This being a heavy guitar thread/forum and all...

[AxeSlash]

Not entirely sure if this is the place for this, but here goes...

Rackmount preamps. And the use thereof for heavy guitar sounds. Thrash/death metal levels of heaviness.

Now at the mo my rig is basically thus:

Guitar -> EQ -> Marshall 9001 preamp -> More EQ -> gate -> solid state power amp.

Now I'm not after your fuzzy, indistinct metal tone; I'm the kinda guy who loves to hear the pick hit the string...I hate the oversaturated-mesa pre sound that seems to be so common these days. You know when the palm mutes go "ZZZHHH" instead of "CHUNNNN"? Ugh. Makes me sick.

Anyway, this usually means my pre-preamp EQ ends up with a massive boost at 1K and just about everything else whipped out of it. Then the post EQ adds all the chunk back in.
Which is great, the tone sounds lovely...but that preamp sounds like a goddamned waterfall when I ain't playing (hence the gate), probably because of their age. So much so that the gate's threshold is so high I can't do volume knob fades without it cutting in & out.

The noise floor is higher than the Eiffel F'n Tower. I think this is mainly to do with the fact that the 9001 doesn't inherently have that attacky sound - without the pre-pre EQ they're muddy as hell and sound cack - so, said EQ is effectively introducing a lot of noise to the system, which I wouldn't need to do if the pre sounded more like that in the first place.

So I'm thinking of looking for a new pre, and am wondering what you guys thought the best pres you've heard have been? Is there anything out there that still does that heavy-yet-clean distorted sound? I think the key word I'm looking for is 'definition'. Defined pick attack mainly...I'm obsessed with it ;)

Almost all of these digital jobbies I've heard blow goats in that department; having played with Line 6 stuff and the like, I can say they're pretty much not what I'm after - too fizzy, too muddy, and next to no pick attack evident.

Am I better off staying with what I've got or looking for something new?

Is there anything that stands out as regularly sounding good every time you hear one?

For those wanting an idea of what I'm after, here's a recording of my band using my current 9001 rig:

http://axeuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/02_-_Slaves_14.12.06.mp3

The bits where you can tell what I'm on about with the pick attack are the guitar-only intro at the beginning, and the middle section around 02:16ish. There's not much being done to the guitars in this recording outside of a bit of EQ and an L2 on the main outputs, so I reckon it's reasonably representative of what the rig does on it's own.

Thanks in advance.

PS: I know, "good guitar sound", Eisenhower in the whitehouse, yadayada...I'm just after the same sound I have now, but with a lower noise floor :)

[volthause]

Screw the pre-amp / power-amp dance.

You need a Soldano or Krank, or maybe even a Laney. You've got a pretty generic death/doom metal sound which tons of dudes get from the above.

[Brendo]

Is the preamp noisy or is it actually your EQ?

[Baddo]

... or Krank....


What's the story behind these?

Am I better off staying with what I've got or looking for something new?

Is there anything that stands out as regularly sounding good every time you hear one?

The sound you are after has more to do with tone shaping before hitting the amp than the amp itself, you can tighten the low end on almost everything with a tubescreamer or some pedal of that sort.

A 5150 might do the job. But seriously, you won't get that sound out of the amp alone.
...at least that's what I can tell you now, before I get my hands on a Bogner.

[volthause]

What's the story behind these?


I don't know the full story, but I first heard of them in '03 from a guy who came up to me after one of my bands shows. I think it was just some dudes who were building these amps in TX.

They really blew up after Dimebag died, since he had started endorsing Krank amps and had his own model.

The Krank amps I've heard I have liked, although that was before you could buy them from Banjo Mart. :Roll eyes:

[Slipperman]

Heyo AxeSlash.

What's the "Eq" at the front of the chain?

A stompbox Eq? A rack mount thingie? What?


SM.

[AxeSlash]

At the moment it's a Behringer digital (24/96) EQ/dynamics/does the dishes as well rackmount thing.

Go on, laugh ;)

Seriously though I've had all sorts of different EQs in there - rackmount, stompbox, guitar multieffects wotsits, everything. Digital and analogue.

I don't think it's the noise floor of the EQ that's the problem - I've already been there and sorted that problem out with the various other EQs that have gone before. Admittedly, none of them were particularly high quality EQs - I'm on a budget here - but the behringer has been the quietest so far.

Yeah yeah, I know, "it's behringer"; but I'm more inclined to believe that the problem is with a 10 year old cheap preamp design than 3 or 4 year old cheap EQ design...

EDIT: forgot to mention, there's a rackmount Korg tuner inline inbetween the guitar and first EQ. I have tried it both with and without the tuner and it's exactly the same either way.

[Slipperman]

At the moment it's a Behringer digital (24/96) EQ/dynamics/does the dishes as well rackmount thing.

Go on, laugh ;)

Seriously though I've had all sorts of different EQs in there - rackmount, stompbox, guitar multieffects wotsits, everything. Digital and analogue.

