Amp thread

[DrNomis_44]

I have a few amps that I use every now and then, so I'll have to get together some pics and post them here for you guys to check out.

[fender3x]

I had a big gap in my playing history. When I came back to the bass in my 40s I had an ancient Sunn head and cab that were just not reliable. Replaced that with a G&K that was great, but my back complained a lot. So I set out to find a scale-able rig that was as light and loud as my budget would allow. Here's what I came up with.



Cabs are both horn loaded Bill Fitzmaurice designs. The top is a DR250, and bottom is a Titan 39 sub. I have them set up with a passive crossover in the sub. The newer DR250s use a cooler tweeter array, but I have not updated mine from the old design mostly because I generally switch them off anyway, and when I do use them, they give me plenty of highs. One of the things I love about these cabs is that they are super efficient, so I don't need a giant, heavy amp to run them. They are surprisingly light cabs, but they ain't small. Put my favorite G&L ASAT bass next to them for scale. I really only use the sub for gigs that are outside. The top is plenty for any bar I've been in.

Speaking of amps... I had a small G&K amp for a while, but replaced it a couple of years ago with a Carvin BX500. I have never had it past the half way mark, even outside, and at 6 lbs my back loves it. It's a solid state class-D amp, but it has a tube in the pre-amp that you can switch on and off. I can't hear much difference, so to add a bit more tube flavor, I generally use it with a Tech 21 Bass DI. With my old G&K I also used to add a home-made Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer clone with some of the caps changed out to optimize for bass. That added a little compression and even a bit of drive if I turned it up. I don't use it now though. The Carvin has its own compression and better EQ, so I don't seem to need it anymore.

[DrNomis_44]

Okay, you guys have probably seen it already in another thread, but hey, I guess I could post a pic of it here, here's my Marshall MA100C Guitar amp, it is a 100 Watt 2 X 12 all Valve Guitar amp which I bought back in about 2014, previously I had to make do with a 300 Watt Solid State Behringer K3000FX Keyboard/P.A. amp, and a couple of Digital Guitar FX Processors, while it worked okay enough while playing guitar at home, I could never get a decent sound out of it when playing in a live band, those Digital FX Processors (A Zoom G2 and a Korg Pandora PX5D) seem to be better suited to use in a recording studio, anyway, in 2014 after buying my Cherry Red PRS SE Custom 24 Guitar, I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a proper guitar amp, so after spending a few fortnights paying it off on Lay By, I finally got the Marshall MA100C home, it was only a week after that I started having problems with it, first I noticed that the Reverb wouldn't work, I took the amp back to the shop I bought it from and they sent it away to get fixed by a tech, I got the amp back a month later and noticed that the reverb still wasn't fixed, so, not wanting to send it away to get fixed and wait another month, I fixed it myself, as it turned out the cause was a broken wire in the reverb tray, it was only after I used my Marshall amp at a gig that I encountered more trouble with it when it suddenly went silent while I was playing onstage, to cut a long story short, I ended up getting a mate of mine to fix the Marshall amp, and after a year of waiting I finally got it back fixed, and it has been working great ever since, here she is in all her British Glory....haha...., well Marshall Amplification is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes, England:






There's also my Peavey Renown amp:





Will see if I can post some pics of my other guitar amps that I have in my collection.


Okay, here's a pic of my Behringer K3000FX 300 Watt Keyboard/P.A. Amp:




And my Peavey Backstage Plus 35 Watt Amp (It needs some new knobs):

[Dedman]

I have 2 amps an Orange Micro Terror Which I really like the clean sound of and a beheaded Vox VTX20 which I bought with my first guitar( it was in its proper cab then. I chose it because it had all the modelling stuff in it but I later realised I never used most of it. I mostly use it with headphones now but both amps sound really nice plugged into the 1 x12 . It has a Celestion green back in it. I can't turn either past 1/2 volume with much gain on without rattling windows.

[DrNomis_44]

Those are cool amps Dedman, here's a couple more pics of my amps.


Here's my Peavey TKO80 Bass Amp, the chassis has been removed cause I'm doing some work on it to fix an issue which is causing some residual distortion:





And finally, here is my little 5 Watt Solid State Pignose Amp, it can get surprising loud for a 5 Watt battery powered amp:

[wazkelly]

From 1979 to 1985 I had an Old Marshall Super Bass Head fed into a Wasp slant front 4x12" 25w greenback celestions that looked like this...

These days I take my pick from this bunch....


The baby is a Vox VT40+ with 10" speaker, the one in the middle is a Vox VT80+ with 12" speaker, and the one on the right being a Hartke HD75 with 12" speaker & 1" Tweeter. Hard to believe the Hartke is only 12" as the box looks big enough for a 15" speaker. These amps are plenty loud enough but more manageable than the old Marshall that was rarely played past 1, sometimes on 2 but that always resulted in ringing in the ears for a few days after. On-board effects makes up for all those MIJ Boss pedals that were sold off about 30 years ago.

[andrewdosborne]

Ok. For home use I've scaled down the artillery. This way I can crank up the amps to get desired tone without destroying the neighbourhood. Also easy to port around. I plug the ACL4 (12 inch speaker) into a 2x12 cab for emergency requirements. Heaps of grunt. Large guns to follow (stored unless jamming/gigging). A bit of a Vox theme here.

ACL4 (12 inch)



Pathfinder Bass


AC30 headphones for 2am


And Apogeejam for iPad using bias app

Sent from my GT-I9506 using Tapatalk

[Dedman]

Much Vox love in this thread

[wazkelly]

Much Vox love in this thread

Yep, comes down the whole better sounding British vibe that began in the 1960's through their use of Vox, Marshall, Orange, Hiwatt, etc. whilst in the US of A they mainly played with Fenders and later on Mesa Boogies & Peaveys. Mind you I had an Ampeg 240w Bass Head for a short while after selling the Marshall and that was a big mistake as it sounded so muddy yet equally as big and heavy to lug around. It almost made me 'holler' for a Marshall just like in those battery advertisements as I needed a replacement fast.

[Dedman]

AC15 head is still on my wish list. I have been liking the sounds from Hughes and Kettners I've been hearing too.