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Messages - mexicanyella

#1
If the amp has a line out, does it follow that it also has a line in/power amp in jack? If so, it might be a switching jack, and it might be that its "switch terminals" are corroded. I've had low output/raspy distortion from older SS Peaveys before that went away if I put a patch cable from the line out jack to the power amp in jack, thus breaking that switching connection and replacing it with the patch cable's conductors.
#2
I had a college roommate, circa 1987, who had a Lead 100 Mosfet head and the 4 x 10 slant cab. He used it with an early-mid 80s Ibanez Roadstar II, which was sort of strat shaped but with bound, square body edges, and a bridge humbucker/neck single coil pickup arrangement...and a Kahler trem. He played  in a sort of Fugazi-ish punk band and I remember thinking it was a pretty great crunch amp.

Later on he sold it to another friend of mine who played it with a Les Paul Studio through a Crate 4 x 12 cab. That guy used to get some pretty lively clean-ish tones by using the dirty channel but with the guitar volumes rolled back.

So I can see why a person would like those amps.
#3
The Newcomer's Forum / Re: Good or bad idea?
March 22, 2017, 11:16:30 AM
Could be an interesting project. I am experimenting with the chassis of a Dean Markley K-20 guitar amp, a couple of pedals and a Peavey M-3000 mono power amp as a bass rig, but what I'll probably do is combine the K-20 and pedals on a pedal board and keep the M-3000 on top of the speaker cab(s). This way I have the option of carrying the pedalboard back and forth from home to practice space, using the power amp and cabs with the band and driving a small practice cab with the K-20's 15 watts @ 4 ohms output at home.

I'm running an Ibanez compressor pedal in front of the K-20 and a DOD Bi-Fet preamp after it to slightly boost the low-ish line out level before the power amp;  the DOD's tone knob allows me to subtly tilt the EQ post-tonestack too, which is useful since the tonestack's EQ points aren't quite optimum for my bass tone. I get the gain structure and tone in the ballpark with the K-20, then fine-tune with the DOD. 
#4
The Newcomer's Forum / Re: Good or bad idea?
March 22, 2017, 04:24:54 AM
Some more knowledgeable people may come along and speak to specific electronic concerns, and probably ask that you post some schematics so that they have some specific info to base their answers on.

In the meantime, have you actually tried plugging your amp's FX send into a "FX return" or "Power amp in" jack on the TOA? Before physically trying to combine circuits, connect them electronically and evaluate whether it's even a good idea from a sonic standpoint. Silvertone as preamp, TOA as power amp, into as many different speaker cabs as you can get your hands on. You may find that it's an otherwise unobtainable killer tone, or that it's blah and not worth the effort or risk of trashing both the Silvertone and TOA past the point of reassembly.

There are a LOT of ways to provide OD and reverb, and using the Silvertone as preamp and TOA as power amp may well be one that flips your lid. But don't lock yourself into that just because it's what you have.
#5
Enzo, what were you referring to about watts? Did I miss a post before it got edited or something?

I don't really understand how back EMF works yet, and don't know if that's a factor to consider here, or even if it would be different in either of my two series/parallel scenarios. The only reason I can think of to choose one approach over the other is that (I think?) if one of the drivers' voice coils were to blow and go "open," in scenario A that would take out one entire series-wired 3-speaker group, leaving me with 6 functioning drivers and a total impedance of 6 ohms.

If I were to blow a speaker and go "open" in scenario B, I'd still have 8 functioning drivers, but one of the parallel-wired 3-speaker groups would become a two-speaker group. If I've figured this right, I'd have two 1.33-ohm parallel groups and 2-ohm group, all in series, for a total one-speaker-blown impedance of 3.54 ohms.

If I have this figured right, it seems like scenario B might be a little safer if one expected to be driving the speakers pretty hard as long as the amp driving the speakers could handle a 4-ohm load, because losing one driver wouldn't also take two other drivers out of the circuit...and the odds of smoking multiple drivers together in scenario B seem more remote...right?
#6
Hi all, wanted to ask something that's been puzzling me, and which my reviewing of series/parallel wiring info has not answered.