I don't think it's the noise floor of the EQ that's the problem - I've already been there and sorted that problem out with the various other EQs that have gone before. Admittedly, none of them were particularly high quality EQs - I'm on a budget here - but the behringer has been the quietest so far.

Yeah yeah, I know, "it's behringer"; but I'm more inclined to believe that the problem is with a 10 year old cheap preamp design than 3 or 4 year old cheap EQ design...

EDIT: forgot to mention, there's a rackmount Korg tuner inline inbetween the guitar and first EQ. I have tried it both with and without the tuner and it's exactly the same either way.

You will NEVER, NEVER see me playing the "Marquee" gear name game.

Too old. Seen it all. I don't care if it says K-Mart or Neve on the box.

If it's working... it's fucking working. Brand/cost means jackshit at that juncture. End of story.

Anyhoo. OK. Have you tried using a noise gate/expansion gate thingie either directly before or after the EQ(try both if you haven't).

And if so... WHAT type of noise/expansion gate did you use, and WHERE?

I'm more interested in the 'style' than the 'brand'.

But the specific brand and model, and where it failed you, can also potentially give me some clues as to what yer up against, as this stuff is like trying to fix someone's car problems over the phone.

Maybe not impossible... But hardly an efficient system.

Happy to try though...

SM.

PS. This topic reminds me of some hilarious/baffling/freakish shit I have come up against in the current 're-amping' fashion clusterfuck. TINY shit on the source tracks are exaggerated almost BEYOND BELIEF due to the NATURE and SCALE of the gain scheduling/distortion inherent in the undertaking. I have gone thru some of the most convoluted, time-consuming, flat out BIZARRE bullshit to get usable reamped tracks. Fucking bedlam. Just bedlam. On the other hand... it's been hysterically funny/fun to be able to Eq/gate/compress the(theoretically) tracked equivalent of a 'live' gtr signal BEFORE it hits the amplification chain.

Biggest problem.

Interaction of player/sound is static. Fixed. The performance is the performance. Kinda like when MIDI first hit in the early 80's and EVERYBODY and their brother was baffled as to why the "Strings sounded late/early/weird/whatever AFTER the fact" and we'd spend 3 days fucking around making shit work with MIDI data manipulation in our primitive hardware sequencers that we coulda hashed out in an hour of "shit or get off the pot - find the fucking sound and COMMIT".

And when they finally got the software sequencers going... Some shit got a bit better and some things initially got fucking WORSE. Great.

Ahh me.

Just gets better and better.

Grab-assing around in inky blackness.

[AxeSlash]

I've tried the expander (behringer, built into the digital EQ-does-the-dishes machine) both pre and post the 9001; pre cuts a lot of notes off early, post means I have to have the threshold so high (due to the noise floor) that if I try and do volume fades on my guitar, they cut in rather than fade in. Fiddling with the attack settings sorts that out, but then the expander takes too long to do it's job during the short sharp stabs/stops.

With the expander post the pre-preamp EQ, and pre the preamp itself (i.e. guitar -> tuner -> [EQ -> expander] -> preamp), I still get the Niagara effect. The [] bit is all in the behringer unit, completely in the digital domain.

I read somewhere new tubes could help...and seeing as I know very little about tubes, can anyone shed any light there? These units are quite old )

http://www.drtube.com/marshall.htm#9000

^- Some info about the 9001 for anyone who cares (schematics, manual, photo)

EDIT: EQ is a Behringer DEQ2496, http://www.behringer.com/DEQ2496/index.cfm?lang=ENG

[Brendo]

What tubes are in it now?

Also, have you at least tried a JMP1 inbetween there? It might be lower noise, and you still have your EQ for tone shaping.

JMP-1 users:
http://guitargeek.com/gearview/286/

[AxeSlash]

Pretty sure it's the originals (says which ones on that link above). I had it open the other day to fix a jack, shoulda looked. Didn't look like anyone had been in there before me though. No dodgy screws or anything to indicate they'd been taken out before.

EDIT: I ain't tried a JMP-1 because a) I don't own one and b) don't know anyone who does. It's on my list of stuff to consider replacing the 9001 with though. Also considering the Tech 21 Sansamp PSA1.1...seems to sound different to the other rackmount pres about, but has knobs to twiddle which bands you wanna distort most, which may eliminate the need for pre-EQ altogether...

[Molly's Lips]

I've never heard a 9001 pre, but the JMP-1 has an EXTREMELY focused midrange. I don't know if it would sound too great run through a solid state power amp. I think it's really meant to be run through an EL84 power amp section to get any sort of chunky thing happening without having to turn up the gain so much that it's all fuzzed out.

[AxeSlash]

Oh don't get me started on valve power stages...you're talking to a complete hater here ;)

I just don't like the things they do to a guitar's signal, but maybe that's just personal preference. I think I'm a bit awkward in that I like valve pres and solid state power amps, but hey, works for me :)

Personally I just think that valve output stages just dunk the whole sound in a bucket of mud, but whatever floats yer boat...

