WGS Veteran 30 Sample Clips

[Sloan]

I got some of those Warehouse Guitar Speaker VETERAN 30's a while back and put them in my Crate Blue Voodoo cab. They seem to sound pretty good after breaking them in a little bit.

I did a show a few weeks ago with three bands. I was running sound and recorded the whole thing. Since I was playing in two of the bands, we all just used the same equipment.

Les Paul
> Tuner + Modded Crybaby WAH
> Ampeg VL-1002
> Blue Voodoo Cabinet
> Sennheiser e609

Notice that I mic'd it up on the edge. This is because I haet them trebleses and I wanted a fuller sound coming through the small stage monitors anyway. The recording was secondary, the live sound was the primary goal, so I just ran the amp through the monitors and set it up where it sounded good through them. Personally, I think it sounds a little too muddy on the recording.

> http://bestnetworx.com/uploader/files/52/wgs_v30_voodoo_sample_band.mp3
Here's the full mix with no reverb and vocal mics muted. Since this band only had one guitar player, I put a slight delay on it to widen the guitar out. There's not a lot of EQ on the guitar, it's pretty straight up. I actually think the amp sounded at least 4x better in the room. It was really good!

> http://bestnetworx.com/uploader/files/52/wgs_v30_voodoo_sample_gtronly.mp3
Guitar only

 

[colonel kurtz]

man, i have one of those amps, and as much as i love the tone, i just can NOT get the fucker to work properly...and neither can any of the techs i take it to

it sucks, because the thing sounds awesome, and is perfectly for DI/impulse recording with the built-in attenuator, but goddamn it's proven to be unreliable as all hell

 

[VH100R]

nice choice of tune love that song

 

[Sloan]

I figured there would be more interest in these speakers since they're $45 Vintage 30 clones.

 

[Sloan]

man, i have one of those amps, and as much as i love the tone, i just can NOT get the fucker to work properly...and neither can any of the techs i take it to

it sucks, because the thing sounds awesome, and is perfectly for DI/impulse recording with the built-in attenuator, but goddamn it's proven to be unreliable as all hell

What's wrong with it?
I'm pretty sure you can still send them to Lee Jackson himself and he'll repair and mod it for you.

I've blown lots of fuses since I can't find the correct one and I've also soldered the heater cables. The molex connector on them gets to hot and melts. This seems to be the most common problem.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Hey! I have the same cab, only it's the one that comes stock with V30s.

 

[Disconnekt]

Dude, that sounds good... better mix than most metal live albums I've heard (or made the mistake of buying). And yeah, nothing wrong with those speakers, especially for that guitar tone!

 

[Sloan]

Cool, thanks for checking this out.
I figured I would post the samples since I haven't really found many samples on the internets.

Way cheaper than some real V30's.

 

[colonel kurtz]

What's wrong with it?
I'm pretty sure you can still send them to Lee Jackson himself and he'll repair and mod it for you.

I've blown lots of fuses since I can't find the correct one and I've also soldered the heater cables. The molex connector on them gets to hot and melts. This seems to be the most common problem.

i'm not sure what's wrong with it, but i'm sure it's due to my own fuckups

when i 1st picked it up i didn't have a cab(and also knew fuck-all about tube amps), so i was running it through this cerwin-vega 15" car sub that was sitting in my room, and i don't even think it was through a speaker cable now that i think of it

anyways, then i picked up a marshall 4x12, and the thing was sounding pretty good, but it ran REALLY, like...ridiculously hot, and the master on channel II would completely cut out at times. channel I was fine, but II would drop out to whisper-quiet volume, even when cranked.

then the molex connector burned out, and i had that fixed...amp worked ok, but still did the whole getting hot/no volume thing, even after swapping a couple of shitty preamp tubes. then i replaced the power tubes, played it for less than a minute, and it went dead. turns out the power transformer blew out...i took it to some guy who swapped that out for me, who said that it draws almost 2 amps of current, and will eventually fuck this transformer up as well, and couldn't figure out why it's doing that. he also told me it still has a couple of crappy preamp tubeserk, which i stuck into the reverb and FX out slots when i got it back last week

as soon as i got it home i plugged it in, let it warm up, and jammed for like 20 seconds to make sure it worked. then i went to work, came home that night, and the thing went right back to having no volume at all - this time the problem was occuring on channel I as well, which had never happened before. then i plugged in yesterday and jammed for a few, and it sounded absolutely fantastic.

