Slaving a Plexi Project

[dirtycooter]

A likely scenario for Ed back then

Line out from speaker cable containing pre AND power amp characteristics together-into another marshall fx return will add a 2nd presence control, 2nd volume control, added phase inverter and power tube coloration, harmonics and distortion to the already maxed out fully loaded 1st amp.

here you are working with technically 2 power amps and getting a great base tone coming out of your main cab. The HH power amp has nothing to do with this generation of tone here-that is for something completely different altogether and happened much later. Probably it was a spin off from the idea below that happened in the late 70's.

I can see them creating a crude load box in those days that would load the amp completely and spit off a line level signal [what level I would guess was -10 or -20 dB, then tapping into another amps power section or using another amp from that era that had a power amp in or fx loop return [remember fx loops weren't very common back then] NOT FAR OFF FROM BEING POSSIBLE THOUGH
It possibly could have even been a tube powered PA amp like Orange used to make for the 2nd amp.
It was all very possible for any good electronics guy or amp tech to figure out how to load an amp with some type of resistor which would support those "dynamite stick" reports and so on. And there almost always seems to be more than a few heads running in those old photos-most likely the slaves.
Why would they think of this? Hell-I really was scared to even think of unleashing my Peacemaker full bore on a poor set of Greenies that we all know will get shredded from the shear volume after some time! We all agree this speaker is it and sounds like nothing else!
It most likely was an answer for them at the time to getting more distortion by running the amp flat out while figuring a way to control the volume in a sane way.
This whole slaving thing came about from a volume issue they were trying to solve probably-who wouldn't be thinking about volume issues back then with amps like that????, especially having to max them out to get the dirt out of them! A resistor was introduced and a second power amp brought in to solve the whole problem-probably when Eddie tried it for the first time he knew that it sounded bad ass, solved the crazy loud issue, and the whole feel and response just let him shred his ass off. History was made.
I can see this happening- he wanted to run the amp hard for its natural distortion but when it got to that level it was way to loud! It was an idea born out of a need to control volume that turned into stumbling on the tone of the gods for him most likely.
Here these gentelmen have cracked the fact that slaving is it!
Too many people get torn away by the HH, palmer thing-forget that-I really got that figured out and why and how that works-it has nothing to do with what happened in the beginning or the "basic core amp tone" all the way up to OU812. While it is another form of slaving it is a completely different approach for a whole different application-that was for time based stereo fx only. All you need for that is a line out box, palmer and a crown ce 2000 [HH if you can find one-and no it need not be mosfet either] and what ever fx you want to throw in there. Really though you don't even need the line out box-the palmer already has one but my line out box has a phase switch that lets me run the wet cabs in or out of phase-the palmer does not have that.

[dirtycooter]

I know I have wrote a couple of books here already but here is what I was looking for in a slave amp when I was experimenting
I wanted a no maintenance SS power amp to simply get a mirror image in a pair of separate cabs for stereo delays and fx. Who wants to maintain more tubes?

The idea was with a SS power amp it was simply supposed to put out exactly what you put into it. I figured at first that a simple line out box was all I needed, a stereo delay, and the stereo power amp. There was alot more to it then that though.
I wish I could demonstrate the whole thing for you rather than try to explain it-believe me.
While trying to get the mackie power amp going I discovered it sounded better with the killdry on and the highs rolled way off to about 4.56 khz-this filtered out the really unpleasant high end somewhat. This lead me to using the g-forces speaker filter feature also-still not quite right though-not knowing at the time I was hearing what was told to me later was crossover distortion-very unpleasant!

Next I aquired a power amp geared toward guitar amplification-a rocktron velocity 250. This didn't have the power to make the wet cabs loud enough and it had a really crappy 2 band eq that just didn't sound right either and it was always in the way it seemed. Just not a flat response amp and not enough power to keep up witht the dry cab in any way.
Looked for an HH forever-no dice! even called the company in england thinking there had to be something with that particualr amp.
Gave up on that and really thought about the speaker filtering thing and the palmer.

I called Kevin OConnor-where I asked many questions about this grainy high end thing-this is where I learned SS amps were very particular about the loads presented to them, you need roughly 4 x the wattage for it to drive the same cab to the same volume as a tube head would do. Also I learned about output stage crossover distortion in some SS amps.