[Molly's Lips]

Hmm. Not into the sag and bloom thing, huh? Maybe the straight sound of a JMP-1 might be just the thing for you. "Full bandwidth Immediacy":very happy:

[Brendo]

Tech 21 Sansamp PSA1.1...seems to sound different to the other rackmount pres about, but has knobs to twiddle which bands you wanna distort most, which may eliminate the need for pre-EQ altogether...

Yeah... that's a pretty cool feature, both on the actual hardware unit, and in the plugin version. If I get bored later tonight I might try to approximate your tone with the plugin, see how far I get.

[preben]

The JMP-1 is definitely more focused in the midrange than a 9001. Quite a lot, actually.

If you wanna go down that avenue you might also want to look into the old ADA mp1 which has some very focused hi-gain tones as well. It's not quite as 'alive' in the upper mids as a(ny) Marshall - there's almost always something slightly 'wild' and unpredictable about the high mids in a Marshall in my opinion - which is one of the reasons I love them.

It's been some years since I had an mp1 rig. I remember it as being fairly noisy but I *think* the mp1 has a built in noise gate.

Another thing: I often find that if I want really focused distortion tones, that chaining 2 distortion/ovedrive pedals helps focusing things A LOT (or one od pedal into a master vol. amp that already has some hi-gain stuff going on). For what I do it's too focused nine times out of ten but give it a go - it might work (and it's a cheap and flexible solution).

Adding the lo end chunk after the gain-stuff (pedals, preamp whatever) will also give you a more controlled 'chunk' on the low strings but things can turn plasticy quite quickly.

It's a little bit like the old Mesa Boogie Mk1/2/3 trick where you lower the bass on the input channel and boost it on the graphic eq.

Although that was mainly done because of the gain structure in the older american amps where the tone controls come before the gain stages as opposed to the british amps where it's the other way round, it does tighten things up a lot.

I'm using an old TC Booster thingey into my 2204 when that sort of thing is called for - which in my case isn't very often as I'm a identity-ridden Danish limey-wannabe. You know know foreigners overdo it by 260% when they move to another country and want to blend in and not look like a tourist that missed the plane home? Well, sadly that's me...

Out of interest: what speakers are you using? Especially if you're using a solid state power amp there's a very fine line between punchy and sloshy because the dynamics coming out of your power amp are VERY different to the ones coming out of a valve amp stage.

[AxeSlash]

Cab is a Marshall 1960A, about 4 years old I think, was brand new when I bought it.

[Brendo]

but what speakers are in it?

[slabrock]

The JMP-1 is definitely more focused in the midrange than a 9001. Quite a lot, actually.

If you wanna go down that avenue you might also want to look into the old ADA mp1

Preben said it.

Those two would be my first suggestions too.

Also you could try something like Rocktron HUSH as a noise gate, instead of a plain expander. And this has nothing to do with Behringer being worse or something, it's just a thing that's tried and tested in your genre.

Maybe with ADA MP-1 you didn't need that first EQ stage. It's quite ...eh... focused as it is. (Focused in the same sense as when speaking about the original MIJ Boss Distortion One, instant early Metallica that is.)
;-D


Peace,

Slabrock

[slabrock]

but what speakers are in it?

Celestion G75's, i should think. And A means slanted, which is not very good for the metal, since those slanted marshalls are much better suited for Greenbacks or V30's, in my opinion. Straight B's would maybe respond better.

Heavily built G75 is not the fastest element in the world, quite the opposite, but the response is good if somewhat slow. And with the sheer volume it usually has to give out its sturdiness is an advantage.

Peace,

Slabrock

[Brendo]

Funny you should all mention the ADA... I've been trying to copy that tone for days now, and guess what my closest was?

pre-preamp EQ ends up with a massive boost at 1K and just about everything else whipped out of it. Then the post EQ adds all the chunk back in.

http://68.146.204.100/brendo/gisheq.jpg

[AxeSlash]

Funny you should all mention the ADA... I've been trying to copy that tone for days now, and guess what my closest was?



http://68.146.204.100/brendo/gisheq.jpg

That is EXACTLY the same EQ pedal I used to use in front of my old Valvestate :D And pretty much identical settings too...

I've still got the thing sat next to my metalzone in here.

Anyway, in the short term I've bodged around the noise problem. I've used the gain control of the first EQ to boost the shit out of the signal going into the 9001 (and backed the 9001's gain control off), and whacked an expander between the two, which means that some of the noise floor is cut off before it hits the 9001, then there's an expander after the 9001 as well to pick up the rest of the waterfall.

Works for now, until I get my ass around to doing a tour of the local guitar shops to look for a JMP1 or ADA...

Thanks for the help and suggestions guys.

[slabrock]

next to my metalzone in here.

Hm... just checking... of course you remember that the Metalzone has a pretty powerful EQ in itself, too?

