Stratovarius Community

stratobabius wrote:I've been really curious about this for some time now...The only thing I can tell is the ESP bass, (but who can't ) Any help would be welcome

Eerik wrote:

stratobabius wrote:I've been really curious about this for some time now...The only thing I can tell is the ESP bass, (but who can't ) Any help would be welcome

Apart from that ESP he also has a 5-string passive jazz bass copy made by Finnish luthier Juha Lottonen. Lauri seems to be using the ESP more with Strato, though. I´ve had the chance to try them both and they´re brilliant basses, I can tell you that. And as far as the amps go, it´s Ampeg AV-stack. He used to have a Warwick Quad VI and a couple of Warwick WCA 410Pro cabinets to go with it but he does not seem to be using them anymore.

NeonVomit wrote: Yeah, Ampeg seem to do the trick better for Stratovarius' sound.

NeonVomit wrote:

Eerik wrote:

stratobabius wrote:I've been really curious about this for some time now...The only thing I can tell is the ESP bass, (but who can't ) Any help would be welcome

NeonVomit wrote:And as far as the amps go, it´s Ampeg AV-stack. He used to have a Warwick Quad VI and a couple of Warwick WCA 410Pro cabinets to go with it but he does not seem to be using them anymore.Yeah, Ampeg seem to do the trick better for Stratovarius' sound.

Is the AV a tube (valve) amp? I prefer them, even for the bass. I used to use an old "silver-faced" 70s-style 300w Ampeg SVT as well as a silver-faced 100w Ampeg V4-B when I was much younger. At that time, I also used an SRD Bass Rockman as an additional preamp and for effects.

miditek wrote:

NeonVomit wrote:

Eerik wrote:

stratobabius wrote:I've been really curious about this for some time now...The only thing I can tell is the ESP bass, (but who can't ) Any help would be welcome

NeonVomit wrote:And as far as the amps go, it´s Ampeg AV-stack. He used to have a Warwick Quad VI and a couple of Warwick WCA 410Pro cabinets to go with it but he does not seem to be using them anymore.Yeah, Ampeg seem to do the trick better for Stratovarius' sound.

Is the AV a tube (valve) amp? I prefer them, even for the bass. I used to use an old "silver-faced" 70s-style 300w Ampeg SVT as well as a silver-faced 100w Ampeg V4-B when I was much younger. At that time, I also used an SRD Bass Rockman as an additional preamp and for effects.

It is indeed. Tube amps have a lot of character, and really sound fantastic. However, the drawbacks are their size and cost, and they do need careful handling and maintainance.

Which is why unless I ever have roadies and techs doing stuff for me, I'll stick with solid-state

NeonVomit wrote:It is indeed. Tube amps have a lot of character, and really sound fantastic. However, the drawbacks are their size and cost, and they do need careful handling and maintenance.

Which is why unless I ever have roadies and techs doing stuff for me, I'll stick with solid-state

miditek wrote:
It sounded very good for a solid state system, though. I don't think that they even make them anymore.

NeonVomit wrote: It is indeed. Tube amps have a lot of character, and really sound fantastic. However, the drawbacks are their size and cost, and they do need careful handling and maintainance.

Which is why unless I ever have roadies and techs doing stuff for me, I'll stick with solid-state

Eerik wrote:

NeonVomit wrote: It is indeed. Tube amps have a lot of character, and really sound fantastic. However, the drawbacks are their size and cost, and they do need careful handling and maintainance.

Which is why unless I ever have roadies and techs doing stuff for me, I'll stick with solid-state

That´s exactly what I thought up until last week when I just in the spell of the moment or so decided to sell my Warwick stuff (well I did save one WCA410PRO for smaller gigs) and bought a 1976 Ampeg V-4. It weighs like hell but the sound is just amazing, sounds exactly like an SVT but because of the lower wattage I can get nice power tube distortion out of it without using insane volume.

Yesterday I managed to get my hands on an Ampeg 810PRO cabinet which is now my main cab. The 810PRO is a little different from the normal Classic version: it has two tweeters (which you can turn off, of course) and it has a better frequency response in both bass and treble are than a normal Classic. The power handling is also 300W more than in a Classic version. Oh, and it weighs even more than the Classic version so it´s about 95kg - imagine carrying that to a concert hall without any elevators, urgh! Apparently there were only around three of these cabinets ever imported to Finland. There is an interesting story about this cab, actually, since it is the cab that Jari Kainulainen used when he was in Stratovarius. When he left, he lost the endorsement deal with Ampeg and he had to sell the cab. It is in a REALLY bad shape outlookwise, it´s really beaten up - I suspect he never had any case for it. It has a couple of stickers, "STRATOVARIUS BL" and so on in the back, pretty cool! It´s quite funny to think that I´ve actually seen and heard this cabinet live way back in 2002, 2003 and 2004 And never mind the looks but it is just simply the most awesome sounding cab I´ve EVER played through: you can literally demolish buildings with this monster!

