Tag: Ampeg

October Surprise

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So, after coming back from Hawai’i with Exhumed and playing a one off with Impaled at the California Death Fest pre-fest show one day later, I had less than a week to make preparations; it was time for the slack-jawed hooded menaces to once again hit the road and for some good old fashioned monster-on-monster crime. This was to be immediately followed by another short Halloween run with Exhumed. FML.

Our first gig was at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. I’ve played here twice with Exhumed before, once with Revocation. The other time was my very first show with Exhumed in the 1990s where I happened to give myself a nasty little scar on my chest by cutting myself, purposefully, on stage, in a moment of extreme edge-lord-ness. Don’t let your babies grow up to be edge-lords.

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Power Cord Replacement

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I spoke about doing this in my post on fixing up a Peavey VTM 120, but I didn’t take pictures. Well, after the ground pin fell out on my Ampeg V4-B, it was time to replace another power cord. This time, I took some pictures for anyone interested in taking on such a task.

This actually happened to me while on my last tour with Exhumed. It didn’t stop me from playing. A ground pin isn’t essential to a functioning amp. It’s a safety device, in case there’s a short within the amplifier, so the amp doesn’t conduct voltage into the user through the chassis. I took my chances on the road, but once I was home it was time to replace this safety feature.

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Operating Theatre: Ampeg V-4B Part 2

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My amp is older than me. I’m middle-aged and I’m falling apart. Why should my amp be any different? I’ve done some other work on it before [Part 1], but ye olde Ampeg V-4B was well overdue for a recap job.

It still looks better on the inside than me.

“Recap” means replacing capacitors. More specifically, electrolytic capacitors. After decades, they age and will drift from their original rating or even die. In the tone section of an amplifier, this isn’t always a big deal. It might change the tone. In the power supply, though, capacitor drift is a bigger deal: like, expensive-impossible-to-replace-power-transformer-blows-up big deal. The should be replaced before that happens.

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Quick Fix: Ampeg V-4 Guitar Amp

Doktor Ross SewageLeave a comment

My boss Mauz’s Ampeg V-4 had cut out. It was very strange… one day he was at practice, and shit first started cutting in and out. Then it stopped making sound altogether. It still had power, which was the weirdest part. This beauty (one of my favorite amps of all time) had to be resurrected.

Ampeg V-4

As I’d already fixed multiple problems on my own V-4B, which is almost exactly the same amp minus a reverb circuit, I was unafeered of delving into Mauz’s. I think he was more afraid than I was. Despite knowing it was in my successful-yet-amateurish hands, it was his baby. His mojo. His tone. He shouldn’t have been worried.

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The NEW Ampeg V-4B

Doktor Ross Sewage2 Comments

Wow, that is something I thought I’d never see… a NEW Ampeg V-4B. While I was doing a search for something else related to my OLD V-4B, I came across the press that this month, Ampeg has re-introduced my favorite all time bass amp back into their line-up. Ain’t she a beaut!

V4B-xlarge

It’s funny that they’ve recreated the V-4B, as the original was a guitar amp. They added the B when bass players started using it, changed a few caps, and ditched the reverb. As a guitar amp, it ruled, but as a bass amp, it surprisingly ruled even harder.

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Half the Amp I Used To Be

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I had gotten about half way through a really great post for this week over the last few days, but disaster struck. My Ampeg V-4B went SNAFU. I smelled something smoking at practice. I thought it was my strings from some awesome bass licks. Nope, I had a tube red plating in the back if my amp. It was about to blow. I turned everything off and had to figure this shit out. I had a show in Canada to play and no back up amp!

Ampeg-v-4b-open

Over the next couple days, I checked shit out. I tested all the tube socket voltages with the tubes out, in case it was feeding my tubes too much voltage or not draining enough. This is dangerous territory here and not for the inexperienced. We’re talking leads getting 560V. That will kill you. Long story short, everything tested fine. So, WTF?

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Resurrectionist: Ampeg SVT-810E

Doktor Ross Sewage10 Comments

Somewhere in the ’90s, everything became disposable and cheap. NAFTA made lives disposable and cheap. Reality shows made art disposable and cheap. Music companies made their gear disposable and cheap. I have not the inclination to make the philosophical leap as to why. What I do have is a good example of this. SLM Music, who owned the Ampeg name in the ’90s, put out the worst version of an Ampeg 8×10, the “Classic” 810E cabinet. It has eight 10″ speakers and is based on the original winning design from the ’70s. They are made so poorly with shit wood, however, they are often left to rot rather than fix. Well, I said fuck that. One of these fell into my hands, crumbling and falling apart. I brought it back to life.

Ampeg 8x10 refurb finished

When I dragged this out of the apartment from the folks who bestowed it on me, it was missing the bottom entirely. It had the prerequisite tolex rips of every punk rocker’s cab. The baffle board rocked back and forth and could bust your fingers. It was missing a speaker. I rebuilt the bottom, replaced the speaker, and the cab served me well on a few tours. When I sold my Ampeg SVT-2Pro to my bud Brian from Merdoso and formerly of Stormcrow, I offered the cab as part of the deal so long as he covered the expense of a heavy-duty restoration so I could have some fun making the monstrosity punk-proof. And fun I had.

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Operating Theater: Ampeg SVT-200T

Doktor Ross Sewage13 Comments

Ampeg rewrote the book on high power amplification in 1969 with the introduction of the SVT. That was the Super Valve Technology amp which pumped out, a then unheard of, massive 300 watts from six huge valves (or “tubes”). Marshall invented THE rock guitar amp and Ampeg followed it with THE rock bass amp. And then… through the ’70s and ’80s, they never topped the SVT. Sure, they had a few other good products, in-between changing ownership as numerously as Michael Jackson was changing his nose. So in the late eighties, they just started throwing the SVT name around like baby batter at a bukkake convention. And hence, the SVT-200T, produced from 1987-1994: featuring no valves at all.

Ampeg SVT 200T

I like to think I’m less dumb than I used to be. When I bought this SVT-200T solid-state amplifier, I thought I had an SVT. It was loud, the right shape, it said SVT… shit, I just played grind core, what did I know? It had that “Ampeg” tone they dial all their amps towards and it sounded awesome. Sounded. One night in 2005 it took a dump. Or maybe I took a dump. Did I have the wrong speaker set up? Was the club’s power screwy? Was it just old? It took me a lot of learning over seven years, but I finally got this tubeless, sad sack out of the closet and farting again.

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