I think it was operator error. i didn't understand how the controls worked. I did get everything to work once I saw how the channels (or signals) were being routed. It sounds great. Dirtied up the signal and got a pretty rich tone. I have all fender amps, this is my nephews Marshall. I want to spend some more time with it and enjoy 'that' sound. I have a friend that designed and built his own amp. One channel has as Marshall preamp design and the other a Fender (Tremulux). That's a great sounding amp - mix, single channel, lots of possibilities.
thanks again for all the help.
thanks again for all the help.