This makes perfect sense when I think of something I read many years ago in Guitar World. They interviewed Lemmy from Motorhead and he had said what he and Phil had always done was turn every dial to 10 and go for it. They aren't necessarily a brilliant example of excellent tone, but they had a uinique sound that came from their amps being pushed as hard as theh possibly could.
The presence control is active and works on the power amp's damping factor in the extreme high register, so it doesn't affect the gain much other than add crispiness or tame shrill tones. The Low mid and high tone stack is right as you say :)
This works at lower master volume settings... However, to really get the tone... there is typically a sweet spot for the master volume... Depending on the head about 3.5, 4 or 5..(anything past 5 usually adds muddyness)... or loud enough to peel paint.... Within these curves, typically you cut a lot more to get a desired tone like you had in your cut in half example...
The amp designers know how passive tone stacks work and designed the pots to have a usable range. You don't need to stare into the sun before putting on your sunglasses.
JCM 800 tip. Preamp control also boosts bass freq quite a bit, if you run it at 10 it will have a lot of bottom end, but at 5 it will sound thin and all mid, so bring the mid down if you play with lower preamp gain.
@@GolecLuka Oh ok, I was talking about the master volume knob on the 800 haha. When you turn that up it brings up the bass too, for me at least. More than the pre amp gain knob. Now of course, I can only turn the master volume knob up if I'm using a load box, otherwise the neighbors would call the cops
Wow, I had no idea. I spent hours tinkering, and it turns out I was doing everything exactly backward. You know, I think my Friedman BE probably also works the same way. Thanks for the video!
@@JoeHartRocks I tried your method for the JCM setting. Worked beautifully. I dialed it an and dropped a Klon KTR in front. It's sounds amazing! Thanks again!
I don't really do clean for live work. I have a BSM RPA boost that I use, so for clean-ish, I just turn that off and roll my guitar volume knob down. For recording, I usually use a different amp set fairly clean.
Not all gain comes from the tone stack. You should compensate the loss with master volume anyway. I also think bass & treble controls are not passive, they actually can only add, remember there’s a 12ax7 driving the tone stack for that exact purpose. Go at tone stack calculator online and you’ll see that the actual ‘flat’ eq is with mid at max and bass and treble at minimum. It’s the same old trick with Fender blackface amps, you dial low numbers on BMT and that allows you to turn the volume more, resulting in more saturation & compression.
@@JoeHartRocks So I did this for my silver jubilee: turned all the tone knobs all the way up (including the presence) and then backed off where needed. WOW. This is definitely the right way to dial in these amps. It certainly drove the amp a little harder, made it sound less compressed and boxy, more like a gainier 800, nice and open sounding, and beefier sounding too. Landed on keeping everything at 10 except the bass which I rolled back to about 8. When I get a few extra minutes I'll post a vid. Thanks again, this is the easiest time I ever had dialing in this amp.
You can play at lower volumes because it has a master volume. So, the preamp can be all the way up, but the power amp dialed way down. Hope this helps.
Lets see… turn everything to 10 - check… then turn everything down 5 clicks - check…. Then dial up slowly to where it sounds best to me…. (Am I the only person thinking it would have been easier to start low and build up from there?
No, they’re not. Middle control is passive (substractive), bass & treble are active and actually add from zero. There’s a half of 12AX7 driving the tone stack for that purpose only.
The single best thing about this video is that, he’s not using WAY too much gain. One in every 20 videos of these amps is of guys using an obscene amount of gain, or of guys that flat out don’t know how to dial in an amp altogether. Friedman has complained about it for a long time, with how people demo his amps. Joe nails it. And, this amp sounds very punch, percussive, and articulate as a result. Very well done. No “flub, or fizz” at all, that I could tell.
@@JoeHartRocks This was really well done. So many people don't understand that THIS is "THE" Marshal sound. And, there's only a few really good demo's out there of tones like this. Sometimes it make take a mod (Ground Zero just posted an astonishingly well done demo of a 1980 JMP 2203 with his MOAB mod, that is epic.)...but, this is it. Well done,sir!
Except the presence control, the default would be zero, if there was no negative feedback loop there would be no added presence. - Although the knob does still reduce the amount you are adding - maybe it depends on how you look at it..
listen to me: DO NOT FUCKING USE V30'S to begin with...DO USE g12-65 or m65; then here the settings for this fucking bight amp: Presence to taste but never past 8, Bass less than half or you'll be in muddy city, Mids 4 to 7, Treble 2 to 5 (depends on how you set the Presence; Then you can get away with max Gain if you're careful with the bass. You also better use an eq to get rid of the remaining nasty fizzy freqs around 1-2k and sclupt your tone around other freqs in case (cut bass even more, add some 400-800hz). If you use a boost like a ts9 it will cut some bass early in the stage too for a tighter result.
