The Other Amp
An amazing development this evening... I've been playing the Strat through the Tube Screamer into my Champ at low, low volume, and it's pretty cool. It doesn't exactly rock, though, as the 6V6 tube isn't getting a workout at all at that volume, so all I'm getting is the sound of the pedal. It's nice, but it really isn't as nice as the Champ on its own.
But tonight, I tried something out that I suspected might sound cool. I have an old Vox bass head, 125 watts (EL34 tubes) with a nice gain+master volume control panel. This is the amp I played very loud punkrock bass through for years. I have put guitar through it before, and I knew that I cranked everything to 10 (well, except the master volume), it would overdrive.
Tonight, I put the Tube Screamer between the Strat and the Vox head (running into my good old 15" bass cab). I set the pedal for a "clean boost"—the "drive" knob at 0, the "level" knob at about 9.
Oh. My. God.
Holy rock and roll, batman. I noodled around this setting for a half a minute before falling into the Ziggy Stardust riff, and then it absolutely floored me. Once I'd found that, I had the sound in my head and I knew how to play it. It sounded absolutely fantastic. Unlike my earlier test, with the Tube Screamer I don't need to max out all the knobs on the amp—just crank the Vox's gain up to about 8 or 9, and the mysterious "sensitivity" knob all the way up, and the boost provided by the pedal is enough to drive it way into overdrive, even on the single coil pickups. But especially with the humbucker. Wow! What an amazing sound, and what amazing dynamics—everything I had missed in the Champ at low volume was there: tons of compression, sustain, and CRUNCH like I couldn't believe. Even at low volume! This had me blasting away at the Strat in a completely new way, 'cause the amp dynamics are working like you expect them to. What a find!
I've got to get a mic set up and record some of this. My rig now includes killer sounds for the Strat, both clean and overdriven (for that matter, the Vox sounds pretty decent clean, too, though not quite as charming as the Champ).
But tonight, I tried something out that I suspected might sound cool. I have an old Vox bass head, 125 watts (EL34 tubes) with a nice gain+master volume control panel. This is the amp I played very loud punkrock bass through for years. I have put guitar through it before, and I knew that I cranked everything to 10 (well, except the master volume), it would overdrive.
Tonight, I put the Tube Screamer between the Strat and the Vox head (running into my good old 15" bass cab). I set the pedal for a "clean boost"—the "drive" knob at 0, the "level" knob at about 9.
Oh. My. God.
Holy rock and roll, batman. I noodled around this setting for a half a minute before falling into the Ziggy Stardust riff, and then it absolutely floored me. Once I'd found that, I had the sound in my head and I knew how to play it. It sounded absolutely fantastic. Unlike my earlier test, with the Tube Screamer I don't need to max out all the knobs on the amp—just crank the Vox's gain up to about 8 or 9, and the mysterious "sensitivity" knob all the way up, and the boost provided by the pedal is enough to drive it way into overdrive, even on the single coil pickups. But especially with the humbucker. Wow! What an amazing sound, and what amazing dynamics—everything I had missed in the Champ at low volume was there: tons of compression, sustain, and CRUNCH like I couldn't believe. Even at low volume! This had me blasting away at the Strat in a completely new way, 'cause the amp dynamics are working like you expect them to. What a find!
I've got to get a mic set up and record some of this. My rig now includes killer sounds for the Strat, both clean and overdriven (for that matter, the Vox sounds pretty decent clean, too, though not quite as charming as the Champ).
posted by jmax at
12:37 AM
2 Comments:
An update... a little Internet research led me to this tidbit: the Vox 125 Bass amp I have is essentially the same amp as their killer V125 Lead amp; the only difference is in the 5-band EQ frequencies. See: http://www.voxshowroom.com/uk/amp/v125.html
Check out the user comments on Harmony-Central. As if this was just sitting in my basement.
No doubt about it. The vox 125 bass head is the most dynamic and taught sounding amplifier for...now get this..bass and guitar. Packed w/ tons of cap power having 4 200mfd@500volt tightening up the low end and really transforming the performance of the quartet of el-34's. Truly an amplifier sops up the mushy compressed low end even at very impressive loudness levels which really does some justice my '71 precision bass. Construction-wise; on par w/ Marshall quality build up to the 80's anyway. Not as good as blackface fenders IMO but solid. It took me awhile to appreciate the whole eq concept and sensitivity control when i got it. But it's just a more subtle but focused in it's function. I really love it for bass. Agressive, taught, sweet and takes some "getting" to give it an old fender bassman100 or Showman sound so reminescent, to me of early seventies sound. This amp has the unique ability to get closer to some solid state-esque things i do like for bass. Last thing; guitar-wise truly sounds awesome especially when getting into a good amount of output distortion. Vox was on to something..
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