F-30 Tone

[EZBolt]

I just bought a F-30. I was able to get a wonderful Larry Carlton tone out of the clean channel with the Gain up and my guitar tone control at about 5.

Has anyone used an attenuator with this amp? I want to recreate this tone at a volume level suitable for my home. At this point, if I turned it up to get this tone I am pretty loud. Thought maybe an attenuator would help. Any thoughts?

Also, anyone has "hiss" sounds coming from the amp at faily low volumes?

 

[andershoeg]

Don't know about the attenuator, haven't tried. Got a F-30 combo too. I'm also playing at very low volume, since i'm living in an appartment. when turned almost all the way down the tone controls almost has no effect. and then i think the tone can be a little "hiss", or "sharp" or what it can be called. The amp really sounds best when dialed a little up on the volumeknob! But then; sweeeeeet sounding!

 

[hal9000]

I use a Hot Plate with my F-100 and it sounds good right down to -12 dB. Anymore than that and I don't like the tone, but with an F-30 you should be able to get great bedroom volume tone.

 

[lcsegeng]

I just bought an F-30 for home use. What is a Hot Plate and how does it reduce the volume without affecting the tone. Also, does your F-30 hiss allot in both channels.

 

[tele_jas]

Well, I should probably let someone else explain a "Hot Plate" since I don't own one.... But I beat everyone else to it.......

A hot plate is a device that you place between the power amp and the speaker... So, you'd run a speaker cable from you speaker out to the hot plate and then plug your speaker in to the hot plate. The hot plate, in turn, acts like a power soak...... It lets you crank your amp up and get the power tubes really cooking, but lets you control your volume from the hot plate.

So your amp sounds like it's turned fairly loud, which lets the power tubes "breathe" more, and it's at a decent practice or bedroom level.

Make sence?? I thought it'd be easier to explain than what I came up with?? Maybe someone else can add to it. :?

 

[Surfcaster]

I have a Weber MiniMass...pretty much the same thing as a HotPlate, but without some of the bells and whistles, but selling for less than half the price. Whether it's a MiniMass or a HotPlate or a Marshall Power Brake or Dr. Z Air Brake or whatever, it is basically a resistor circuit between the power amp and the speaker that has the same impedance as your speaker and bleeds off some of the output power as heat. In essence, it's an output control. Most people use such devices to drive the power amp harder (to get power amp distortion), but let the attenuator absorb the extra energy and keep the volume down. However, you can use it to tame volume no matter how hard you're driving the power amp. I didn't buy mine to use with my F50 specifically, but I have used it some...it does make it more family friendly.

How does it affect tone? Well, there's lots written about this different places on the web, but it's pretty well agreed that it's not so much the actual tone that's affected, but the way people hear lower volumes. At lower volumes, the ear doesn't pick up highs and lows as well, so devices like the HotPlate has built in boosts that you can use at extreme attenuation levels. The MiniMass doesn't have these. But personally, I don't find the difference all that glaring...not nearly like I was expecting. For the most part I'm glad I have it...but I really bought it for an 18W Plexi style amp I'm having built...that will be the real test, since it gets a lot more character from the power amp than Mesa's do.