You can tweak the Metalzone for hours and get sounds you never thought you'd get from a simple stompbox (especially one named "metal"). Often you need to, too
:-D

Peace,

Slabrock

[AxeSlash]

Nah the metalzone is purely for home practice use, way too fizzy and crappy, plus it goes from clean to distorted way too sharply to use live.

Don't get me wrong, there's people who get good sounds out of them live...just not great ones ;)

Plus it would involve me getting back into practice with the tap dancing, which I gave up long ago when I caved in to the world of MIDI effects :|

[preben]

When you're using words as fizzy and crappy I can't help thinking that the G75's might not be helping you all that much. Vintage 30's *probably* would get you closer to your desired sound with less hassle. Then again - they may not. Happy Days :-)

I once had a 1960A cab loaded with two V30's as the top two speakers and two Peavey Scorpion Plus in the bottom. The Peavey have an almost 'dead' high end and high midange BUT in combination with the V30's is was an incredibly tight sounding cab for live use.

You might find that even your stock 4x12 would sound tighter if you stick some rockwool in there (a lot!) and upgrade the internal wiring.

Also I have found in the past that if it's one of the newer mono/stereo cabs taking out all the switching crap and just having a straight forward jack plug will improve things - although the results of those kinds of tweaks are marginal IMHO.

But hey, we're guitarists... we argue over batteries, right? And guitar leads. That sort of thing.

[slabrock]

When you're using words as fizzy and crappy I can't help thinking that the G75's might not be helping you all that much. Vintage 30's *probably* would get you closer to your desired sound with less hassle. Then again - they may not. Happy Days :-)

I once had a 1960A cab loaded with two V30's as the top two speakers and two Peavey Scorpion Plus in the bottom. The Peavey have an almost 'dead' high end and high midange BUT in combination with the V30's is was an incredibly tight sounding cab for live use.

You might find that even your stock 4x12 would sound tighter if you stick some rockwool in there (a lot!) and upgrade the internal wiring.

Also I have found in the past that if it's one of the newer mono/stereo cabs taking out all the switching crap and just having a straight forward jack plug will improve things - although the results of those kinds of tweaks are marginal IMHO.

But hey, we're guitarists... we argue over batteries, right? And guitar leads. That sort of thing.

G75 is not a bad elment for metal, though. It just needs a larger cabinet than a slanted 'A' marshall. Rockwool is a good way of faking that.

If you can find a Marshall 2x12" with V30's (i think the number is something like 1966), you can switch your upper pair between enclosures and end up with a 1 1/2 -stack sounding twice better
:-D

IMHO that full-sized Marshall 2x12" enclosure works just fine with G75's as long as you don't place it closer than 3ft (1m) to the wall behind it. (The smaller Marshall cabs, ministack-series, don't impress me.)

Well, i'm no Eric Johnson, although my main setup is similar to his and i can argue over batteries and have one "special" Vintage Voltage cable for my own tracking (babyshit brown sounds best)
:-D
i didn't know of the guy when i started buying Gibson 335's and 60's JMP plexis, i just tried them and realized they were 'the best a man can get' and they weren't yet in fashion so i could buy them dirt cheap from guys who wanted to trade them for nice new 1979 Anniversary Strat's (yuck) and Peavey Classic hybrid combos (double yuck).

Those were the days when good guitar died for a while.

I myself am a celestion V30 fan. Got something like 8 cabs loaded with them or with different combinations with them, like with greenbacks, G75's, with HH's and with 10" 1960's jensens.

Heh... the memories...

Peace,

Slabrock

[preben]

Oho - I used to be in a band with a guy who had a 1979 Anni Strat... silver and all... Probably the heaviest strat I've ever held and one of the VERY few times I was quite happy being left handed.

[slabrock]

Oho - I used to be in a band with a guy who had a 1979 Anni Strat... silver and all... Probably the heaviet strat I've ever held and one of the VERY few times I was quite happy left handed.

I've played two of those, and all i can say is that the quality in 1979 silver anniversaries is ...eh... varied. The first one was the coldest piece of firewood i'd ever seen, the second was passable.

But then, i'm not a Strat man. I have to have a couple of strats for the sound, but i rarely use them for anything else than tracking. Now Tele's a different thing, an entirely different thing... and i got a nice Musicmaster, a Mustang and some basses...
:-D :-D :-D

Happy new year, everybody,

Slabrock

[rockdart]

rockwool? learning something new damn near every time I come out here.

[Jason Phair]

Great thread guys - taking notes here.

[Tim Halligan]

rockwool? learning something new damn near every time I come out here.

Rockwool is dangerous stuff, and needs to be handled carefully. The fibres that it sheds can cause serious lung irritation.


Cheers,
Tim

[slabrock]

Rockwool is dangerous stuff, and needs to be handled carefully. The fibres that it sheds can cause serious lung irritation.

