Best way to drive tubes and not wake the neighbors?

[obtainknowledge]

I was wondering what would best serve me for recording my guitar late at night without disturbing everyone in the house. Originally I thought I'd go with the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. It's about $80. I guess the flaw with this method is I'm boosting the input level to the amp, and then pulling that level down on the master volume. I'm not sure if that's really going to help much in the grand scheme of things.

And then there is the attenuaters such as the THD hotplate and Dr.Z's Air brake. These work after amp input section going to the speaker. Of course they're about $300 more than the booster, but from a design standpoint they make more sense to me. More like a master output volume control. Has anyone tried both methods? I'm using a Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb RI and a Bassman.

[stevennn]

Sorry to say, there is no magic cure for what you want. Attenuators are your best bet. I regularly use a Hotplate for home recording & giging out. It does work well for controlling your final volume. Although it gives you an unlimited amount of attenuation, it really only sounds natural up to about -8db. However, if you aren't locked into mic'ing the cab, the Hotplate does have a "line out" feature that would allow you to run the amp direct. Now combine the Hotplate with a few pedals on the front end, and its pretty effective system for controlling volume.

But, the real secret is to buy a smaller watt amp. I record with a Fender Champ (5 watts) and you can crank it all day without blowing your neighbors away. A silver faced Champ would run you about $250. There are a few famous recordings that have been done on a Champ. If you don't like the small 8" speaker, just get a 12" cab.

[snüzz]

i found the ultimate attenuator and have been very pleased with it! i never use it anymore and am actually thinking about selling. do a search for "ultimate attenuator". if you are interested in getting mine then pm me- i'll sell it for $350 which is a steal. mine has the two volume knobs (which is very helpful on stage). i'm not trying to hype the unit to sell it so you can just read about them yourself.

[larry b]

Originally Posted by stevennn

Sorry to say, there is no magic cure for what you want. Attenuators are your best bet. I regularly use a Hotplate for home recording & giging out. It does work well for controlling your final volume. Although it gives you an unlimited amount of attenuation, it really only sounds natural up to about -8db. However, if you aren't locked into mic'ing the cab, the Hotplate does have a "line out" feature that would allow you to run the amp direct. Now combine the Hotplate with a few pedals on the front end, and its pretty effective system for controlling volume.

But, the real secret is to buy a smaller watt amp. I record with a Fender Champ (5 watts) and you can crank it all day without blowing your neighbors away. A silver faced Champ would run you about $250. There are a few famous recordings that have been done on a Champ. If you don't like the small 8" speaker, just get a 12" cab.

Champs rule for big sound without the actual BIG sound!

Because really, nothing is going to sound like a cranked up amp, other than a cranked up amp. Ive also had great sucess with the vintage Sears Silvertone amps. Same deal there, low wattage tube amp that you can crank all day without it getting ridiculously loud, and it just sounds gritty, warm and rippin good!

[FireMoon]

Power scaling is the way forward a far better fix than attenuators which are, frankly, little or no use on big amps... Attenuators can't cut the level anything like as much as you need to record as you want without destroying the whole point of their existence.. ie the sound...





London Power POWER SCALING Q&A

Check this article out... there's a guy in England hotrods small amps to these sort of specs has a shop on EBAY could drop him a line, do a search on EBAY UK for rat in musical instruments

[jamsmith]

Ok, let me a little dogmattic. **** attenuators, **** master volumes, **** low power amps or reduced power amps. You want to hear you amp cranked up through the speaker you want to hear. Face it, if you were looking for the sound of anything else suggested here, you would be using that in the first place!

If you are going for something like the Boston sound, then the attenuator is the way to go. However, if you are like me (or maybe more accurately like Jimi or SRV!), pushing the tubes (and the output transfer) is only half the game. Pushing speaker is a HUGE part of that glorious sound and attenuation robs you of that. The solution is a "dog house". Essentially you build an airtight box with a some thick plywood with a single 12" speaker inside at one end (in a baffle of course) and a 57 in the other end. You have a speaker jack at one end and mic jack at the other. Crank that bitch up!

[joeq]

Late at night record your tracks with an amp sim. Use whatever sound it has that is closest to your real amp sound. Track a clean direct at the same time


the next afternoon, or at whatever hour is "decent" , or when your housemates are at school or work, reamp your tracks at the appropriate volume and discard the sim track.

