hay guys and galls (but mostly guys im sure) need some info on getting a very meaty low end slam on my peavey 5150 mk1 head through a marshall 4x12 any help much apreciated..see im new to 5150 (just got it yesterday) and its reputation preseeds it..also if anyone has a footswitch for one or that will fit one contact me on underclass@hotmail.co.uk ill pay well cheers

If your after that kind of sound, try turning up your resonance to about 7 or so. The resonance gives your tone a little more balls. Also, you might want to put your lows on about 5-6. But whatever you do, DO NOT SCOOP THE MIDS! Instead keep the mids anywhere between 5-10 and put the highs where ever you like. Another thing, the presence pot on 5150's get real sensitive in the 8-10 region, so I have mine on about 8.5. To me, it sounds like the sweet spot, but experiment a little.

PS- Don't turn your gain up a whole lot. 5-8 will be plenty, otherwise your sound will lose definition.

I've found that asking for settings for 5150 is just useless. It seems the slightest change in room size, furniture, flooring, people ect ect. calls for a pretty big eq change. So just do what everyone with new gear and a good sound do: suck it up, sit down and tweak it. But seriously, if you want more low end do you really need to ask how to get it?

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resonance that high will sound like mud, that might be good for low volumes but for high volumes I wouldnt but the resonance past 3.

8 for gain? I have mine on 6 and its already a shitload of gain.

I think DEAD pretty much gave you all the advice you need.

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5150's are so easy... really you an kinda knock the knobs around and for the most part everything will sound good. not like a meas or anything where it's harder to get a good tone than a bad.

turn everything to 5 and go from there.

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i want a 5150 real bad. anyone want to sell me one? I'll offer $100

for real though, a 5150 is without a doubt the next amp im buying. ive only played on one once, and i loved it. Like XDX said, its easy to get a good tone

Well my friend is looking for a head and he seems interested in a Blue Voodoo... so if you wanna sell it and make some profit then maybe we can work something out.

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nah, im definitely keepin this baby.

FEGGIT!!11

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OMGOSH WHY U CALL MEH A FEGGIT?!?!?!?!?1

CUZ UR GHEY1one

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Damn it. You win.

I always do..

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yea, yea. Well, you know what? I'm gonna be cool and use the cool smilies now, not the ghey ones, the cool ones.

You forgot the coolest one..

ITS POOPING!

Second best..



LOOK AT THE BUTT JIGGLE!

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5150's are capable of quite a bit.

If the Eq still proves inadequate for you, you can always buy an EQ pedal, as MXR carries.

I'm not very knowledgeable about tube amps, but I do know you have to juice the things to get them to sound their best. And a 5150 on volume 2-3 will tear tiles off the floor. I would buy some sort of device to reduce the power ( Edward Van Halen bought a device from radio shack that served this purpose back when he used an all tube Marshall head ) so you can get the amplifier on full throttle at a manageable volume. The more volume the amp puts out, the more bass it pumps, and when you're turning an amp up past 5-7, it can get mushy on a Bass 10, Mid 5, Treble 6-7, and then you have to turn down the bass knob. If you could cut the power efficiently, you'd have more to "work with", on your bass EQ knob.

At least I think so. I may be wrong. XdX or BLS or someone who undoubtedly knows more than I could tell you for sure.

A power attenuator like the one THD makes is what your talking about.

It lets you drive your amp without increasing the volume, so you get that great tube saturation without cranking your amp.

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Obviously, as you can tell, I don't know much about this ... so it basically gives it more drive. I'm thinking about getting a 5150 Combo, and that would be a must have. ( I'm convinced that if I worked with it I could get a sound I would prefer more than solid state Crates or Randalls ) Is there any shift in the EQ balance?

Just crank it up to 11.

that statement was asinine and unnecessary. Why do you insist on showering the forum with your random, annoying comments?

I'm sorry, really I am, I'll try not to do shit like that again unless it's in that type of thread.

Now that's just impractical.

I know, that only works with Marshalls, end of this conversation now.

No harm done dude. You're 10 times cooler than most of the newbs we're getting in here lately.

sorry the only Peavey amps that goto 11 are the new "Penta" series.

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Actually cranking any tube amp to the max will result is better tone for teh most part. You are driving the tubes harder.

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That was actually a joke w/ Marshalls and having knobs that go to 11, but I won't get into that.

i find that stressing your speakers is just as, if not more important than clipping powertubes...

to much attenuation just sounds gay.

a good way around this is to use less speakers, so they work more.

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I'm planning on selling my Crate GT212 for a 5150 212, so I'm trying to learn everything I can about it.