We didn't know that in my youth, but in those days we also used asbestos on everything... but that's true. So please handle it with more care than i used to do :D

Luckily the fibre dust can not easily escape the closed enclosure. If you have a reflex opening in the cabinet, though, you do well to wrap the rockwool into a piece of cloth before attaching it.

Easiest way to attach rockwool (or standard glass fibre wool) is to cut (or buy) some plastic washers / collars 3" across and use them with the screws. Glueing doesn't work too well, because rockwool is so fluffy.

You can also use glass fibre wool, the more compressed the less you need it (you don't want the imaginary size of the enclosure too big). Remember to wear gloves when handling the stuff, or you'll feel nasty for a long time. (Probably does some damage too.) Actually, i think the same thickness of glass fibre wool is like 5-10 times more effective than rockwool (depending how compressed it is) anyway, so maybe it would be a better choice.

Peace,

Slabrock

[preben]

Yup, I didn't think to mention that. Rockwool IS nasty stuff in many respects and I would think that glass fibre wool would do just the same as the other stuff. Apart from making your skin red and your lungs turn inside out heheheh.

Btw. don't expect filling your cab with rockwool/glass fibre wool to give you the same kind of change as if you were going from a Cube 40 to a Triple Rectifier. It's a lot more subtle than that. But the difference is noticable if you already like the core of the sound you're getting. It won't turn a 'hate-rig' into the opposite.

[otek]

AxeSlash, this is an awesome thread. I must have bene blind to miss it before.

Especially because sooooooo much stuff is brought up that warrants commentary. I scarcely know where to begin.


First let's address directly your immediate problem. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that although a lot of ideas shared here are solid, they almost exclusively involve buying a bunch of new stuff without fully examining and/or understanding the problem with the old stuff. This to me is an unfortunate tendency. And whereas new tubes, new speakers, new amps, new EQ, and all the other stuff being suggested may still come into question, I would like to run a few more diagnostics before shelling out more cash.

The first question I would like to ask is, if you just go preamp -> poweramp, is the noise still present? Is there even a lesser amount of the same noise?

If not, getting a new preamp, or even replacing the tubes, might do zilch to rectify the problem.

I totally agree with Slipperman when he talks about the phenomenally weird things that may result from putting any kind of electronic component in front of the massive gain scheduling of a hi-gain guitar preamp. Every single speck of noise, every sonic artifact will be placed under an electron microscope. Stuff you may have never considered under normal circumstances, now becomes a huge problem. Therefore, when troubleshooting something like this, I would focus the bulk of my attention to the pre-preamp part of the signal chain.

Looking at the specs of the EQ preceeding the preamp, I am forming some suspicions about the problem at hand.

First off, the B**ringer EQ you mentioned appears to be an all-balanced unit, with a fairly high input impedance. How do you connect your guitar to it? It seems to me that if you are simply using some kind of tele-to-XLR cable to connect the two, you are discounting the intended operating level of the unit, not to mention the source impedance of the guitar pickups. Then comes the other enchilada, namely the input impedance of the guitar amp, versus the output impedance and intended operating levels of the EQ. Notice I am not getting into the whole can of worms of placing a bunch of IC's and converters in the signal path at this stage (please don't mistake this for Brand-bashing, I am about as over that as Slipperman is).

It seems that right there, you are setting yourself up for some signal mayhem.

(ok, so you said you'd used a bunch of different EQ's before the preamp, including pedals, so the problem may indeed be with, say, the input stage of the preamp. I still think it's important to examine the situation before spending money).

My own experience of this has been, the less crap you introduce into the signal path before the guitar amp, the better. If you have to introduce anything (and for a lot of hi-gain tones, you do), make it something that's optimized to handle instrument levels and impedances.

My first hunch would be some kind of quality EQ pedal for guitar, followed by a booster to crank the signal before hitting the input stage of the amp - Slipperman uses a TC mini preamp, which is awesome if you can find one. I am using a custom unit a tech built for me, that has a 120 dB S/N ratio. In other words, it's dead quiet, and very clean. Not all amps sound good with it, but for the majority of tones I'm going for, I find it works well.

I listened to your sound clip, and the good news is, you are not using nearly as much gain as a lot of the guys I've worked with lately. Tones are fairly clean and chunky. The "bad" news (not harping on your taste, dude, it's all good, just stating facts here) is, you are using a lot of low end, in fact so much that on certain chords/notes, your speakers fart out a bit. That type of farting is actually something I hear a lot more often from solid state power amps than from well-designed tube dittos, but more on that in a minute. :)


Also considering the Tech 21 Sansamp PSA1.1

The SansAmp is a great little unit, not to mention a complete life saver in the studio. Works well for bass, too. Whether you will like the distortion tones or not I leave up to you, but it's a very tweakable box wich solves a lot of problems.

Nah the metalzone is purely for home practice use, way too fizzy and crappy, plus it goes from clean to distorted way too sharply to use live.

