Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Somewhere in this mass of posts one of you gents told me about a device that you plug into between your power amp or amp head and the speakers / cabs. The jist was this device allowed you to crank you tube amp volume yet control the volume output at the speaker/cab.

Does anyone remember what that device was called? And whom
manufactures and sells said device?

Been scanning the old postings and cant seem to locate the info.

A few:

THD Hot Plate
Dr. Z Air Brake

Theres probably more brands out there.

*edit*

Oh yeah, Marshall Power Soak.

Cool. Thank you Zip.

George, I use a Weber Mass, its a little different than the rest of them. It has a speaker coil as a resistor to absorb the energy, which most of them are just resistors it also has a linear knob which means you can set it at any level you want too. The Hotplates have little notchs and they always seem to not be at the level I want.

The best one that I have used is called The Unltimate, a freind has one and ive used it a couple of times, but Im told they are real expensive.

For now I will stick with my Weber. 

Ahh yes. You told me about that one before I do believe John.
I guess I may just have to stop practicing on one amp and playing with the band through the other. I have a good amp, Yet I vasilate about tone vs volume like an old woman
I do seem to get better tone per unit of volume when I run a second speaker off my amp. Have been using a 200 watt 8 ohm wedge monitor as my second speaker. I may just have to break down and buy the 60 watt speaker cab that is designed to be used with my amp. Set one on either side of the drummer and just go from there.

George, I know from my pictures it lloks like Im running a bunch of speakers, but Im running my volume levels way down these days.

This past weekend I just miced my 2x12 combo and I get our soundman to run it into the monitors. We are getting a real good level sound these days, I can go anywhere on stage and we sound the same. I can walk out front and the mains sound the same. You see pictures of me in the crowd, we sound the same no matter where I go in the room.

A couple of weeks ago I sat in with a young band that was playing like I always did, just loud as hell. Man I couldnt believe the difference, when I moved out of the front of the guys halfstack I couldnt hear the guitar at all, what Im getting at is you should be able to get your sound consistent everywhere on stage and off. Its easier for you playing and the crowds love it. Its taken me 30 yrs of playing to realize this. 10 yrs ago I had to be selective on venues to play because for most we were just too damn loud. Now we can play anywhere and actually have our big pa speakers and some smaller ones we can throw up on poles for smaller venues.

An attenuator is a must have for me. You cant open a tube amp up without one. Most of my amp master volumes are turned up around 2-3 oclock which means they are almost wide open. I couldnt get away with this without and attenuator. None of my tube amps act right unless I have the master volume past noon.

Ive said this before, I have never lost a gig because I was too quiet, but Ive lost quite a few because I was too loud.

We use a DB meter and generally set our level around 98 dbs, our system will go to 120 dbs. You need to be aware of these numbers when setting up a pa system.

Good Luck

http://www.amptone.com/marshallpowerbrake.htm

I like the Marshall version, although there are many different versions of this device.

What scares me is some of the research I have done displays a propencity for damage to the amp while using the atenuation device.
I suppose it could be related to operator error. Perhaps these folk are just cranking their amps up too much.
I would just die if I jacked up my amp. There is no way I could afford another or major repairs right now. And I wont go back to the boss pedal thru the PA route now that I have heard the difference.

jw we have been working on a larger fuller sound as opposed to just being loud as you and others have suggested. Thanks for your input.

Thanks for the link Cap'n. I'll read up on it for sure.

George when you use an attenuator you will shorten the tube life expectancy some. I dont find it a big deal. But they will shorten cause you are pushing them harder. If you arent cracking your tube amp past noon or 2 oclock youve got to much amp and should downsize anyway.

In our practice setting my 50 watt Carvin Nomad is too loud set above 3. about 10 o'clock
Better now that I am pushing two speakers with it though. I have only played live with this amp outdoors, and It does much better at 11 to noon.
My band money is tied up in life's little hassels right now. I'll just have to make do I guess.

