Taming my Mark IV

[ctoddrun]

I'll try to compress this story into as few lines as possible...


I have a Mark IV with a 4x12 Recto Cab.

Volume is an issue, as the Mark starts sounding best when its cranked up to the point of being too loud for everyone (myself included).

To tame it, I got a Hot Plate, but cant stand the way it dulls the amp's tone (to be honest, I've never really readjusted my tone settings with the Hot Plate engaged, so that may be the answer I am looking for).

I was thinking that I dont like the tone with the Hot Plate because I am not getting any speaker distortion.

What do you think would happen if I take a 25 or 30 watt speaker and use that with the Mark AND Hot Plate and just mic the amp?

Will the 25 watt speaker break up and give me the speaker distortion I am looking for?

Will I damage the amp or the speaker by trying this?

Anyone ever messed around with this option?


Thanks for any advice you can share!

 

[hal9000]

Actually, this is an interesting idea since you might be able to recover some of the "pushed" speaker tone by using a lower wattage speaker.

First, some math; let's say that the Mark IV’s 85 W rating clean will be 2x power during the highest output, which gives us 170W. Then, if you set your Hot Plate to:

170 W - 4 dB = 68 W
170 W - 8 dB = 27 W
170 W - 12 dB = 11 W

So, depending on where you set the Hot Plate, you could choose a speaker to match. More than likely, the -8 dB setting would be perfect for a Greenback or G12H-30, and -4 dB would match to a single V30.

BTW, the equation I'm using to get the numbers above is:
10*LOG(170W) - 4 dB = 18.3 dBW, 10^(18.3 dBW/10) = 67.7 W, where LOG is base 10 and dBW = deciBels related to 1 W.

 

[Platypus]

I think you need to play around with the hot plate a bit more and your settings with it..

I had to engage the 'bright' switch on mine because I play it very quiet and you lose some of thie high end crunch without the bright switch.

 

[Marshall_Fascist]

engage the hot plate
switch to pentode
switch to simul class
and turn off tweed power and go to full power. This will keep the amp open as much as possible when using the hot plate! You may also need to turn on the bright/ or deep switches on the plate and maybe mess around with the harmonix as well.

 

[jbird]

If this is for home recording purposes, try one of those isolation boxes. There's one out there that utilizes a V30 inside a box, put a mic inside, close box, XLR connection on outside of enclosure, crank amp, press record! 8)

 

[SFW]

You do realise that you can knock the power of the Mark IV down to 15 watts right?

Set it to Class A an dTweed Mode. Problem solved. No Hot Plate needed.