The Metal Zone can actually be very usable. Yes, it does have a "hardness" to it that makes the tone a bit two-dimensional at times. The trick with the Metal Zone is to NOT use the on-board treble control for boosting. If anything, I find myself rolling off on it quite a lot, and instead goosing the treble (and presence) on the amp a little. I typically use that pedal with mids scooped and the output level cranked, and the gain sort of low. Into a good JCM-800, it gives a pretty solid rhythm chunk.

Personally I just think that valve output stages just dunk the whole sound in a bucket of mud, but whatever floats yer boat...

This is true for a lot of poorly designed tube power amps, but I also find that a good, solid tube amp can be very tight and focused - provided the power supply delivers the goods. I've occasionally used something like a Mesa Colosseum, or a VHT with KT88 power tubes, and there's absolutely nothing muddy about those amps.

Rockwool

Rockwool is, like someone pointed out, a pretty nasty material to work around. And if you think it's bad for your lungs, you should see what it does to speaker voice coils when caught in the magnet air gap.... something that will happen, if you keep that stuff inside your cabinets. To compound the problem, rockwool is basically made from Diabase, which among other things contains iron ore.

Now imagine that huge speaker magnet assembly.....

:Roll eyes:


Finally, I read you'd managed to mitigate the problems somewhat by modifying the gain staging before the preamp.

Jolly good show.

I am willing to bet the majority of the problem comes from that.

[AxeSlash]

The first question I would like to ask is, if you just go preamp -> poweramp, is the noise still present? Is there even a lesser amount of the same noise?

Same amount of noise.


I totally agree with Slipperman when he talks about the phenomenally weird things that may result from putting any kind of electronic component in front of the massive gain scheduling of a hi-gain guitar preamp. Every single speck of noise, every sonic artifact will be placed under an electron microscope. Stuff you may have never considered under normal circumstances, now becomes a huge problem. Therefore, when troubleshooting something like this, I would focus the bulk of my attention to the pre-preamp part of the signal chain.

Yep, totally agreed. I find that all sorts of weird and not-so-wonderful shit can (and does) happen. The current setup is the quietest I've got it so far though.


Looking at the specs of the EQ preceeding the preamp, I am forming some suspicions about the problem at hand.

First off, the B**ringer EQ you mentioned appears to be an all-balanced unit, with a fairly high input impedance. How do you connect your guitar to it? It seems to me that if you are simply using some kind of tele-to-XLR cable to connect the two, you are discounting the intended operating level of the unit, not to mention the source impedance of the guitar pickups. Then comes the other enchilada, namely the input impedance of the guitar amp, versus the output impedance and intended operating levels of the EQ.

The guitar hits a Korg rack tuner before going to the EQ, so I'm hoping that takes care of some of the gremlins that would appear in that phase...not sure on the output impedance etc of the Korg, haven't looked it up. BUT the other side of the rig (I basically have this entire rig twice for our second guitarist) doesn't have the tuner and acts exactly the same.




My own experience of this has been, the less crap you introduce into the signal path before the guitar amp, the better. If you have to introduce anything (and for a lot of hi-gain tones, you do), make it something that's optimized to handle instrument levels and impedances.

This is the problem. Those preamps sound like a hippo in mud city without something beforehand to lift the pre-dist mids up.




My first hunch would be some kind of quality EQ pedal for guitar, followed by a booster to crank the signal before hitting the input stage of the amp - Slipperman uses a TC mini preamp, which is awesome if you can find one.


I've been looking for one of those TC boxes for a while...but tbh I have just about enough gain out of the pre anyway - it's that mid boost (or top & bottom cut if you wanna put it that way) that's more important than how hot I need to hit the 9001.



I listened to your sound clip, and the good news is, you are not using nearly as much gain as a lot of the guys I've worked with lately.

That's a very gainy recording for us actually. Live I tend to play with even less, plus there's about a thousand guitar tracks in there at the mo that may be unrepresentative of what the rig is actually doing.



Tones are fairly clean and chunky. The "bad" news (not harping on your taste, dude, it's all good, just stating facts here) is, you are using a lot of low end, in fact so much that on certain chords/notes, your speakers fart out a bit. That type of farting is actually something I hear a lot more often from solid state power amps than from well-designed tube dittos, but more on that in a minute. :)

Can't say I've noticed the rig farting, may just be my lacking mixing skills :P


The Metal Zone can actually be very usable. Yes, it does have a "hardness" to it that makes the tone a bit two-dimensional at times. The trick with the Metal Zone is to NOT use the on-board treble control for boosting. If anything, I find myself rolling off on it quite a lot, and instead goosing the treble (and presence) on the amp a little. I typically use that pedal with mids scooped and the output level cranked, and the gain sort of low. Into a good JCM-800, it gives a pretty solid rhythm chunk.

