VTypeV4

Thanks for the replies so far, folks.. 👍

Very recently, I picked up an exceptionally cheap Ashdown 2x10 cab. It works perfectly and sounds really very nice but I want to use it with all my amps so it needs to be 4 ohms not eight. The V4 will operate happily at eight but the Ampegs, Beavis and the V6 need two or four..

I've looked at various drivers and a while back, remember modelling some Celestion Pulse (not the XL) in the very similarly sized Trace Elliot 2x10 cab with seemingly favourable results. Frustratingly, my Eminence cab modelling software doesn't like this computer.

The cab itself is just over 100 litres and tuned to around 50Hz. Tonally, I'm after non-rising-rate mids so a smooth, flat-ish response and the Celestions seem to fit the bill quite well.

Has anyone done similar or used different drivers and found great results?

SOLD PENDING COLLECTION - MANY THANKS

I made the mistake of gigging it this afternoon - it was immense.. 🤣 Whoever finally gets this lovely amp will not be disappointed..

5 hours ago, basslondon said:

I would venture it sounds better than my SMX 300 era head and certainly is up with my Series 6 AH500X.

 

I'm gonna continue my search for info and thank you for your help so far

I think my 400SMX sounds better than my 300SMX - only by a hair but there's something about it that just 'breathes' in a slightly more natural way..

Hope you get to the bottom of what it is - very cool. 👍

Looks like it could be a MK1 GP11 although I'm not so sure the case is original.. With the first couple of generations of Trace Elliot gear, I believe all woodwork was painted black before the change to the grey 'pimple' type that lasted until the mid / late '90s ie, the early SM and SMX ranges..

Hope you have fun with it..

Trace Elliot 122H Combo - £280 collected or I'm willing to deliver it within 15 miles of Stoke on Trent for free.

It sounds nothing short of incredible with plenty of punch and power from the Clive Button 300 watt MOSFET amp section plus the last generation of the 12-band preamp has some useful additions over the previous SMX. The Celestion C10H drivers are original and have that classic Trace 'snap' to them plus the Fostex HF unit helps with added 'ping' if you want it - I always do.

I did a little maintenence on it when it arrived which was simple cleaning of the pots and jacks - you can see it's insides on the pics. It's never put a foot wrong or done anything daft. Condition is generally excllent all round with no rips or tears in the carpet but it does have the odd mark on the grill plus evidence of some sort of spilliage around the back in a previous life but for something that is 26 years old, it's superb.

Obviously, it's not as loud as an SVT with an 8x10 and if your guitarist has a 100w Marshall through a 4x12, you'll need another cab to go with it but I'd put money on it at least matching the performance most other 2x10 combos.

You're welcome to come try it at Synkronize Music Group - this thing is 100%.

You've all seen it before but I thought it looked particularly good with a bit of light on and the Fender / Ampeg back drop..

On 21/07/2025 at 08:23, Pow_22 said:

 but recently I've looked into an old Bassman 135 as I see you can run 1 x 8ohm cab off the extension output and they also have a line out for FOH. 

They're a lovely amp - not big power but usually enough through the right cab(s).. Mine seems to have no problem working at 8 ohms on the 'extension' output although it usually works at 4 ohms on the 'main' output with it's matching 2x15". The line out is after everything so it's level is proportional to the output level but it really sounds great - I have a cheap passive DI box attached with some velcro in the back so I can use it as a balnced line. Not recently but I've done quite a bit of recording using it. 

5 hours ago, BassmanPaul said:

I don't know what the tube complement of  the Ashdown but the 7027 tubes used in the V4B are very very expensive. up to a thousand bucks for a set of four from Fliptops. They mention the British KT88 are an alternative.

The reissue Ampeg V4B models run a quartet of 6L6GC rather than the lesser spotted 7027.. Ashdown went the other way and did it with a pair of '88s..

Back in the land of the 02R, this Waves Y56K / ADAT card arrived safely from Japan this morning..

Thankfully I encountered no issues during installation and chose to make various Renaissance EQ and Compressor strings as stereo sub-group inserts. Gig and recording ready.. 👍

I've had good service out of these cards as there's one in both DM2000s, too. As I've probably mentioned previously, the sounds of the plugins are a little different - arguably, they have a little more character than the stock Yamaha ones. Both the 02R96 and especially the DM2Ks have more than enough processing to do pretty much every job that comes my way but the extra bells and whistles afforded by the Waves card is very welcome. 🥰     

My lovely old '96 helping the TOH boys out at the studio - heavy and bulky but ever reliable and useful.. ❤️

Beautiful flagship Soundcraft Vi Sounding and feeling great at Tolhuistuin venue in Amsterdam..

Smoky soundcheck in Amsterdam - a truly fantastic venue..

