Vintage 47 VA-185G Amp

[neatomic]

well tavo's jr barnyard pedal will give you more flexibility..since you can turn the pedal off and still have your fender amp...the v47 is a one trick pony..an albeit great one..but an octal tube has it's sound characteristics

only thing is if theres not enough clean headroom with the fender deluxe..only two 6v6 tubes...you don't want the amp distorting on top of the breakup the pedals giving you...why a bigger powered clean amp works well with pedals

if you think the fender allows you to play clean and at the volume you want...then the barnyard will add some vintage edge

cheers

ps- hep just posted a tune he recorded..pretty sure hes using the v47 on it...give you an idea of its tone

post #24

Modern Jump Blues

[omphalopsychos]

That's such a tough question. I'll say this: just about everyone I know that has a JRB also has a real octal amp. The barnyard is amazing, but it is a compromise to some extent. Neatomic's recommendation is spot on. If you are a purist and want a one-trick pony, just go for the real thing. If you need flexibility in your live tone at gigs, definitely get the barnyard.

Here's my V47 in action, the tone is so thick and wonderful. It isn't the 185 "replica". It's a Tonemaster, and it sounds exactly like the 1950 Valco Supreme I once had the pleasure of owning.

I realized I never reviewed my pescadero. It's amazing. I do kind of miss having a control on the gain like the barnyard, but it's so nice to have gain and reverb in the same pedal. Anything that simplifies my rig is totally welcome. I was never a fan of the reverb on my Henriksen bud, so having a pescadero in front makes that into such a perfect amp on the go. The clean tone of the bud is great too, so sometimes I will just switch off the gain circuit of the pescadero and use it just for the reverb.

[campusfive]

I'm a big fan of both products, and I use both regularly.

That said, I almost feel like you need to have played an octal amp to know how to find that sound out of the pedal.

I'm sure there are plenty of valid sounds you could get out of the pedal, but I'm just looking to stand-in for a EH-185 style tone, and anything else is of no interest to me. And the pedal definitely does do that in spades, but I'm not sure I would've known how to set it if I didn't have an idea of the tone I was after.

And there's something more direct about actually using the thing you're looking for it to sound like, rather than using something else to get it to sound that way.

[Hep To The Jive]

well tavo's jr barnyard pedal will give you more flexibility..since you can turn the pedal off and still have your fender amp...the v47 is a one trick pony..an albeit great one..but an octal tube has it's sound characteristics

only thing is if theres not enough clean headroom with the fender deluxe..only two 6v6 tubes...you don't want the amp distorting on top of the breakup the pedals giving you...why a bigger powered clean amp works well with pedals

if you think the fender allows you to play clean and at the volume you want...then the barnyard will add some vintage edge

cheers

ps- hep just posted a tune he recorded..pretty sure hes using the v47 on it...give you an idea of its tone

post #24

Modern Jump Blues

Thanks for the plug, Neatomic! Yes, that recording is all octal amps. The link to it is in my signature (youtube) now, for those who interested.

I've been playing Vintage 47 amps for a while now. Pros: the octal tube tone is there in spades, naturally, no tweaking needed! And it's beautiful. What's also important for me, it's super light and portable.
Cons: it's not as powerful as Deluxe Reverb, I think even Princeton is more powerful. I would always go for the Fender amp if I needed versatility... and/or had a car lol.

That said, I never own the Barnyard pedal, so I can't compare it to the real thing. But what I've heard so far sounds good.

[ruger9]

Here's my V47 in action, the tone is so thick and wonderful. It isn't the 185 "replica". It's a Tonemaster, and it sounds exactly like the 1950 Valco Supreme I once had the pleasure of owning.

Man, that sounds just great. The amp, the tele, and your playing! Really enjoyed that!

[omphalopsychos]

Man, that sounds just great. The amp, the tele, and your playing! Really enjoyed that!

Thanks! As luck would have it, I blew something in the circuit of that amp last night. Does anyone know a good amp tech in the East Bay, CA?

I'm a big fan of both products, and I use both regularly.

That said, I almost feel like you need to have played an octal amp to know how to find that sound out of the pedal.

I'm sure there are plenty of valid sounds you could get out of the pedal, but I'm just looking to stand-in for a EH-185 style tone, and anything else is of no interest to me. And the pedal definitely does do that in spades, but I'm not sure I would've known how to set it if I didn't have an idea of the tone I was after.

And there's something more direct about actually using the thing you're looking for it to sound like, rather than using something else to get it to sound that way.

That is such a good point. It took an evening of experimenting with an A/B pedal and two amps to find out how to calibrate the JRB. I’ve been wanting to do the same with speakers, but I don’t have a real 185 around and the speaker you and Nick have recommended won’t fit in the V47 chassis.

[Klatu]

I realized I never reviewed my pescadero. It's amazing. I do kind of miss having a control on the gain like the barnyard, but it's so nice to have gain and reverb in the same pedal. Anything that simplifies my rig is totally welcome. I was never a fan of the reverb on my Henriksen bud, so having a pescadero in front makes that into such a perfect amp on the go. The clean tone of the bud is great too, so sometimes I will just switch off the gain circuit of the pescadero and use it just for the reverb.

