Back in the 80's my punk band had a V4 with a coin operated timer switch from a laundrymat dryer. It would turn off in the middle of a song and we would ask the audience for change to keep playing.
Back in the mid 90’s, I was in a band and there was one of these in a studio. I played a few tracks “straight in”……in the room, it sounded like an AM radio. On the playback, it sounded like Soundgarden.😎
I own a VT-22 that was put into a head cabinet. You have a post 1975 unit. I restored mine and not many tubes can survive the 540v on the plates lol. Wicked cleans and great reverb. Also one of the greatest amps for pedals. (Edit: And just so people know, the v-4 is the head version of the combo vt-22. They in fact the same amp.)
@@JohanSegeborn I should also note that this only applies to the pre 1975 pre distortion models. Yours is a distortion model so it will sound quite different in its characteristics. I forgot how much they differed.
I’ve owned the V-4, VT-22, V3 and VT-40. Only own 2 VT-40 top loads now and by far my favorite out of all of them. There’s something about the stock altec 10’s with those combo amps and they sound marvelous and have some of the best EQ controls of any amp. Midrange sounds like a wah pedal when cranked.
These amps were everywhere when I started in bands in the late 70s - early 80s - and every kind of music - new wave, hard rock, punk. You're getting killer tones out of it - better than we ever got!!! Thanks for the memories. Cheers!
I'd love to hear you attempt the QOTSA - No One Knows tone. Its supposed to be an Ampeg with a zvex super hard-on as boost and mic'ed with an off axis U87. Been chasing that sound for years and years. Been watching your stuff for years man and you're clearly the master of classic rock tones.
Great to see you rocking a mid 70's distortion model V4. These are great amps that are often overlooked by guitarist because they don't associate Ampeg with guitar. I have the same model that is showcased in your video as well as the rare 300-watt V9 with KT88's. This amps are killer for either bass or guitar.
Hey! Been a while, getting me excited about the 76 Ampeg VT-40 a friend just gave me. Needs going over, but minty clean. Most happy to see you doing well.
I know this channel and its fans are mostly into tight Marshall type distortion, but that collapsing fuzz-like tone at 5:00 is my favourite. It sounded like a cranked Tweed Deluxe, which for me is the best amp distortion sound of all time.
What you're hearing here is the sound of an Ampeg amplifier with ancient filter capacitors and cathode bypass capacitors in need of replacement; possibly some off-spec resistors, weak tubes and the wrong bias point as well. Blocking distortion is quite audible and the amp sounds a little bit sour or off-pitch in some places, which is an indication of bad capacitors. John is an excellent player and so I know it's not his playing that sounds weird here! It's OK to "like" the sound of an amplifier that is ailing and in need of service, but it's certainly not how this amp sounded when the Rolling Stones and other big bands were touring with them. It's not really supposed to sound "like a Tweed Deluxe"! They don't really sound like a Marshall either.....
This amp is a whole other world from Fender and Marshall. Unless your going to put a pedal in front of it you are better off with the stock Ampeg cabinets, especially he Altecs. EV's if you got em too. Next, loose the attenuator. You need to play these like a Marshall Major. Its got very big balls, you need to feel the dynamics and detail. Then get a Strat, check out the cleans, reverb and kick on the pedals. Its a Bandaxall tone section. Mid way on Bass and Treble are nuetral and then they add or subtract. The Mid is where the mojo happens with Altecs and EVs not Celestions. Celestions with a modeler out front will sound epic also. But you got close on this spin man, next ride, turn her up if you can without the Fryette. You can pull two outer or inner tubes like a Marshall 100w also . Still a cool demo though !
It is important to know that the EQ in these amps are "flat" at the middle settings. The bass and treble are boost and cut similar to an orange amp EQ controlls. The midrange controll is active eq, incorporating a multi tapped inductor. I wonder if you were overloading the output section a bit much at those settings? There should be 2 "Exteranal Amp"1/4" jacks on the back. If you connect a variable resistor across one of these it can act like a master volume because there is a 10k resistor in series before those jacks. You could try this to decrease the signal level a bit going to the output section. For what it is worth, these jacks are about the same place in the circuit where the SVT has back to back diodes to clip the signal before the power amp - thus reducing the max signal to it and making more controlled distortion. You could also try a variable resistor in series with back to back diodes connected to these external amplifier jacks as well for a crude clipping circuit.
I've had an old 70's Ampeg V3 combo (MIJ) for about 40 years. 50 watts and heavy as can be. Recently put a Celestion G12H-75 in it, WOW! A friend that works on my amps occasionally was there to help swap the speaker and he was blown away with the construction. Turret board for all the important stuff and heavy pcb construction for the shifts and pots. Pair of 6550's from 25 years ago and the new speaker, it's like a new amp. Compares very well against a similar vintage Marshall 800. I'd sold it about 30 years ago and it came back to mr at a VERY good price. Just meant to be mine I suppose.