The Slaughter House / Kulturfabrik in Berlin..

A slightly questionable setup and vast amounts of dust at the 'Forever Now' festival in Milton Keynes. It took a few songs but I got there in the end..

And the monsterous 'Summer Sessions' for The Skids in Bellahousten Park, Glasgow. Digico SD12 and a D&B rig with a truly outrageous amount of power..

On 10/05/2025 at 17:23, mike257 said:

He hasn't seen me yet, but I've just spotted @VTypeV4 in the wild, and doing a bloody marvellous job of making Spear Of Destiny sound great!

 

Ah brilliant! 🤣 Thanks Mike - so cool to speak in real world albeit a little brief. Hope your shows played out as well as ours? I'll be honest,we had a great day with all the fun of the seaside including ice cream, seafood and a run out on a speed boat not to mention a lovely gig. ❤️ 

@mike257 It really does look like we will actually work together! Excellent! 😃

I was at the Scarborough Punk gig a few weeks back with The Skids - there's some pics below. I had a great time plus I thoroughly enjoyed the band and of course, the lovely CL5. ❤️

Glad to see you're out and about, Mike - looks like you've more than enough on to keep you going? It's funny you mention the A&H thing, I've seen more SQ and dLive than literally anything else this tour. I think we're 12 shows in as I write this and other than a few Digico (including an awesome SD8), it's been entirely A&H - not an M or X32 in sight..  

It's been a decent run so far - fingers crossed it stays that way. 💯

These two (studio example pictured) are still going strong and continue to be the backbone of a lot of my studio based work. I know they're old but they still deliver just as they always have. 😃

A job for friend and his disco band pictured here at the Civic Hall in Nantwich. I have to conceed that these thigs are probably my favourite of the newer generation as I can't really find any reason to dislike them and love how they're both incredibly powerful but reasonably straight forward to use. I may even have to purchase one.. ❤️

Very interesting..

On 15/03/2025 at 09:31, Chienmortbb said:

What could you do if your mixer does not ( yet) have pre-delay. Is there anything else you can do? 

Maybe there's a delay on the return channels? The Yamaha's very usefully have delay on all I/O. Try starting with around 20ms if it's an option and see how you go from there - there's no true right or wrong here, just use your ears to judge..

On 13/03/2025 at 22:10, Phil Starr said:

Oh I asked for help on using reverb and delay when I was setting up my mixes and got this advice from @VTypeV4 It's now my standard set up for live vocals with the sends and returns adjusted to suit, basically quite a lot applied to my own bvs where I'm just filling out the sound and a bit less to the lead vocals. I find the delay particularly helpful for the bv's.

 

"My personal starting points are usually a short-ish plate or hall reverb of around 1.2s - give or take - and then in addition to this a short delay with 180ms (or thereabouts) time with around 30% feedback. These are approximate settings and won't work on everything all the time (plus different fx units have their own sound too) so you'll no doubt find some vocals will lean towards sounding better with less of one / more of the other and vice-versa - adjust to suit the sends / returns to suit.

 

Good luck. 😃"

 

Here's the original thread 

 

Happy to have helped, Phil - hope others find it of use. 👍

I own a few rigs that have multiple cabs from the same..

2x SWR Goliath Jr III (2x10 + HF). When a friend was moving to lighter cabs about ten years ago, he sold these to me at a great price and I figured two cabs made for a modular rig although being honest, I've nearly always used both together. 

Trace Elliot 2103H & 1153 (2x10 + HF and 1x15 respectively). These came with a Trace AH400SMX a few years back but currently they're used with my Trace V6. I use both as the V6 requires a maximum load of 4 ohms so both together achieve this. They do have a different sonic characters but seem to work well enough together.

Ampeg 410HE and 115E (4x10 + HF and 1x15). Again, the cabs came as part of a rig - an SVT CL sits on top of both as, much like the V6, the SVT doesn't want to see anything greater than four ohms total load.

Trace Elliot V-Type 4808 and 115 (super compact 4x8 and 1x15) This mini-rig is powered by a Trace Elliot AH300SMX and is a pokey little power house. The 1x15 is good enough but the 4x8 will knock a hole in a wall - it's true gem of a cab and would happily swap the 1x15 out for another 4x8.

I appreciate using two cabs with a different configuration operating over the same frequency range can cause phase correlation and potential dispertion issues but given most gigs are via a house system these days, I think it's probably less of a problem especially if the rig is used as the local monitor. It's fair to say that with any 'stack', most of what is heard close to the rig will be the top cab anyways - particularly if that cab is a little more sensitive, voiced with more midrange or fitted with an addional mid or HF unit.

23 hours ago, HeadlessBassist said:

One can never have enough Jazz Basses. They just sorta get under your skin.