I did not want to go tube for maintenance reasons and also I felt I just wanted a perfectly clean repro of the sound my main amp head was putting out and felt tubes would only distort it further and not be as accurate and many had a resonance and or presence control which I felt would not be easy to figure out where to set when the main amp was already dialed in with its presence-I was sure double presencing would just not sound right or accurate tot the main dry cab- but it works for getting the main Brown sound though as we just discovered on this forum!

So my search went on to more SS PA amps-next up was a plenty powerful brand new P1500 yamaha PA amp that said mosfet on the front-just as bad as the mackie was-uuugh!!! Crossover distortion hell!!!
When I got the crown ce -reputed to handle any load-even 16ohms-I was hearing no crossover distortion but the high end was still not being reproduced correctly-I began thinking about how the G forces speaker filters worked and finally decided I was going to track down a palmer.
There were no pdi03's to be found until I stumbled on TechStars website from nashville tn-they had a new version from palmer called the PGA05-I took the gamble and ordered it-best purchase I ever made!!! Only this version lets you continuosly dial in the bass and treble to exact taste-The pdi o3 is preset combonations only!
There was my goal-I just had to shape that really hi-fi signal before processing and going to the amp-wonderful DIRECT BOX it really is!!! I was finally there! The palmer mystery and SS PA amp thing was over!
Also later on I went to a local music store and seen a few things I thought I would link up and experiment with-I'd rather experiment with someone elses gear than my own in case magic smoke started to appear!!

I found a Boogie head with a line out, a dd3 boss pedal, 2 identical vintage 30 cabs, and a cheap Randall RH100 that had a fx return and no presence control-only a master volume for the power section. With the dd3 between the 2-you literally couldn't distinguish the dry cab from the wet-i got some suprised looks when I turned it from slap back to longer repeats and the two cabs were barking back and forth at each other as if twins-the DD3 is old tech but very accurate to the input signal it is fed unlike a line 6 tape delay modeler-BUT it was SS and I didn't need the palmer at all with this amp and it was working fine. I bought it for a song-clearance sale- and I tinker with it now and then along with using my crown palmer set up. Down side is the Randall cannot drive a 16ohm cab as loud as my crown and it isn't stereo either-I'd have to get another RH100 for the other side and rewire my cabs internally for 4 ohms instead of 16 to get more volume.

What gets me is what is different about this amp head that is solid state where it reacts with the wet cab speakers to roll off the highs and lows and sounds completely natural? Why doesn't a PA amp react the same way??? While the randall loses its clean power the louder you go the crown outdoes it for absolute clean reproduction power but the crown also requires the Palmer to be used.
The other thing is this-I have the original 5150 cabs with the sheffields and with the palmer they are dead nuts almost-very slightly different- to my center dry cab
loaded with reissue greens. Probably only as different as a reissue green is to a heritage green difference.

[fivecoyote]

Calling Rockstah -- happened to hear the intro to Women in Love today. Sounded huge. Rockstah -- or anyone else how does that sound (clean, no or little distortion) thru the re-amp setup? Just curious if anyone has tried it.

[rockstah]

u r talking about the clean intro? that sounds like hes going straight in the board or using something else...

[laneychris]

doubt it was straight to board I bet it was strat into low input treble or bass volume pot throttled back I LOVE THAT STRAT TONE on of my favorites along with Ty Tabors early stuff.....

[IloveMyMarshall]

I know I have wrote a couple of books here already but here is what I was looking for in a slave amp when I was experimenting
I wanted a no maintenance SS power amp to simply get a mirror image in a pair of separate cabs for stereo delays and fx. Who wants to maintain more tubes?

The idea was with a SS power amp it was simply supposed to put out exactly what you put into it. I figured at first that a simple line out box was all I needed, a stereo delay, and the stereo power amp. There was alot more to it then that though.
I wish I could demonstrate the whole thing for you rather than try to explain it-believe me.
While trying to get the mackie power amp going I discovered it sounded better with the killdry on and the highs rolled way off to about 4.56 khz-this filtered out the really unpleasant high end somewhat. This lead me to using the g-forces speaker filter feature also-still not quite right though-not knowing at the time I was hearing what was told to me later was crossover distortion-very unpleasant!

