Tell Me About Amps...

[Hacken]

Sound City 120!! Loudest thing ever, no breakup at all. 6x EL34!!

[dubkitty]

try different speakers with the Twin. srsly, you should be able to get enough treble with a 100W (i.e silverface) Twin to shave off Leland Sklar's beard. JBLs or Jensens. you might want to look at the preamp tubes or the caps, too.

[misterstomach]

acoustic 370 is solid state, cheap as shit and sounds great. comparable to tube amps. they sound great on guitar, one of the best bass amps there is and i'm sure it would be good on keys. if you've got 3 grand, you should consider custom and dunwich would be the way to go there. also, an original model t would be worth considering. i've never heard one on bass, but i think they were originally designed for either bass or guitar. and those are loud as shit. v4's are really great, but honestly, even though they're insanely loud guitar amps, i don't think that 100 watts is enough for good bass tone. it's loud but it doesn't have the watts to push that low end at really high volume. at least not when competing with loud guitar amps.

[01010111]

I have to get the twin serviced this year anyway. When I first got it, I plugged in with the pedalboard and the channel switching stopped working I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope it can be fixed. It's not terribly old, it's one of the late 80's/early 90's red knob twin, so I doubt it needs new caps but it might need new tubes.

I'd just keep the twin, but it definitely does not bring the lows I need for bass, and it clips crazy hard when I run fuzz into it. Easily the wildest fuzz sound I've ever heard. I took a level meter to my practice space and it was peaking at 103 db but it's just not versatile enough to use with bass and keys.

I don't have 3 grand now, I just figured if I'm going to buy an amp to do everything I need, I'm not going to cheap-out. I'm going to buy the best fucking amp in the land so, I'll have to save for a while (at least a year) before I can afford one that's more than $1000

I am curious about the model T's. I know Sunn (o))) uses 'em and they sound great for doooooom guitar, I just don't really play a lot of doom. I like to be able to dial in what I want from my gear not be limited to a narrow soundset that it might be limited to. I do worry about having enough power for bass, but if I was playing bass with in a band where the guitarists are playing super-twins would I just be buried by them? Would I be forced into a cold-war style volume war? I'd like to have something that'll be my "nuclear deterrent" so to speak.

Are the sound-city amps made for guitar or bass or what? I'm having trouble finding good info on them.

[rfurtkamp]

It is far easier to make a bass amp sound good with guitar than vice versa - and for keys, I'd want a full range cab, which isn't going to sound great with guitar (and maybe bass).

Answer realistically is huge SS head, cabs of your choice as mentioned.

And you could get a big honking doom amp to go with it. Yay.

[D.o.S.]

I have to get the twin serviced this year anyway. When I first got it, I plugged in with the pedalboard and the channel switching stopped working I'm not sure what's going on, but I hope it can be fixed. It's not terribly old, it's one of the late 80's/early 90's red knob twin, so I doubt it needs new caps but it might need new tubes.

I'd just keep the twin, but it definitely does not bring the lows I need for bass, and it clips crazy hard when I run fuzz into it. Easily the wildest fuzz sound I've ever heard. I took a level meter to my practice space and it was peaking at 103 db but it's just not versatile enough to use with bass and keys.

I don't have 3 grand now, I just figured if I'm going to buy an amp to do everything I need, I'm not going to cheap-out. I'm going to buy the best fucking amp in the land so, I'll have to save for a while (at least a year) before I can afford one that's more than $1000

I am curious about the model T's. I know Sunn (o))) uses 'em and they sound great for doooooom guitar, I just don't really play a lot of doom. I like to be able to dial in what I want from my gear not be limited to a narrow soundset that it might be limited to. I do worry about having enough power for bass, but if I was playing bass with in a band where the guitarists are playing super-twins would I just be buried by them? Would I be forced into a cold-war style volume war? I'd like to have something that'll be my "nuclear deterrent" so to speak.

Are the sound-city amps made for guitar or bass or what? I'm having trouble finding good info on them.

