Post by benttop (Steve) on Apr 30, 2006 11:59:21 GMT -7
Lately I’ve been trying to get to two world class tones – one clean, the other with some dirt. I have been playing a THD Flexi-50 for a couple of years and it very adequately covers the “world class grind” category. But what to do about the clean side…. So I bought a Mazerati 2x12 combo and started my Dr. Z discoveries.
The Mazerati was a fine amp, but I had failed to consider one simple detail – I’m not getting any younger! While that amp worked fine, it sure is heavy. So when I saw a used 6545 head at my dealer, I jumped on it – traded the Mazerati I had just bought for the 6545 head. I made a few sound clips, but didn’t get an opportunity to gig the amp before the Stingray deal popped up and I took the bait. That put the 6545 on the back burner for a while for obvious reasons.
But the idea of the 6545 is still the right idea for what I’m trying to do here, so I decided to haul it out last night for a “real world” sound check. Holy cow, I’m glad I did! It took a bit of fiddling, but once I got things dialed in, the 6545 performed at a very high level. Here are the details.
I decided to use the THD 2x12 cab that I have equipped with Weber Beam Blockers since I like the Beam Blockers and the cab was already in the car from the previous night’s gig. From my experimenting I knew that this would be a reasonable choice – my Stingray seems to hate that cab, but the 6545 appears to like it just fine. Tones were smooth with no peakiness.
I also decided to use the THD Hot Plate since I had the 8 ohm version in my gig bag already, and I’ve got the Airbrake and its cabling down in my studio hooked to the Stingray. The Hot Plate works great for a 50 watt amp because the first click is a -4db jump, which puts you right down around 20 watts or so – perfect.
I set up my pedal board for this gig (I don’t always use it) so I had my signal routed as follows: Guitar > Lehle 3 @ 1 > Demeter Compulator > Voodoo Labs Tremolo > Speedster Analog Chorus > Xotic BB Preamp > SPF I-5 Analog Delay > Xotic RC Booster > Amp. I have the tuner out on the Lehle feeding my Boss pedal tuner so that the tuner isn’t in the signal chain. All of these pedals are powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2, and the whole thing is mounted to a Pedaltrain board – the original size.
Two things were immediately apparent when we started to play. The first is that the two different preamps in this amp respond way different to the guitar – the KT-45 is VERY dynamic, while the SRZ-65 side is considerably more compressed. At least, as I had things set that was the case. By the end of the evening, my settings were as follows: KT-45: Bass: Dimed; Treble: Dimed; Volume: Noon. SRZ-65: Bass: Dimed; Middle: Dimed; Treble: Dimed; Master: 9 o’clock; Gain: 3 o’clock.
What I found is that when on the SRZ-65 side, turning my guitar volume down to about half resulted in a perception of half volume and considerable cleanup of the tone, but on the KT-45 side, to get the guitar down to half volume only required turning the knob down about ¼ turn from full volume. That’s why my perception is that the KT-45 side is more dynamic – it responds much quicker to a higher guitar volume. It gets louder quicker, and it gets softer quicker too.
This dynamic behavior had me a bit flummoxed at first – half way through the first set I was thinking, “Well, I suppose I could sell this and keep the Stingray.” But by the end of the first set, I had more or less found the sweet spot on the KT-45 side and was starting to have fun. The sweet spot for me, as it turns out, involved a piece of external gear – the Xotic RC Booster.
I mentioned that I had learned two things about the amp, and the first was the dynamic response of the KT-45. The other was that I really like some top end sizzle on my tone. But there just isn’t a presence or cut control on this amp, so it is not possible to get that presence without resorting to an external device. But fortunately, the treble control on the RC Booster dials in a frequency that is pretty close to what I like to hear on the top end. I tweaked it several times throughout the first set, and by the end of the set things were beginning to look very promising. I had hauled the Flexi-50 in and it was sitting right there, so I had the option of switching out, but I decided that things were going too well for a swap, and continued with the 6545. I’m glad I did. Once I got the presence worked out, both sides of that amp started to really shine.
There are some caveats – with a preamp that is so dynamic, you find responses that you didn’t quite expect – my I-5 Analog Delay is a good example. Set the level of the delays so they work great with the SRZ-65, and they end up being too loud on the KT-45 side. Yeah, that makes sense, but hmmmm… what shall I do about that? Another thing I discovered is that I would like a different amount of presence on the two preamps – one likes a bit more than the other – hard to do with one pedal. There are similar discoveries for several of the other pedals on my board.
These are minor issues – as I said, I often leave the pedal board at home and play straight in. But to get that presence I liked, it appears I’ll need the board at all times going forward. Unless I mod the amp, which is a distinct possibility. I’m thinking of a pull-presence switch on the Treble pot on both sides, then tweak out the mod to provide what I want. That way the amp stays with the stock sound until the knob is pulled out. The other thing I may do is see if I can get the Doc to put in an effects loop – if his loop works as well on this amp as it does on the Stingray, I could then put my Yamaha SPX-2000 in the loop and program the delays differently for each preamp. THAT would fix things up in a world class way!
