Help me find my ultimate guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter thebigcheese
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http://www.tedweber.com/atten.htm

An Attenuator goes between the amp and speaker. It allows you to drive your output tubes at low volume. I use one often to play electric lead in an acoustic guitar band. One of these may be all you need. I can personally vouch for the Weber speaker load designs.

Choose one rated at least 1.5 times your amp's wattage rating.
 
thebigcheese said:
Huh, interesting discovery today. When I turn my amp way up, my guitar sounds much more like I want it to, so I guess the tone is in there somewhere, just not with the amp quiet. That's kind of annoying...
Click to expand...

Woah now, this kind of changes everything. So the tone you're after is available to you, but just not at an acceptable volume? Like Milnoque suggested above, a power attenuator is made for exactly this situation. He suggests the Weber, myself I use a THD HotPlate. There's a difference in price and features, and I've never used a Weber. I absolutely love my HotPlate, but a Weber might satisfy me just as well, who knows. Either way, being able to take the edge off of a cranked tube amp is almost a requirement for anything over, say, 15 watts if the speakers are very efficient at all. Before going through the trouble of selecting, installing, and possibly returning a new pickup(s), give a try to a power attenuator and see if you can get that cranked tone that you admittedly like, only at a volume more suitable for your situation. An attenuator is plug-and-play, and is much easier to return if you don't like it.

Now I don't know what amp you're using, or even if its a tube amp. Attenuators are ONLY for tube amps. They're not designed for solid-state amps. But I'll ASSume that you're playing through a tube amp.

One good thing about being able to crank the master volume and turning down your preamp gain/volume is that it gives you a lot of clean headroom. this allows you to have lots of "punch" and "snap" in your guitar tone, so maybe that'll get you in the neighborhood of what you like about a Strat.

Then, if you have a good overdrive pedal, you can kick that on and/or turn up your preamp gain and it'll give you a much more compressed tone; a meatier, thicker tone that'll really make a bridge humbucker sound nice. Maybe that'll get you into the neighborhood of what you like about a Gibson.

Either way, cranking the master volume on a tube amp is almost a prerequisite for taking advantage of what valve technology is reknowned for.

I'm learning every day how much I like having an EQ pedal in my signal chain. I have the MXR 10-band graphic EQ, and it can really change my amp's character pretty drastically. It's taken a few months of fiddling with it, but I've already found a few settings that really compliment a clean tone, a crunchy tone, and a heavier tone. Maybe that would be something that would help you get the tones that you're after from your current guitar and amp. Boosting or cutting the right frequencies can help you go from a Strat-like sparkle to a Gibson-like chunky darkness with a few slider adjustments.

Anyways, just another couple of suggestions to throw on the pile. Hopefully they help more than my previous suggestion of the Carvin guitars that turned out to not really be at all what I thought they were :)
 
I'll have to try the attenuator. It's a Blues Jr., slightly modified, so it's tube. It may also just be that my ears are particularly sensitive at that frequency. It seems like most guitars are kind of annoying at that range, so it's entirely possible (but annoying). In either case, an attenuator would still be good because the tone is better overall at louder volumes. For now, though, I practice in a basement, so it's not totally necessary.

As for the overall sound... I went to try out some of those G&Ls Milnoque was suggesting and the ASAT Special Deluxe is probably the best guitar ever. It has overwound P-90s, though, so it has a bit of hum that I'll have to figure out how to combat. But it just sounds so good that I don't even care about the hum. I thought I might've wanted a more Strat sound, but I tried the S-500 and it just wasn't doing it for me.

I may one day look into getting an EQ pedal, but I think that will come after the next guitar.
 
The Weber Attenuators are the only ones I have any experience with. If you're running a Blues Jr., The Micro-Mass will do the job for you. I think they are $70 or $80. I'd hate to be without one any more. This sounds a ton better than the crunch you get with your preamp tubes using a master volume.

There are alot of folks that rave about the THD Hot-Plate. They have a fine reputation.

I would steer you away from the attenuators by Marshall. They can fail in a way than cause damage to your amp
 
Those ASAT special pickups are not P-90s. They use a different technology and have their own unique sound.
 
Put together a resistive attenuator today (it's just 4 resistors, how hard is that?). I only needed it to cut a little volume, so I decided that, given I would then be spending only about $10, the minor bit of tone loss would be acceptable.

The overall sound of the amp is muuuch better now. If I need it to be louder, I can remove the attenuator, but even with the master all the way up (which I don't plan on doing, because I only built a 20w attenuator), it's still a fairly reasonable volume. And it sounds muuuch better when I kick on the overdrive pedal. Thanks for the advice everyone :)
 
Good for you, Congratulations!!!

Be advised that running your tube amp without a load can damage it (you probably already know this but for anyone who doesn't...). If the sound changes, stop immediately and check for resistor failure.
 
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