Marshall 1969 plexi Overdrive question

[beaulieu]

I hope this isn't in the wrong section. Anyway here goes. A while back I was told by alot of people here and over a P.P that EMG active Pickups suck! Anyway when I crank up my 1969 100 watt Marshall or My 1978 2204 the distortion really sucks unless I use one on my EMG pickups. An 81 or 85. I went out and bought an Evolution pickup. Then I went out and bought a Seymour duncan Distortion and a model 78. Even when using one of these 3 pickups my amps still sound like theres not nearly enough distortion.lm not talkin about high gain distortion but I hear other peoples clips with 78's and they sound great.I know its not the Cabinets I use and Im pretty sure I have the Marshall amps tuned in pretty good but I just hear others getting more distortion thn me using say a 78,pickup, a Marshall cab and a fully cranked Marshall with or without an attenuator.Does this make sense to anyone and do you guys have any suggestions?? I use a Marshall power brake,Winged c power and JJ pre amp tubes in the 69 and EH power and some kind of USA preamp tubes in the 2204. Thanks

[Rhammer19]

First, I would double check to make sure all the pre amp tubes are 12ax7. I know I have forgotten and left a 12at7,12au7,5751 in either v1,v2 or v3.

[Billy Batz]

A lot of people are getting these high gain sounds even with lower output pickups which sound amazing with marshall because they are clear and have lots of detail. High gain pickups are mud with marshalls for the most part. Vintage ones anyway. Does your amp have a lot of NFB or little? Less would be preferable. Then how do you run the presence? 10 would give you quite a boost in distortion albeit in the high end but thats the nature of the amp. People literally run the amp with all knobs on 10. A 69 or later 1959 will still stay tight with the bass on 10 and all the tone knobs and presence on 10 will give you the most possible gain but it will be on the brighter side. Same with a 2204. The only thing you change with a 2204 is the master volume is added but you should get even more drive with that.

Another thing is that distortion is VERY clean sounding when your playing through it. Trust me. You may be getting a lot more disotrtion then you think but its the nature of these amps to feel very clean and it helps to really hit the strings hard.

Some guys use clean boosts- kinda like what an EMG has built in- and others use EQs to push the front end. Some guys like ODs but theyre a minority and a niche because ODs change the tone of the amp to a greater degree which most people dont like and some do. The clean boost may work for you. I dont think an EMG is what you want with a marshall but you never know. I would try pushing the front end with a boost of some kind. An EQ can work as a clean boost but you can shape the frequencies as well. If thats what you end up doing you may want a more 'vinateg' type pickup with less output and more clarity since your getting a push anyway.

[Matt]

Did you build the amp yourself? if not are you the original owner of those amps? It could be possible that the input jacks are reversed, high with low, you might want to check and see if plugging into the low one gives you more gain....just a thought.

[beaulieu]

No I didnt build it . Its a real 69 Marshall!!My amp is actually a 1992 Super bass But It might as well be a 1959 for it is like one now. NFB is 47k. 330 on v2 .022 PI Like I was saying it has a good amount of distortion with the eng.s and does not sound muddy at all I run my presence on 6 or 7 . If I turn it up all the way my amp will squeel. Bass on 2 mids 10 treble 6 or 7 Ch 1 10 ch 2 0 And I use a power brake. Maybe I should try a GE10 or MXR blue eq? Also I wonder why my presence squeels?? Its a 5k with a .1uf. Also Im sure I have 12AX& tubes throughout. If theres anything(specs) you want to know just ask for I know all of my specs.. Mark thanks

[Billy Batz]

Try moving that wire going to the presence away from anything else or everything else away form it. Theres a few things Im thinking but I dont think you should mopd taht amp. Try a clean boost or EQ first. Check one out and use the return policy if necessary.

Your controls are set very much like I would expect if the thing was actually a bass. Split V1 is only about treble/bass responce. The 33k/500p tone stack does add a decent mid boost. One thing you could do thats not really a mod per se. See where the 47k NFB resistor goes. Try it on the 8 or 4 ohm. Its a legit boost if its on the 16 oir the output jacks now.

[beaulieu]

right now its 56 250. Also it split cathode and i changed the 2.7 resistor to 820. I always use 2 16 ohm cabinets and like I said 47kNFB and the wire is on the sp jack. I di have a 33k NFB but changed it back.So I should try the NFB wire on 4 and 8?? Didnt I kinda do that when I used the 33k?? If you need to see some pics I can post some?

[rockstah]

if u have your feedback wire on the speaker jack, and u are using two 16 ohm cabs i assume you have the selector switch set on 8 ohm - this gives u 8 ohm feedback.

so in your situation if u want less feedback you would want to put the feedback wire on the 4 ohm tap since putting it on the 8 ohm tap would give you the same thing u already have going.

[Billy Batz]

Didnt I kinda do that when I used the 33k?? If you need to see some pics I can post some?

Going to 33k would increase NFB so you woul have less distortion. If you wanted the most drive by canceling NFB youd have 100k on the 4ohm tap- with stock values anyway, you could have anything you wanted as the NFB resistor but at that point theres so little NFB you wont get much more anyway and the presence control will barely work.

Try the boost or EQ. You could try going to the 4 ohm tap. It will give you a small boost. Im not saying mod the amp but going to the later stack values would give you a boost too. A .68u presence cap gives you more drive in the mids and a decent bite when cranked but its effect will probably be best with the amp as you have it now.

[Tone Slinger]

EMG's ? Man I honestly cant stand them. Every guitar I've heard them put into,alwy's sounded better before. To me,it isnt a question of the gain, its the TONE. The EMG's neuter and steralize the tone,as compared to passive PU's. Then again, many use them exclusively, though like Billy said, maybe not with a good old marshall.

[budubum]

EMG's ? Man I honestly cant stand them. Every guitar I've heard them put into,alwy's sounded better before. To me,it isnt a question of the gain, its the TONE. The EMG's neuter and steralize the tone,as compared to passive PU's. Then again, many use them exclusively, though like Billy said, maybe not with a good old marshall.

my friend. why are you the first person here to say that? its all about tone over gain. gain you can get anywhere, but tone, its difficult.

im with you here 110%

[Grosh_Guitars]

Seems strange you wouldn't get much overdrive by cranking that 69 Marshall. is your V2A cathode resistor a 0.022 or a 0.0022?

[Bunnest]

I've been there B. I decided to just raise the NFB to SP at 16ohms with one cab per head, and use a full on gain box. Plus, click off the gain box and its insta clean. I am kinda going the opposite of your quest, low output PUs, high NFB and full on distortion box. Works for me, tone to die for. My amps are set ups as SB also BTW. I was driven nuts mixing volumes with the bridging of the SL, so I got rid of my SL. Use a distortion pedal, crank the NFB and lower the pickups!!! If you like EMGs, use them, but you have to keep them kinda near the strings, right? I prefer my pickups lowered, gives breath to the tone IMHO