Massive clean/distortion volume discrepancy, tube head.

C

chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
On my newish Peavey 3120, there is a huge volume discrepancy between clean and gain channels. It makes sense there would be one, but i wondered if its normal for it to be this big.

At practise, if i have the master at about 7.5, for the gain to be loud enough it has to be on 6 or 7ish, and for the clean to be quiet enough it has to be on literally less than 1. And sometimes thats too loud if i happen to hit a chord on clean particularly hard. I'm not after "buy a compressor, hit your strings less hard" advice, just wondered if this amount of discrepancy is normal.
 
chamelious said:
On my newish Peavey 3120, there is a huge volume discrepancy between clean and gain channels. It makes sense there would be one, but i wondered if its normal for it to be this big.

At practise, if i have the master at about 7.5, for the gain to be loud enough it has to be on 6 or 7ish, and for the clean to be quiet enough it has to be on literally less than 1. And sometimes thats too loud if i happen to hit a chord on clean particularly hard. I'm not after "buy a compressor, hit your strings less hard" advice, just wondered if this amount of discrepancy is normal.
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Doesn't that amp have pre and post gain level controls on the channels as well as a master volume? If so, that's what the post gain is there for, to dial down the output level from the hot preamp.
 
ggunn said:
Doesn't that amp have pre and post gain level controls on the channels as well as a master volume? If so, that's what the post gain is there for, to dial down the output level from the hot preamp.
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Theres a volume control for each channel, and a master. Thats what i'm saying, its controllable by using the master, but theres such a huge difference, i never thought i'd have to run a 120w tube amp on 3/4 master, 3/4 volume on the gain channel just to play at a band practise.
 
I am not sure I follow you, but that amp looks to be laid out fairly normal.

The question I ask is why is your master that high if your clean is too loud on 1? Have you already dime'd the lead/rhythm Volume? If you haven't should be using that and using the Master on the far left as a global volume to control both channels together so you don't have to mess with both if you need to raise or lower volume.

Try this, disregard the 2nd and 3rd channel. Make the clean channel sound good. Probably about 5-6 on the volume control, then your Master will be anywhere from 1-10 depending on the volume you want for that moment.

Now mess with channels 2 and 3. Put the Gain about half way, then raise the Volume controls to match that of channel 1. Now adjust the gain to taste and then a final tuning of the Volume It doesn't matter where they are in the rotation, as long as the perceived volume matches when you go back and forth.

And then use the global Master to adjust each time you play to suit your actual volume needs.
 
Outlaws said:
I am not sure I follow you, but that amp looks to be laid out fairly normal.

The question I ask is why is your master that high if your clean is too loud on 1? Have you already dime'd the lead/rhythm Volume? If you haven't should be using that and using the Master on the far left as a global volume to control both channels together so you don't have to mess with both if you need to raise or lower volume.

Try this, disregard the 2nd and 3rd channel. Make the clean channel sound good. Probably about 5-6 on the volume control, then your Master will be anywhere from 1-10 depending on the volume you want for that moment.

Now mess with channels 2 and 3. Put the Gain about half way, then raise the Volume controls to match that of channel 1. Now adjust the gain to taste and then a final tuning of the Volume It doesn't matter where they are in the rotation, as long as the perceived volume matches when you go back and forth.

And then use the global Master to adjust each time you play to suit your actual volume needs.
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If i had my clean channel on 6, my gain channel wouldn't be loud enough to compete even with its volume on full.

Its not a "problem" as such, i just thought it was odd and wondered if there might be a problem with a tube or something.
 
chamelious said:
If i had my clean channel on 6, my gain channel wouldn't be loud enough to compete even with its volume on full.

Its not a "problem" as such, i just thought it was odd and wondered if there might be a problem with a tube or something.
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You have a broken amp or you are missing something.
 
oh for Gods' sake!


YES, it can be normal to have that large a discrepancy between the two channels.

