Endless slaving headache.

[jnew]

I don't know man. This just isn't happening. I've been tweaking and tweaking and although it's kind of cool and fun, I'm just not feeling it. It seems all to mid and honky like. Then when I go straight to the cab, it's unbelievable sounding. I mean I love the amp now in the old 4 hole mode. Still piss yourself loud straight to the cab though. I've got the variac at 90 with a tube rectifier for even more sag. About 275 for plate voltages with bias at about 70mA's. Shit tons of saturation with the amp only at about 6 and guitar straight in. No MXR and no EP pre-amp circuit up front. It's awesome but that sound is not coming through the slave setup. The second plexi is wired up as a tube power amp only and I'm using the Rockstah line out. Anyone else having good results slaving?

[chrisom]

I believe your main amp should be tube, but your (effects) slave amp should be solid-state. You already have enough cool tube-y saturation and compression from your main amp head, now you just need to cleanly amplify that basic sound after printing effects on top of it. Using a tube amp in this stage could make it blurry from extra saturation on top of enough saturation in the first place.

On a record album they mike a distorted amp. They take that sound and run into an auxillary channel or two of the mixer to add effects. It's a clean capture of a distorted amp through the mixer. No extra distortion needed. EVH even used cleaner Celestion G1275T speakers for his effects L and R cabs, so as to cleanly reproduce his base distorted sound with effects printed on top of that. Like on an album. The only distortion the effects get is what was fed into them from the basic dry sound. Then Eddie pipes it into big H&H solid-state power amps. If you mike a distorted amp, feed it into effects, then put it through another tube amp it could get muddy and blurry from too much compression or saturation.

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Steve Stevens used to reamp his old Bradshaw System with Mesa/Boogie Stereo Strategy Simulclass (cleaner than your average tube amp) after adding the effects to his plexi basic tone, but soon switched to solid state for the effects L and R cause his plexi was already making the incredible basic sound that fed into the effects. Same thing with Alex Lifeson's Bradshaw System- he had the Boogies but switched to Bryston solid state power amps so as to not have to keep replacing all those tubes on tour.

I think the only reason Jimmy Page had a separate Marshall for his Echoplex was because there was no dummy load- it was all done at the input level back then...

[dirtycooter]

I would check the line out box that its not somehow electrically incorrect impedence wise or doin somethin strange.
I have to agree with the above post though. If your just reamping slaving for volume control then maybe you need to look at something like a solid state amp.
I am for sure gettin a matrix. I want a gt1000 but since I am w/d only I will go with the gm50. I don't need stereo. But I just seen a randall rh100 again the other day. $150. All day long perfect slave power pluggin into the fx return With a correctly put together lineout it will mirror the original dry cab tone easy-no shit. Did it with a bual rectifier and 2 rectumfrier cabs. Sounded like I had both cabs hooked to the same head until I kicked in the dd3 it was runnin through in between. Then it was the same sound but with delay

[jnew]

Some good info there and I appreciate it much. At the moment, I'm not even using any FX. Just trying to get the 1st head sound re-amp'd. The same sound I get when straight to the cab. So 3 areas to look at would be:

The load box-resistive vs. reactive maybe? Mine is currently purely resistive with 16 and 20 options. Very subtle tone difference between the two. The cab is purely reactive.

The line out box-which is fed from the 2nd speaker out jack. Anyone see any problems with this configuration?

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It's what I currently use.

The power amp. It's just the other plexi wired up like Mark A had outlined way back when, for power only. Not sure what to look at here. Should only be clean power. No bass, middle, or treble control knobs do anything. Just the presence and a 250K volume pot do anything at all.

I suppose one thing I could try is the type of line out like Ralle did on his Power Brake. That would take the line out box and power amp out of the equation as this goes straight to the cab attenuated. That may give me some indication, or at least a starting point as to whether or not the load box has a role in the tone.

[YMI5150?]

What is your load? The line out box is not a load.

[vanhalen5150]

That line out works well. I've used it for years. I use a solid state slave input Marshall made back in the mid 70's. Yeah, thats right, Marshall had a slave amp.

[Strat78]

If the filtering is pretty stiff in the head that you are slaving into, it should be a little more transparent. Use faster diodes in the slave amp like Freds. Still, I think a little colorization from the slave head can be nice. I have this set up using a load and line out box that works beautifully. I use an old lexicon reverb unit between the amps that has an output indicator with little lights, so I know the signal from the load box is in the right range going into the slave head, sounds like one big warm hifi system. Still, there is nothing more intoxicating than playing straight into a dialed in amp and cab. No mods, no pedals, nothin'! The Marshall Power Break, with Ralles little tweak, makes the volume a little more tolerable, but there is still no getting around the necessity to actually move some air to get to the promise land.

[jnew]

What is your load? The line out box is not a load.

This is the load:

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Only a switch for 16 and 20 ohm options. No 4 or 8 but can be tapped for that if needed. Anyway so yeah, I'm leaning towards the power amp as the culprit.

Question, does the cable that goes to the line out box need to be speaker cable as well, or does it matter? The one to the load box is normal speaker cable.

[vanhalen5150]

The cable to the line out has to be a speaker cable. From there its a instrument into the second amp.

[jnew]

Aaah. OK, I'll have to try that. Kind of doubt that would be the issue but I'll try it.

[jnew]

OK, Wow. That is a big improvement for sure. (speaker cable to line out box) Low end is coming through better. Not half bad now. Still not IT, if you will but a noticeable improvement. Could it also be just a matter of the dB's? Actually pushing those cones to move air? Hmm.

[dirtycooter]

What impedence are all 4 speakers?? How are they wired? Series? Parallel? Series/parallel??
This may be what is changing tone.

[jnew]

Very interesting point you have there. I don't know what it's properly called but the two right side speakers are wired to 8 ohms, as is the two left sides. Then those two sets are in series for a 16 ohm total. I think this is called parallel/series. Marshall used to do the opposite. 32 ohm x 32 ohm (2 Pairs in series) and then paralleled back to 16. Maybe this is different than the load resistors and if so, could make some difference?

[vanhalen5150]

As far as the resistors/speakers go, it doesn't matter if they match. The signal that gets tap'd from those is so small it's almost irrelevent to the system itself. You can have a 16 ohm load on the resistors but have the line out go to an amp set at 4 ohms with 4 ohm speakers. Series/parallel or Parallel/series I don't think makes much difference as long as the load is the same.

[jnew]

No, I understand that but was just wondering if the order of loads played a role in how the Pwr Trans and tubes sound/feel. In other words two pairs of speakers at 32 ohms or two pairs at 8 ohms. Ultimately, we know the total is 16 ohms but?