Van Nuys, CA (April 9, 2013) -- Electroplex Amplifiers unveiled the 6V6-powered Rocket 42 at the Guitar Pedal Expo LA 2013 in Van Nuys, CA. The Rocket 42 takes the signature sound of the classic 6V6 power tube to a new level power and performance.
Ratings
Tech 21 VT Bass 1000
Pros:
Luscious cleans and extremely powerful and saturated overdrive. Roadworthy build. Gets you well within the SVT ballpark—and then some—sans weight and tube issues.
Cons:
Somewhat pricey. Heavy overdrive can yield strident treble.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$1,879
Company
tech21nyc.com
Tech 21 B410-VT
Pros:
Powerful, punchy, and loud. Very well built.
Cons:
Grille cloth doesn’t offer much protection against rogue sharp objects.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$609
Company
tech21nyc.com
Welterweight Whippersnapper
The VT pumps out 1,000 class D watts at 4 Ω
(2,000 watts peak) or 600 watts at 8 Ω (1,200
watts peak), and yet its rugged, 12-pound chassis
is considerably easier to move than the notoriously
heavy and bulky originals. It has two
identical channels, each with its own 3-band,
+/- 12 dB active EQ, as well as character, level,
and drive controls. The VT also features a 10
dB gain-boost switch, and the included footswitch
enables muting, and either selecting
between or combining channels.
Tech 21’s new head also has their famous SansAmp DI circuitry—the long-time friend to many a gigging and recording bassist. The rear panel also features a direct in (for bypassing the preamp in favor of an external rig), a serial effects loop, a tuner out, and a pair of Speakon outputs.
We tested the VT Bass 1000 through an 8 Ω, rear-vented Tech 21 B410-VT 4x10 cab with a 500-watt power-handling capacity.
True Grit
When I plugged in my Fender P bass and
set the VT Bass 1000’s EQ flat, the first
channel delivered lusciously thick cleans
with warm lows. Its springy response to
flatpicking was very tube-like, as was its
tendency to accentuate midrange and low
end under heavy attack. Fingerpicking pulled the highs back and slowed the attack
somewhat, but most noticeable was how
the low end relaxed and bloomed in a way
that was perfect for jazz and R&B. The
B410-VT cab delivered the tone evenly at
all volumes and served up fat lows.
The VT Bass’s wide-ranging character knobs enable you to completely change each channel’s voicing. Turning up the drive control and setting character in its lower or mid regions yielded a smooth, overdriven purr, and harder picking brought out snarl and grit. The treble was stronger and cut more with higher gain, so I found myself turning down the treble with heavier drive settings. However, I had to really lay into the strings to unleash grinding distortion—even with the drive and character maxed.
Designed to sweep through several decades’ worth of Ampeg flavors, the character knobs are immensely powerful tools for shaping the response and texture of each channel, with even tiny adjustments yielding significant results.
At 9 o’clock, character yields the deep lows and articulate mids and highs of an early-’70s SVT. Dialing it higher smoothed out and warmed up the midrange while filling out the lows. Around 3 o’clock—and with a hefty drive setting—character gave the amp a decidedly tough voice perfect for erecting a dirty wall of thunder.
Some of the VT Bass 1000’s best tones are made possible by how brilliantly its drive and master controls interact. When I set channel one’s volume at a club-friendly 3 o’clock and drive at 9 o’clock, the tone tightened up with crisper highs and taut lows. Conversely, pushing drive higher and lowering the level yielded warmer, spongier tones. The interplay between the two controls is eerily similar to how actual tube amps react.
The Verdict
The VT Bass 1000 and B410-VT combination
makes for a pretty incredible bass
rig that gets very, very close to the sound
and feel of a classic Ampeg SVT. Tech 21
has done an excellent job of designing a
preamp that reacts to playing dynamics like
an all-tube amp. With copious amounts of
headroom, the VT can cover an impressive
variety of jazz, blues, rock, and metal
tones. All this power and versatility makes
the VT Bass 1000 a real winner for players
who want the aggression and depth of an
actual SVT, but don’t want to deal with
the weight, bulk, and unavoidable tube-maintenance
issues. Factor in its powerful
overdrive tones—which can occasionally
get a little unruly on the treble side—and
you’ve got an amp that’s ready to take on
just about anything.
The signal path starts with a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes, which are fed to a 12AX7 driver tube and 12AT7 phase inverter, and then sent to a sextet of 6550 power tubes—generating a whopping 300 watts of vicious, tube power. And the power tubes are constantly monitored by Fender's Automatic Bias system, which guards against failure and wear. Located on the rear of the amp, the system's control panel also indicates when the tubes are warming up and when the amp is ready to be taken off standby. Additionally, it enables adjustment of the bias in the range of a cool 23 mA to a warm 33 mA, which changes the amp's overall response and tonality.
The amp’s seemingly endless amount of controls contrasts with its streamlined, classic style. But Fender designed the Super Bassman with the intent of covering as much tonal ground as possible, so they packed two footswitchable channels in the circuit with unique and dedicated voicings. The first channel uses Fender's classic, passive tone stack for warmer vintage tones, and utilizes a simple three-band EQ and volume control to shape the sound. Both the bass and treble knobs pull out to expand the low- and high-frequency range, respectively. Gritty-to-highly overdriven tones are handled by the amp's second channel, which has a modern, active tone stack, quicker attack and more vigorous tonality than its counterpart. This channel has a similar layout as the first, but also additional controls for preamp gain, wet/dry blending, and midrange frequency adjustment—which is super handy when you want your overdriven tone to cut through the mix. And because the tone stack is active, the EQ controls are designed to have huge sweeping capabilities, with 15 dB of cut or boost for the bass and treble controls, and 18 dBs of adjustment for the mid control. Once a player adjusts the balance between the two channels using their respective volume controls, the master volume knob handles the final output level and even has a clever mute function when pulled out.