Hi Johan, thanks for this video! Sure brings back some memories! A long time ago I was using two amps at the same time: a 60 watts Ampeg V2 for my clean tone and a 100 watts Marshall JCM800 for the overdriven tones. I finally got rid of the Ampeg because some replacement tubes were a bit hard to find, like 12DW7, 6k11, 6CG7, 7027A...Great sounding amp though!
You can actually run 6L6GC in them, the 6CG7 is reverb which a lot of people dont like the reverb on these amps. I don't know if it would be possible to leave it out or not. I love these amps too much so I'd just collect a stash of tubes if I could lol
I own the same amp and a Vt-22 (Master Volume version). They are basically the same (V4 channel two), the main difference is made by the cab/speakers. I always put the volume on full, Bass and treble a bit past 12.00 o'clock, midrange on full (300 Hz) and then boost a bit more. It really kills everything else. Best od/fuzz tone ever, no pedal can sound so clear and huge at the same time.
These Ampegs are unique beasts. And since most people don't want anything other than a marshall sound, these things can still be had for (relatively) cheap. They're naturally fuzzy, used by the guys in the Misfits and obviously Josh Homme. I do wonder how the Reissues stack up against these old ones
@@JohanSegebornthe V4B reissue doesnt resemble the old V4b at all, all values changed pretty much - old used the floating paraphase phase inverter while the new used a cathodyne phase inverter. So quite unfair to call it a reissue, even if they perhaps got somewhat close to the tone but by different design. Awesome video anyway! Love a cranked ampeg, but damn are they loud - i own a early 70s ampeg VT40 with 4x10 original speakers and it is so loud but the overdrdrive is amazing
Wow that amp sounds amazing ! Great job ! I always wanted to hear one and I’m very impressed. I may be able to pick one up just like that one with the distortion
Great amp! I’ve had one for about 30 years. Mostly use the clean channel. Fantastic pedal platform. With two 2x12 (Ampeg of course ) cabs it’s pure bliss.
@@JohanSegebornHi. I run them with Celestion G12T-75s. As the amp is pretty full frequency with a lot of cut/ boost options in the EQ it’s possible to dial a lot of classic tones. Thanks for a great vid!
@@jayletter5209To be honest they are repros of the original Ampeg cabs, not old 70s ones. They are closed back/ front ported, that I find sound particularly good with this amp. Before that I ran it with various Marshalls.
I own the V4 guitar head. I bought it new in 1978. Paid $635.00 for it. It's the version with the master volume. That sucker weighs about 85 pounds which makes it a real pain to move. When I bought it I was playjng in a band. The band eventually broke up and believe it or not I used it for a bedroom amp for many years. I still have it sitting in my bedroom. It hasn't even been plugged up in more than 25 years. I had some work done on it along with replacing the output 6L6 power tubes but that was many years ago. It won't power up anymore due to the tubes being several decades old. I really need to sell it because I have no use for it anymore. It gets LOUD ! I'd bet it could literally shatter windows if you wanted it to. Lol The power of this amp is absolutely overkill ! It's much too powerful for the average guitar player. However, it would be a killer amp for large venues.
I realise it's not the same thing. But, the new reissue of this is a good 1/3 lighter. Was thinking of getting an EHX reissue Sovtek Mig 50 to pair with my Vox ACs as the dry center amp of a wet/dry/wet rig. But, actually, learning bass too and might need a better bass amp later this year. So thinking this could serve both duties, with the right set of cabs and a switcher. Thanks for demoing it - definitely sounds good. I think it's sort of in the same ballpark sound as the EHX, loud, clean, fast, direct/dry with good dynamic range - though maybe this sounds a little warmer, and can probably go louder. The sound reminds me of Pete Townsend's sound in The Who in the 70's, on tracks like Won't Get Fooled Again. Which was Hi-Watt stacks and Les Paul, live at least. And that's a great tone. But seems the album was SG and Gretsch 6120, and Fender Bandmaster, Twin and Bassman (sometimes together).
I highly recommend trying a non-distortion model into Altec 417-8h! I own a VT-22 of the sort and it sounds much more open than what I'm hearing in the video. A good reference for pushed V-series Ampegs is Songs For The Deaf ;)
Sounds WONDERFUL. Probably most useful with bass backed off leaving space for the bass player and drummer to complete the sound. Nothing nasal sounding about this amp
Watch the Altamont film “Gimme Shelter.” Taylor and Richards are playing through a wall of V 4s. There’s a classic photo of Jagger talking to Keith during the LA overdubbing sessions for Exile with Richards sitting on a VT 22. The Ampegs were there for the ‘72 tour too. If you like the Mick Taylor era you gotta love V 4/22 s…
You gotta try a non master volume model! They're insane! They use totally different tubes and have a much better tone especially when boosted with a high output clean boost
Great video! It was cool to hear how the EQ affected the distortion, and it has such a thick punchy sound. Off topic, but have you ever messed with Traynor amps? I have a YBA-1A that I use to back up my Marshall 1987, and it gets really close.