If I were to wire up an array of nine 4-ohm speakers to present a 4-ohm load to an amp, I could

a) wire groups of three each in series, giving me three 12-ohm groups, and then connect those three groups in parallel, bringing me back to 4 ohms...

OR

b) wire groups of three each in parallel, giving me three 1.33-ohm groups, and then connect these three groups together in series, also bringing me back to 4 ohms total.

The first method seems more intuitive to me, but I don't know why. Is there an advantage or disadvantage about either of these two connection schemes? Is there a problem with one or the other I'm unwaware of? Any direction here much appreciated...

Mexicanyellla
#7
Amplifier Discussion / Re: Great little amp!
February 17, 2017, 10:58:27 AM
Still haven't bought a rack shelf (or a rack to install it in), but here's photographic evidence of my non-UL-listed K-20 chassis, M-3000 combo driving a Peavey SP-5ti cabinet's "low" input (15" Scorpion speaker, horn bypassed). This contraption isn't really any louder than my Peavey TKO 115 combo--which uses the same 15" Scorpion speaker, in a different cabinet--but the K-20's distortion channel at a low gain setting gets a warm, slightly distorted midrangey tone that sounds great with a P-bass in a rock setting...even with this old PA speaker as a temporary cabinet.
#8
Thanks all, for the info. I will use the LED signal meter to inform my bandmates, visually, that I am playing something important enough to warrant an LED signal meter, and I will use my ears, not the LEDs, to detect driving the speaker(s) too hard.
#9
Amplifier Discussion / power amp signal meter question
February 01, 2017, 12:20:49 AM
Hi all...

I've been using a Peavey M-3000 power amp as part of a makeshift band-practice bass rig lately, and I have a question about whether I can translate the levels I'm seeing on the LED signal meter into approximate output levels in watts. The meter has 10 LEDs labeled in -dB increments, from -27 dB to -0dB, in 3 dB steps.

Peavey says the amp can deliver 130W into an 8 ohm load, which is what I'm driving. Does a 3 dB drop in output power equate to a halving of the output watts? Like, if I am running settings throughout my signal path that result in all but the last light lighting up on the peaks, does that mean that those peaks are roughly half of 130W, or 65W? Or is that 3 dB thing only applicable to acoustic output, and with electrical signals it's some other relationship?

I'd like to know, roughly, what that meter means in terms of electrical output, in case I ever have to plug into a speaker with a lower power handling capability than what the amp can deliver.

Thanks in advance!

Mexicanyella
#10
Amplifier Discussion / Re: Great little amp!
January 10, 2017, 12:50:26 AM
The cabinet on my K-20 is falling apart, so I pulled the chassis out and discovered that it makes a pretty cool bass guitar preamp! I play a passive P-bass, and on the clean setting the K-20-as-preamp can give some big, deep, clear notes with a piano-like twanginess to them, and on the distortion setting (with gain low, maybe 2-3 max) you can EQ in some midrangey, slightly dirty P-bass fingerstyle tones, and clean them up by slightly backing off the instrument's volume knob. It's fun!

I think I am going to bolt it to an upside-down-installed rack shelf, so the open guts are covered and the lettering is still right-side up, and rack it along with my Peavey M-3000 power amp as a budget rat bass rig, and see how that works out.
#11
Amplifier Discussion / Re: what's a good single 12" amp
October 16, 2016, 09:38:04 PM
I traded a tremolo pedal I never bonded with for a late 80s Peavey Special 150 earlier this year. The amp's speaker baffle board had some of the wood chunked out around the speaker mounting screws, but other than that it worked. I filled the holes with wood repair epoxy, redrilled the holes and remounted the speaker.