A couple of pics of the cab here:
http://riemun.huuto.net/auctionimages/d ... f-orig.jpg
http://riemun.huuto.net/auctionimages/2 ... 6-orig.jpg

NeonVomit wrote:

You own Jari's cab?!?!? Most people here know that he's one of my biggest heroes EVER as a player... holy crap!!! That's... insane!!!

However I was under the impression that he still used Ampeg in Mess

Edit: A quick check on Jari's Myspace confirms that he still does use Ampeg. Wonder why he'd sell his cab then... perhaps he had more than one, and got rid of the extra one?

Eerik wrote:This is really getting off topic now but I´ll just excuse myself this time...

NeonVomit wrote:

You own Jari's cab?!?!? Most people here know that he's one of my biggest heroes EVER as a player... holy crap!!! That's... insane!!!

However I was under the impression that he still used Ampeg in Mess

Edit: A quick check on Jari's Myspace confirms that he still does use Ampeg. Wonder why he'd sell his cab then... perhaps he had more than one, and got rid of the extra one?

Well Jari is the biggest reason I originally started to play heavy metal years ago so it´s a big deal to own his cab for me as well I used to be really into punk, ska and stuff like that when I first started playing bass years ago and heavy metal was really not my thing. Then a friend of mine told me about Stratovarius and about an insane bass player this band had. I was a bit sceptical at first. He showed me a couple of Stratovarius songs, Stratosphere being one of them, and after I heard I went under a profound change in the way I looked at bass playing.

From what I heard from the previous owner of the cab gathered, Jari lost his Ampeg endorsement when he left Stratovarius and he had to buy all the stuff from his own pocket so I guess that´s why he chose to buy an SVT-810 Classic instead of SVT-810PRO he used with Stratovarius since the PRO model was double the price when they used to make them. Also the Classic model weighs 20kg less so that must have been an issue as well. I know for sure that when he left Strato he bought himself a new 810 Classic and an SVT-5PRO. Both of the bands he plays in now, MESS and Hoitovirhe, seem to list Ampeg as an endorser so I guess he must have gotten a new endorsement deal after the one he lost when leaving Strato. Anyway this is all hear-say and guessing.

JariKainulainen wrote:

Eerik wrote:This is really getting off topic now but I´ll just excuse myself this time...

NeonVomit wrote:

You own Jari's cab?!?!? Most people here know that he's one of my biggest heroes EVER as a player... holy crap!!! That's... insane!!!

However I was under the impression that he still used Ampeg in Mess

Edit: A quick check on Jari's Myspace confirms that he still does use Ampeg. Wonder why he'd sell his cab then... perhaps he had more than one, and got rid of the extra one?

Well Jari is the biggest reason I originally started to play heavy metal years ago so it´s a big deal to own his cab for me as well I used to be really into punk, ska and stuff like that when I first started playing bass years ago and heavy metal was really not my thing. Then a friend of mine told me about Stratovarius and about an insane bass player this band had. I was a bit sceptical at first. He showed me a couple of Stratovarius songs, Stratosphere being one of them, and after I heard I went under a profound change in the way I looked at bass playing.

From what I heard from the previous owner of the cab gathered, Jari lost his Ampeg endorsement when he left Stratovarius and he had to buy all the stuff from his own pocket so I guess that´s why he chose to buy an SVT-810 Classic instead of SVT-810PRO he used with Stratovarius since the PRO model was double the price when they used to make them. Also the Classic model weighs 20kg less so that must have been an issue as well. I know for sure that when he left Strato he bought himself a new 810 Classic and an SVT-5PRO. Both of the bands he plays in now, MESS and Hoitovirhe, seem to list Ampeg as an endorser so I guess he must have gotten a new endorsement deal after the one he lost when leaving Strato. Anyway this is all hear-say and guessing.

Hello, Just have to say that i never lost my endorsement with Levytukku
Thats all wolks

-Jartsi-

NeonVomit wrote:Wow that cabinet looks battered

Bet it still sounds great though!