Baby Vyp with a little boost.

[dalrymple]

Last night, after a long day working, I didnt feel like loading my 30 watt Vypyr for the jam afterwards. I gambled and grabbed my 15 watter with the 10" Jensen in it, and on a hunch, also included the fish n chips EQ, figuring to boost the volume into the amp with it, hopefully to good advantage. I have tried to use the Baby Vyp at jams before, without the eq, and I was completely drowned out.

I started the set without the eq, and predictably, was pushing the amp beyond 7-8 on master the dial, meaning there were no cleans anymore, and clipping was happening.

Plugged in the eq mid song, pushed the volume fader half way, set the eq completely flat. Now I'm in the ballpark.
My buddy, who was my student a while back, is now trying to blow me off the stage with his 22 watt Fender Supersonic dialed in at supersonic volumes, and ripping the paint off the ceiling with blistering riffs and major punch and grind. This boy's gotten good, and he was brought up by us blowing him off the stage when he couldnt answer. The student wanted to teach the teacher a little lesson. Now he can, and he can call the tune too. Great to see, but it demanded a response.

I turned around and near maxed the eq volume, and now that little beast sprang to life. Backed the amp master off to about 7, it cleaned up a bit and started to howl. It snapped and snarled, had huge sustain and controllable feedback, cut through the mix and I was able to deliver my own message in spades.
I may have taught him near everything he knows, but I didn't teach him everything I know! SWEET! It weighs nothing, and now I can use it as a grabber for jams if I want to.

Once again, the Vypyrs are just the best bang for the buck out there, and this little jewel can now hang with the big dogs.
Dalrymple

[lionheart]

Dalrymple. Nice to hear your tricks and tweaks to get your baby Vypyr to punch above it's weight. I tried a Joyo compressor in front of my modded Vypyr 15 (stompboxes and MIDI) and it sure boosts levels and output on the cleaner sounds giving them much more high volume clarity and surprisingly little added distortion (clipping). I tried all sorts of different speakers but settled on the stock model with a modified tuned port cab to improve the low end response. I have not gigged with mine but side by side with a Marshall MG50FX I had in to fix for a friend it produced more bass ( yes, more than a Celestion 12), not quite so much volume but sounded way more convincing and toneful. The Vypyr 15 is hands down the best small amp I have ever used and tonally it gives much bigger and higher costing amps more than a run for their money at lower output levels. Can't think of a single reason to trade it yet - not even for a VIP !

[alienux]

I have to admit, when I first saw the pictures I wasn't sure sure about the colors, but they are growing on me after seeing them a few times.

What exactly are you using to raise the front of the amp? I assume it's just some type of small wedge. I've been using a Peavey amp stand live and with the amp as high as it has to be with my stand, it's causing too much speaker beaming for some of the other band members, so I'd like to find something simple that won't bring the amp so high off of the floor, kind of like what you're using.

[jdalf]

I have a mxr compressor I use the same way, also a bad monkey pedal with no gain but the level up works super.

I have used a cheap wheel chock from walmart, centered at the front of the amp to raise mine, works great.

[alienux]

I have a mxr compressor I use the same way, also a bad monkey pedal with no gain but the level up works super.

I have used a cheap wheel chock from walmart, centered at the front of the amp to raise mine, works great.

Interestingly enough, I was just actually heading to Walmart when I got an email notification for your post. That should work well.

[lionheart]

Dalrymple - Is your tilt wedge a self built piece using off-cuts of decking planking ? I see you have velcro attached to it, does that mate with a strip attached to the bottom of your amp ?

[dalrymple]

Just a couple of pieces of trim left over from a woodworking project. The base is a semi-hard non-slip disc bought at the hardware store. The real secret is the 23-26 degree tilt cut into the pieces after I glue the square to the trim. That's where the tilt is. It works very well, and I have a few different heights. No velcro, that's stick on sandpaper to give it some grip on the bottom of the amp, gravity holds it in place.
That said, A buddy has a stepped plastic wedge he got at a music store, and I like it even better.
It takes up a lot of room compared to mine, was about $30+, but it is sort of soft and cushions the amp better, and is more stable with heavy footed drummers on wobbly stages.

Mine works, and maybe they'll work for you. They can be made of different styles of trim, can be painted or decorated too, making them versatile. I sold some for a while, but they are easy to make at home. I have one for each amp, since different amps can tilt to different degrees before becoming unstable. None have ever fallen backwards.

Here's another pic I just took.

Dalrymple

[alienux]

Thanks for the info.

I actually ended up using an old stage lamp housing when I played this morning. It's about 2" wide, is flat on one size (where the recess for the bulb is) and is curved on the backside. I propped it under the front middle of my amp and it worked really well for today (much better than the amp stand I've been using), but this wedge you have would be great. I think I'll give it a try.

[dalrymple]

Got another shot with the baby Vyp last night, but this time I had a better handle on it. I started with a slight roll-off of the top 3 frequencies, and that gave it a nice snarl without the ss noisiness it seemed to exhibit last week.

I was up against a 100 watt Marshall/LP and a 22w supersonic, also LP driven.
At first, I was getting drowned out. Then my harp player came up and told me to turn up, I was not getting out front. I pushed the master to a little past half way up and she sprung to life.
The Marshall guy is an awesome player, and he started grinning like a chimp after I turned it up. It was pretty awesome, and he says to me " what is that, like 5 watts?, Ripping!"
Thing started feeding back and howling with control, and snarling like a trapped wolf. I happily answered every assault on my guitar manhood for using a 15 watt Vypyr on stage.

During a 3 player guitar-mageddon at the end of the night, I switched on the rotary and played key parts for rhythm. Everyone came up and commented on it after the set. What a little beastie!

Gotta say, lifting it up after the set was a breeze, even with the 2 cables, tilt stand, eq and power cord in the back of it. SWEET! Only drawback is I have to turn around and push tiny buttons in the dark to change anything during songs, no sanpera. Oh well, still was a pretty cool moment and it did sound killer. Just gotta remember to push the master above half way up.
Dalrymple

[lionheart]

Dalrymple - Nice to hear the baby Vypyr can cut it jamming with the big boys. I went ahead and did the MIDI socket mod and the stompboxes mod so now I can use the Sanpera and other MIDI controllers such as my old Boss GT5 so the amp is more useful live . I demoed a Vypyr 30 recently and could not justify buying it as I thought my little 15W beastie sounded better, believe it or not, and was a much more portable apartment friendly size too. I was gobsmacked my little Vypyr could keep up with a Marshall MG50FX amp and produced as much bass if not more with the stock 8 incher in a ported cab when I had a jam with the guy I did the repair work for ( new DSP board). I have owned many Marshalls and Peaveys since 1980, valve and solid state and I almost hate myself for saying what I'm about to say but my Vypyr 15 is the most all round useful amp of the lot ( it has a D/I out and speaker ext socket too ) probably not quite as toneful as some but certainly the all round best in terms of adaptability and portability. Maybe Hartley and co should build a 20 Watt EL84 Tube Vypyr Pro Studio amp - I'd tear his arm off for that !

[DubfromGA]

I really enjoyed reading about this one.


Had to put the upstart student back in his place, huh.....lol. Great read.

[dalrymple]

Been working with this deal a while now and I had to adjust back the gain on my cleaner pre-sets. Also dropped back the EQ boost a bit. There was no clean tone, the EQ was making it too hot and it was distorted.
Now I can play some fairly clean stuff but still make it howl on command.
Last week my tone was described to me as "creamy" from out front, so I think I'm closer to getting it dialed in.
Pretty cool for a 15 watter. This thing really rocks now.
Dalrymple