 

I had one of these Japanese Millers - really loved the sound, but it weighed more than a cruise liner's anchor, so sadly it had to go.

@HeadlessBassist Agreed - I've almost forgotten how many I've owned! ❤️ And yes, it's a bit of a beast on the weight department but the sound makes up for it.

2 hours ago, Geek99 said:

What do the controls do?

@Geek99 The two silver knobs are pickup volumes and the bottom black ones are the active bass and treble controls..

I've put it through the V4 / SWR setup with the NE-1 and Ampeg Optocomp today and it was glorious - I even A/B'd it against some of the MM tracks and my version of that particular sound was reasonably convincing, My own tastes are tiny bit more low mid and and a bit more 'ping' really high up but that super-smooth attenuated upper mid plays right into my wheel house. 🥰

Because I clearly needed another Jazz Bass.. 😬

This lovely thing arrived from the folks over in Leamington Spa, BassBros this morning - it's an '04 and is is near perfect condition. They'd done a lovely job setting it up although I've done a few minor tweaks to get it just where I want it. It feels great, it sounds great and looks fantastic. ❤️

I thought I'd make a little addition here - after two-and-a-half years of ownership, I finally took it out of my live room and gigged it. 😆

One would think a tiny gig in a less than 80 cap venue that a 300w all valve, full stack monster might be something akin to using a sledge hammer to crack nut. Whilst I have to conceed that this is probably true, it was a glorious experience, none-the-less.. ❤️

I'm currently playing with an electronica duo 'Disastrous Robots' so given the genre and style, I've gone for my usual brand of zingy, bright and compressed with attenuated high mid with mild low low mid boost. Whilst the SVT and Jazz Bass are almost capable of this without help, I was happy to further enhance the experience by employing my ever useful Yamaha NE-1 accompanied by an Ampeg Opto Comp - both can be seen on top of the amplifier.

Suffice to say, nothing really had a 'thorough thrashing' given the gig / venue but despite this, with no PA support, I had to make sure the FOH sound was balanced which allowed me a liitle 'wiggle room' with the master volume - I was informed by a few fellow players in the audience that it was spot on. I'm not a hard-hitting over-driven plectrum type player - quite the opposite but even so, the big-rig responded wonderfully to dynamics in playing and subtle changes of hand position seeming to almost instinctively track what I wanted from it. 

I've been very impressed with the SVT and it's cabs since they arrived but actually taking them into a gig scenario has been an absolute joy as long as you don't count moving them! 👍 Would I be willing to trade by beloved green and black V-Type amplifiers for the SVT? I'm not sure but luckily I'm in a position whereby I don't have to choose anyways - they both have their own character and distinct identity which is something I love about the big-bottled beasts..     

1 hour ago, Bassybert said:

That whole setup (including the bass) looks like perfection to me 😍

Thanks, man. ❤️ Definitely a different flavour than the usual - pictured below..

2 hours ago, msb said:

The NE-1 is a great little box.

Agreed - it's not something I often leave home without. 👍

I decided to swap out my usual green and black Trace Elliot boxes for the SVT last night. Obviously in a tiny <80 cap venue, I needed a heavy-weight 300w all valve setup.. (!) 😅  I didn't go bananas with it but even so, the sound was lovely - somewhat different than my beloved V4 and V6 amplifiers but it worked beautifully. On the top of the amplifier, you can see the Ampeg Opto Comp and the Yamaha NE-1 with the Squier 40th Aniiversary positioned in front. ❤️

I'm very happy to report that the new 02R96 is working out very well indeed - I used it 5 nights consecutively last week with no hiccups, faults or drama which is nothing but positive and very much like it's predecessor. In terms of use, it's exactly what I expected, somewhere between the DM1000 and the DM2000 of which they all have a lot in common. It's much easier to navigate than the 1000 as it has more real time, dedicated controls plus the greater spacing between all buttons, knobs and switches gives a less cramped and cluttered feel - especially when you need to get something quickly. It's not quite as fancy as the 2000 with no illuminated scribble strip or real-time counter but I can lift it by myself and is (as Yamaha no doubt intended) a decent compromise between the two.

In the picture below, to the right, you can see the side of a Behringer Wing well piloted by friend and fellow studio-owner, Mark. The Yamaha was used to mix 21 channels of the band / orchestra whilst the Wing was under 'Theatre Control' cueing 28(ish?) channels of radio mics, hand-helds and sound fx. The latter not being a job for the faint hearted.

As for my old ex-ITV 02R, it went to former apprentice and friend Phil where it'll see use as part of his home setup. I trained him on these old Yamahas so he knows the machine almost as well as I do. Hopefully it'll keep him inspired and offer the same consistent and reliable service it did me. I'm really pleased it went to a good home.