I love mine! This is the video that convinced me to pull the trigger. Absolutely essential for anyone, wanting to control volume, without losing their tone 👍🏼👍🏼
I have a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from a top school, and I hereby endorse Mick's description of speakers, reactive loads and attenuators. Correct and comprehensible - well done! 👌 Seems like a really useful piece of kit. And, half an hour seems like serious overkill to demonstrate an attenuator :o)
That Purple Tele is just killing me. I am going to end up buying a damn Custom Shop guitar just so I can have one for myself. Except with TV Jones pickups, because... well, just because.
I just received my Iron Man 2 mini power attenuator in the mail today but haven't had a chance to hook it up yet. So I thought I'd have a listen to The Experts and see how to operate this thing to its maximum. I have a 2007 tone king imperial Mark 1 that I just love but the Distortion side is brutally loud, like Marshall loud! So I'm really looking forward to taming the beast and being able to use that section of the amp that sounds so organic and wonderful! Thanks for posting this guy's!
I have Been using the Iron man Mini II in a bedroom studio the last 2 days. '57 Fender Tweed Deluxe re-issue amp. So far, I find it most usable volume at the -25-28 db setting with the amp's (bright) Instrument volume input turned up to 5-8 with a Telecaster. Nice sound. Otherwise I'd be blasting the household. In the video they found the 'sweet spot' at higher volume settings - perhaps they have thicker walls - or more distant neighbors. Attenuation may not seem so sexy - but this is essential gear as far as I am concerned.
Do you still use it? Do you feel it makes any real difference to “just” using a pedal for the dirt? I imagine that if you crank the amp you’d have to turn the attenuator down pretty far - does the signal suffer in any way? Loss of high end sparkle or anything like that?
I sold that amplifier - along with the Iron Man attenuater 4 + years ago - thought I could just use a Styrmon Iridium amp pedal instead - Less fuss - but I ended up selling the iridium pedal as well - and was sorry I sold my Fender Deluxe amp and Iron man. I ended up buying another tube amp - a Tone King Gremlin that has an Iron Man attenuater built in. It has a 5 click range and for this room I generally keep it attenuated 3 clicks down -16 db I think . I don't use it for 'dirt' really - I prefer the rhythm channel to the lead channel I have a fuzz pedal I push a little for that. I don't push the amp past 70 db usally - so I'm not getting it's full potential - I think th attenuater helps though with this 5 watt amp. Good luck. @@rasmusvadavlund7270 .
@@HSet77 Some journey… I guess the gear journey is all part of the game, right?! That’s my experience anyway. Right now I’m mostly playing a Deluxe Reverb and get the dirt from pedals mainly. Truth be told it’s a pretty good tone… I live in a separated house so get to play the DR at around 3/4 on the volume while at home - and it’s pretty awesome. And I am unsure if an attenuator and power amp dirt will do a better job than the pedals. Live I can crank the amp even more and it’s totally cool for those settings.
I remember seeing a Japanese heavy metal band back in the 90's in a small club and they were so far ahead than most British/US bands in controlling their sound. They managed to be loud, but with a sound that was clean and appropriate for a small club. Other bands i saw at the same venue just could not control their sound and it was too loud to be enjoyable.
I feel like almost ever and I see other than bands at arenas have this issue . Always WAY too loud and all the dummies at the bar or venue pretend they can actually have normal conversations and that the music isn’t ridiculously and untastefully loud . There is infact a sweet spot for loudness and it doesn’t involve being deafeningly loud at a venue that’s for sure .
whenever you use an attenuator, whether it be turning down your amp or the volume on the guitar, treble frequencies are turned down first. what is in this case called, "reactive load" might just be a big fancy treble bleed/bypass circuit.
I dont know if you are specifically right, but this attentuator is "frequency compensated". The Tone King builder said its tuned to change the frequencies slightly to match the way our ears perceive them at different volumes.
treble bleed and bypass circuits are (just like bass bleed and bypass circuits) actually just variable reactive circuits. Its exactly the same. Reactive loads are either capacitive or inductive depending on whether they pass treble or bass.
They don't really come to the point until 12:54 - if it sounds good or in some way all the way down - but leave it quite ambiguous as to whether it changes the tone in any way. Their tone is to spongy and dull edged to begin with so it's hard to tell what they're talking about with that presence loss.
Very interesting. Can I run this with a combo amp? After many years away I've just strated playing again and went and got myself a Blackstar HT20 combo. It's my first valve amp! I've never found a sound that I truely liked and I think it's due to having to run it at low levels so I'm not driving the amp so it sounds a bit crap! I've looked and although it's a combo it has a jack plug for the speaker. Is it a simple case of running this in between the output at the back of my amp and the speaker? Lucky enough to have purchsed my dream guitar (just so you know what I have) I have a (2012 I think) Fender Custom Shop Strat. I also have a 1980's Squire Strat so a bit of a Strat man. My sound can be quite thin at low volumes.
I know that the line out is unbalanced on this unit, so you can use a standard instrument TR cable. Did you experienced any noise when plugging into an audio interface? I talked to people who told me it’s quite noisy when used with an unbalanced cable into a sound card...
