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Posted
39 minutes ago, dcbc said:

But I'm a volume knob rider as well.

I'm always amazed by how many people don't seem to know that volume and tone knobs exist on guitars. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Deej said:

I'm always amazed by how many people don't seem to know that volume and tone knobs exist on guitars. 

And the crazy part is like 90% of parts sound better with them not on 10

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Posted (edited)
10 minutes ago, Deej said:

I'm always amazed by how many people don't seem to know that volume and tone knobs exist on guitars. 

I didn't start until I got into tweed amps.  To own a 5e3 Deluxe is to get used to playing with your volume on the guitar.  It makes such a difference, not just for volume, but for overall clean to grit.  And I'm talking most beautiful Fender clean tone to the gnarliest, compressed, distorted tone you can imagine without pedals. 

You can do the same thing by running a compressor before drives/dirt.  Volume stays the same, but the volume knob is now your drive/dirt knob.

On the tone knob, I'm always trying to dial back the ice pick on a clean bridge channel if I can.  Just a hair though.  On the neck, I'm full on Freedom Rock!

Edited by dcbc
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Posted

This is the way. Tone gets tolled off ever so slightly. Then ride the volume knob.

I’ve never been able to get friendly with a compressor but I like the idea of it before the dirt. Can you post a pic of whatever setting you use to get the effect you describe?

Posted
23 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

This is the way. Tone gets tolled off ever so slightly. Then ride the volume knob.

I’ve never been able to get friendly with a compressor but I like the idea of it before the dirt. Can you post a pic of whatever setting you use to get the effect you describe?

I've found a Boss CS2 works well for that. Anything without too much pumping.

 

A lot of amps and pedals are kind of like that anyway without a compressor, later Marshalls and stuff are already so compressed they don't get louder, just more distorted.

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Posted (edited)
40 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

This is the way. Tone gets tolled off ever so slightly. Then ride the volume knob.

I’ve never been able to get friendly with a compressor but I like the idea of it before the dirt. Can you post a pic of whatever setting you use to get the effect you describe?

To be honest, I almost never use one, particularly since I've moved to smaller boards.  But I keep one around because it's cool, valuable, and I paid $60 for it in the 90s.  Sorry for the glare on this shot.  This is the last iteration of my "big" board.  I'm not running much compression.  Just enough to give me some snap (left/bottom knob is sustain, right/top knob is output). The two drives are routed after the Ross.  One is drive knob down.  The other is drive knob probably around two.  It's the Anastasio setup, even though I wasn't playing any Phish tunes through it.  

 

AP1-Gcz-MWXqt-KJ32-ALDHJ7j-Bie-Lpi0-URoo

Edited by dcbc
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Posted
On 2/19/2025 at 10:12 AM, dcbc said:

You're going to love the SFT. 

 

As a non pedal person, I have to say this thing brings the fucking goods. Running it on 18v and it is dead on that sound. Keen to get this Hiwatt here and really crank it.

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Posted (edited)

So the amp I was actually planning on buying arrived yesterday, and I unpacked it this morning. Talk about fucking loud.

 

20250228-072459.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by G650
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Posted

Rumors (apparently false) are spreading that Mark Sampson died.  Not sure if they’re currently false or categorically false, but man that’ll add to the already fairly baseless (comparative to later years) hype on early Matchless amps.

Posted
12 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

Rumors (apparently false) are spreading that Mark Sampson died.  Not sure if they’re currently false or categorically false, but man that’ll add to the already fairly baseless (comparative to later years) hype on early Matchless amps.

 

Damn, where did you see that. I thought he just went back to Bad Cat?

Posted (edited)

Could be highly nothing - someone posted a thing on a matchless facebook group that has since been pulled down, but it looked like the source saying he had died was someone who would know him personally and the source saying he was alive was also someone close, so I'm curious if he's in bad shape. Hopefully he's OK.

He is back at bad cat - 

 

Edited by Celery Man
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Posted
4 hours ago, Celery Man said:

Could be highly nothing - someone posted a thing on a matchless facebook group that has since been pulled down, but it looked like the source saying he had died was someone who would know him personally and the source saying he was alive was also someone close, so I'm curious if he's in bad shape. Hopefully he's OK.

He is back at bad cat - 

 

Shit, apparently he did just pass, Bad Cat announced it.