Next I aquired a power amp geared toward guitar amplification-a rocktron velocity 250. This didn't have the power to make the wet cabs loud enough and it had a really crappy 2 band eq that just didn't sound right either and it was always in the way it seemed. Just not a flat response amp and not enough power to keep up witht the dry cab in any way.
Looked for an HH forever-no dice! even called the company in england thinking there had to be something with that particualr amp.
Gave up on that and really thought about the speaker filtering thing and the palmer.

I called Kevin OConnor-where I asked many questions about this grainy high end thing-this is where I learned SS amps were very particular about the loads presented to them, you need roughly 4 x the wattage for it to drive the same cab to the same volume as a tube head would do. Also I learned about output stage crossover distortion in some SS amps.

I did not want to go tube for maintenance reasons and also I felt I just wanted a perfectly clean repro of the sound my main amp head was putting out and felt tubes would only distort it further and not be as accurate and many had a resonance and or presence control which I felt would not be easy to figure out where to set when the main amp was already dialed in with its presence-I was sure double presencing would just not sound right or accurate tot the main dry cab- but it works for getting the main Brown sound though as we just discovered on this forum!

So my search went on to more SS PA amps-next up was a plenty powerful brand new P1500 yamaha PA amp that said mosfet on the front-just as bad as the mackie was-uuugh!!! Crossover distortion hell!!!
When I got the crown ce -reputed to handle any load-even 16ohms-I was hearing no crossover distortion but the high end was still not being reproduced correctly-I began thinking about how the G forces speaker filters worked and finally decided I was going to track down a palmer.
There were no pdi03's to be found until I stumbled on TechStars website from nashville tn-they had a new version from palmer called the PGA05-I took the gamble and ordered it-best purchase I ever made!!! Only this version lets you continuosly dial in the bass and treble to exact taste-The pdi o3 is preset combonations only!
There was my goal-I just had to shape that really hi-fi signal before processing and going to the amp-wonderful DIRECT BOX it really is!!! I was finally there! The palmer mystery and SS PA amp thing was over!
Also later on I went to a local music store and seen a few things I thought I would link up and experiment with-I'd rather experiment with someone elses gear than my own in case magic smoke started to appear!!

I found a Boogie head with a line out, a dd3 boss pedal, 2 identical vintage 30 cabs, and a cheap Randall RH100 that had a fx return and no presence control-only a master volume for the power section. With the dd3 between the 2-you literally couldn't distinguish the dry cab from the wet-i got some suprised looks when I turned it from slap back to longer repeats and the two cabs were barking back and forth at each other as if twins-the DD3 is old tech but very accurate to the input signal it is fed unlike a line 6 tape delay modeler-BUT it was SS and I didn't need the palmer at all with this amp and it was working fine. I bought it for a song-clearance sale- and I tinker with it now and then along with using my crown palmer set up. Down side is the Randall cannot drive a 16ohm cab as loud as my crown and it isn't stereo either-I'd have to get another RH100 for the other side and rewire my cabs internally for 4 ohms instead of 16 to get more volume.

What gets me is what is different about this amp head that is solid state where it reacts with the wet cab speakers to roll off the highs and lows and sounds completely natural? Why doesn't a PA amp react the same way??? While the randall loses its clean power the louder you go the crown outdoes it for absolute clean reproduction power but the crown also requires the Palmer to be used.
The other thing is this-I have the original 5150 cabs with the sheffields and with the palmer they are dead nuts almost-very slightly different- to my center dry cab
loaded with reissue greens. Probably only as different as a reissue green is to a heritage green difference.

This is the issue I'm having my friend!! And thank you for the detailed information!! I had a palmer pdi-03 and I am still kicking myself for selling<< as they keep going up and up. The only way I can get around the brightness and ice pick high's per say was using a podxt cab sim and still I'm not happy as it does not repro the indentical sound of the dry cab. Im using a Hafler mosfet ta 1100 decent but not that holyshit that sounds flippin killer yet!

Thanks for posting this!
ILMM

[dirtycooter]

You're more than welcome.

Searching for the mirror tone-
There will always be a difference in sound slaving-I am just sharing which ones sound the absolute closest you can possibly get or at least that I have found. Been workin on this stuff 10yrs+ and gone through some $$ in gear.
One is cheap-one is more expensive.