Oh I've played the game with that pedal for some years and now and come to similar conclusions...but it's just not flexible enough for what I do live. I need slightly dirty stuff, clean stuff AND metalled-up gain. The MT2 only does two of those. Plus I find it very prone to feedback, but hey, each to his own ;) I have a mate who uses an MT2 through an 800, and his sound ain't bad...but it's a one trick pony.


This is true for a lot of poorly designed tube power amps, but I also find that a good, solid tube amp can be very tight and focused - provided the power supply delivers the goods. I've occasionally used something like a Mesa Colosseum, or a VHT with KT88 power tubes, and there's absolutely nothing muddy about those amps.


Ah...now my experience of valve power stages is limited to JCM stuff, Mesa "rectifiers" of various pursuasions, and some horrid mesa power amp that one of our previous guitarists used with a pod...and that really DID sound like a monster truck race.


Rockwool is, like someone pointed out, a pretty nasty material to work around. And if you think it's bad for your lungs, you should see what it does to speaker voice coils when caught in the magnet air gap.... something that will happen, if you keep that stuff inside your cabinets. To compound the problem, rockwool is basically made from Diabase, which among other things contains iron ore.

Now imagine that huge speaker magnet assembly.....


Gimme a few minutes I'll find a pic of what happens to an EAW 18" when exactly that happens. It's not pretty.

EDIT: here ya go: http://axeuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/extraneous/100_1720.JPG (warning, big pic)

[otek]

Same amount of noise.

Well, that was my disclaimer above.... So, an overhaul of the preamp may be warranted - not really surprising since the unit was taken out of production 13-14 years ago. I'm glad you checked, anyway, which was the whole intent of my question. :)

The guitar hits a Korg rack tuner before going to the EQ, so I'm hoping that takes care of some of the gremlins that would appear in that phase.

The Korg rack tuners don't appear to perform any kind of level or impedance matching, and also have unbalanced outs, so it would appear that you still have the level and impedance discrepancies on input. On output I don't know, because I haven't been able to determine whether the 9001 has balanced outs or not.

Those preamps sound like a hippo in mud city without something beforehand to lift the pre-dist mids up.

tbh I have just about enough gain out of the pre anyway - it's that mid boost (or top & bottom cut if you wanna put it that way) that's more important than how hot I need to hit the 9001.

The frequency content of the input signal naturally has a huge effect on the gain behavior of the amp. Though I'm wondering still if the actual signal boost in and of itself - whether full-band or limited - is the main thing. Go figure. Out of curiosity, have you tried boosting the entire signal flat?

Can't say I've noticed the rig farting, may just be my lacking mixing skills :P

Not trying to second-guess you here buddy - audio terminology is notoriously ambiguous, especially when it comes to descriptive and abstract terms.

I included a little snippet where I highlighted what I was talking about via some fairly conspicuous EQ. :Roll eyes: The second half is me making some lame-brain moves on the same EQ to somewhat control the problem. Yes, there is a level difference. Yes, you may hate it. All I'm saying is, you probably have a bass player in the band, let him have some fun, too. :lol: :Wink:

The MT2 .....is a one trick pony.

I agree wholeheartedly. Since I am a studio rat, I have little regard for things such as "simultaneous versatility" - I tweak for an hour, and when time comes for the next overdub, I tweak for an hour more (and change the gear). :lol:

my experience of valve power stages is limited to JCM stuff, Mesa "rectifiers" of various pursuasions....

The Colosseum is actually two Triple Rectifier power sections sandwiched together. I personally found the 150 or so tube watts per channel reasonably tight... But then I use less low end than you. :very happy:

Gimme a few minutes I'll find a pic of what happens to an EAW 18" when exactly that happens. It's not pretty.

http://axeuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/extraneous/100_1720.JPG

For the rest of you reading this thread, you may wanna think twice about the rockwool. :Roll eyes:

[AxeSlash]

Ahhh...point taken on the farting thing :P

Could be anything...might pull up the mix files tomorrow and see if it's anything in there (entirely possible, there's silly amounts of shit going on in those guitar tracks). Failing that it's the rig, although probably in one of it's earlier incarnations - that recording is getting on towards 12 months old now, possibly more.

I'll try and get some recordings of the rig's noisefloor tomorrow if I can, so you can see what I'm on about.

[Slipperman]

Otek.

Thanks so much for your sage contributions here.

Greatly appreciated.

SM.

[freepatriot]

EDIT: here ya go: http://axeuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/extraneous/100_1720.JPG (warning, big pic)

Thx for the new desktop wallpaper, AxeSlash :Thumbsup: :lol:

[AxeSlash]

Thx for the new desktop wallpaper, AxeSlash :Thumbsup: :lol:

There's better pics of that driver than that for wallpapers...in fact I did actually create an interesting wallpaper out of one of them with the aid of paint shop pro ;)

I'll dig 'em out later.




And in related news, having had a fiddle with the rig tonight, I have concluded that the main noise culprit is indeed the first Behringer EQ, so this is me eating my words (and hat).

