Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Mellotron Group

Hey Bernie, et al,

Yes, SROs were amazing. Especially for bass, 'cause they handled HUGE power w/out distorting. But that's the catch... with the Twin, back in the big-stage-amp daze, I had to crank it pretty high to get a "good sound" with a '59 Les Paul Special.  I seem to recall my avg. stage volume, coming out of an Echo-plex, was 7.  A min. of 3.5 or so for rehearsal levels. But man, it sounded great! (We played some originals, but mostly covers, from Spooky Tooth to King Crimson [didn't have a Mellotron then, tho'... we dreamed about it, & "pretended" w a Hammond!], to Zeppelin, Beatles, a little Yes... so it had to cover a wide range!) So the Twin w the Bassman cab is a formidable rig.  But the other catch was that those damn magnets are so heavy! I can only imagine what your 15"s were like, that Twin alone weighed 108 lbs! When I added the Bassman cab, I actually built speaker support into it, so they wouldn't stress the wider baffle board. We had SROs in all our guitar amps, I think, & some PA speakers, as well.  Thank God we had roadies who enjoyed carrying around all that weight... thought it was a badge of honor or something.  Some years ago I replaced the amp spkrs with Celestion V-60s, so they crunch a little easier, & brought the weight down to 85 lbs or something. I left the SROs in the Bassman cab, so if I used that rig for bass (which is awesome!) it would keep that solid SRO cleanliness.

Sorry, a little off-topic, but I guess "amp talk" isn't as "off" as talking about my cats or something (who do sometimes help keep things dusted). Some NICE amps mentioned here, too. I think the Deluxe & Princeton Reverbs are some of the most revered amps for studio & stage use, for a nice warmth & texture at lower volumes. It's been my experience that if you go to some of the really low-wattage amps, tho', (I tried a Vox AC-4 in a store once, for ex.), it's hard to get them clean at all, even pulling back on guitar volume, so for most use, the med-low wattages seem most versatile. The Twin's great for a bright, clean sound, no doubt... it's great with 12-string. It WOULD be good, I'm sure, for the Mellotron. I should try that when I get the ol' gal back up & running! A different sound than D.I., I'm sure.