power brake

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

anyone know of an inexpensive "power brake", similar to Marshalls, that can get me great tone at low volume ?
rick

William Matthews · From: New York, USA

The THD Hotplate did it for me.. but you have to buy the one that is the same ohmage as the amp. TUBE AMP USE ONLY.....

Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm

Weber offers a few different genres of attenuators. I have no experience with them so I can't recommend or comment (other than a general thumbs-up to Weber).
Traditionally people like to slag the straight resistor type as not being appropriately interactive with the signal, amp, and speaker. Again, I can't comment but you might gain some info from the link above. A hip feature of Weber's units is the selectable impedance.
I have a friend who totally digs his THD Hotplate.

Matthew Prouty · From: Warsaw, Poland

Rick,

I was wondering it you tried a Line 6 pod going into a small clean amp. The Line 6 products are incredible.

m.

Dean Parks · From: Sherman Oaks, California, USA

Dr Z Airbrake gets good reviews. I have not tried it.

http://www.drzamps.com/airbrake.html

William Matthews · From: New York, USA

I forgot all about Ted's Mass Attenuators. I used one at a show and LOVED it, relatively cheap too.. I think I need to buy one too.

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

thanks fellas, there's a lot of good suggestions there, & I'll look into all of them
Rick
PS: This is the 1st time in my life I own a Solid State amp. Peavey Session 400 LTD. (1970's ??)
I can almost cry when I think of the Marshall 1983 JCM 800 (100wt) and the 1964 Fender blackface Vibrolux, (30 wt ??) , I sold. Crying or Very sad

Never tried any Line 6 products, but had heard great reviews.

BTW: excuse my ignorance, never dealing with ss before, but do these
attenuators, etc. only work with tube amps ??

GEEEEZ !
Rick

David Doggett · Posted 10 Oct 2008 9:58 am

They "work" with any amp. But there is less real need for an attenuator with a solid-state amp. The purpose for tube amps is to allow you to play at lower volume, but still get the amp into its top output range, where tube bloom, crunch and good distortion occur. Few SS amps are going to sound very good near their top output. The best that can happen is that they are conservatively designed so that they wont get into their crappy sounding clipping range, even turned all the way up, in which case you don't need an attenuator. The worst that can happen is that using an attenuator will put you right there in the crappy solid-state distortion range - why would anyone want that?

Having said all that, there may be some SS amps that just don't sound good at very low volumes. Using an attenuator might allow you to get into the good sounding mid-volume range. On the other hand, the crappy low volume sound may be due to the high power speaker, in which case an attenuator will not help at all with that problem.

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

that's hit the nail on the head Dave. The speaker is for high power. A 15" BW.I think the amp is about 290 rms ss. sounds pretty good around volume level 4 or 5, but it rattles the windows Smile

Maybe i'm better off getting a cheap, low wattage, practice amp, or amplified headphones.
Thanks for the input,
Rick

ajm · From: Los Angeles

With all due respect to Dave's post, be VERY careful when using an attenuator with a SS amp.

Some attenuator makers actually state to NOT use them with SS amps.

I built a resistive attenuator and use it all the time with a tube amp. It never gets what I would call "hot". The first time I used it, to check it out, I used it with an old SS amp that is not all that preciouse to me. It immediately got very hot. Granted, all attenuators and amps are designed differently. However, as a result of my experiences, I for one believe the warnings about using them with SS amps.

Also, the above posters are correct. Attenuators are made to take advantage of tube power stage characteristics. That is someting that you generally want to avoid with SS amps.
_________________
Artie McEwan

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

I definitely agree with the above comments re: solid state & attenuators - that's a bad idea. From the description is sounds like your amp just will not drive that speaker at lower volume, a common problem with high-wattage speakers. They tend to be rather inefficient due to the extra bulk of the voice coil, cone, spider and surround - lower-wattage speakers are built more lightly and are far easier to drive at low volume.

This is the all-too-common "too much amp" syndrome. You have something that works fine on stage in medium to large venues, but sounds thin at home or in a small club at low volume. Rarely will one amp work for all playing circumstances - at some point you either have too much or too little.