Absolute mirror tone?
I found that in the Randall-however when you crank up a non master head as your main amp that randall will lose it the louder you go as you reach the clean power limits of the randall-which actually is quite loud but still just ain't gonna keep up with an uncorked plexi blowin on the other side. Unless you've got the tube heads volume "under control" the Randall may not fly high enough here and will start to add some audible hiss at high levels. But it sounds very damn natural coming out of the wet cab.

Also note- your delays throw "flavor" on there too. The actual delay and FX sound will be different from the dry tone everytime almost. Even my G-force colors tone.
Closest "mirror" delay for me was the Boss DD3 beleive it or not and I mean mirror in every sense. Better than the g-force even-the DD3 just sounds natural only there are repeats in there. I know its digital but hey-I was impressed since I did not expect this at all.
Makes me wonder if the Boss DD3 pedal does not contain some of the Roland sde3000's goodies inside somehow and thats why Eddie likes the sde3000 so much-he's dragged them around for a long time now and hasn't changed away from them it seems. For those that don't know, Roland and Boss are actually the same company for the most part. This is a possibilty I suppose and I speculate.

Of course your Line 6 echoplex models WILL have a totally different flavor than that-they are supposed to be that way. But it is simply a different flavor of delay tone is all and is equally useful and treasured for that reason.
Every processor or effect will put its own spin on the tone somehow generally.

I would say for "mirrored tone" with slave amps that the "crown/palmer" thing comes in a very close second place!
BUT it stays the absolute same even at crazy volumes and is so close most 99.5% of us really would not care or mind once you heard it. Hell if you have a dry tone cab already in there does the cab always sound exactly the same as it does on the mic? Sometimes not so much as you might expect-there are sweet spots here and there when miking. Same thing when it comes to tweaking the Palmer -it can be tedious on the high end trim.
What is nice also about the Crown is the inputs will accept anything! XLR,TRS,TS-balanced and unbalanced and even -10 and +4 levels. Its compact. AND IT CAN BE STEREO OR MONO-what more could you want besides having mosfets???? And it will easily keep up with my tube head with room to spare in the volume dept.

As far as the Brown sound goes-thats why we are here.

IF IT WAS SIMPLE OR EASY WOMEN AND CHILDREN WOULD BE DOING IT BY NOW!

[dirtycooter]

I'm sorry and should apologize-
this thread is really about what happens when you do what Rockstah is doing and making a head into a giant distortion box and pumping it through another "tube" power section and the tones he and others are finding there. Which I am really impressed with!!!!! And I am beginning to think thats what Ed really did.

I just think people get confused when they see the H+H /Palmer/ and etc and get sidetracked somewhat by where those things fit in with this tone mystery making it harder to figure out really what happened around '78.
We all know this stuff came much later and the Palmer is especially not a key to the first few album tones at all. But I think I figured out why and how he uses it and maybe have shed some light here on these peices of the puzzle I said I "think"

[briango]

I have been reading alot of these threads for some time and am constantly amazed at all of the knowledge here. I have been very intrigued by this post and have been following it closely. I own a Plexi with PPIMV and early JCM800 head among others. I want to try slaving my amp to see what happens. I have a 120 watt head with a clean channel that also has an effects loop to slave to. I was thinking about using an attenuator and wanted to know what might be the best one/route. I love what you guys are doing, but I think some people don't have the means, so an attenuator might be an affordable solution. What ones have you guys had luck with and which are the best for just attenuating. I have read lots of posts on here and there the consensus seems to point towards a Weber or Ultimate/Ho unit. I was looking at the Mass III which has some EQ in line and also has a line out. Any info would be great. I hope Rockstah continues tweaking...it sounds impressive.

Thanks,

Brian

[rockstah]

I have been reading alot of these threads for some time and am constantly amazed at all of the knowledge here. I have been very intrigued by this post and have been following it closely. I own a Plexi with PPIMV and early JCM800 head among others. I want to try slaving my amp to see what happens. I have a 120 watt head with a clean channel that also has an effects loop to slave to. I was thinking about using an attenuator and wanted to know what might be the best one/route. I love what you guys are doing, but I think some people don't have the means, so an attenuator might be an affordable solution. What ones have you guys had luck with and which are the best for just attenuating. I have read lots of posts on here and there the consensus seems to point towards a Weber or Ultimate/Ho unit. I was looking at the Mass III which has some EQ in line and also has a line out. Any info would be great. I hope Rockstah continues tweaking...it sounds impressive.