I wonder if solid state pedal amp is different--that is, would the mini work with the Laney Lionheart Loudpedal at 60 watts if I don't turn up loud? With channel volume set to 7.5 (and a master volume set to 2.5), it doesn't seem nearly as loud as I would expect. I haven't had any complaints in my small apartment, so wonder if I even need an attenuator--unless I want to turn the master up. And if so, do I need the mini's big brother? Any thoughts?
I'm guessing the DI is unaffected by all the attuenator settings, therefore miking the cab and increasing the input gain of the mic preamp input on your audio interface or mixing board in a live setting would be required?
Adam Steel no i didnt know! if i it covers 120w then i'll get one!
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Just one question: why does it need to be set up at the max attenuation level to use it without any speaker? Would it harm it to use it at another setting without a HP plugged in?
I needed an attenuator to dampen my shriek when I saw the price. Dang, I'm sure that buying a gun is a less expensive way to stop irate neighbors from banging on the wall.
Question ! I use a 45watt amp switchable to 7watt (Victory Countess MKII) . But the Tone King Mini is for 30 watt amps. I am only using my amp at home and don't want to crank it up very hard, i just want to use more of my warm tube sound and then attenuate it... Will the Tone King be able to handle this since the amp is 15 watts higher? Or will that only be a problem if i crank the amp too much? Thanks!
Shame that it has to be a 30-watt amp or less. I would've wanted something like this to tame the volume on my 100w head while I'm not playing with the band. Always have to fiddle with the settings when changing volume, due to the power valve saturation kicking in, and whatnot.
Could you run a 40 Watt through it but not at full volume? My amp runs nicely about halfway up.. Its a fender pro style amp roughly running at 40watts full up. Cheers..
The attenuator’s rated for 30 watt amps with an 8 ohm speaker load so no. There is a bigger version rated to be used for amps up to 100 watts which should do the trick!
Phil Swain I've never used this attenuator, but if the solo boost removes some attenuation as they said, it's just a straight volume boost. If you run an ep booster into an amp that's already breaking up, it'll just further compress your sound. There won't be a big volume boost.
Phil Swain any boost type pedal, as is already commented, will further compress an already compressing amp, unless it's in an available effects loop. Or if it's into a clean amp with lots of headroom, it will certainly make it louder. It seems like the solo switch is lessening the attenuated sound i.e., allowing for more volume as you say, kinda like a boost (depending on where the boost is in the chain)
You can use it with some guitar combos but the AC30C2 is 16 ohm and this attenuator is for 8 ohm only. In short, no you can't but there are other attenuators and load boxes out there. One of the options is the fryette power station.
Sorry but this is an absurd review. The point of an attenuator is to make overdriven sounds possible at low volume. If you're able to play at the kind of levels demonstrated in this video you probably don't need an attenuator in the first place. Instead of assessing the quality of tone at big reductions, these two spent 95% of the the time at full or close to full tilt. They turned it into an excuse to play a Marshall at high volume and giggle about how great it was. Virtually useless to those like myself looking to see how effective this device is.
I disagree. At the 1:30 mark of the introduction, the attenuation is set to the maximum in the "Hi" mode (-35db) and the tone is excellent. As a longtime viewer of That Pedal Show, the carefully monitored decibel level rarely goes beyond 100 - and that's in a much larger room - to prevent hearing damage. Assuming the unattenuated decibel level would be 100 in a much smaller space (unlikely), the attenuated decibel level would therefore be just above the volume of a normal conversation (60db). Ironically, your criticism that "If you're able to play at the kinds of levels demonstrated in this video you probably don't need an attenuator in the first place" is in fact proof of how well this attenuator works because you're mistaking a quiet, highly attenuated amp sound for an unattenuated Marshall at full tilt. Right?
Try a attenuators under 1k and see if you like them. All the load boxes under 500 bucks suck they suck the life out. This is the best reactive load box for the price by far
Just to start, I dig ALL of Andertons vidz and the WHOLE crew... Please Please stop whining about volume,PLease...OMG, your not gonna make your ears bleed or anyone elses. I doubt your gonna get complaints in a music store if your playing at a cranked volume for a brief period of time. Most of the Marshals,Orange,Boogie,EVH,Fender and all the like on Gods green earth beg for some beefed up volume. And for shites sake LOSE THE FUKN REVERB!!!!! Ive been playing for 45+ yrs and have NEVER played with ANYONE so obsessed with fukn reverb. I know this is just my opinion and sound is subject to the individual, you have yourz and I have mine. I use just the slightest hint(breath) of reverb and just few millisecond (with QUICK decay,fast response)and shortest feedback of delay. The amount of reverb that you guyz use and dare I say especially Chapperz(God bless him) ruins the sound of your instrument and amplifier.. Just try it for fuks sake,please... And please forgive my opinionated rant...Again I luv the vids that ALL you guyz at Andertons do. And very much appreciate your time and effort.. God bless you all for a great New Year!!! Take good care