If you wait until mixdown to reamp, you can use the reamping process instead of EQ and other effects to fine tune the guitar sound.

**** attenuators, **** master volumes, **** low power amps or reduced power amps.

**** sticking your speaker in a tiny wooden box, too! of the four, I will take a small amp every time

[84K]

THD hot plate works well.

[larry b]

Originally Posted by joeq

Late at night record your tracks with an amp sim. Use whatever sound it has that is closest to your real amp sound. Track a clean direct at the same time


the next afternoon, or at whatever hour is "decent" , or when your housemates are at school or work, reamp your tracks at the appropriate volume and discard the sim track.

If you wait until mixdown to reamp, you can use the reamping process instead of EQ and other effects to fine tune the guitar sound.




**** sticking your speaker in a tiny wooden box, too! of the four, I will take a small amp every time

This also totally works.

[dviola]

at $99 epiphones valve junior is 5 watt all tube...I love mine and it sounds pretty good. But 5 watts is still pretty loud...I'm not sure how loud is acceptable in your case. I takes pedals really well too.

your neighbors should feel lucky that you're serenading them for free nightly

[uncle duncan]

The Bit Mo mods guy sells an attenuator box for amps under 10 watts. It's around $30, if I recall correctly. He also sells mod kits for the epi, which really does need some help. The newest epi has a decent output transformer, but the earlier versions didn't, and replacing it makes a huge improvement in sound. Jim Weber sells OT's on his site, as well as all kinds of speakers. Hooking up a low-watt speaker to a low-watt amp should give you decent tone.

One drawback to putting a speaker in an isolation box is, the guitar gets isolated from the speaker, and you lose sustain and feedback potential. However, if you were to play in front of you monitors, and your computer didn't make your guitar buzz (good luck) you could get some sustain back.

[jsswtpmp182]

Originally Posted by obtainknowledge

I was wondering what would best serve me for recording my guitar late at night without disturbing everyone in the house. Originally I thought I'd go with the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. It's about $80. I guess the flaw with this method is I'm boosting the input level to the amp, and then pulling that level down on the master volume. I'm not sure if that's really going to help much in the grand scheme of things.

And then there is the attenuaters such as the THD hotplate and Dr.Z's Air brake. These work after amp input section going to the speaker. Of course they're about $300 more than the booster, but from a design standpoint they make more sense to me. More like a master output volume control. Has anyone tried both methods? I'm using a Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb RI and a Bassman.

i have a marshall powerbrake i'm selling- works real well for what you want.. pm me if you're interested

[jamsmith]

Originally Posted by joeq

**** sticking your speaker in a tiny wooden box, too! of the four, I will take a small amp every time

Well, if you usually do distance miking, then this wouldn't work for you. But if you close mike, there is no differnce. But let me add, a, this shouldn't be a tiny box and the part where the mic is should have the sides covered with fiberboard. I guess it sounds a little simplistic, the box has to be built properly and if it, the result is glorious, expecially if you small amp doesn't sound like your big rig/speaker.

However, given my druthers, I would pre your method with a caveat. Use the sim, but record a track direct. Then instead of "reamping", run the direct track through you amp, but be sure to use an impedence transformer (lo-to-high). To the best of my knowledge, Eddie Kramer came up with this when he found some direct tracks Hendrix has recorded before his death.

[GeorgeJ]

i've got a 65 Twin Reissue and I pull a couple of tubes when I have to worry about my own ears bleeding - let alone waking the neighborhood. Now I can crank to the magic number 7 on everything and it won't break the windows but still sounds freaking great.

Here's two links that helped me - in the second link scroll down a bit to find the exact reference to pulling tubes and how it IS SAFE:

Article Archive

Kevin O'Connor's Amplifier / Tube Amplifier FAQ


George

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by jamsmith

Ok, let me a little dogmattic. **** attenuators, **** master volumes, **** low power amps or reduced power amps. You want to hear you amp cranked up through the speaker you want to hear. Face it, if you were looking for the sound of anything else suggested here, you would be using that in the first place!

If you are going for something like the Boston sound, then the attenuator is the way to go. However, if you are like me (or maybe more accurately like Jimi or SRV!), pushing the tubes (and the output transfer) is only half the game. Pushing speaker is a HUGE part of that glorious sound and attenuation robs you of that. The solution is a "dog house". Essentially you build an airtight box with a some thick plywood with a single 12" speaker inside at one end (in a baffle of course) and a 57 in the other end. You have a speaker jack at one end and mic jack at the other. Crank that bitch up!