:cool:
 
Outlaws said:
If he has the gain and volume of the lead channel at 10? There is no reason for the clean to be at 1.
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the higher gain channels have addition stages of gain which makes them MUCH louder.
On my brand new Mark V I have the clean channels' master on 10 and the channel volume on around 3 and on my mid-gain channel the master is on around 3 and the channel volume on 6 and on the high gain channel the master is on about 3 and the channel volume is on about 8.
The point is ...... those are wildly different settings even if not identical to yours.

When you take one channel and have maybe one gain stage (clean) and another channel has 3 gain stages then the levels of those two channels are gonna be way different.
 
What it sounds like is inadequate volume on the gain channel. Yeah, something is wrong. A 120w amp at the settings mentioned on the gain channel should hurt yer ears.


lou
 
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Lt. Bob said:
oh for Gods' sake!


YES, it can be normal to have that large a discrepancy between the two channels.

:cool:
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But, Bob, this situation is backwards from what you'd think. His gain channels can be maxed, and still be blitzed by the clean channel even with the clean channel turned way down.
 
chamelious said:
Whats with the gods sake? It doesn't sound like everyone agree's with you
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it was because no one was actually answering your question.

Yes, I know my situation was backwards from his but the main point is that different circuit configurations that you have in the channels can produce wildly different settings.

Good luck with that.
 
Zaphod B said:
But, Bob, this situation is backwards from what you'd think. His gain channels can be maxed, and still be blitzed by the clean channel even with the clean channel turned way down.
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While it does sound like there could be something up with the amp, I've also noticed that there's often a huge difference in perceived volume between a clean and distorted tone. Balance your channels against each other, flip to your distortion channel, crank the master and rock out for a bit, then flip back to the clean channel, and it'll sound HUGELY loud. It's just a question of the relative compression the distortion provides really and then going back to an uncompressed sound, but...
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
While it does sound like there could be something up with the amp, I've also noticed that there's often a huge difference in perceived volume between a clean and distorted tone. Balance your channels against each other, flip to your distortion channel, crank the master and rock out for a bit, then flip back to the clean channel, and it'll sound HUGELY loud. It's just a question of the relative compression the distortion provides really and then going back to an uncompressed sound, but...
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Oh, you're definitely right about that. I run into that with my Egnater rig when I'm switching between the very very clean Deluxe channel and any of the more high-gain modules. The lack of compression on the clean channels can take you by surprise.
 
chamelious said:
Theres a volume control for each channel, and a master. Thats what i'm saying, its controllable by using the master, but theres such a huge difference, i never thought i'd have to run a 120w tube amp on 3/4 master, 3/4 volume on the gain channel just to play at a band practise.
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Some two channel Peavey amps have 5 volume controls - one on the input of each preamp, one on the output of each preamp, and a master. That allows you to run one preamp really hot and then dial down its output to match the other (clean) preamp so that both are the same volume at the master, if that's what you want. It seems like such a good idea that I wonder why more amps aren't built that way.
 
ggunn said:
Some two channel Peavey amps have 5 volume controls - one on the input of each preamp, one on the output of each preamp, and a master. That allows you to run one preamp really hot and then dial down its output to match the other (clean) preamp so that both are the same volume at the master, if that's what you want. It seems like such a good idea that I wonder why more amps aren't built that way.
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My Mark V is like that ..... a gain and a master on each channel and then an overall master for all the channels.
Almost have to have that to really get very different channels to match levels.
 
ggunn said:
Some two channel Peavey amps have 5 volume controls - one on the input of each preamp, one on the output of each preamp, and a master. That allows you to run one preamp really hot and then dial down its output to match the other (clean) preamp so that both are the same volume at the master, if that's what you want. It seems like such a good idea that I wonder why more amps aren't built that way.
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Yeah, i know what you mean. The 3120 doesn't have that unfortunately. Thanks everyone for your help.
 
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