Mark IV too loud!!!!!!

[7 Dying Trees]

How about building yourself an iso cab? you know, a cabinet where you can crank it, but without it being loud outside the isolation, and then dangle a mic in it and run that into some kind of lower volume amplification?

 

[Leon]

[action=Leon]snickers. James said dangle.[/action]

an iso booth would be a good idea

 

[Unknown Doodl3.2]

but, my amp is soo pretty why would I hide it

I could look into some options... I played around some more and got it to some reasonable level, but it sucked a better part of the tone... which blows..

 

[Leon]

just put your extension 1x12 in the iso booth, and only hook it up. then your amp is outside, and your screaming tone is inside

 

[Unknown Doodl3.2]

^I've got a combo 1x12 with an added 1x12 cab, so it wouldn't make much of a difference, thanks for all the advice though, Ill just keep playing with it a bit, its such a mysterious amp...

 

[sakeido]

You should be able to disconnect the built in speaker man. The ones I looked at had the lead running intothe back of the amp just like an external cab would. Then build a thickass box and put some brown bread building insulation in it and toss your extension cab (Theile?) in there.

 

[Chris]

@ all the silly things I will never have to do. My glorious solid state volume control flexes at you all!

 

[Leon]

i guess that's one thing that's pretty cool about living in Bowling Green, Ohio. i've never come across a neighbor who didn't mind me playing my tube amps loud. there's just not much else to do around here.

last week i had them both going at the same time. the Nomad (45w) was on about 5, and the Sovtek (120w) was on about the same. it was a-nice

 

[Ancestor]

How about building yourself an iso cab? you know, a cabinet where you can crank it, but without it being loud outside the isolation, and then dangle a mic in it and run that into some kind of lower volume amplification?

That's good idea. For me, I have a separate practice amp. Just a little solid state guy that sounds good at low volumes.

 

[LordOVchaoS]

@ all the silly things I will never have to do. My glorious solid state volume control flexes at you all!

My owning my own house and being able to crank my 100 watts of tube power so long as my daughter's out of the house cancels your solid state control

Never heard a complaint out of my neighbors, for an old house mine contains sound well. Me and my drummer went at it at 2 am once and nobody sad a word. I went outside for a smoke while he was still beating his drums and it was barely audible out there.

 

[Drew]

Allready done

I thought hot plates sucked the life out of tone and was bad for the amp???

Not really - I've heard some horror stories about the Marshall Power Break, but the worst a THD Hot Plate will do to your amp is make you burn through tubes faster, since you can run them harder (because you're turning the amp upp more). This is pretty acceptable, in my book.

At extreme settings, my Hot Plate does slightly color the tone,but the Deep/Bright switches do a pretty good job of putting back in 90% of what it takes out. I'd say attenuation at -4 to -8 db is pretty transparent but enough to make a difference, and -12 while you can hear it a little in the high end, also lets you drive the power section at comfortable volumes enough to make a REALLY big difference, so its acceptable.

 

[Toshiro]

+1 to the Attenuator. My Weber MASS lets me play my tube amp with someone sleeping in the next room, and have decent tone.

 

[Leon]

but the worst a THD Hot Plate will do to your amp is make you burn through tubes faster, since you can run them harder (because you're turning the amp upp more). This is pretty acceptable, in my book.

they can also seriously fuck up your output transformer. i was talking with the guy who fixed my Sovtek amp, asking him about attenuators. the whole of his face changed colors LOL. he strongly recommends against their use, as i'm sure he's had many customers bring in toasted amps with that cause.

 

[Drew]

they can also seriously fuck up your output transformer. i was talking with the guy who fixed my Sovtek amp, asking him about attenuators. the whole of his face changed colors LOL. he strongly recommends against their use, as i'm sure he's had many customers bring in toasted amps with that cause.

Again, Leon, I've heard isolated issues with the Marshall Power Brake failing and frying amps, and in fact I've heard it generally not recommended for this reason, but across the board I'd be more inclined to attribute that to your repair guy being a nutjob and not attenuators being bad for amps.

Admit it, the guy was one of those odd characters in a very cluttered shop with junk everywhere and a stack of old amps in for repair that made you drool, with parts catalogues lying around randomly, and a nervous tick or two who nonetheless sort of gave off the aura he knew what he's taking about, right?

A properly-designed attenuator, from a transformer's perspective, is no different than a speaker.

 

[Leon]

the guy that i first took my Sovtek (and Marshall VS100) to was like that. an old guy nearing his retirement, with a large garage behind his home FILLED with amps, tv's, radios, PA's, speaker cabinets, and all kinds of electronic shit just laying around. waiting to retire from a vending machine repair company, he was going to start his own amp repair shop. he sounded like he knew what he was doing, but wasn't much of a professional, and while he fixed the Marshall, he took two cracks at the Sovtek, and couldn't get it done.

now, the PTS Audio guys were completely different. both guys that i talked to there were probably in their mid 30's, in a very clean office (with what appeared to be a pretty clean lab area), who know their shit because they are nerds like me, and do their homework, and nearly all of the music shops in the Toledo area (and some of the churches with large PA's) all recommended PTS Audio as a top notch, super friendly, audio repair service. i do my homework too.

now, unplug that THD from your Nomad and play like a man!







...or, get a Weber, with the speaker motor. if you're going to go with an attenuator, it's this physicists opinion that an actual speaker motor will do less harm to an amp (based on the assumption that the amp will 'see' the speaker motor just as it sees standard speakers) than a resistor based attenuator.

 

[XEN]

+1 to the Attenuator. My Weber MASS lets me play my tube amp with someone sleeping in the next room, and have decent tone.

How is the line out for recording? Does it still need a speaker simulator effect of some type to do it justice?

 

[Toshiro]

How is the line out for recording? Does it still need a speaker simulator effect of some type to do it justice?

Never tried it(my PC which I use to record is about as far away as you can get in this place), but it's not speaker compensated. I've heard you need a speaker emu to make it sound decent.

 

[Shannon]

The Mark IV combos are insanely loud. One of the guitarists in my band uses a Mark IV 1x12 combo & it EASILY competes with the guitar 1/2 stack & my bass full stack. He usually runs the Mark IV's output volume between 2-3!

 

[Chris]

To be fair, my buddy's Triple sounded pretty damn badass through the hot plate.

Volume wise, there's no contest. Drew's Nomad ANNIHILATED my 130x2 FULL stack once at my house. (At 3 in the morning, after LOTS of beer, imagine that. ) It wasn't even close. I had two 4x12's absolutely as loud as my rig would go, and the Nomad completely drowned it out.

Granted, neither amp sounded very good at that volume, but credit where it's due.

 

[Chris]

My owning my own house and being able to crank my 100 watts of tube power so long as my daughter's out of the house cancels your solid state control

"So long as" cancels your argument sir. And at 1 in the morning, I don't WANT to play it loud most of the time. I can noodle with my full and proper tone while watching TV.