REAL guitar related post.

[Gold Metal Flake]

An Ampeg V4 will be hitting the bench soon. A personal fav, for those not familar think of the sound of Mick Taylor on Stones albums 1968-1975. It will be drop shipped from the seller to me for the buyer.

I can document and post a thread in the Musician group on the evaluation, cleaning and repair and some tasty mods to the beast. If it goes well it could be the start of series of such things. I have an old PA amp around somewhere and I could do a thread on converting it to a guitar/harp amp.

Sound like something worth doing?

[Floogeldy]

1. I played with a bass player who had one . . .

. . . for several years. Wasn't there a V-4 for bass? What a GREAT amp. :)

[Gold Metal Flake]

2. The V4B. I had one of those.

Stiffer than a V4. The V4B can be used for guitar, but it really needs some tuning to reduce lows for that. The V4 is a great amp, and loud. Similar in some ways to the Hiwatt and the Orange amps, but crunchier. I plan on adding some gain to one channel, and then adding some switching to provide a cathode-bias mode (for a class A sound) and a power reduction mode to cut the wattage to 1/4 of normal. Also, the usual repair, cleaning and biasing stuff.

[Floogeldy]

3. Do I corrrectly recall . . .

That the V-4 bass amps have ten inch speakers? Interesting concept for bass guitar usage. I've mostly used single or double twelves for guitar, but I have heard some killer guitar amps with ten inch speakers. :)

[Gold Metal Flake]

7. Multiple 10s can react faster than a 12.

The problem with large cones and bass is better demonstrated with 15" speakers. The greater mass of the 15" cone is more difficult to control when you need good definition and speed. Multiple 10s can provide the cone area of a 15 for good low frequency extension, but the cones react much faster. This is also the reason why 4x10 Bassman amps are better for guitar than the 1x15. My '49 Pro had a single 15 and it sounded great, to a point. Then it got flappy.

12s work great for guitar since you don't have to deal with all the bottom of the bass guitar or bass amp. I usually prefer multiple 12s to multiple 10s with guitar because the 12s (in multiples) do have a bit more bottom.

With guitar, there is always a give & take with low end extension and playing style. Too much bottom is bad for distortion (gets muddy), but when playing clean more low is good low.

The problem with buying speakers is making arrangements for a test drive.

[specimenfred1984]

4. Modifying the Amp or Starting a Thread on It?

I say do both. I've had a couple of SVTs, the second one had the 8x10 cab too -- what a monster! They both blew a lot of tubes though. I've got a little Ampeg Ba-115 now, much easier to carry! I run a modified (pickups and bridge) Vantage Flying V bass through it and an Acoustic bass amp through the other channel. It goes through a bunch of stereo rack stuff first.

Like most bass players, I love the Ampeg sound but I get a really nice sound out of the 2 amps at once.

[Gold Metal Flake]

5. I plan a pictorial thread showing cleaning, repair and mods.

Just for fun, and for the curious.

I had an old B15N. Had the amp built onto the top of the cab and you turned it over to store it inside the cab. 1X15. Cool amp. Crappy PC board. I had to do some patching of that but afterwards it rocked.

I have a habit of hanging over an open, powered chassis when troubleshooting, and twice I have taken the rull B+ rail from an SVT across the chest. That's 650 volts @ well over an amp. It's a bracing feeling. Kinda grabs ya by the giblets.

[specimenfred1984]

6. I'd Definitely Look In

I put the bridge and pickups on my bass. The bridge was odd because the old bridge was a tri-bridge w/3 inset holes set in a recess in the body and I replaced it with the usual type of bridge with 4 holes in it. I shaped a piece of oak to fit almost perfectly into the recess and cover the old holes and then made sure the piece of oak was the right height so the action on the bass would be improved greatly.

It took a long time but was very rewarding.

[yorgatron]

8. i would read something like that,THEN i would

forward it to my friend who fixes all my amps.
i have a habit of buying funky old tube amp,and then playing them too loud until they blow up.
then i hand 'em over to my friend,and when they come back they don't blow up anymore.
MIRACULOUS!