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Post by Jammermatt on Feb 4, 2008 21:29:17 GMT -5
I spoke with Scott, the man, himself about this. His opinion is that everything effects the tone. The amp sounds best without any attenuation at all and that's how it's meant to be run, but it was his opinion that an attenuator tends to work the tubes hard, and the amp responds differently than with the volume pedal trick. He felt that the volume pedal trick does not stress the power tubes as much as an attenuator, since the tubes see the attenuator as a "load" whereas the volume pedal trick does not "load" the tubes like an attenuator. To each his own, they both work for me, but I prefer the volume pedal thing for the same reason Scott stated. I say "you can feel it when you drive." That convo was a year or so ago, so I apologize if I've mis-quoted in any way.  |
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Post by SonicExplorer on Feb 4, 2008 22:50:43 GMT -5
I spoke with Josh and Scott today (actually Josh was playing middle-man so Scott could keep working while I was asking the questions)....
The answer is basically what I had suspected: The loop trick is not stressing the tubes or output stage really at all. This makes sense if you understand how the output stage of a power amp works. A load would be required to truly stress the power stage and it would have to be AFTER the transformer in order to work. The loop is before all that. What's happening with this loop trick is the circuitry ends up being "worked" in a slightly different way - effectively "relocating" the volume control to another part of the circuit.
About that other question of how loud do you have to turn up an amp to work the power stage? Well...that depends on a few factors....weather or not the amp is running at full or half power, what the tube-breakup ratings of the tubes are, and how they are biased. It actually takes a special recipe of tube ratings, biasing, amp-type and speakers to end up with a pleasing output tube distortion. More times than not I've found once you start getting into the realm of tube breakup, it doesn't sound very good. But when you get the right recipe it's REALLY sweet. Two examples of what it sounds like when done correctly are Slash's tone on Appetite for Destruction and George Lynch's tone on Back for the Attack. Believe it or not, most of the 80's guitar tones are primarily pre-amp distortion and a little speaker distortion (if Greenbacks were used). Not so much output tube distortion.
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Post by SonicExplorer on Feb 4, 2008 23:10:51 GMT -5
A question for everybody who's doing the loop/volume trick:
Are any of you doing this for tonal enhancement purposes alone - and NOT because you were already using the loop for some other purpose? Asked another way, are any of you ONLY using a volume attenuator in the loop and actually noticing a tonal enhancement?
Thanks,
Sonic
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Post by BOZ on Feb 5, 2008 5:02:50 GMT -5
All i can say is that i use a volume pedal in the loop and get a great sound at low volume,i tried taking it out and turning the amp down and cannot get the same sound at all. |
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Post by havoc41 on Feb 5, 2008 9:17:17 GMT -5
I second that, without the Volume FX loop trick the amp sound very different (and to my ear, not as sweet) at low volume.
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Post by shreder75 on Feb 5, 2008 9:19:58 GMT -5
I agree about the attenuator...I don't see any positive benefit from it...because it's a completely different beast than say, a marshall superlead of old..those things need to be cranked to high fook to get them into their true tone territory (T3 if you will)...the splawn doesn't need that...if anything I found that something like a hotplate sucks the tone..
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Post by AndyK on Feb 5, 2008 9:29:06 GMT -5
Does it matter what kind of volume reducer you use in the loop? I think my 10-year old Nanoverb kinda kills the high end when used to reduce volume. Will another pedal sound better??
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Post by shreder75 on Feb 5, 2008 9:37:27 GMT -5
Does it matter what kind of volume reducer you use in the loop? I think my 10-year old Nanoverb kinda kills the high end when used to reduce volume. Will another pedal sound better?? my intellifex does the same thing..so I up the presence and treble to compensate.. but honestly, I don't even use it anymore..I kick it down to half power to make the MV a little more manageable and I'm fine with the mouse fart tones I'm getting... |
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Post by AndyK on Feb 5, 2008 10:01:47 GMT -5
My middle name should be Mousefarttones! I am always using 50 and 100 watt amps at low at-home levels, and trying to get a tone I can live with! I guess half the fun is trying to find new stuff that works for me.
