Great educational video! I appreciate your knowledge on this subject. I will pass this on to multiple people I know that use their DRs in their house or apartment.
Looking into this, and the 12AXT is blackboard scratchy, unlike the warm 12AY7, which can express the tone/notes without bleeding the ears, informative video, Thanks :)
Blackface R.I. Deluxe Reverb ? Mine sounds best : no pedals , short cord , volume 3.5 .That's how Leo Fender developed these amps to hear the guitar . Pedals have their place but not to replace the character of the amp or your guitar .
There is a reason Fender has added built in attenuators to their amps. Using an attenuator to reduce volume makes way more sense. The tubes are still being driven the same when using an attenuator so adjustments do not change the tone like this method does. With this method, you hear a clear difference and adjustments have to be made on the pedals/EQ to compensate. With an attenuator, you may hear a little treble loss, but everything else is the same. A slight tweak of the tone knob of the guitar is all that’s needed to get that back. By all means, add a volume pedal, they are very useful but they go first in the signal chain. If achieving the same tone was as easy as turning the volume down the knob in the amp would work that way, but it doesn’t. The Bugera PS1 is an amazing attenuator and cost less than a volume pedal.
not a perfect solution but an honest one. I find amps with a master. volume to be the best solution. I have a 60 watt super gold-tone and sounds very close to loud volume. only diff is the speaker pushing the volume which cant be fixed. but now thinking about it. maybe there could be a low volume switch over for a low watt amp!!
Great video, thank you. I'm curious about where you measured your sound pressure levels. At 85 -90 dB, you said it was talking level. I find that 85 dB measured w an iphone dB meter app at my ear is my normal limit and at 90 dB, depending on the music, I'm bordering on painful. were you measuring right at the speaker cone? Thanks again.
It was in the digital display unit you see by the pedal board - on the floor probably a meter or so in front of the amp and just off to the side. I think you're right that it would be different off axis at ear level, and honestly it was a super cheap internet purchase - no idea how calibrated it is other than giving a good relative sense of the volumes in the video
Tubes go 100% bad in this amp. Don't know if it's the factory tubes they put in there are crap, or if it's a design flaws that eats the tubes.. but it's a fact. So if you purchase it be sure to have a set of fresh tubes.. or prepare yourself to send it back for warranty and tube replacement. I'm not bashing, just search a bit on this and you'll see
Worked for me. Totally diff amp. But 100% the same problem and I never thought to move my volume at the end. Brilliant. Saved me from buying an attenuator.
At the end of your pedal board unless you want it to modify the signal into any pedals - the important part is that it go after a buffer or drive pedal. Hope that helps!
I built myself an amp that is basically a Fender blackface preamp with a vox power amp. Originally I had all 12AX7s in the preamp, and it sounded very harsh and unpleasant. First I changed the PI to a 12AT7, which was a great improvement but not quite. Later I changed both the preamp tubes (first and second stage) out to 12AY7s, and there is no way back! The amp has more headroom, and the distortion is so much more relaxed and detailed, but still big and chunky. 12AY7 for the win!
You can always put your amp in an enclosed area(closet, laundry room etc) that is quieter with a Shure 57 going directly into your interface. Outstanding video.
Great video, thanks :) i'll add the Mad Professor Orange Evolution underdrive, which could be more practical than a moveable vol pedal, as an always on pedal.
It's a resissue of an amp developed in the early 60s when people were more focused on getting a clean sound louder - I don't think there were any master volume guitar amps released until the mid 70s.
Why not use a boost pedal instead of a volume pedal? Boost pedals are great for tweaking your tone like a mad scientist, but they are also useful as a level attenuator. Plus, it is much easier to see the level of gain or attenuation by looking at the knob on the boost pedal. It is not so easy to repeat a setting on the volume pedal with your foot.
If you use an equalizer with a volume control instead of the volume pedal, would you set the equalizer to flat (0) across the board? And at the end of the effects chain? Thanks?
Deluxe Reverb, the best all-around amp I've had. Liked it so much, I bought and sold one twice... Still too loud for home. Just using an old Champ these days.
Hey..thanks for this experiment. I'd put an AY7 in my deluxe tweed and it tamed just the right amount of sag, but not having a db meter, I had been curious if the there was any db drop.
Nice playing Thanks for the video and demo of this amp . Amp sounds pretty good . A little to pricey for my pocket .Ive been playing over forty years and have had many amps . I play through a 15 w bass breaker head which sounds pretty good ,has good break up at bedroom level and wasn't too expensive a few years ago . Also use a boss gt 1000 sometimes straight through PA if its a small gig and dont want to carry the amp . Also into to many genres of music to have on particular amp .Always like watching real demos of these amps . Thanks
I have a vintage 66 that had never had parts changed. Found it in late eighties for $500. I use a Butler Real Tube distortion pedal that has volume control. If I turn the amp up to 5 or so them turn the pedal down low, am I accomp!ihing the same thing? Tuff to play with 3 cats in small condo. The pedal has an Au7tube is it?
More or less - I'm not familiar with that pedal, and it sounds like it will add some color which you may or may not want, but what you're doing well effectively set the amps eq to what it would be at 5 (less treble), drop the volume and distortion the amp might provide, and leave you with whatever is coming from the pedal - give it a try and see if you like it better than keeping the volume low on the amp!
The HRD with EQ at noon generally has more mids than a typical black panel Fender, so you might look for slightly scooped pedals like a Boss Blues Driver, or the Keeley versions of it compared to mid hump options like Tube Screamers. In terms of designers who target one, I think Wampler might?
I gotta say, I didn’t hear any bad sounds out of this. Even when you didn’t think it was sounding great. Def all mics together sounded most full and balanced. Nice review!
I am sorry but you are wrong. 10 Decibels is doubling or reducing by half the perceived volume. 3 decibels is the minimum volume change a human ear can perceive. The perceived volume is doubled every time you multiply the Watts by 10. So a 100 Watt amp is only twice as loud as a 10 Watt amp. This is why decibels have a logarithmic relationship with wattage as far as amplification is concerned. What you are describing is a linear relationship (e.g. doubling the perceived volume by doubling the wattage,which is wrong) and not a logarithmic one. If you don't believe me, please look it up on Wikipedia or any other credible source. Certainly 20 dB would not be enough to bring a 100watt tube amp at room volumes, since it would still be around 125-20=105 Decibels loud, which is LOUD for home use. For a 25 watt tube amp it would be around 119-20=99 decibels which is still pretty loud for home use.
You lost me when you expected a Vibro Champ Reverb to sound like a Deluxe Reverb. It’s built for purpose… I own and love this amp. I’ve own / owned heaps of vintage Fender amps. If you can’t get the Vibro Champ Reverb to sound good it’s not the amp.
The taming of a tube amp for bedroom volume is a noble pursuit - but the reality is they don't want to be quiet; it's just not how they work. Attenuators, volume pedals, impedances, buffers, speaker swaps...all bandages for a problem that doesn't want to be fixed and will only sap the tone and feel from your amp. Folks are welcome to try the million different solutions out there; Lord knows I have, but the best answer is to get a small modeler for when it's late or people are home, and save the tube amp for when you're alone. But trying to get a tube amp to act in a way that is counter to it's design will, in my experience, just wind up costing a lot of time and money and will just lead to frustration and disappointment.