Treble on a marshall ive found added distortion . Drop the bass to 2.. Mids up . Jimmy page used his pres high to get his distortion.. Contrary to belief He used Bass heads..
I'll have to give that a try. He also used bass cone speakers. The 75hz cones are the standard guitar speakers. He used 55hz which cut a lot of upper mids so he could crank the treble a lot more.
@@JoeHartRocks Thanks for reply. Your info on Jimmy. Is interesting. As his LP marshall settings are scoop as well. Bass 7/8...(9 with his strat. ) Mid 4....treble 5...vol 6 Pres 9..... Against all the so called experts...saying vintage rock was all mids... I use super strats & a standard telecaster.. With the tele I go ..bass 3 Mid 5 treble 3... For me it keeps the marshall growl...
I'd say.... buy a Laney .... not a Marshall fan .... a jcm 800 lost out to an AOR100H back in 1985 and still rockin' to this day ... At any volume, so the police stay policing anybody but you
This makes perfect sense when I think of something I read many years ago in Guitar World. They interviewed Lemmy from Motorhead and he had said what he and Phil had always done was turn every dial to 10 and go for it.
They aren't necessarily a brilliant example of excellent tone, but they had a uinique sound that came from their amps being pushed as hard as theh possibly could.
The presence control is active and works on the power amp's damping factor in the extreme high register, so it doesn't affect the gain much other than add crispiness or tame shrill tones. The Low mid and high tone stack is right as you say :)
This works at lower master volume settings... However, to really get the tone... there is typically a sweet spot for the master volume... Depending on the head about 3.5, 4 or 5..(anything past 5 usually adds muddyness)... or loud enough to peel paint.... Within these curves, typically you cut a lot more to get a desired tone like you had in your cut in half example...
Setting the master volume from 5 - 10 are mainly for clean to edgy tones with the gain set low :)
The amp designers know how passive tone stacks work and designed the pots to have a usable range. You don't need to stare into the sun before putting on your sunglasses.
JCM 800 tip. Preamp control also boosts bass freq quite a bit, if you run it at 10 it will have a lot of bottom end, but at 5 it will sound thin and all mid, so bring the mid down if you play with lower preamp gain.
My big JCMs behave that way, mybe this small one doesnt.
Isn't that true for the master volume as well? Brings up a lot of bass
@@donlynch8285 Jeah, I was talking about master volume ones. Have 2 of them 2203 and 2204, they behave the same.
@@GolecLuka Oh ok, I was talking about the master volume knob on the 800 haha. When you turn that up it brings up the bass too, for me at least. More than the pre amp gain knob. Now of course, I can only turn the master volume knob up if I'm using a load box, otherwise the neighbors would call the cops
Thanks for this, Joe! I’ll try this out on my Marshall amp.
Let us know how it works for you.
Wow, I had no idea. I spent hours tinkering, and it turns out I was doing everything exactly backward. You know, I think my Friedman BE probably also works the same way. Thanks for the video!
I'm glad it helped!!! If the Friedman's tone section is based on a typical Marshall, then it would work the same way.
@@JoeHartRocks I tried your method for the JCM setting. Worked beautifully. I dialed it an and dropped a Klon KTR in front. It's sounds amazing! Thanks again!
Awesome!!!!
Very educational,up close and personal tutorial!!😎😊🎸🎸
Hey Joe, so talking clean tone, where are you at with this? Low gain input and adjust pre-amp setting from there?
I don't really do clean for live work. I have a BSM RPA boost that I use, so for clean-ish, I just turn that off and roll my guitar volume knob down. For recording, I usually use a different amp set fairly clean.
Not all gain comes from the tone stack. You should compensate the loss with master volume anyway. I also think bass & treble controls are not passive, they actually can only add, remember there’s a 12ax7 driving the tone stack for that exact purpose. Go at tone stack calculator online and you’ll see that the actual ‘flat’ eq is with mid at max and bass and treble at minimum. It’s the same old trick with Fender blackface amps, you dial low numbers on BMT and that allows you to turn the volume more, resulting in more saturation & compression.
Plenty of Marshall amps are non-master
Thanks Joe!!
I had no idea. Thanks
Thanks for watching!!
Hope it helps!!!
Thanks for this! Do you know if all Marshall models have a passive EQ (for example the silver jubilee) or does this specifically apply to the JCM800?
My understanding is that all of them have passive EQ. The Silver Jubilee is heavily based on the JCM 800, so I'm sure it does, too.
I just looked at a schematic and the Silver Jubilee definitely looks like it's a passive EQ. I'm no expert, though.
@@JoeHartRocks thanks Joe! Really appreciate the feedback on this. I’m looking forward to trying these changes out on mine later today.
