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Damned Bassman Question


harmonicchaos

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Well it is a Fender so it will be clean' date=' at 50 watts you ears would bleed before you make it break up on a clean setting I am guessing...[/quote']

 

 

That's what i figured too. I'm just to the point that i'll ask a question here when it comes to mind. Get some good answers usual, learn some stuff. Can't believe that my post count is as low as it is!

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An old 50 watt black face bassman is anything but clean at high volume. I stumbled onto a sound that everyone wanted back in 1968 using a 50 bassman and it's original 2-12 cab. The tubes were nice and worn blue and the cab had its own distortion from the celestion speakers. Of course, the sound could only be obtained if the amp was maxed at 10. Later switched to a 4-12 Marshall cab and the depth was sweet. Some venues the cab had to be turned around backwards for volume control. Was playing a SG Jr. back then. For extra punch, there was a box a LPB-1 that was one of the first effects available then other than the Arbitor, that really made the rig scream. I played that amp for over 20 years and wish I still had it. I originally bought the amp to push a Farfisa organ in 1966. With that it was pretty clean I guess. Just didn't get into the high volume stuff until Cream, Hendrix and Zep came along. Switched to guitar and the whole world took off.:-

Fender had a guitar amp very similar to the bassman called Bandmaster. Looked just like the bassman but was a brighter sound.

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My amp is a 1962 6G6-A. Sweetest amp I ever found after nigh on forty years looking.

 

Back in the late sixties I played through a Plexi 50watter that slipped away from me.

 

I spent nearly forty years playing everything and anything that had valves (tubes) in it.

I kissed a lot of amp frogs before one turned into an amp princess.....

 

....when I found this old head in a junk-shop. Perfection in amp form. Tone heaven. Dirty beeeach.

(What is this clean headroom of which you speak - sounds like the enemy of tone)

 

It's a one-trick-pony though, all it does is produce great tone.

 

Oh - and it is loud - as in LOUD =D>

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My amp is a 1962 6G6-A. Sweetest amp I ever found after nigh on forty years looking.

 

Ultra sweet! I'd love to get my hands on one of those.

 

To anyone not appreciating what Thermionik has there: The 6G6 Bassman is a tweed Bassman with different covering and the 6G6-A (what he has) is the same thing but with a solid state rectifier which, IMO, is better for attack when cranking it up rather than a tube which doesn't move it's *** fast enough.

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Ultra sweet! I'd love to get my hands on one of those.

 

To anyone not appreciating what Thermionik has there: The 6G6 Bassman is a tweed Bassman with different covering and the 6G6-A (what he has) is the same thing but with a solid state rectifier which' date=' IMO, is better for attack when cranking it up rather than a tube which doesn't move it's *** fast enough.

 

[/quote']

Best tone I ever found was with my 61 SG and 65 Bassman with the 4-10's cabinet.Man, I'd love to have that combination back.

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I used to run a silverface Bassman while using an original Marshal Microstack head as a preamp. That got plugged into some old PA column speaker that the drummer I was jamming with at the time owned. At the time, I had an Ibanez X Series star shaped guitar with some random single coil pickup in the neck that I found at another rehearsal. The other guitar player who played with us said my tone sounded like Hendrix. Go figure.

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(What is this clean headroom of which you speak - sounds like the enemy of tone)

 

 

i started hearing this term a few years ago. a problem exists, mainly in lower watt amps, with single channel amps when you want to have your cake and to eat it as well. if you want a clean sound you need to keep your gain/drive low to achieve it BUT you'll lose volume overall and this might suck if you're playing live or with other guys/gals. in this case, the only way to get the volume is to crank up the gain and with that comes distortion. catch22. in higher wattaged amps, this isnt a problem because even when your gain is low, you've still got volume. amps with two channels aren't a problem either since the clean channel has only one volume and its pretty clean all the way up. especially on a fender - best clean sound w/reverb ever, imo.

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