Anyone use a tiny valve amp?

[Ancient Mariner]

Picked up my first bass cab from Alien yesterday, and this afternoon as an experiment I tried it with a simple 5W valve head I built a couple of years back.

Sounds great (with the tone rolled off on the bass).

Run flat out, it's pushing into overdrive and sounds a little odd, but up to about 2/3 volume it gives rounded warm tone with the P type I used.

What also surprised me is how loud it would get. Certainly too loud to practice with a family member around (unless they love your playing) and too loud to accompany acoustic instruments.

Anyone else use such a thing?

[richrips]

i use a grainger valve 5 watt monster. easily loud enough for guitar in a band practice. quite loud with bass but definitely saps the bottom end out. most valve signal paths tend to do this unless specifically designed not to. i plan to run it bi-amped as for some awesome valve overdrive on the high frequencies, kinda like the stranglers sound. like you i found a bass cab improved the bass response, but not brilliantly, especially after i've been gradually modding the grainger towards fender champ specs. a guy i played with a few years back had an original tweed champ amp. probably the coolest sounding 1 watt on the planet!

[Prime_BASS]

Is it possible to upgrade something like epiphone junior to accept bass frequencies?

[richrips]

[quote name='Prime_BASS' post='802821' date='Apr 11 2010, 06:01 PM']Is it possible to upgrade something like epiphone junior to accept bass frequencies?[/quote]

Should be, although i've never heard of it done. Plenty of people modding them online (my grainger is the same with different badges) but never seen it done for bass, with most people going for brighter tone, not deeper. if it had a switch for Champ or Ampeg modes, that would be handy! anyone got that schematic kicking about???

r

[Prime_BASS]

back when i was looking for an all valve guitar amp, I was looking at that epiphone juniour thing and hearing loads of mod talk on guitargeek.com, and all about adding a tone nob or a boost circuit or something, I'm sure there must be away of modding it for bass frequencys.

The jaguar sounds awesome through my Orange, especially overdriven.

[Ancient Mariner]

With the EVJ it should be fairly easy to mod - the biggest improvement to bass response (works for guitar too) would be to add a bigger OT, and for bass I'd have thought either a 125DSE or 125ESE (from Hammond - Bluebell Audio sell 'em). The amp I built uses an OT from ampmaker, and although it's smaller than I expected it didn't roll off too much of the low E.

If you're serious about modding (can you read a schema & solder?) then I don't mind offering hints/advice.

Edited April 11, 2010 by Ancient Mariner

[Prime_BASS]

Yeah I'm fairly competant when it cones the shematics and soldering, plus if I get stuck my dad is an electrical engineer

[yorick]

Not strictly bass, but the lead guitarist in the country band i play with has a 12w boutique hand built jobbie, based on a 50's Fender that sounds the DB's.

[Clarky]

alanbass1 uses a Fender Champ 5W guitar amp for home practice as he plays guitar and bass - when I was over, he played a bass through it (my old Nash which he briefly owned) and it sounded lovely, a really pure warm sound. I was impressed and investigated the idea but the speaker would have needed upgrading to handle anything other than low volume and TBH I couldn't be bothered with all that. I think the bass amp manufacturers are really missing a trick here ... can you imagine how many bass afficionados would be attracted to the idea of a small, all-valve combo for home and band practice use?

[JTUK]

Agree ..most gtrs I play with use small kettle amps...
A nominal 18 watts they say...but sound the business and retire their Cornfords...

As for bass....?? no, can't see it.
Most players need a rig capable of around 2-300watts and valves are mostly a lot of pain for no gain in this regard.
I,e freakin heavy and a valve pre gets there mostly anyway for my needs
I can't see the point of low volume valve practise volume amps, myself...

[Prime_BASS]

I dunno, on talkbass there was a few guys talking about the Orange BT should have been a low watt all valve job.

The only low watt all valve bass head in manufacture is ashdowns little bastard, no idea how good or crap it sounds.

[JTUK]

TE used to do an all valve combo..at 130watts called the Twin
That was decent enough for jazz gigs... but it wasn't really a solution as it was still heavy albeit compact.
And was probably overkill for a practice amp anyway.
It still had the horrible GP7 pre amp in it so there was only so much the valves could do, IMO...