What does the features does the Barnyard Jr. pedal have that are not available on the Pescadero? If they are essentially the same, I'd most likely pony up the additional $75 to get the reverb.

[omphalopsychos]

What does the features does the Barnyard Jr. pedal have that are not available on the Pescadero? If they are essentially the same, I'd most likely pony up the additional $75 to get the reverb.

The only difference is that a the preamp gain knob is implemented as an internal trimpot in the El Pescadero. See below. The El Pescadero has a Grits switch, but the Jr Barnyard has a Grits stomp-switch and a Grits knob. It's not that big a deal because the EP has a trimpot inside that you can use to set the grits gain while you're calibrating to your pickups. The only drawback is that when you're playing you really only have two levels of gain to choose from. However, even with the JBR, I don't really mess with the gain once I've set it. For the record, in case anyone is wondering, the JBR and the EP sound exactly identical in the preamp/gain/octal-emulation department.

The beauty/draw of the EP is the simplicity. In an ideal world, I have a guitar plugged into an amp and that's it. Adding one pedal to that is doable, but I get serious anxiety when I look down and there are a ton of knobs and flashing lights. The EP is an excellent all-in-one that gets you the classic jazz tone plus some killer and very flexible room/hall/plate style reverb.

[campusfive]

I just had another fun time hanging out with Steve at Vintage 47 Amps.



There are a couple updates on the VA-185G.
1) It's now available with the Eminence Lil Texas installed at no upcharge. Apparently, most people are asking for it that order them.
2) He's been making what are essentially "VA-150G"s, if you will, as custom order, or proto-types.
From my recollection the Lil Texas still doesn't fit in the smaller cab, unless he's started modifying the chasis.
I should double check that.
3) They've been putting a nice lacquer on the tweed for a while now, which looks great. There were a couple batches where the leather parts were so dark that they were almost black. I suggest they go a bit lighter, and the new ones look perfect.

But the big news is that I'm beta-testing a new proto-type based on the VA-185G.
Last year, when we met up, I mentioned how much extra headroom the Lil Texas speaker offered over the original stock tone tubby, but even over the Weber they're using now. But I did mention that I was occasionally in situations where I did need more power than I was getting even with the speaker change - this was the genesis of my Junior Barnyard->Quilter 101->Lil Texas in a Vintage '47 Cab rig.
At the time, I was spitballing and I mentioned to Steve about the idea of the Victoria Double Deluxe - which essentially just doubled the power amp section of a Fender 5C3 with 4 power tubes instead of 2.



Well Steve got to tinkering, and I'm not sure of all the changes, but he swapped in some KT66 power tubes for the original 6L6 ones, and beefing up the transformers accordingly. It's a BIG bump in volume level; the new amp sounds massive when cranked, but thankfully it still delivered the same tone at the regular volumes I'm used to. Importantly, it didn't add much weight (Steve though maybe a pound or two), and was still in the same reasonably sized package.

Of course, hearing it on a gig will be determinative, so I'm playing Saturday night as a sideman at loud venue, and then doing a more normal gig with my band on Wednesday. If sounds good in both contexts, and offers more useable headroom, it'll be a big win.

[Phil59]

Like Hep to the Jive above, I have a chance to buy an almost-mint VA-185G with the original Tone Tubby speaker. I will see it later today. If I were to upgrade the speaker, an amp tech would do it for me. To be clear, putting in a Lil Texas would just involve moving the small transformer mentioned above, referred to as the output transformer, is that right?

Also, any other speaker recommendations? I want a good clean sound that doesn't break up too soon. In any event, I basically play at home so maybe the Tone Tubby will be OK. Thanks for any observations/suggestions.

[campusfive]

Hey all, I've been playing the prototype VA-185G with the big KT88's in it for a couple months now (though not as much actual playtime as you might think since most of our gigs were flyout dates).

Here's two quick videos of me playing though the amp on a gig:

[tfling]

Yesterday morning was a little grey, so I pulled out a guitar and amp that I don’t play often enough.
Funnily enough, I didn’t bond with the V47 that much when I got it with my other guitars, but I held on to it because it had such a cool vibe. After I picked up this Archtop Tribute ES-150 copy, I couldn’t be happier.
These two just complement each other perfectly

do you all have a guitar/amp combo that just “works” together?

[neatomic]

of course!..cc type pickup thru an octal tube amp..it's the classic match...at one time late 30's-early 40's, thats all that was! charlie christian!!

remember when amps were being designed for manufacture, they were being tried out with guitars from the same company...why fender amps always sound good with fender guitars...leo was using fender guitars when he was testing his own amp designs..and vice versa

same with gibby...why gibson amps always had a weird mystique..they needed to be paired correctly..witness jim hall single neck p-90 es-175 thru a gibson ga-50 amp...for decades!


cheers

[callouscallus]

I'm interested in the VA185G. Haven't been able to try one but thinking about trying to find a used one. Anyone besides Jonathon Stout gigging one of these?

[DanielleOM]

You can see one on the stage in this video.

[Bill Eisele]

You can see one on the stage in this video.

Danielle,

I'm guessing that Pasquale is plugged into the Vintage 47 VA-185G amp. It looks like Jimmy is plugged into a Henriksen amp and Frank is plugged into the Fender amp.