Mark VII and Fryette PS2?

[Mike Honcho]

Hi Everyone, I have a Mark VII head and am thinking about picking up an attenuator - likely a Fryette PS2 - to help reign in the volume a bit. However, I've read conflicting feedback on (1) whether an attenuator is necessary with a Mark (some say no given that the Mark is all preamp distortion; others say 100% yes its helps), and (2) whether the PS2 works well with the Mark VII. Does anyone have any specific experience with this combination that you could share? Thanks is advance for your insight!

 

[rarebitusa]

FWIW a bit depends on your usage and what volumes you need. The Freyette is a good box. But the VII has the CabClone IR which provides you a low volume solution. I have one on the Badlander and feel it works really well. You can run the output of that into a small amp, PA, powered speakers, headphones or record to an AI, etc. Curious what you need that's different?

With that said the Freyette is a very capable quasi reamp solution. It's not really an attenuator in the pure sense of the word. Personally I find that pure attenutators color the tone too much. But the Freyette is one of the best at retaining the original tone plus it does way more, ie: you can run your preamp directly to it.

But I'd agree there is a bit of truth to the fact that with many Mesas the preamp carries much more of the tone but a cranked power section certainly can add to it.

 

[Mike Honcho]

Thanks for your thoughts! My use case is trying to capture all the Mark's sonic goodness no matter the volume. The Mark vii sounds really good at low volumes but even better when you crank it up a bit. I find that I'm missing something when playing/practicing at home (lower volume due to small kiddos often napping) vs band practice/playing out.

 

[sloanthebone]

I run my VII and all my amps through the PS2 and KHE ACS 8x4. The PS2 is an amazing piece of gear.

 

[CoG]

I mean, if you have the money to drop on a PS2 do it, it's an incredibly cool box that doesn't really have an equivalent product anywhere. But how quiet are you hoping to get? You can only attenuate so low and still have a guitar cab sound good, once you get down to "loud TV" or less, or headphones, IRs sound better and you already have that on board. None of the PS2's cool fiunctionality works from its line outs, it's just your input signal attenuated down to line level. If you want to actually use its features, you still have to put it through a cab.

 

[Mike Honcho]

I don’t need to get down to IR levels, I just can’t be as loud as I’d ideally like to be

 

[rarebitusa]

I do have GAS for a PS2.

 

[phreeman123]

Since the VII has a built it reactive load you can just un plug the speaker and use line out into a power amp. Use the effects loop like normal. Anything like a Duncan Power Station or something along those lines will work. I have even used my Fryette LXII this way. I run line out into stereo effects then into the LXII and into two cabs. The line out is just slave out renamed so it's tapped off of the output transformer and has the power amp tones in it.

 

[bgh]

I do not have a Mark VII. I have a Mark IV, which I do use with my PS2. On the Mark IV, the volume pot is tricky. A 1/100 change goes from comfortable volume to killing small pets at 30 yards. The PS2 takes care of all of that. Plus, it give me a great/easy way to get line level into my recorder.

 

[Sinner's Swing!]

I was looking for a PS-2 potentially, I don't see any available on Reverb or Sweetwater. There used to be plenty. I was more interested in using it with thew new UA pedals or something like that - and having the attenuator would be nice too. I just realized that even with my Mark V, there is the cab clone DI option. Totally forgot about it. I may just look for a decent tube power amp as I don't need the attenuator as much, the MV on the Mark is fine. Plus it has different wattage options already, I would assume the VII has the same?

 

[skoora]

The PS2 might give you even more tones out of that amp. I can't speak for the VII but the V I had for many years. I ran it into an attenuator (first a Marshall Powerbrake then the PS2) because it sounded so much better turned up. Especially the clean channel, which if you maxed the gain and got the channel volume fairly high and the Master up to at least 11 O’Clock, It was like a cranked plexi.

 

[Sinner's Swing!]

The PS2 might give you even more tones out of that amp. I can't speak for the VII but the V I had for many years. I ran it into an attenuator (first a Marshall Powerbrake then the PS2) because it sounded so much better turned up. Especially the clean channel, which if you maxed the gain and got the channel volume fairly high and the Master up to at least 11 O’Clock, It was like a cranked plexi.

Yes, the clean channel cranked sounds fantastic. Especially the Crunch channel. The PS-2 seems like a great piece of gear for amp enthusiasts in general. I forgot that they were fairly expensive. Now they are harder to find too. Is there a huge difference between the PS-2A and the PS-100?

 

[DECEMBER]

Since the Mark VII doesn't have a master volume, an attenuator could be useful. You can also put anything with a volume control in the FX loop to use as a master volume, but this won't give you any power tube saturation. Typically, attenuators are used in order to get power tube saturation at lower volume. But since there are high gain preamps, overdriving the power amp isn't necessary, but someone may still want that sound, to drive the clean channel into crunch, if that happens to give you a sound you like better than the actual crunch channel.
Personally, I've never had a need for power tube saturation. The few times I tried it, it just seemed harsh and unnecessary.
If you simply just need to lower the volume, there are less expensive ways to do that than an attenuator, but if you need that power amp overdrive, an attenuator is a must.

 

[cpw]

I run a line-level volume pedal in the loop after an EQ (which also has a level control). This is on a Mark III+.

 

[rarebitusa]

I run a line-level volume pedal in the loop after an EQ (which also has a level control). This is on a Mark III+.

yea, I find that the best location for a vol pedal as well.

 

[Mike Honcho]

I was considering a volume pedal in the loop too - something like the Jhs little black amp in a box. That would address the lack of a mv on the vii, but wouldn’t provide the power amp distortion on the clean channels.