Final opinion – with some minor tweaks to deal with my own personal preferences, this amp definitely can be the world class clean AND gain amp that I need for the rock cover band I play in. Wow, I never thought I’d consider leaving the Flexi at home, but for this gig, the 6545 definitely has the goods. Very cool!
The Mazerati was a fine amp, but I had failed to consider one simple detail – I’m not getting any younger! While that amp worked fine, it sure is heavy. So when I saw a used 6545 head at my dealer, I jumped on it – traded the Mazerati I had just bought for the 6545 head. I made a few sound clips, but didn’t get an opportunity to gig the amp before the Stingray deal popped up and I took the bait. That put the 6545 on the back burner for a while for obvious reasons.
But the idea of the 6545 is still the right idea for what I’m trying to do here, so I decided to haul it out last night for a “real world” sound check. Holy cow, I’m glad I did! It took a bit of fiddling, but once I got things dialed in, the 6545 performed at a very high level. Here are the details.
I decided to use the THD 2x12 cab that I have equipped with Weber Beam Blockers since I like the Beam Blockers and the cab was already in the car from the previous night’s gig. From my experimenting I knew that this would be a reasonable choice – my Stingray seems to hate that cab, but the 6545 appears to like it just fine. Tones were smooth with no peakiness.
I also decided to use the THD Hot Plate since I had the 8 ohm version in my gig bag already, and I’ve got the Airbrake and its cabling down in my studio hooked to the Stingray. The Hot Plate works great for a 50 watt amp because the first click is a -4db jump, which puts you right down around 20 watts or so – perfect.
I set up my pedal board for this gig (I don’t always use it) so I had my signal routed as follows: Guitar > Lehle 3 @ 1 > Demeter Compulator > Voodoo Labs Tremolo > Speedster Analog Chorus > Xotic BB Preamp > SPF I-5 Analog Delay > Xotic RC Booster > Amp. I have the tuner out on the Lehle feeding my Boss pedal tuner so that the tuner isn’t in the signal chain. All of these pedals are powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2, and the whole thing is mounted to a Pedaltrain board – the original size.
Two things were immediately apparent when we started to play. The first is that the two different preamps in this amp respond way different to the guitar – the KT-45 is VERY dynamic, while the SRZ-65 side is considerably more compressed. At least, as I had things set that was the case. By the end of the evening, my settings were as follows: KT-45: Bass: Dimed; Treble: Dimed; Volume: Noon. SRZ-65: Bass: Dimed; Middle: Dimed; Treble: Dimed; Master: 9 o’clock; Gain: 3 o’clock.
What I found is that when on the SRZ-65 side, turning my guitar volume down to about half resulted in a perception of half volume and considerable cleanup of the tone, but on the KT-45 side, to get the guitar down to half volume only required turning the knob down about ¼ turn from full volume. That’s why my perception is that the KT-45 side is more dynamic – it responds much quicker to a higher guitar volume. It gets louder quicker, and it gets softer quicker too.
This dynamic behavior had me a bit flummoxed at first – half way through the first set I was thinking, “Well, I suppose I could sell this and keep the Stingray.” But by the end of the first set, I had more or less found the sweet spot on the KT-45 side and was starting to have fun. The sweet spot for me, as it turns out, involved a piece of external gear – the Xotic RC Booster.
I mentioned that I had learned two things about the amp, and the first was the dynamic response of the KT-45. The other was that I really like some top end sizzle on my tone. But there just isn’t a presence or cut control on this amp, so it is not possible to get that presence without resorting to an external device. But fortunately, the treble control on the RC Booster dials in a frequency that is pretty close to what I like to hear on the top end. I tweaked it several times throughout the first set, and by the end of the set things were beginning to look very promising. I had hauled the Flexi-50 in and it was sitting right there, so I had the option of switching out, but I decided that things were going too well for a swap, and continued with the 6545. I’m glad I did. Once I got the presence worked out, both sides of that amp started to really shine.
There are some caveats – with a preamp that is so dynamic, you find responses that you didn’t quite expect – my I-5 Analog Delay is a good example. Set the level of the delays so they work great with the SRZ-65, and they end up being too loud on the KT-45 side. Yeah, that makes sense, but hmmmm… what shall I do about that? Another thing I discovered is that I would like a different amount of presence on the two preamps – one likes a bit more than the other – hard to do with one pedal. There are similar discoveries for several of the other pedals on my board.
These are minor issues – as I said, I often leave the pedal board at home and play straight in. But to get that presence I liked, it appears I’ll need the board at all times going forward. Unless I mod the amp, which is a distinct possibility. I’m thinking of a pull-presence switch on the Treble pot on both sides, then tweak out the mod to provide what I want. That way the amp stays with the stock sound until the knob is pulled out. The other thing I may do is see if I can get the Doc to put in an effects loop – if his loop works as well on this amp as it does on the Stingray, I could then put my Yamaha SPX-2000 in the loop and program the delays differently for each preamp. THAT would fix things up in a world class way!
Final opinion – with some minor tweaks to deal with my own personal preferences, this amp definitely can be the world class clean AND gain amp that I need for the rock cover band I play in. Wow, I never thought I’d consider leaving the Flexi at home, but for this gig, the 6545 definitely has the goods. Very cool!