pokerrules47
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- May 23, 2007
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My quest for tone has taken me all over the map. I've had a bunch of mesas, marshall, peavey, carlsboro, carvin, roland, randall and a ton of preamps too. I have found things wrong with just about everything I've ever owned.
That being said, let me tell you a little about my guitar style. I play what I call "straight jacked" most of the time. I use my amp and my guitar. I prefer amps with reverb because I don't like outboard units. The only thing I use other than that is sometimes delay, or chorus. I really prefer the sound of my guitar and amp together alone. I love amps with master volumes, so I can crank the output section and get the masters to control the volume. I prefer the sound of 50w as opposed to 100, but I also like the sound of 100w amps.
I had always wanted a road king. It seemed like the perfect amp for me, however, 2 things prevented me from ever seriously thinking about getting one. 1) the price, 2) the complexity.
When the roadster came out, I thought I had found my solution. So for the past year or so I've been working out a way to get one. I live in Canada, and last year, when our dollar was stronger, I could have picked one up for 2k Canadian, however now, they are approaching 2600 before taxes, yikes.... My chance finally came as I found a used one on ebay, and I pulled the trigger. I got it today. It has the versatility of a road king (minus the progressive linkage) without the complexity. I am quite happy with it.
Of course, I research the **** out of any major purchase before I make it, so I basically knew exactly how I was going to set it up.
I setup channel 1 in tweed mode, 50w, tube rectifier, with lots of gain and mids. This gave me a thick SRV type tone.
I setup channel 2 with my clean sound from my old rectoverb. I always loved the musical feeling the clean of the rectoverb gave me, and this one nails it perfectly.
Channel 3, I setup like a hot-rodded marshall on vintage. It gives me that GNR type sound. Thick ballsy sound with a fair amount of mids.
Channel 4, I setup with the modern mode. On my rectoverb, I didn't find the modern mode very useful, however it's different on channel 4 of the roadster. Very useful, gobs and gobs of gain.
So I get my preamp section basically dialed in, and set about trying out the power section. I experimented with various power settings on the channels and finally decide on 50w across all channels except my clean. I setup tube rectification on channels 1 and 3 then crank my output section to see how she roars. I am pleasantly surprised as it exceeds my expectations.
I noodle around a bit, then shut it down because I have to run some errands. I return, and go to play some more, and decide to turn it to spongy instead of bold. OMFG, a whole new amp. My settings all work, but it's got a more organic feel to it. I can't explain it... it's just sonic nirvana.
I have to do a lot of fine tweaking, but from my ears so far, my low volume settings seem to be working well at louder stage type volumes too. No unwieldy feedback (I have come to expect this from mesas). And a nice chunky feel and response.
I'll post more as I move through my tweaking
That being said, let me tell you a little about my guitar style. I play what I call "straight jacked" most of the time. I use my amp and my guitar. I prefer amps with reverb because I don't like outboard units. The only thing I use other than that is sometimes delay, or chorus. I really prefer the sound of my guitar and amp together alone. I love amps with master volumes, so I can crank the output section and get the masters to control the volume. I prefer the sound of 50w as opposed to 100, but I also like the sound of 100w amps.
I had always wanted a road king. It seemed like the perfect amp for me, however, 2 things prevented me from ever seriously thinking about getting one. 1) the price, 2) the complexity.
When the roadster came out, I thought I had found my solution. So for the past year or so I've been working out a way to get one. I live in Canada, and last year, when our dollar was stronger, I could have picked one up for 2k Canadian, however now, they are approaching 2600 before taxes, yikes.... My chance finally came as I found a used one on ebay, and I pulled the trigger. I got it today. It has the versatility of a road king (minus the progressive linkage) without the complexity. I am quite happy with it.
Of course, I research the **** out of any major purchase before I make it, so I basically knew exactly how I was going to set it up.
I setup channel 1 in tweed mode, 50w, tube rectifier, with lots of gain and mids. This gave me a thick SRV type tone.
I setup channel 2 with my clean sound from my old rectoverb. I always loved the musical feeling the clean of the rectoverb gave me, and this one nails it perfectly.
Channel 3, I setup like a hot-rodded marshall on vintage. It gives me that GNR type sound. Thick ballsy sound with a fair amount of mids.
Channel 4, I setup with the modern mode. On my rectoverb, I didn't find the modern mode very useful, however it's different on channel 4 of the roadster. Very useful, gobs and gobs of gain.
So I get my preamp section basically dialed in, and set about trying out the power section. I experimented with various power settings on the channels and finally decide on 50w across all channels except my clean. I setup tube rectification on channels 1 and 3 then crank my output section to see how she roars. I am pleasantly surprised as it exceeds my expectations.
I noodle around a bit, then shut it down because I have to run some errands. I return, and go to play some more, and decide to turn it to spongy instead of bold. OMFG, a whole new amp. My settings all work, but it's got a more organic feel to it. I can't explain it... it's just sonic nirvana.
I have to do a lot of fine tweaking, but from my ears so far, my low volume settings seem to be working well at louder stage type volumes too. No unwieldy feedback (I have come to expect this from mesas). And a nice chunky feel and response.
I'll post more as I move through my tweaking