The old Model T's are super clean amps. The Fender Model T's are not. Both are really loud, with bass and guitar. There's also the 1200S to look out for, if you're interested in Sunn-by-Fenders.

[dubkitty]

oh, you have one of the red-knobbed "Evil Twins." those are a different kettle of fish to 70s Fenders.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Just a lil FYI, the red knob "Evil Twin" is the combo version of the Fender reissue Model T. Identical amps just one is a combo and one is head.

[Fuzzy Picklez]

Just a lil FYI, the red knob "Evil Twin" is the combo version of the Fender reissue Model T. Identical amps just one is a combo and one is head.

Really? I've never heard this before.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Just a lil FYI, the red knob "Evil Twin" is the combo version of the Fender reissue Model T. Identical amps just one is a combo and one is head.

Really? I've never heard this before.

Yup.... (well I need to correct myself, the power amp is identical, the preamp is NEAR identical with only a few very minor changes)

http://www.anchorstates.net/2009/11/sunn-model-t-reissue-schematics.html

[01010111]

Just a lil FYI, the red knob "Evil Twin" is the combo version of the Fender reissue Model T. Identical amps just one is a combo and one is head.

Really? I've never heard this before.

Really? That's interesting. Kinda makes the Evil Twin cooler in my mind, the high gain channel really isn't anything all that great, though. Lots of tone-shaping options but the basic distorted sound doesn't sound that great to me. I do love the clean channel but it really sounds strange when I start pushing it with fuzz.

Are you ss proponents saying that I should get an ss power amp, a tube amp/preamp, and use that?

[rfurtkamp]

SS power amp, whatever preamp sounds good to you. Keys aren't what I'd put through tubes generally, but YMMV. Bass I'm perfectly fine with SS, always have been.

And guitar, well, a good amp is a good amp, a good preamp is a good preamp. I have tube and SS amps, I've owned one or the other exclusively as needs, budget, and availability came into play without screaming and getting angry.

I've also almost always gotten my distortion/fuzz from pedals as well, living by the "I can make a clean amp dirty but I can't make a dirty one clean" maxim for 20 some years.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Really? That's interesting. Kinda makes the Evil Twin cooler in my mind, the high gain channel really isn't anything all that great, though. Lots of tone-shaping options but the basic distorted sound doesn't sound that great to me. I do love the clean channel but it really sounds strange when I start pushing it with fuzz.

You just described my love affair with my reissue Model T. The distortion channel is ok but not great, and only half as loud as the clean channel. The clean channel sounds great at low volume but above 4 it starts to break up and theres no change at all from 6 to 10, and the clean channel doesn't like any pedals with massive low end.

[01010111]

Really? That's interesting. Kinda makes the Evil Twin cooler in my mind, the high gain channel really isn't anything all that great, though. Lots of tone-shaping options but the basic distorted sound doesn't sound that great to me. I do love the clean channel but it really sounds strange when I start pushing it with fuzz.

You just described my love affair with my reissue Model T. The distortion channel is ok but not great, and only half as loud as the clean channel. The clean channel sounds great at low volume but above 4 it starts to break up and theres no change at all from 6 to 10, and the clean channel doesn't like any pedals with massive low end.

Sounds about right it does not like the kill kill filter/mini fuck combo I try to run through it. It's sooo massive when I run it through my laney cub but with the Twin it just sounds like I'm breaking something, which is cool, but I need those super lows.

[Necrosis18]

I have a Music Man HD150 and It's super loud closer to 450watt SS amp. It has a SS preamp with a 4 tube power section, plenty of headroom. Actually, I might be willing to sell if you want to make me an offer. It was just serviced a couple months ago and got all new Russian 6L6 tubes. It's he bass version (without reverb) so it will work better for guitar/keys than a guitar amp would for bass. It's my main amp but I'm looking to fund an ampeg replacement, but it sounds like your gunna hold of for a bit so I uderstand if you take a pass, I wouldn't wan't to be lacking an amp to play though anyways xD