Every time I've tried something like this the recording ended up sounding, well, big surprise... boxy. And that was with alot of treatment inside. But sometimes this is the only option. I'm going to try it again but with even more broadband treatment inside.

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by dviola

at $99 epiphones valve junior is 5 watt all tube...I love mine and it sounds pretty good. But 5 watts is still pretty loud...I'm not sure how loud is acceptable in your case. I takes pedals really well too.

your neighbors should feel lucky that you're serenading them for free nightly

Ya I was just gonna say... the 5 watt Epi is huge loud

[Mr.HOLMES]

Hi this will solve your PROBLEM works for me fine...

http://www.blueguitar.org/new/schem/...d/volreduc.gif

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by jamsmith

The solution is a "dog house". Essentially you build an airtight box with a some thick plywood with a single 12" speaker inside at one end (in a baffle of course) and a 57 in the other end. You have a speaker jack at one end and mic jack at the other. Crank that bitch up!

While I agree with your other points, I'm a big believer that amps need room to breathe, especially big amps. Yes, most of the sound is hitting the mic direct but there are reflections happening that will be 'icing on the cake' in a good room. An mp3 will translate most of the sound of a recording and basically give you all the information there is but it's exactly the chopped of bits that create 'sparkle' 'magic' or whatever you want to call it.

A guitar amp recorded in a box will give you a boxed-in sound, that's just the way it is to my ears.

I just checked an old David Gilmour interview and he said 'Big amps need big rooms'. The man knows great sound so I believe him.

[tiny333]

its a z vex nano amp


ZVEX AMPS


rock

[Zorran]

what you need is this :



its a loadbox and a speaker sim. its pretty damn good. ive made a few recordings with it. check out the first couple of clips here :

SoundClick artist: Zorran - ambient metal..

[ALL*MYTEE]

Tom Scholtz Power Soak..

[ewegogetemtiger]

Originally Posted by 84K

THD hot plate works well.

I agree. I use mine with a Bogner Shiva 1x12 80 watt amp sometimes and the result is always good. I was very skeptical at first but the thing does sound great except at extremely low volumes. thumbsup

[SkunkWorks]

Originally Posted by ALL*MYTEE

Tom Scholtz Power Soak..

Which, by the way, won't make you sound like Boston (wink). But I do know how to get that tone.

[redddog]

Originally Posted by stevennn

But, the real secret is to buy a smaller watt amp. I record with a Fender Champ (5 watts) and you can crank it all day without blowing your neighbors away. A silver faced Champ would run you about $250. There are a few famous recordings that have been done on a Champ. If you don't like the small 8" speaker, just get a 12" cab.

Where in Gods name can you find a Champ for $250? I have been looking forever and I can't find one for under $350.

Those are killer little amps. I think Zep 4 was all on a Champ (or one of the Zep albums).

[doorknocker]

I guess this would be the Champ to get, slightly over $250 though:

RetroFret-Vintage, Rare & Unusual Fretted Instruments

[lakeshorephatty]

Just wanted to say I love my Dr. Z Air Brake

Russell

[cavern]

eBay Guides - Tube Amp Attenuator, Tube Cube i have one of these and they work really well. i use it with the DRRI as well $80 -40 watts 1 output, $110-160watts 2outs...

[pootkao]

Mesa Lonestar Special.

Has switchable wattage.

And great tone.
Yum.

[joeq]

Originally Posted by jamsmith

However, given my druthers, I would pre your method with a caveat. Use the sim, but record a track direct. Then instead of "reamping", run the direct track through you amp, but be sure to use an impedence transformer (lo-to-high). To the best of my knowledge, Eddie Kramer came up with this when he found some direct tracks Hendrix has recorded before his death.

I am not sure I understand your caveat.

I did suggest recording a direct track.

And running the clean direct track through an impedance transformer/reamp box, and out to an amp is exactly my definition of 'reamping'. It is like you are saying instead of "chewing" your food, put it in your mouth and grind it up with your teeth.

[ewegogetemtiger]

Originally Posted by joeq

It is like you are saying instead of "chewing" your food, put it in your mouth and grind it up with your teeth.

Apples and oranges, dude.

Gawd, I slay myself sometimes.