I worked at an Ampeg dealer way back in the day. NOISY!! Brand new Ampegs -- at least the guitar amps-- were just so damn noisy right out if the box. Now if you brought the treble and mids down to kill the noise they sounded awful. But if you wanted the Stones tone from the Sticky Fingers era (boosted mids etc) -- it was really hissy even at idle.
Those Ampeg V / VT amps uses linear volume pots, so when at 4 you're practically at full volume. From 4 and up it's just getting more distorted. Wonder why they decided to design it that way.
@@JohanSegeborn By the way; You have to try out the 300 Watt SVT bass amp on guitar. Huge insane loud fat overdrive when cranked. I think it can take 2 Ohms load, so it can feed eight 16 Ohms 4x12 cabs in parallell. It would be interresting to see how many dB such a rig can put out. I tried one with the standard 8x10, and that was wild enough. You should do a show about stupid loud amplifiers.
Johan if you still are still modifying thst sg bass it would be nice to hear it with strings similar to what paul mccartney uses on the 'get back' blu ray. they are black nylon. apparently rotosound make a set called '' tru bass''.
I thought it sounded the CLEAREST, when you CUT the 300Hz range! 300Hz gave way too much MUD! But when you CUT it, it LEFT most of the other midrange INTACT, & that's the important part. This is a highly interactive tone stack!
Man the blocking distortion is quite bad on this one. A little bit of it sounds great as it adds in some swirly overtones to the overdrive characteristic and thickens the the pick attack, too much of it and this is what you get👆 Good show Johan, quite informative as always👍
Yeah, this amp is clearly in need of service: the filter caps and electrolytic cathode bypass caps certainly need replacement, and it probably has some offspec, drifted resistors. The capacitive-divider circuit used for biasing has been known to get wonky, and it could have some weak tubes as well. Obviously, people commenting here like the sloppy, slightly sour sound of an old amp that isn't working quite right, and they have the right to like it; but this is not indicative of what these amps sounded like when they were new and being used on tour by the big bands of the day.
@@goodun2974You are probably right to a certain extent but it sounded pretty good when the volume was lower. A broken amp normally sounds bad all the way through it's volume rotation so my feelings are that the issue is with the design and it makes sense looking at the schematic; the first stage is going straight to the second stage grid when the volume is maxed out. This is probably where the blocking distortion is coming from like how 2 input Hiwatts will crap out when the channel gains are turned all the way up. This amp is essentially a SVT with reverb so I'm not super surprised that it doesn't work as well with guitar than it does bass. Maybe it's the case that it doesn't work well with humbuckers because if I were to guess Ampeg probably designed it exclusively with single-coils in mind because they hated distortion like no other company back in the day. Alot of time people will run amps like this as clean as possible to use with their effect pedals so they'd never have this blocking distortion problem.
@@killingmasheen , Ampeg only "hated rock and roll" when Everett Hull was running the company but he was pretty much sidelined by new partners/investors (Unimusic) in the mid 60's and he resigned in 1968. The SVT, introduced in the summer of '69, would never have been developed if he was still at the helm. As for the V and VT series amps, the V4 and VT22, introduced in 1970, were voiced specifically for guitar and included reverb. The V4B for bass was introduced in 1971. Under Magnavox ownership, a "Distortion" circuit was added to the guitar amps (excluding the V4B) in 1976, replacing an input sensitivity control.
@@killingmasheen, ps, the fact that the reverb doesn't work makes me a little suspicious. Granted it could be a bad tank, or maybe somebody replaced the tank with the wrong type (because a Fender style reverb tank doesn't work), But I have to wonder if this is Johane's amp or not, and if anybody ever tried to service it, because a halfway competent technician should at least be able to fix the reverb. Anyway, parasitic oscillations and unwanted coupling of the gain stages is a common problem when filter and bypass caps get old.
Interesting. The main Ampegs I'm familiar with are their solid state VH models (70C, 140C, etc). The V4 isn't a gain monster like the VH. Oh well, they can't all be winners.
Hey @Johan Segeborn could you recommend to me a good small amplifier for gigging in very small pubs here in Ireland? I don't care if it is valve or solid state. Thanks!
Was just looking at these again. Weird tubes. Rocker switches can be problematic. They're kinda pointless tbh. Good sounding amps. Stones, Bad Company, QOTSA had them on the Songs for the Deaf era tours.