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Posted
On 7/10/2024 at 9:30 AM, Paul Wesley said:

(putting this observation in the amp thread, but it could also go in the pedal thread)

So I had my first experience tracking with one of the latest-version amp modelers yesterday - a Helix.  

It's pretty easy to understand the appeal, I have to say.  I had my pedalboard (that I spent a year plus $$$$ building and cutting my own perfect-length patch cables), plus an amp ($$$) plus a cabinet ($).  Took several trips from the car to haul it in, and a bunch of cables, etc.  My buddy comes in with a Helix (his entire rig) under his arm - one trip, obviously - and is plugged in and tracking overdubs in like 30 seconds or less...

And it sounded good.  Pretty intuitive interface.  I think if we played you a track and said, "pick out which of these guitars that was tracked using a modeler," I'm not sure you could do it.

I'm sure if you broke it down effect-by-effect a la "That Pedal Show," we'd probably agree that the phaser isn't *quite* as good as your favorite Phase90, the flanger doesn't *quite* have the same panache as an Electric Mistress, etc, etc.  

But damn, it's light years easier than sourcing, building, and maintaining all that stuff, and I'll bet it gets you 90% of the way there with 3% of the effort.  And this doesn't account for a decent ribbon mic (even a cheap Royer is $500) and a pre. 

In fairness sake, we have to say that if you spent $800 for a vintage Electric Mistress, it's highly likely that in a decade you could sell it for double that.  And that $1500 Helix is gonna be worth $100 in a decade.  

But still...

 

I'm even worse. My entire signal chain is a Scarlett 4i4 4th gen USB interface and Roland Cloud.

For the guitar.

For the bass, it's still the '82 Peavey Combo 300, which'd had a ton of static and noise every time I'd tried to use it... until finally I randomly tried using a different cable.

Yeah, turns out using 30 year old cables is a recipe for bad things, no matter how good they were new. 🤣

Posted
7 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Yeah, turns out using 30 year old cables is a recipe for bad things, no matter how good they were new.

I actually just recabled  a couple years ago an old Whirlwind I had gotten from my dad back in my high school days. It eventually got to where the rubber just split on it. Those old Whirlwind connectors are my absolute favorite though, solid block of brass. It sent my on an eBay quest to find as many as I could lol, got a pretty decent stockpile now.

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Posted
1 hour ago, G650 said:

I actually just recabled  a couple years ago an old Whirlwind I had gotten from my dad back in my high school days. It eventually got to where the rubber just split on it. Those old Whirlwind connectors are my absolute favorite though, solid block of brass. It sent my on an eBay quest to find as many as I could lol, got a pretty decent stockpile now.

I think that's what had be confused; from the outside, the cables looked... well, about as pristine as you'd expect cables over 3 decades old to look. A little tarnished and dirty is all.

But clearly they were all trashed on the inside.

The replacements were not cheap. $40 for two 5m cables.

Posted
10 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

I think that's what had be confused; from the outside, the cables looked... well, about as pristine as you'd expect cables over 3 decades old to look. A little tarnished and dirty is all.

But clearly they were all trashed on the inside.

The replacements were not cheap. $40 for two 5m cables.

If I had to guess it would be just inside the connector, but that's only a guess.

 

The cable on the right with the red tape is the one I recabled a couple years back, those connectors are early 70s. The one on the left is a patch cord I use to jumper the channels on my tweed Bassman, it's probably early 80s and still the original Belden cable!

 

20250301-155742.jpg

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Posted
8 minutes ago, G650 said:
22 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

If I had to guess it would be just inside the connector, but that's only a guess.

That's usually a safe guess.

Posted

Hmm. Maybe one of y'all smart folks could help me out here.

Like I said, '82 Peavey Combo. Sounds amazing, still. But WAY too fuckin' loud to play in a small California bungalow with a raised foundation. (Or just about any domestic environment.)

20250301_162545.thumb.jpg.cd1ebde678476e422947545d2ff2aca5.jpg

So what I've been trying to do is have the Pre Amp Out go directly into my audio interface, and then that Y-cable there is plugged into the Power Amp In. The Y-cable is connected to nothing. So now the only thing the power amp is trying to amplify is whatever static happens to be in the air or around the place.

And this works fine... for a while. But after some time, you start hearing static coming out of the speaker now and then... and then a big, massive POP. It's SUPER loud, and defeats the whole purpose of trying to silence the thing.