@@JohnWallaceMusic report back and let me know how it worked out. Thanks.
@@JoeHartRocks So I did this for my silver jubilee: turned all the tone knobs all the way up (including the presence) and then backed off where needed. WOW. This is definitely the right way to dial in these amps. It certainly drove the amp a little harder, made it sound less compressed and boxy, more like a gainier 800, nice and open sounding, and beefier sounding too. Landed on keeping everything at 10 except the bass which I rolled back to about 8. When I get a few extra minutes I'll post a vid. Thanks again, this is the easiest time I ever had dialing in this amp.
I liked the sound with everything up haha . Can you play this at bedroom volumes without an attenuator ? ( 5 watts )
You can play at lower volumes because it has a master volume. So, the preamp can be all the way up, but the power amp dialed way down. Hope this helps.
@@JoeHartRocks Thankyou for that info
Good tone searching concept! Thanks Joe!
Thanks for watching! Glad you liked it.
Lets see… turn everything to 10 - check… then turn everything down 5 clicks - check…. Then dial up slowly to where it sounds best to me…. (Am I the only person thinking it would have been easier to start low and build up from there?
wow great vid!
Did anyone try it on their rig?
In fact almost all tube amp eq are completely passive. In marshall, mostly the halfway position isn't the best sounding position
Yes. And yet, many people don't know that. :-(
@@JoeHartRocks Peavey teal line, bravo, triumph were of the few active eq tube amps that I've seen in my life
No, they’re not. Middle control is passive (substractive), bass & treble are active and actually add from zero. There’s a half of 12AX7 driving the tone stack for that purpose only.
The single best thing about this video is that, he’s not using WAY too much gain. One in every 20 videos of these amps is of guys using an obscene amount of gain, or of guys that flat out don’t know how to dial in an amp altogether. Friedman has complained about it for a long time, with how people demo his amps. Joe nails it. And, this amp sounds very punch, percussive, and articulate as a result. Very well done. No “flub, or fizz” at all, that I could tell.
Thank you. I try to be helpful! :-)
@@JoeHartRocks This was really well done. So many people don't understand that THIS is "THE" Marshal sound. And, there's only a few really good demo's out there of tones like this. Sometimes it make take a mod (Ground Zero just posted an astonishingly well done demo of a 1980 JMP 2203 with his MOAB mod, that is epic.)...but, this is it. Well done,sir!
Except the presence control, the default would be zero, if there was no negative feedback loop there would be no added presence. - Although the knob does still reduce the amount you are adding - maybe it depends on how you look at it..
listen to me: DO NOT FUCKING USE V30'S to begin with...DO USE g12-65 or m65; then here the settings for this fucking bight amp: Presence to taste but never past 8, Bass less than half or you'll be in muddy city, Mids 4 to 7, Treble 2 to 5 (depends on how you set the Presence; Then you can get away with max Gain if you're careful with the bass. You also better use an eq to get rid of the remaining nasty fizzy freqs around 1-2k and sclupt your tone around other freqs in case (cut bass even more, add some 400-800hz). If you use a boost like a ts9 it will cut some bass early in the stage too for a tighter result.
Marshall should make an amp that has one Tone, and one Contour control.
Just scoop the mids and be done with it.
You didn’t put the master volume all the way up.
Correct. It's too loud, then. But that would roll off a lot of highs. Then I would adjust the tone controls accordingly.
@@JoeHartRocks if you believe in such a thing as “too loud”. Maybe a different brand of amp would be more suitable.
@@luciferdzhugashvili your doctors like that mindset
Just another reason to leave every knob at 10.
Treble on a marshall ive found added distortion .
Drop the bass to 2..
Mids up .
Jimmy page used his pres high to get his distortion..
Contrary to belief
He used Bass heads..
I'll have to give that a try. He also used bass cone speakers. The 75hz cones are the standard guitar speakers. He used 55hz which cut a lot of upper mids so he could crank the treble a lot more.
@@JoeHartRocks
Thanks for reply.
Your info on Jimmy.
Is interesting.
As his LP marshall settings are scoop as well.
Bass 7/8...(9 with his strat. )
Mid 4....treble 5...vol 6
Pres 9.....
Against all the so called experts...saying vintage rock was all mids...
I use super strats & a standard telecaster..
With the tele I go ..bass 3
Mid 5 treble 3...
For me it keeps the marshall growl...
I have found this to be true.
Yup.
I'd say.... buy a Laney .... not a Marshall fan .... a jcm 800 lost out to an AOR100H back in 1985 and still rockin' to this day ... At any volume, so the police stay policing anybody but you
No amp settings are not wrong, i don't have a Marshall
Joe the butcher