None of my tube amps act right unless I have the master volume past noon.

Absolutely. I never use master volume amps for that reason, I'm running a straight tube Fender Super Reverb and a Peavey MX, but only the clean channel on the MX. (solid state preamp into tube power amp) Neither is a master volume style amp. The gain channel does have a Master volume, but it's a separate channel and I don't use it. I checked out an attenuator a friend has, he was going to give it to me but it won't do 2 ohm for the Fender, so it wouldn't be very useful to me. The MX is for cleans, it does a great job no matter what volume level I run it, so I don't need an attenuator for it. Totally clean no matter what. I'd like to have an attenuator for the Super, it sounds best cranked to 10, and sometimes that's too loud.

Fortunately I have a volume pedal that lets me control the volume very well for low key rhythm parts and let it scream for the leads. Often I have to start the night with it around 6 or 7, and can't get the sound I want, mainly because it's just starting to make the power tubes work a little. It gets a great clean sound, but not loud enough, but that's why the MX is onstage. I've played it everything from bedroom volume to cranked to 7 (about 1 o'clock) and only at bedroom volume does it start getting wimpy sounding. Get the volume above 3 and it's great, from there on it's clean as it gets and can handle any volume level quite well. Usually the volume never tops 4 or so onstage, it's 130 watts and running through a Kustom 2x12, it gets way loud if I let it...it will even play clean leads over a cranked full stack 100 watt Marshall...with headroom to spare...

I'll have to do some looking, I ran across online schematics for a do it yourself attenuator a while back but didn't save the link, like a dummy...

In our practice setting my 50 watt Carvin Nomad is too loud set above 3. about 10 o'clock
Better now that I am pushing two speakers with it though. I have only played live with this amp outdoors, and It does much better at 11 to noon.
My band money is tied up in life's little hassels right now. I'll just have to make do I guess.

George it seems like when you got the Nomad I recomended something in the 20 watt range. A 20 watt tube amp will still get really loud. I have one a little Mesa Subway Rocket, that sounds better than any of my big amps, and I guess the main reason is that i can open it up and let it rip. My recordings on here of covers by my Aint Yo Mama band are all done with the Subway Rocket. Its a way cool amp. Its strange but the little amps seem to record with a bigger sound than the big amps do.

Remember tone has nothing to do with volume.

Yes, in after thought I should have bought a smaller amp.
But what the heck I love my amp.

JW I agree, I've tried a bit of recording with my Fender Champ, it doesn't sound as good through its built in speaker as a practice amp, although it is the best sounding practice amp I've ever played, but when I record it sounds great. I cheat though, I made up a speaker cable long ago and I plug it into my Kustom 2x12 cabinet, mic that, and the little 6-8 watt amp sounds like a much bigger amp, since it's running through the larger 12" speakers. Sounds great that way just as a practice amp, I usually run it through the Kustom at home just to get the much better sound, and when I recorded it I was amazed how good it sounded. I deleted the track, the record level was too high (not clipping though) and background noise/hum was unacceptable, but I definitely will be using it a lot more for future recordings. A Fender Champ is the amp Clapton used to record the entire Layla album, but an older model Tweed one with nothing but a volume knob I think.

This makes sense though, I've done a bit of poking around to find out what gear professionals use, and have found out that both David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler use Fender tube amps in the 15-25 watt range in the studio, Knopfler used a Vibrolux on Sultans of Swing, and I think Vibrolux is the amp Gilmour was said to use a lot along with a couple of other low wattage Fenders. I'm sure a lot of other players do too, and I saw that Tom Petty's guitar player Mike Campbell has a blackface Fender Princeton onstage in his rig, several amps there. That was the only one I could identify, but all were fenders. One item I did notice was an old early 60's tube reverb unit, made probably 62 or 63 before Fender started putting reverb units in their amps as standard equipment. They originally designed the first usable reverb unit in 61.