Info on Mel Schacher's jazz with an EBO pickup

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:03 am

Are those 18" speakers?

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:06 am

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:06 am

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:07 am

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:07 am

oops 3 times

revolver323 · Post by **revolver323** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:24 am

Looks like 2 x 15 cabs to me, and I have to say a Gibson EB3 humbucker. I'd guess that Mel wanted the woof of the humbucker with some clarity from the Jazz bridge pup, plus a thin neck.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:08 am

Phil's bass has looks like it has one more fret than my EB-3 has. The neck looks long to me also.
You want Mel's sound? Find some West amps and turn them to ten, there you go. I guess they used 200 watt tube heads with the double 15" cabs, there is a lot of info here:

http://www.westlabs.com/Frames.HTML

I have never seen a West amp although I remember them being used. Incidently on the Red album which has his "sound" featured most prominantly he is playing a stock J bass, or at least the one on the cover is stock, it still has the cover on it where the humbucker is in that picture.

charlyg · Post by **charlyg** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:27 am

The schematic looks a lot like a 200 watt Ampeg. 4 6550's vs 6..

ken_j · Post by **ken_j** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:03 pm

Thanks for the link Bob, seeing all those old pics takes me back to my teenage years in the '60s seeing all those bands play locally. I remember Dick Wagner and the Frost using West amps back then, probably my first memory of them.

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 2:57 pm

Ken google is a wonderful thing, haha!
Charlie, almost all powerful tube amps use 6550's, except Mesa Boogies which use 312 6L6's. 6550's are each capable of 50-55 watts RMS, 100 WRMS in pairs push pull, Sunn, Ampegs, Marshall Majors were 200 watts although they were supposed to use KT-88's but functioned OK with 6550's, etc. If you see an amp with 6 6550's you know it is most likely 300 watts although not always, it depends on how the amp is set up. Sunn 2000S's had 4 6550's and they were either 120 or 150 watts RMS. 6L6 amps put out approx 60-65 WRMS per pair, etc.
Mush more powerful audio amps could be made with transmitter tubes and higher plate voltage although I'm sure you already know that being a ham. The original SVT tubes were 6146B's, my DX-100 uses 6146A's or 6293's which are just much more rugged 6146A's.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 9:03 am

Yah, can you imagine a bass amp with a couple 811's or 813's and a couple thousand volts and how much audio power those would put out? I'd bet the driver circuit would have to use a 6550 though!

rictified · Post by **rictified** » Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:39 am

Some of the big radio stations have huge modulator amps with 1000's of watts output, would be a little to big to bring to a gig though.
I'd like to build one, that would be cool. The the first SVT design came from a record cutting amp with 811A's with 1250V in them. They were at first going to use them but were afraid of the voltage being used in a consumer product.
I have just come to the conclusion that Wikipedia is full of BS. They are saying that Dan armstrong created the first SVT along with Billy Cox (Jimi Hendrix's bassplayer!) Dan Armstrong created the plexiglass Ampeg Guitars. Bill Hughes created the SVT along with Roger Cox who designed the 8 x 10 SVT cab. I also fixed Wikipedia.