Thanks,

Brian

Welcome to the forum Brian!

I have a Marshall power brake and like it a lot. sounds great with a plexi spec dimed into a power brake and with your ppimv in place you can get the volume to bedroom level. ( a power brake on the lowest setting is still pretty loud )


Like I did you could also use the power brake as a load and take a line out into your 120w heads effects return. Similar here in that I wired my second amp to be power amp in = effects return – same thing.

I find that you not only get a little more gain with a dimed head slaved out but u also gain all that headroom when you run into a clean power amp.
I'm not getting any gain from the second head. What I am gaining is a more controlled more head room sound.
That hifi I hear in eds tone. Its like the sound has more room to play in…. with a single amp I relate the sound to hearing a drum being struck. U can hear the head but not so much of the drum itself. Slaved into a clean power amp now I hear not only the head but the drum itself if that makes sense. That boing…It just has more room… more dimension… more tone.

So for sure put a load on your plexi and jcm800, take a line out into the 120w amp’s effects return and see how it sounds.

Mark

[dirtycooter]

I would have to agree with you on that Rockstah-it just adds something "more" like you said. What it is exactly is very hard to put your finger on but its definitly there.

I don't have a load box at all or I'd be trying that with my Mojave and my EVH just to see how it sounds and what it does. Just to see what it "adds" so I could hear it in person.

I wonder if its similar to the way those tube mic pre's massage the signal further and sweeten them up only this is also adding headroom and a certain character?

And instead of just a preamp tube here you got the power tubes doing it as well. The signal must pick up some gain at the phase inverter and get sweetened up and then blossom like a flower when it hits the powersection tubes.

I've always felt that this is what his sound had that not many others could get-a sweetness with more gain on tap when you leaned into it hard but also a wonderful blossoming effect after the initial attack of the pick.

I'd die laughing if they started making mic pre's now with 6550's, 6l6's, and el34's after what you guys stumbled on here You could put the brown sound on vocals now too!

[Gainfreak]

Guys, just a heads up and maybe I can shed a little light on this subject, but I have been slaving marshall amplifiers since the 80's. Ive used rocktron juice extractors and the sholz power soak years ago and I used to send that signal to poweramps and even to effects loops of other marshalls when Marshall came out with them on the 2210 and I can tell you with 100% conviction it sounded nothing like Ed's brown sound.
The reason why Rockstah and others are getting the results they are getting is because they've learned how to tweak the main amp to sound good.

Let me explain. The stock plexis and even Superleads that Ive played in the 80's mostly sounded like hammered crap in my humble opinion. There wasn't any low filtering going on and 9 out of 10 of them would get funky sounding when cranked. (I believe someone mentioned parasitic distortion? Although I dont know if Im spelling it right!)

I do believe that Ed used more then one amp but if anyone here doesn't know how to tweak amps and just goes out and gets 2 marshalls and slaves them , Im pretty sure that the end result wont sound as good as what Mark has.
Im just saying this because there will be guys reading this who are non technical (like me!) trying this and Id be willing to bet they will be scratching there heads when the end results sounds like crap.


Not trying to sound negative but It needed to be mentioned that if the main amp sounds like shit cranked. Slaving isn't going to change that.
All the best.

~R~

[IloveMyMarshall]

Guys, just a heads up and maybe I can shed a little light on this subject, but I have been slaving marshall amplifiers since the 80's. Ive used rocktron juice extractors and the sholz power soak years ago and I used to send that signal to poweramps and even to effects loops of other marshalls when Marshall came out with them on the 2210 and I can tell you with 100% conviction it sounded nothing like Ed's brown sound.
The reason why Rockstah and others are getting the results they are getting is because they've learned how to tweak the main amp to sound good.

Let me explain. The stock plexis and even Superleads that Ive played in the 80's mostly sounded like hammered crap in my humble opinion. There wasn't any low filtering going on and 9 out of 10 of them would get funky sounding when cranked. (I believe someone mentioned parasitic distortion? Although I dont know if Im spelling it right!)

