The Ultra Lo

Dom’s Big Ad-Venture: Tour Review

By: Dom Liberati

I am elated to report that I had the amazing opportunity to tour all throughout Brazil and a bit through Mexico on a Latin America tour run with The Calling late April through early June, while doubling as direct support with my solo project LIBERATI. Aside from the incredible experience of touring, I was able to put the SGT-DI, Venture V12 head and VB-88 cab through the paces.

I’ve been told by several notable Brazilian media outlets that this was the longest tour run any artist has ever done through Brazil (23 dates in Brazil alone, not counting TV performances!). We took van, plane, and bus all over from Manaus to Rio, and seemingly everything between, playing various sizes of clubs, theaters, amphitheaters, festivals, and TV show performances.

THE SETUP

I should specify that due to the logistics of the tour dates and bopping around vast distances in very short periods of time, there were 3-5 shows of the 25+ show tour where I used a differing Ampeg backline than the Venture V12 and VB-88, which were often simultaneously travelling ahead of me to the next show in another region of Brazil. The secondary amp rig typically consisted of an SVT-4PRO or SVT-7PRO and an SVT-810E. This didn’t change any of my setup routing, since my amp on stage simply acted as my stage volume. It is safe to say that with all TV performances included, the Venture V12 and VB-88 excelled through 25 shows, and the SGT-DI through 28.

The SGT-DI was the hub of my tone and routing. I sent my DI signal with the stock 810 IR (which just so happens to be a 1960s square back) to the FOH with no Ultra boosts engaged, a fairly flat EQ, and the SGT always on a mild B15 setting to give just a smidge of tube saturation vibe. I used the one-knob compressor on the SGT-DI as a mild catch all for any transients that didn’t get caught by the Ampeg Opto Comp model on the HX Stomp, which acted as my effects hub. So, the SGT-DI XLR out had all of my FX, Preamp, and IR coloring going to FOH and my IEMs, while the SGT-DI THRU was routed to the front of the V12.

This setup allowed me to have ultimate flexibility to give the FOH engineer what he needed each night whether that was carving out some lows in a cavernous theater, or adding some mid growl for a festival, etc. I was then able to have flexibility via my SGT-DI THRU to dial in a completely different tone for my stage volume, which generally consisted of various bumps or cuts in the bass depending on the venue, as well as a toggling on of the VB-88 horn/HF for darker sounding venues, and an easy off for more flat or bright venues. I never had the HF fully on in any case. The -6dB setting is about as wild as I get for my taste.

Having the flexibility of 2 different tone stacks made for very quick, painless sound checks on top of minimal changes between my opener set and The Calling.

I was using a passive Fender Jazz Bass and active Music Man Sting Ray 5, and the V12 took both amazingly well. The gain staging was dealt with via my Line 6 G70, and the Sting Ray 5 onboard preamp took care of any changes needed between the 2 basses tonally. One nerdy thing of note with SGT circuits was that I preferred the B15 grit for FOH and IEMs (on SGT-DI), but SVT grit on stage for the amp volume (on V12). I could close my eyes at times and not know if it was a V12, 4PRO or SVT-CL the way the breakup and low end felt. Stage volume was never an issue either. I was actually surprised the band nor sound tech didn’t shout at me or throw a shoe for how loud I was on stage most nights.

DURABILITY

I think I am most impressed by the VB-88 for durability rating. With just a padded cover, that cab withstood the most RIGOUROUS of roads (those of you who have travelled in Brazil know what I’m talking about) being bumped around in a van, truck, or bus with a ton of other heavy gear for VERY long drives all across Brazil in intense heat and humidity and came out COMPLETELY unscathed! A huge testament to the carbon-fiber style tolex and thick padded cover. Oh, and I opted for the PF-style accessory grille, which had 0 issues with install, rattle, or anything durability or scratch related.

I housed my Venture V12 in a Gator 2U rack shelf with holes on the bottom. I used the holes on the shelf to line up the V12 feet and unscrewed the feet screws, placed the head in the shelf, and screwed the feet screws back in again to secure the head on the rack shelf in the larger 6U SKB case. The photo above is the head 25 shows later!

CONCLUSION

For all my preaching about the Venture series (I mean, it is my job), I was happy to “walk the walk” on this tour and take the V12 and VB-88 through the paces and prove their worth. For most shows, they rolled in my Venture rig right in front of the typical house CL/810 rig, and I always got a kick out of the sound crews’ reactions each night to how small and light the Venture rig was comparatively (half the weight of an 810!).

I also had to fight off a few promoters and venue stage managers who were begging to buy the Venture rig on the spot, or help “take it off my hands.” In closing, I couldn’t be prouder of this series, the SGT-DI, and what they can provide bassists all over the world. I hope to see one on a stage near you!

Dom is Ampeg’s Product Owner, but that is not all… Dom is also a producer, songwriter, and Grammy Nominated Bassist. He will have a lot of good tips to share in the recording studio and on stage. His favorite bass to play on stage is his blue American Original 60s P bass. His favorite bass to play in studio is his sunburst American Deluxe Jazz Bass V.

NEWS

Hello, My Name is Venture

By: Dino Monoxelos

So why Venture? And I don’t mean WHY, as in why did Ampeg create the Venture Series heads and cabinets. That’s a topic for another blog actually. What I’m talking about is the actual name “Venture”. Why did Ampeg land on that name?

One of the coolest things about developing new products is coming up with a name for them. It’s also one of the most difficult and tedious processes. You wouldn’t think so but trust me, I thought the same thing… until we actually HAD to come up with a name. First we, (myself and Ampeg Product Manager Dom Liberati) make a list of all potential names we might like. Then we distill that list down to something a bit more manageable and start passing the names around to all other parties involved.

Here’s where the tedious part comes in… passing every name through our legal department to make sure we’re not stepping on anyone else’s trademark. Our amazing legal team does all the “heavy lifting” on this part. They need to search through the trademark records and then register the trademark once it’s decided. That can be time consuming and expensive. I personally learned a lot about this process and can fully understand when a company’s trademark gets infringed upon, they will defend it tirelessly. Did you know, you actually have to defend your trademark to keep it valid. Could you imagine if another auto manufacturer started calling their new sports car “Corvette” or “Vette”?

The really frustrating part is when you really love a name but you can’t use it because it’s too close to, or directly infringes on another manufacturer’s trademark. That’s when it’s back to the drawing board.

You’d laugh at some of the names we originally came up with…
Portaflex v2, Moda, Pathfinder, Flex and ReFlex were some of the early ideas.

So again… Why Venture?

Well… this new series of amps represents a new “venture” in Ampeg’s history. Here’s an interesting fact for you… in the history of Ampeg, we’ve never produced any head or cabinet this light and portable before in each model’s respective category. In other words, for each model in the Venture series lineup, we’ve never produced anything that light! That was quite the amazing venture of our development team (wink, wink). And in another play on words, because of it’s portability and light form factor, we like to think it allows the player to “venture” out to new gigs and opportunities. Anyway you want to look at it though, we think Venture is a very appropriate name for this new series of heads and cabs.

Where have you ventured out with your Venture? Please share below.

Dino has spent over 25 years in the Ampeg world conducting seminars and clinics all over the globe. He’s also the author of four instructional bass books by Mel Bay and his own publishing company, MonoTunes Music.  His favorite bass to play is his MTD 534-24.