Metropoulos Forum

Edited

well you could buy a 12000 kit and put a PPIMV in it or add a tube for killer gain at lower levels. You could build a cascading preamp hidden within the 12000 kit. All kinds of ways to do it.

I'm running mine with a PPIMV with some success....

Does it sound as good as a dimed Marshall???

No, but then what does It does sound damn good at low levels though...

I dimed mine thru my old 5150 slant cab and damn!!!!! Sounded like the entire cabinet became resonant!!!!

For me it was economic (PPIMV is much cheaper than a MASS150 or hotplate)....

I have a 12000 Metro build,2e 45 builds,1 just sold, and a 50w Metro build, I dont dime my amps, I stab the front end with an orig, 70s tube screamer,or a Keely modded tube screamer, a second Maxon tubescreamer, set one full on overdrive and one half way overdrive use them to switch between ,sometimes for a thicker tone kick both in, also use a univbe and a boss dd2 delay,and a thomas organ era cry baby wha, I play classic rock,hot rod blues and some fusion rock, I love all these amps and have a hard time deciding what one to take to my gigs ,they are all loaded with tone. bluze

Power Scaling, it's the only way for me.

Mike

Bad Kitty wrote:Power Scaling, it's the only way for me.

Mike

Hey Mike just a note off thread,I lived in Corona for a number of years ,Grand ave, anyhow Tell us what you like and the advantages of the power scaling? thanks Steve

My amp isn't fully Metro but it's a 100w reissue with a Metro board and OT. It's more Metro than Marshall!

I use a... oh, the horror!... Marshall Power Brake and it works fine for me. A lot of people put down the PB but I don't think they are bad. I've used Hot Plates and they aren't any better, IMO. I bought mine in the early 90's when they cost about $275. I wouldn't buy one at today's prices though. I'd probably get a Weber.

I'm not a fan of master volumes. I think they work better for heavier crunch than what I like. I play classic rock & blues stuff and never run the amp volume over 5.

well for my 50watt metro i'm using a hot plate for jamming and have the channel's jumped and both volumes at about 9 and the hotplate turned down a couple of clicks.........But at home I have to play through a 2X12 Marshall cab and I'm using a power soak clicked all the way down.........I'm living in an apartment and I'm always worried about the noise levels.............Does the power soak sound as good all the way down?.......In a word NO!........But I really haven't heard any attenuator that does sound good all the way down.....IMHO.....I did order the PPIMV kit from george and I'm going to do some trials once I get it installed............Hoping it does the job for me........For home playing

Derrick

toner wrote:My amp isn't fully Metro but it's a 100w reissue with a Metro board and OT. It's more Metro than Marshall!

Mine's not fully a Metro....had to purchase the parts a few at a time, but just like you said toner....is definitely more Metro than anything else:

Weber chassis, tube sockets & front/back plates
Kress Amps head box (definitely wish I hadn't done that)
Used OEI OT
Sozo caps (but I wouldn't have know about 'em if it wasn't for George)
Everything else Metro minus a toggle switch here & an input jack there.....

My levels are close to Toners I suspect.
I need a bright jangly sound for some numbers and heavy rhythm and distorted lead sounds for the odd solo.
I use a straight Marshall 4x12 ply back (with G12Hs) with a Hotplate one click down and a PPIMV adjusted to taste. I find heavy attenuation with a Hotplate oppressive so mix and match.
Usually set the amp to 5-6 to get a nice clean sound with the guitar backed off and enough grind with the bridge pick-up wound up. The tubescreamer gives me the welly for solos.
I usually only use my Martyn Booth guitar to practice and gig (Strat usually goes in a case as reserve for gigs). I have a SD Jazz in the neck, a SD Screamin' Demon in the bridge both with coil split. The guitar is brighter than an LP (bit like a heavy SG) and that gives me the wide tonal range.
Like Bluze I use a tubescreamer and also a crybaby but then I split my signal to a DD3 and Electric mistress on one limb and straight through on the other.
I have used an AC30 and my Marshall ABY'ed but I prefer simplicity of one amp (I am not a pro and do not play stadiums )

Currently using a Hot Plate and am more than happy with it, but have recently been intrigued by Mark/Larry's PPIMV. I may install that and see how I like it.

Eargasm wrote:
Just wondering how you guys have your amps rigged for reasonable volume levels, without sacrificing the killer tone. I realize that nothing sounds as good as the amp on 10, but I've heard some really great clips here and it's hard to believe that you guys go down into your basement, turn your amp on 10, and jam for a couple hours like that

I am going to go visit George's shop soon, and obviously that will be a learning experience, but I wanted to see what's up with you guys in the meantime.
Thanks for any efforts!
LL

Hey Eargasm---------> Welcome aboard Just to be clear the volume difference between 6-10 on a 100w SLP is not as much as you would think...IMO more gain after vol 6 and less overall volume.

I do not subscribe to "diming" as an automatic "go to" setting. However, many here do, I prefer to use less bass and work the controls a little. Each amp is different so no one setting is best for all, but others are welcome to disagree.

I have never used attenuation so the band clips you can hear on our site are Marshalls un-gagged. The clips consist of a Reissue 69 100w, a real 69 100w and a 67SLP. The 67 100w is loudest amp of my 3 heads with the highest plate voltage. Cabs are 3 4x12's, two original pre-rola 25w 4x12 cabs 69 and one metro 4x12 with pre-rola 30's.

Best of luck on your journey!

Cheers,

Eric

Edited

bluze81 wrote:

Bad Kitty wrote:Power Scaling, it's the only way for me.

Mike

Hey Mike just a note off thread,I lived in Corona for a number of years ,Grand ave, anyhow Tell us what you like and the advantages of the power scaling? thanks Steve

You lived in Corona? I'm so sorry .

I set all my controls on 10 except for the Power Scale and Drive Compensation. I use the PS control to set the volume and the DC to balance between pre and power tube distortion. Too much pre tube distortion sounds buzzy, too much power tube distortion sounds too squishy and lacks sensitivity. Dial it in right and it'll make you cream your jeans with a Les Paul. I run my neck pickup on about 3 and my bridge pickup on 10 for leads. I've never had an amp like this before where you can go from one pickup to the other with no increase in volume just crunchiness.
I run an ABY switch with my Digitech 2101 Artist going through the PA for the stuff needing a Floyd Rose. For some reason running the digitech through my Marshall is noisey as hell and the Ibanez sounds too bright and "naked" for lack of a better word.

if you have a very clean tube combo amp like a fender twin reverb for example. you can plug the metro into the hotplate with the hotplate on LOAD. then take a instrument cable from the hotplates Line Out into the combo amps input. or better yet if your amp has one a "power amp in"

then you can use both the line out knob on the hotplate to control the volume. and you can have a good cranked sound at low volumes. thats how i do it.

i did a video of it, let me know what you think.

if the combo amp has a reverb you can also add the reverb to the tone.

the downside is the sound will come out of the combo amp and not the 4x12 cab or whatever you use.

however you can do the same thing but instead of plugging to a combo amp you can plug into another head, and plug that head into a 4x12.

its a lot of gear but it seems to work.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZCTSPkaxYU0

let me know what you think