I have also found that leaving the master at 1/2, or 1, then using the Marshall Power Brake set down 2 or 3 steps (ie: not that much attenuation) gives me decent low volume tone, if I don't want to use the loop.
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Post by Jammermatt on Feb 5, 2008 10:04:33 GMT -5
Sonic, I find that it "mellows" the tone a little. Some of that high-end sparkle is gone. I also find this to be a pleasing tone to my ears. I suppose late at night I'm not really in the mood for that cutting tone, but maybe a more smooth-jazz-in-your-face metal tone if that makes any sense (which it probably doesn't).
Mind you, I have the volume at the infamous Shreder Mousefart Volume while running the master at about 9:00. I'm squashing it THAT much with the volume pedal.
Lately I'm running an attenuator, though. I go back and forth. But, when I use the attenuator I can only get the master to maybe 7:30 or 8:00, since to keep the mousefart going I have to attenuate -8db or more. That's a squash.
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Post by VomHalen on Feb 5, 2008 10:13:02 GMT -5
i'm going to state my love for the midiverb 4 one more time.
amp set at noon. input on the midiverb at 100...output at 0
you can increase the volume by units of 1 which are small increases...at home i play at 1 or 3...at gigs i have it at 18 or 20...you set that thing at 30-35 and it'll blow up your house...
the same tone at every volume level...just louder...
FOOKIN RULES
and any changes it makes to the tone can be compensated by the those weird things infront of your amp called knobs
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Post by shreder75 on Feb 5, 2008 10:18:10 GMT -5
i'm going to state my love for the midiverb 4 one more time. amp set at noon. input on the midiverb at 100...output at 0 you can increase the volume by units of 1 which are small increases...at home i play at 1 or 3...at gigs i have it at 18 or 20...you set that thing at 30-35 and it'll blow up your house... the same tone at every volume level...just louder... FOOKIN RULES and any changes it makes to the tone can be compensated by the those weird things infront of your amp called knobs only thing with the midiverb..you have to watch out for the GIGANTIC jump in output levels on some of those patches.... fookin' blew up my power tubes once because of that...which is why i'll never use it again... right now I don't use anything in the loop to squash volume..I'll toss my DD 20 in front and go that way for low volumes |
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Post by VomHalen on Feb 5, 2008 10:20:38 GMT -5
i'm going to state my love for the midiverb 4 one more time. amp set at noon. input on the midiverb at 100...output at 0 you can increase the volume by units of 1 which are small increases...at home i play at 1 or 3...at gigs i have it at 18 or 20...you set that thing at 30-35 and it'll blow up your house... the same tone at every volume level...just louder... FOOKIN RULES and any changes it makes to the tone can be compensated by the those weird things infront of your amp called knobs only thing with the midiverb..you have to watch out for the GIGANTIC jump in output levels on some of those patches.... fookin' blew up my power tubes once because of that...which is why i'll never use it again... right now I don't use anything in the loop to squash volume..I'll toss my DD 20 in front and go that way for low volumes you can set those levels to zero for the specific patches and that never should happen again...that's how mine is set |
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Post by shreder75 on Feb 5, 2008 10:25:17 GMT -5
only thing with the midiverb..you have to watch out for the GIGANTIC jump in output levels on some of those patches.... fookin' blew up my power tubes once because of that...which is why i'll never use it again... right now I don't use anything in the loop to squash volume..I'll toss my DD 20 in front and go that way for low volumes you can set those levels to zero for the specific patches and that never should happen again...that's how mine is set yeah, well....yeah lol |
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Post by razor777 on Feb 5, 2008 23:38:50 GMT -5
Hey Guys,
This thread has been incredibly helpful. I went back and picked up a Little Alligator volume pedal, put it through the loop, dialed in the tone I wanted, and voila!
It's all good. Didn't wake up any peeps tonight!
THANK YOU!!!!
Peaches,
RAZOR777
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