A 100W or less SS amp or 10-40W tube amp would be far better for lower-volume situations. With smaller amps, IMO tube is a much better way to go tonally although you'll pay more for higher quality...but if it's just for real low volume practice there are new Champ-like Epiphones (the Valve Junior) that are very inexpensive and sound far better than comparably priced SS stuff; there are quite few players on the forum...me included...who have used Champs for practice, and I'll even use a 1/2 watt ZVex Nano head into a 1x12 cabinet - plays clean as a whistle with a full, rich tone at conversational volume IF you use an efficient speaker (I use a Celestion Greenback).

And while you're feeling bad, I'll pitch in and slap you for selling the Vibrolux!

Winking

(don't feel so bad about the JCM800 - not a real good steel amp IMO)
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional

David Doggett · Posted 11 Oct 2008 3:02 pm

I agree with ajm and Jim S. When I said an attenuator would "work" with any amp, I just meant that it would attenuate any amp. But if one is not designed to be used with a solid-state amp, by all means - don't do it. The main thrust of my post was that there is not much point in using an attenuator with a solid-state amp. If it is wrong electronically, then that's one more reason not to do it.

Bottom line - get a small amp.

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

There was a time when I used tubes only.Those days of course, I played a 6 string rock/blues. the reason I went ss was because so many steelers used them.The peavey is a good amp for the stage, but too much for home use. Being a "tube" man at heart, I'm slowly learning I had it right the 1st time.
Thanks to all,
I value and respect your experiences, and know how.
Rick

Jan Dunn · From: Union, NJ USA

Got one off of e-bay for $18.95 and it actually works great. I can turn a 50 watt master volume up all the way and still play at a whisper... got be a tube amp, though.

Omnisonic Tube Amp Volume Control Box

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

thanks again to all for the education !
not only have a saved a "few" bucks on something that wouldn't work for me, I"ve escaped a heap of trouble in costly repairs.
I guess it's time to invest in a small tube amp.
Rick

ajm · From: Los Angeles

Jan: What you have is not a Power Brake or speaker attenuator or Hot Plate or Power Soak or anything like that. These items are all power attenuators that go between the amp and speakers.

What you have is a volume pot in a box that goes in series with the signal by putting it in the effects loop. It's nothing more than adding another volume pot after the master volume. It will (or should) work with either a tube or a SS amp. Whether you like the sound with a SS amp is another matter. If it works for you and you're happy that's all that matters, but it is not the same thing as what we're talking about.

David Doggett · Posted 15 Oct 2008 9:33 am

AJM, I don't know anything about this device, but doesn't putting it in the effects loop place it before the Master Volume rather than after it?

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

I've come across 1 item for sale that says it works on tube and ss amps. Neutrik & Hammond "Suck Knob volume control box". Listed on eBay. it hook thru in/out FX loop, or pre-amp out, power amp in. Still this leaves me with Dave question about the FX loop.
Is it possible that a simple "vol pot" could be added after the original vol pedal, or maybe placed between the amp and speaker ?
the more complicated it gets, the more I see the need to return to tubes.
Rick

ajm · From: Los Angeles

David/Rick: To answer your question, it depends upon the amp design. Most amps I've seen have all of the volume/tone/preamp stuff before the effects loop. However, it really doesn't matter. This box is still only a pot acting as another volume control, which is all that a master volume is. It is the same thing as putting a volume pedal in the effects loop.

In practical terms, to answer Rick's question, there is only one way to put a volume pot between the amp and speakers. It's called a power attenuator. And a power attenuator is WAY different than a simple volume pot, which is to say that they are NOT interchangeable.

Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

Along with the "other mistakes" I made, while putting together cash for a PSG, and an Peavey ss amp, I've also sold a 1970's something, silverface, Tube, Fender Bassman !!
Little did I know at the time, one of my favorite players, Tom Brumley, got a lot of tone out a similar rig !
Dsepite it's name, I've purchased the "suck knob", since the manufacturer said there was a ss version, and of course the price is right for an exercise in futility. Smile

rick

ajm · From: Los Angeles

Rick: As long as something gives you the tone you want and/or makes you happy, that's all that matters.

As long as no one tries to put one of the tone suck/volume box things between the amp and speaker they shouldn't have any problems.

Also, it actually could be useful in some cases. For instance, if you are driving a chorus/delay/reverb/whatever in the effects loop, and the signal coming out of the amp is too hot, you could use this box to attenuate the signal feeding the effect. However, you'd also probably need a preamp at the end of the chain before it goes back into the amp to boost the signal level back up.

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