I do believe that Ed used more then one amp but if anyone here doesn't know how to tweak amps and just goes out and gets 2 marshalls and slaves them , Im pretty sure that the end result wont sound as good as what Mark has.
Im just saying this because there will be guys reading this who are non technical (like me!) trying this and Id be willing to bet they will be scratching there heads when the end results sounds like crap.


Not trying to sound negative but It needed to be mentioned that if the main amp sounds like shit cranked. Slaving isn't going to change that.
All the best.

~R~

This is why I need to post clips my friend!! My 2204 sounds like moe fking bad @ss in your face!!! However, I have uno ampo as Im poor as flock!! And I sold my kick ass JTM 45 near to nothing for scratch to pay bills LOL welcome to the bush economy lol If this was referred to me friend you are wrong and my clips will be here once I can scrum some cash for a fking pre mic or recording gear!!!
No head scratching going on here only lack of CASH! And its more then marks amp the freekin guy plays JUST LIKE ED HELLO Its in the HANDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS its not all AMP!
And nope not mad at you friend I mad i ain't got any Fking MONEY!!!

peace
ILMM and I DO! all day longgggggggggggg

[IloveMyMarshall]

You're more than welcome.

Searching for the mirror tone-
There will always be a difference in sound slaving-I am just sharing which ones sound the absolute closest you can possibly get or at least that I have found. Been workin on this stuff 10yrs+ and gone through some $$ in gear.
One is cheap-one is more expensive.

Absolute mirror tone?
I found that in the Randall-however when you crank up a non master head as your main amp that randall will lose it the louder you go as you reach the clean power limits of the randall-which actually is quite loud but still just ain't gonna keep up with an uncorked plexi blowin on the other side. Unless you've got the tube heads volume "under control" the Randall may not fly high enough here and will start to add some audible hiss at high levels. But it sounds very damn natural coming out of the wet cab.

Also note- your delays throw "flavor" on there too. The actual delay and FX sound will be different from the dry tone everytime almost. Even my G-force colors tone.
Closest "mirror" delay for me was the Boss DD3 beleive it or not and I mean mirror in every sense. Better than the g-force even-the DD3 just sounds natural only there are repeats in there. I know its digital but hey-I was impressed since I did not expect this at all.
Makes me wonder if the Boss DD3 pedal does not contain some of the Roland sde3000's goodies inside somehow and thats why Eddie likes the sde3000 so much-he's dragged them around for a long time now and hasn't changed away from them it seems. For those that don't know, Roland and Boss are actually the same company for the most part. This is a possibilty I suppose and I speculate.

Of course your Line 6 echoplex models WILL have a totally different flavor than that-they are supposed to be that way. But it is simply a different flavor of delay tone is all and is equally useful and treasured for that reason.
Every processor or effect will put its own spin on the tone somehow generally.

I would say for "mirrored tone" with slave amps that the "crown/palmer" thing comes in a very close second place!
BUT it stays the absolute same even at crazy volumes and is so close most 99.5% of us really would not care or mind once you heard it. Hell if you have a dry tone cab already in there does the cab always sound exactly the same as it does on the mic? Sometimes not so much as you might expect-there are sweet spots here and there when miking. Same thing when it comes to tweaking the Palmer -it can be tedious on the high end trim.
What is nice also about the Crown is the inputs will accept anything! XLR,TRS,TS-balanced and unbalanced and even -10 and +4 levels. Its compact. AND IT CAN BE STEREO OR MONO-what more could you want besides having mosfets???? And it will easily keep up with my tube head with room to spare in the volume dept.

As far as the Brown sound goes-thats why we are here.

IF IT WAS SIMPLE OR EASY WOMEN AND CHILDREN WOULD BE DOING IT BY NOW!

Hey coot, what about that PDI-09 I tried a while back but damn if I didn't have another cab LOL its either one or the other!! I wonder if that has the same filtering as the pdi-03??? And someone mentioned those old Marshall 100 SS mosfets??? I'm basically trying to get it with the little cash I have.

[dirtycooter]

Sent a PM to ya

Yeah, the 09 is reported to be great and cheap-but I couldn't personally tell you since I never tried or had one. Keith Richards I read somewhere loves the 09.