The back panel of the amp is home to a balanced XLR out with a dedicated output-level control and switches for setting either the preamp-affected or direct signal to the output. There is also a switch that will completely mute the main and secondary speaker jacks and allows the head to be run without requiring a cabinet for recording the pre-amp section. Single jacks for power amp output, preamp input, tuner out, and the included footswitch round out the remainder of features on the rear of the amp.
Fender Super Bassman Ratings
Pros:
Terrific vintage cleans and modern overdrive tones. Highly responsive controls. A tube monitoring system that should be mandatory on most amps.
Cons:
Excessive volumes could be too much for a lot of players. Pricey.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$1,799
Fender
fender.com
The Super Bassman is a seriously powerful amp, so Fender crafted several brand-new cabinets to compliment its sound. The Bassman Pro cabs are loaded with Fender Special Design Eminence speakers backed with neodymium magnets, which lighten the load considerably while still providing a healthy amount of power. Along with a compression driver horn for added top end, Fender went with a lightweight plywood material to construct the new vintage-looking cabs, and included two 1/4" and one speakON jack—all wired for 8Ω. For our review, Fender shipped us a 500-watt Bassman Pro 410, outfitted with a set of removable casters and spring-loaded handles to better transport its svelte 55 pounds. Other models in the Bassman Pro cabinet series include 1x15, 6x10, and 8x10 configurations.
One Bassman To Rule Them All
The amount of low-end power and pants-flapping sound that Fender’s 300-watt behemoth throws out is impressive. It’s an amp that you probably don’t need to consider if most of your gigs take place at the local coffee house. Yet with all the clean headroom that’s available, the inherent detail of an instrument is allowed to shine through in ways that most amps out there aren't capable of producing—making the Super Bassman more than just a ear-bludgeoning stack of doom.
With a 2008 Fender American Jazz Bass, the amp's vintage-voiced first channel emitted the classic Fender Twin-type cleanliness and sparkle, but with a solid low-end foundation and plenty of volume on tap. The characteristically smooth top-end and juicy lows of the Jazz Bass translated superbly, with an almost hi-fi quality that revealed the slightest details of both my fingers and pick plucking the strings. After a while, I wanted a slightly warmer, more rounded tone for some smooth Jack Bruce-esque rock work. Adjusting the bias to a hotter setting, speeding up the attack, and applying a little more gumption in the midrange got me there. Since the highs took a slight dive in volume, the cab's onboard horn adjustment made it a snap to retain some presence and deliver a nice, tasty cut to the tone. And when I transitioned from jazzier, freeform playing to slap-happy funk, the amp responded in kind by tightening the lows and mids with my more forceful playing style.
One of the amp's best traits is how dead quiet it is, even at relatively high volumes. In fact, my first time hearing the amp was while making a few notes for this review. Not realizing the standby switch was not engaged, I quickly found out after accidentally hitting a very loud, low E on the Jazz. I thought this was pretty impressive, especially considering the fan on the amp’s back panel for keeping the tubes cool. These fans can often add a slight whine to the sound's background with a lot of amps that use them. Not so here.
Fender Bassman 410 NEO Ratings
Pros:
Handles lows incredibly well. Adjustable horn is a godsend for tweaking high-frequency response. Very lightweight.
Cons:
Horn can dish out too much high end at higher settings with clean tones.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$699
Fender
fender.com
The amp's overdrive channel is a force to be reckoned with, and it has a really meaty vibe without being buzzy. The brawny muscular nature was perfect for overdriven modern rock, and the channel's blend control provided an easy route to dialing in a crisp overlay of dry punch. In addition, the dual midrange controls for level and frequency help you tune the amp for a given musical style more readily—lower settings working especially well for speed metal, and higher ones more appropriate for hard and raunchy rock.
Most impressive was how well the preamp overdrive worked with the amp's copious amounts of clean headroom, which is something that's hard to come by in amps with this much power. In many instances, having a ton of preamp distortion running against a lot of volume can sound tinny and thin, making the highs annoyingly piercing. This is not the case with the Super Bassman's overdrive, which kept a full, robust body with plenty of detail.
Another aspect of the Super Bassman that sets it apart from other amps with brutish volume is how effective the EQ's push-pull controls work with the amp cranked. Even with the master volume at deafening levels pulling out the bass and treble knobs for more subs and brightness has a drastic effect on the tone. Everything got meaner and tougher the more I pushed it, which ultimately revealed some of the best overdriven tones the amp has to offer. Unfortunately, the volume required to get there were beyond what some people would be able to handle, making me wish for some sort of attenuation control that would let the power amp cook at volumes that weren't so face ripping.
The Verdict
The Super Bassman is an amp for players who need serious volume to fill large venues, or have a sound guy cool enough to let them crank it up to Shea Stadium-caliber levels. That being said, the immense power also gives the amp headroom that makes it a great amp for playing at lower levels, provided that you want your tone to be crystal clear with great tube warmth. When it’s overdriven, there isn't much out on the market that can stand in its way, making it a king among men in the world of high-powered tube amplification for bassists.