What can I do? Adjust the ground? Do they make 1/4" plugs that are more isolated/insulated that could do a better job?

What the Power Amp In is supposed to do is to work with the crossover -- you put a patch cable coming out of the crossover, and then into the port. Maybe I use the crossover low, turn the cutoff frequency all the way down, and then just ... well, expect lots of low subs coming out or something? No idea. Or maybe have both crossover ports going out to nothing.

Just need some way to mute the speaker for domestic use/practicing so my wife and cats aren't disturbed from their nap, but I can still get that sweet, sweet preamp tone.

Posted

If you are using the pre out you just be able to turn the post gain all the way down. No Y cable.

Plus isn't it solid state? You could just turn the volume down to an acceptable level.

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Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, Deej said:

Buy an attenuator.

 

Hmmm. Seems expensive, but definitely will keep in mind. (Though this piece isn't too bad.) Seems like putting that in the post-preamp effects loop would do exactly the trick.

 

21 minutes ago, G650 said:

If you are using the pre out you just be able to turn the post gain all the way down. No Y cable.

Plus isn't it solid state? You could just turn the volume down to an acceptable level.

 

Post gain is part of the preamp circuitry on this model, not part of the power amp. Turning it down all the way doesn't mute the speaker, and reduces the line-out signal. (Also, the compressor is part of the power amp circuitry, so there's no way to record the compressor direct. God fucking dammit.)

It's solid state, yes, so you can turn the volume down, but again -- that reduces the DI signal, and signal-to-noise ratio becomes an issue. Also, what I really need is to go completely muted, so that I can plug my headphones in and the only sound coming out is the strings twanging against the bass body when the rest of the family's gone to bed.

 

However, I did try something different, and it seems (so far) to be working. Rather than using the ancient Y-cable, I plugged a patch cable in there, and plugged the other part of the patch cable into the output of an old (and possibly busted) pedal I have. Just to give the input something to be connected to, right? Nothing dangling around, picking up whatever. AND, since the pedal is kinda shitty, I don't feel bad if doing this breaks the pedal. And, so far, it seems to have solved the issues. No random humming or static, in fact it's gone from picking up the signal from the Preamp Out cable to being completely noiseless.

Well, either that, or that last POP! broke the power amplifier.

Edited by Rimbo
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Posted
11 hours ago, Rimbo said:

Post gain is part of the preamp circuitry on this model, not part of the power amp.

Huh, weird. Been a long time since I've had a Peavey.

 

Another option is just unplug the speaker. It's SS, so won't hurt it.

Posted
5 hours ago, G650 said:

Huh, weird. Been a long time since I've had a Peavey.

 

Another option is just unplug the speaker. It's SS, so won't hurt it.

It's a Combo. There's no external connection there.

Posted
9 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

It's a Combo. There's no external connection there.

There's no access to the back? Well that's a pain.

Posted (edited)
29 minutes ago, G650 said:

There's no access to the back? Well that's a pain.

Not without tools, nope.

Thing is, a lot of these things I'm complaining about are *features* -- being so damn loud, not needing a return for DI recording, being integrated.

Just not for my current particular situation. It's not a home practice amp!

Edited by Rimbo
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Posted
17 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Not without tools, nope.

Thing is, a lot of these things I'm complaining about are *features* -- being so damn loud, not needing a return for DI recording, being integrated.

Just not for my current particular situation. It's not a home practice amp!

Well then mister, you need a new amp.

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Posted
19 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:


Well then you need to try a lot of practice amps. Maybe some pedals too.

Be sure to post them here.

Jason Sudeikis Yes GIF by Apple TV+

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Posted
2 hours ago, Rimbo said:

Not without tools, nope.

Thing is, a lot of these things I'm complaining about are *features* -- being so damn loud, not needing a return for DI recording, being integrated.

Just not for my current particular situation. It's not a home practice amp!

Anything is a home practice amp if you're brave enough.

 

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Posted
On 2/28/2025 at 8:49 AM, G650 said:

So the amp I was actually planning on buying arrived yesterday, and I unpacked it this morning. Talk about fucking loud.

 

20250228-072459.jpg

 

 

 

 

Tried to use my phone to measure how many db, but phone mic maxed out at 115 lol.

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