI, it has a pretty acceptable tone recorded flat, but I couldnt actually accept that it could have sounded worse when amplified. It's difficult to describe the experience as anything other than underwhelming.

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What kind of SVT was it? I found you need to drop the low and boost the mid on my CL with the low and high engaged it sounded phenomenal! Excatly the tone I heard on many a great album ( nirvana etc etc) very growly.
Could it be that actual amp was a bit pump in performance?

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I've just been looking through Google for images!

The SVT logo on the fascia was italicised and coloured; it had a red V in the middle of SVT; it looked like the one below, although I don't recall there being Ultra Hi/Lo buttons on it and I thought there was a knob marked as being 'presence' (although looking at the plethora of online images, I guess there probably wasn't). The standby and power switches, while similar, were a bit bigger/squarer. Rightly or wrongly, I went into the 0db input.

I had about five minutes to try and get an agreeable tone and found it very difficult to dial up anything decent; my regular signal chain is fairly simple, Sansamp RBI into a power amp...I just thought the Ampeg would replicate this easily. No growl, no dirt, nada. It almost sounded like I was playing with flats.



Edited by NancyJohnson
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That is identical to the year head I had. I have to admit when I first got it I set everything noon and was quite deflated........ After a good noodle with my band "that sound" was there.
Don't take a solid view from that one amp mate, hope you have the chance to have a good play on another

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That's odd, while I've never owned one I've played through that version of the SVT and there was definitely some good-sounding preamp grit available with the gain high and the master low. My passive J pickups are probably lower output than your Thunderbird too. I suspect an unhealthy amp.

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[quote name='danbowskill' timestamp='1488578389' post='3250320']
What amp do you normally play? ...Just out a curiosity :-)
[/quote]

Posted above...generally a Sansamp RBI into a (Matrix) poweramp into Hartke or Barefaced enclosure(s). Also have an option of a dual channel set up based around a Sansamp BDDI & VTBass DI. Plenty of grit via emulators.

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The picture you posted is the is the "newer" version. It has the SVP Preamp in it. The Old School SVT's did not have a "Gain" knob. It was just the Volume. So as you crank it gets dirtier. To me the "newer" sounds like playing under a blanket until you tweak it a lot. Still not as "open" as the original SVT Preamp circuit.

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[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1488533467' post='3249677']
I've just been looking through Google for images!

The SVT logo on the fascia was italicised and coloured; it had a red V in the middle of SVT; it looked like the one below, although I don't recall there being Ultra Hi/Lo buttons on it and I thought there was a knob marked as being 'presence' (although looking at the plethora of online images, I guess there probably wasn't). The standby and power switches, while similar, were a bit bigger/squarer. Rightly or wrongly, I went into the 0db input.

I had about five minutes to try and get an agreeable tone and found it very difficult to dial up anything decent; my regular signal chain is fairly simple, Sansamp RBI into a power amp...I just thought the Ampeg would replicate this easily. No growl, no dirt, nada. It almost sounded like I was playing with flats.




[/quote]
wow, its still got all its knobs on!

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