Basically when you bypass all the different sections (i.e. graphic, parametric, dynamics, dynamic EQ etc) of said EQ individually (which is what I did originally, duh, shoulda pulled it out completely), the noise stays the same, but when you hit the master bypass, BLAM, no noise.

Well, still some, but not nearly as much.

So I was totally wrong about the preamp being a noisy ass piece of shit. Unfortunately the preamp does sound like Cock And Balls (to use a Slipperism) without the pre-gain EQ...so I'm back to square one: continuing the search for either a pretty damned quiet EQ (that won't break the bank), or a new preamp. Possibly both.

I've been through so many EQs for the front end of that rig now that I'm giving up hope for that solution - I think I need a preamp that has THAT tone to start with, and doesn't need to be 'forced' to create it. Then theoretically I shouldn't need the pre-gain EQ...therefore getting rid of the noise floor associated with it.

Either way, I've got a workable system at the mo, and having just found out that I can actually switch presets on the behringer EQ via MIDI (I control the effects in the rig from a midi pedal) without interrupting the signal, theoretically I can just create a patch with the gate bypassed for the clean(er) stuff (which is where the gate has been eating my signal).

We'll see.

It's fixing the symptoms rather the disease, but hey, it works for now.

Until I can find a Sansamp or JMP-1 to try.

[Brendo]

I finally had a listen to your first post and I think the JMP1 would get you much closer than the Tech21 to be honest.

[AxeSlash]

Thanks Brendo, that was my feeling. I guess it's that "Marshall sound" people bang on about :P

What I'd really love is the preamp section out of a Marshall 100V Valvestate (8100 model if I remember right) head in a rackmount form...I would love that to death. I own one of said amps and my only criticism of it is that the EQ sucks (Jim M strikes again)...and I don't wanna have to cart around a rack for effects/EQ AND a pair of heads. Oh and the power stage has no balls whatsoever. The base distortion of it is almost perfect though.

Shame a rackmount version doesn't seem to exist.

Someone somewhere told me that the 9001 was such a beast...imagine my disappointment :Cry:

[Brendo]

Someone's gonna shoot me for this but have you tried a Marshall Jackhammer pedal? I had an MG80 from the first generation with the spring reverb when they didnt suck balls, and it sounded just like the 8080 valveshite combo... the jackhammer reminds me of that same sound.

[preben]

WOW - I never knew that could happen to a speaker if you stuffed the cab with Rockwool... I used a 4x12" full of Rockwool for about 10 years and thought there was a problem - but then again I never actually opened the cab after doing my 'modifications'.

I sold it some years back which - judging from the pic - might have been a wise move. And after seeing this pic it won't be an exercise I'll be repeating any time soon - not using the same material anyway hehehe.

[OzNimbus]

When you're using words as fizzy and crappy I can't help thinking that the G75's might not be helping you all that much. Vintage 30's *probably* would get you closer to your desired sound with less hassle. Then again - they may not. Happy Days :-)



I'll agree here. I haven't had much luck with GT75's. Very phase-ey. Go with the Vintage 30's.

[otek]

AxeSlash,


I missed the fact that you had responded on this thread, been abroad for work for some time.

And in related news, having had a fiddle with the rig tonight, I have concluded that the main noise culprit is indeed the first Behringer EQ, so this is me eating my words (and hat).

Well, I had a feeling, but it's always hard to guess without hearing it for yourself.

Remember how I said that the Behringer is an all-balanced unit? I think part of the problem you may have, again, is the impedance and level matching problems occurring between your guitar, amp and the Behringer. If you would get a simple, high-quality solution which is designed to work with instrument-level signals, you would be much better off.

Basically when you bypass all the different sections (i.e. graphic, parametric, dynamics, dynamic EQ etc) of said EQ individually (which is what I did originally, duh, shoulda pulled it out completely), the noise stays the same, but when you hit the master bypass, BLAM, no noise.

The second problem could be that at 200 quid or so, the Be**inger likely doesn't have the quality input and output stage of, say, a Klark Teknik EQ or similar. Thus, more noise.

I'm back to square one: continuing the search for either a pretty damned quiet EQ (that won't break the bank), or a new preamp. Possibly both.

PM me and I'll give you the phone # of the guy who built me my booster.

Should you still be in the market for a new pre, one suggestion would be to check out the Randall RM-4 preamp. (http://www.randallamplifiers.com/products/amplifiers/mts/mtsrack.asp) It was designed by a guy named Bruce Egnater, who builds some mighty fine (and extremely versatile) boutique tube amps. The basic idea is, you can select any four modules (http://www.randallamplifiers.com/products/amplifiers/mts/modules.asp) (among 15 different available) to insert into the unit with a choice of your tones, and unlike Egnater's own hand built monsters, they won't break your bank - the thing is around £500 street in Europe. The unit also has midi, so you can easily set up presets with channel switching and your post-preamp EQ included.

http://www.randallamplifiers.com/products/amplifiers/mts/images/zoom_rm4.jpg