It's basically a late 80s Bandit with twice the output power, into a single 12" Scorpion speaker. The clean channel is great; three-band passive EQ and a VERY effective active presence control. Lots of tones easily available, and the clean channel will snarl a little when you turn it up to less-than-head-implosion levels. Turned up to 6-7 and beyond, it gets pretty crunchy and rocked-out sounding, but that is extremely loud. I think it would have plenty of clean headroom for any modern PA-equipped gig situation.

The distortion channel shares the presence control but seems to bypass the EQ controls. It sounds pretty distorted even at the lowest gain settings, but you can get some useful sounds out of it. I never run the gain higher than 2 in the rare instances I use that channel.

A similar-era Bandit 75 would be the same, for all intents and purposes, still capable of being loud as hell, and available cheap used. The earlier Special 130  has sweepable mids on the EQ section. Never tried one, though.
#12
Watched your Youtube vid; I have to say that with the distortion channel problem, you have a sound that rivals some of the more freaked-out crazy distortion effect pedals available now, like the Z. Vex Fuzz Factory and the WMD Geiger Counter. It sounds pretty wild like it is!

I hope you'll post a video of it after you get it sorted out. Do you expect to use the clean channel much? I'd love to try that thing out loud and clean, with a compressor pedal in front of it. I bet it could peel paint and kill household pests.
#13
Common practice for establishing the earth ground in homes here (midwest USA) is to drive a pointed copper ground spike several feet into the ground, then clamp a thick, single-strand uninsulated copper ground wire to it with a non-ferrous metal clamp. The other end of that wire goes to the ground bar (bus) inside the electrical panel, where all the circuit breakers are). We have three-hole outlets, and that third hole, which accepts the ground prong, is connected to the green wire in the wiring, and the ground bar in the panel, and eventually the ground stake driven into the ground outside.

I have heard that some older places connect a ground wire to a water pipe, but you'd need to make sure it was a metal pipe with a fair amount of soil contact...I've seen plenty of metal pipes fed by buried PVC plastic pipes!
#14
Amplifier Discussion / Re: Ultimate Chorus Mods
March 11, 2016, 08:52:39 PM
Thanks for the detailed response. I think I can understand how someone would prefer a standard-config Tele straight into a particular-sounding clean amp, and I know I have encountered amps that sound good to me when other people play through them but that I can't adjust to a point that I like them for myself. I have never been able to enjoy playing through a Marshall amp, or any of several different varieties of Mesa products, even though I hear other people sound great through them.

FWIW, I used to be all about small tube amps, but have gradually evolved (devolved?) into using a hardtail single humbucker strat copy, a DOD bass compressor pedal and solid-state Peavey combos (a teal-stripe Peavey TKO 115 with a 15" Scorpion in it. Doesn't sound like a recipe for success, I know, but it really works well together to my ear. I had to adjust to thinking in graphic EQ terms for awhile before I figured out how to use it).

I recently traded a pedal for a Peavey Special 150 and I'm liking it but still adjusting to it, and so far its clean channel is pretty close to what I like but a little too clean, whereas the dirt channel is fun to play around on but more distorted than I really want, even at the bottom of the "Supersat" knob's range (never been a fan of channel-switching; I like to work the volume knob). If I don't grow to like either channel more for what it is with some more playing and tweaking, I may investigate ways to reduce the dirt channel's gain and see if can calm it down a bit.

I have recently spent a lot of time messing around with a borrowed Line 6 Pod 2.0 and ultimately decided it's not for me...but the one model in that thing that I really kind of liked was the "Jazz Clean" JC120 emulation. With the gain up around 60-70% , the lows cut and the highs and mids pushed a bit, it sounded pretty snappy and broke up a bit, and responded to playing/picking dynamics well. Made me want to try playing through a real JC120 sometime and seeing if I like that too. I suspect anything approaching the settings I had on a real JC120 would be up around 150 dB though.

Maybe more than you wanted to know. I kind of nerded out there...
#15
This thread is an interesting read, and an inspiring one. Also, your writing suggests that your English is excellent; no apology needed (not that one would be needed anyway if your English was worse). Just saying. Carry on!