[Ancient Mariner]

It's very difficult to keep the weight of a valve amp reasonable over about 30 watts, if you want a strong bottom end. The only way to do it is with BIG BIG iron and huge caps, and it all gets very heavy, very quickly. Below that it's not so bad, but obviously that's not enough for clean tone at gig volumes. There is a valve amp design around that has some kind of clever switching power supply system instead of transformers, but I don't think it's hit the market yet (apparently been in prototypes for several years now).

[Prime_BASS]

I think we all forget the Fender musicmaster 12w bass combo. However the ones I see on eBay are either £200+ or too expensive. I would love some kind of reissue of that.

[Happy Jack]

Or just go vintage. There are plenty of old WEM amps still knocking about.

Clubman (6W into 12"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/clubman.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/clubman.html[/url]

Westminster (10W into 12"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/westminster.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/wa...estminster.html[/url]

Dominator (15W into 12" or 15"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/domin.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/domin.html[/url]

A clean, reliable example of any of these will fetch anything from £150 - £350 on eBay. And if you decide you don't like it, you'll get your money back when you sell it.

I've had a bunch of vintage WEMs over the last few years and they are really nice combos. My 1978 Dominator 25 Bass ([url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/dominator/dom19.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/wa...ator/dom19.html[/url]) is slightly over the top for home use but ideal for low-volume band rehearsals.

Edited April 13, 2010 by Happy Jack

[Tee]

[quote name='Prime_BASS' post='803411' date='Apr 12 2010, 09:24 AM']The only low watt all valve bass head in manufacture is ashdowns little bastard, no idea how good or crap it sounds.[/quote]


There's also the EBS Classic T90 (90 watts)

[OldGit]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='804564' date='Apr 13 2010, 08:56 AM']Or just go vintage. There are plenty of old WEM amps still knocking about.

Clubman (6W into 12"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/clubman.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/clubman.html[/url]

Westminster (10W into 12"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/westminster.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/wa...estminster.html[/url]

Dominator (15W into 12" or 15"): [url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/domin.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/domin.html[/url]

A clean, reliable example of any of these will fetch anything from £150 - £350 on eBay. And if you decide you don't like it, you'll get your money back when you sell it.

I've had a bunch of vintage WEMs over the last few years and they are really nice combos. My 1978 Dominator 25 Bass ([url="http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/watkins/dominator/dom19.html"]http://www.vintagehofner.co.uk/britamps/wa...ator/dom19.html[/url]) is slightly over the top for home use but ideal for low-volume band rehearsals.[/quote]

Slight derail..
I have a 70's solid state WEM clubman and it has a lovely tone up to half way loud.
It's just about loud enough for a learning stuff rehearsal but not if my drummer's using sticks
I've always said I'd settle for a 500 watt version of that sound

Meanwhile back OT.
You can probably mod a Epi Valve Senior head for bass and to run a decent bass cab.
Most small valve bass amps are snatched up by us harmonica players and guit@rists

I've just got a Peavey Valve King Royal 8 and added a blues harp mod kit from Watford Valves. (Valves and speaker)
Just plugged my bass in and it sounds like the top end of the tone from Entwhisle on those seperated tracks. Not bad but no bass to speak off.

I have a related question, though.
Can I change the tone cap on it as I do with my basses? It could do with more bass (or more treble cut) for my harps.
It's not terrible just a bit middly with my mics.

Or is it more complicated than that?

Could do with a line out too

[OldGit]

[quote name='Tee' post='804622' date='Apr 13 2010, 10:05 AM']There's also the EBS Classic T90 (90 watts)

[/quote]


Yeah but at £1000 it's not quite in the same department as a Epi Valve junior combo for £125

[MythSte]

My Trace Twin isnt exactly tiny (115 watts) and as mentioned, the GP7 pre isnt magical, But it certainly does that beautiful warm and full valve tone and isn't that heavy. Certainly bus-able if i had a cover made for it. I got mine dirt cheap and used with a high efficiency cab its good for any sized stage.