i just don't know what to do with the damn thing...it sounds really, really, damned good when it's working - i'd put it up against any marshall, mesa, peavey, engl, etc. in a heartbeat with no problems, but i'm sick of it fuckin' up all the time, and i'm sick of putting a lot of money into with no return...OTOH, i'd feel guilty selling it and dumping all of its problems onto some unsuspecting SOB, and i know damned well that no one will buy it with all of the issues its had - at least not enough to cover the cost of the tubes and maintenance that's gone into it lately.

 

[Sloan]

That's weird. I've had mine for almost 2 years now and i've only burned out the molex and fuses. It's been pretty solid other than that. I did break the impedance selector switch and there's like one place in the whole world that has replacements so I just hard-wired it to 8ohms. It's completely reversable since it uses spade connectors and such.
I'm pretty sure these amps were built to run hot, Lee Jackson mentions something about it drawing a high current or something in one of the videos on his website.

Try sending Lee Jackson an email, he replies personally and is pretty helpful.

 

[colonel kurtz]

in the mod video he sells, he says that the amp should be running at right around 1 amp when properly biased, and this bitch pulls almost 2

i've tried e-mailing him, but the only response i really get is "send it to texas and i'll fix it", which would cost more than what it's worth

i think i'll take it to this guy in indianapolis that i originally took it to when the molex burned out...he really knows WTF he's doing, and has worked on amps for everyone from kyuss to tom petty. i would've taken it there this last time, but i was living in CA at the time.

 

[iekobrid]

I have the opposite problem with my VL-503 combo: works great, sounds like ass . (which maybe means it ~doesn't~ work great, but three different techs have sworn it's in perfect working order)

Could I trouble you guys for some sample settings, in case it turns out the damn thing is just way beyond my knob twiddling abilities?

 

[colonel kurtz]

channel II:

preamp: 1 o'clock
gain: 1 o'clock
low: 8 o'clock
mid: 2-4 o'clock, depending on the guitar/pickups
high: 2 o'clock
frequency: 1
master: as high as i can stand

also, how old are your power tubes? my amp sounded pretty sluggish before - i think they still had the original tubes from 93/94 - but with a matched quad of JJ EL34's, it rips balls

 

[iekobrid]

channel II:

preamp: 1 o'clock
gain: 1 o'clock
low: 8 o'clock
mid: 2-4 o'clock, depending on the guitar/pickups
high: 2 o'clock
frequency: 1
master: as high as i can stand

I initially goofed and set Preamp, Gain and Frequency per your suggestion, Master at 12 o'clock (attenuator engaged), but set Low to position 8 on the knob, Mid to position 3, and High to position 2. Basically, the exact opposite of your eq settings. "I would call this muddy," I thought, "if this were a high gain sound. But it ain't, so I'll call it 'woofy',"

Then I realized my error and reset the eq correctly. I can't say the sound was usable for much more than high-energy garage (the genre, not the level of professionalism!) tones, but the change did definitely sound like a heavy blanket had been lifted from the speakers.

FWIW was using a Mesa 2x12 with V30s instead of the combo's internal EV speaker, and switched back and forth between an ESP VP400 tuned in the ballpark of dropped C and an ESP MH400-NT tuned to standard E, both with EMG 81s.

also, how old are your power tubes? my amp sounded pretty sluggish before - i think they still had the original tubes from 93/94 - but with a matched quad of JJ EL34's, it rips balls

JJ EL34s, less than a year old. Every 2-3 years I get the urge to sell off the amp, so I take it to a tech (different one each time) to have it checked over and make sure I haven't been missing out on maximum enjoyment of a great piece of gear all this time. ("I removed the chassis and noticed that the wiring to the Awesomeness Capacitor was never soldered correctly. That would explain everything!") No such luck. They always change the power tubes, pat me on the head, and tell me everything's fine.

On the other hand, I couldn't say if the preamp tubes have ever been replaced. In fact, I've never even seen them. I don't know how it is on the head version, but on the combo version the preamp tubes are entirely enclosed by the chassis, and I've never gone digging around.