So I can just disable ( unplug ) one speaker to get some attenuation, it seems. Would uninstalling one, two or three of the power amp tubes reduce the volumous output as well? I'm thinking you would be cooking one or two tubes, but having those running at full capacity might sound better than having 4 running at 10-20% capacity. This would certainly be less expensive than having a diminuitive purple THD box atop of my amplifier.

Oh knowledgeable xdx, your thoughts?

Stressed out speaker do sound much better but I don't think they are as important it seems you are making it out to be, xdx.

It is also notworthy to say attuenation drains power tubes like a bitch.

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I think I'll forego an attenuator then. Sounds like much more trouble than its worth.

What about disabling a few of the power tubes?

I'm not sure of your situation, but I play my 5150 combo (converted to a head) through a 4x12 at like 1.5, 2 when I'm alone and it actualy sounds really good. I wouldnt worry about it, you can get a good sound at low volumes, obviously it would be the cranked tube sound, but dont worry.

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disabling speakers is not attenuation... but it will allow more managable volumes.

it's more effecient volume wise to add or subtract speakers than it is with wattage. more surface area and air being pushed with more speakers. so cut out a speaker and you cut out some volume. but not only that, you also put more stress on that one remaining speaker.

as for tubes, it depends on the amp... a 5150 combo, no, because you only have two 6l6's, and since it's a class a/b amp you need both of them because one is pushing and the other is pulling... a dual recto(for example) however has 4 6l6's and you can pull out a pair(must be either the inner two or the outer two) to cut it down to 50w. but not all amps running 4 powertubes can do this. so it just depends.

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just a testimonial on stressing tube amps, i turned my blue voodoo up to 10 the other day.... oh my god... around 9 it gets this INCREDIBLE boost, sounds like an entirely different amp, its fucking amazing

maybe my tubes are shot or i just need to crank it more. my blue voodoo has a great sound. i went in an cleaned up all solders. they were crappy so you might want to get that done. but it doesnt have the gain im lookin for. on my '59 i barely get enough distortion and theres no sustain.well not much.ok there sustain but the distortion fades out way before the rest of the sound.if i replace the tubes. do you reccomend EL34S or 6L6s.if i get EL34s im getting jj el34ls, i dont know aout 6l6s. i have sovtek 5881 in it now basically a 6l6 right? one example of the not so sound. when i tap which i do alot it barely amplifies it and there is no distortion on it at all.....so many questions...i thought i knew alot, but there's aparently alot more.

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mine has Groove Tubes 6l6B's in there now. sounds great.

Just bought 5150 combo from E-bay for 670 total, shipping and everything ...

Going to brag about it here in this post, instead of starting a whole new thread, since you guys probably hate that

does the bv have auto bias?

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670? you got ripped off.

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I would'nt exactly say "ripped off". Yes, I know some have gone for 500$, but factor in the exorbitant shipping fees for the obscene weight of the amp, and the fact that this amplifier can compete with others costing twice as much, and its not so bad. I know I could have gotten better ... but damn, I'm sick of my Crate GT212.

Either way I'm certainly going to love it.

Speaker breakup does sound awesome, V30's cranked are so smooth.


Want to reduce the wattage of your 6505 or 5150 combo? Just unplug the speaker and plug it into the extension cabinet jack. This will cut the the wattage in half as the extension cabinet output only runs at 30 watts.

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Half? That's all I need. I'll definitely try that when I recieve my 5150.

BLS are you sure about that? I seriously can not tell a difference between the two.

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Roger Crimm from the peavey forums confirmed it.

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i know that the output from the combo to another cab is only 30w.. but if you disconnect the speakers, i think it would run all 60w out the external jack... otherwise it could cause problems with that other 30w cranked out but with nowhere to go.

just a thought..

but the combo 5150 should be managable on it's own... 60w tube pushing two 12's is still freaking loud, but compared to 120w through four 12's.. it's quite less. because you have half the wattage AND half the speakers...

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Be real careful about the new resistance level you're creating by unplugging one speaker. I don't know the wiring config of the 5150 212 offhand, but it could really fuck your amp to plug it into not enough resistance load.

EDIT: Also, about needing low end... I thought the 5150 was hard to get low end on when I first bought it too... But now I just put lows on 6-7, resonance about 2-3 and it sounds great. That's with volume about 1.5 and lead gain on 6-7. I think the volume needs to be at least 1.5 to really rule. Get good pickups. Try tuning down.

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I've already got an MXR EQ ten-band EQ, which should rend as much low end as I need. I just forgot, there's a main volume on the EQ pedal ... I could just crank the 5150, get the saturation, and use the EQ pedal's main volume to keep it at a manageable level. There might be some degredation of signal, I don't know, I'll have to try this out.

I'm very intent on keeping my standard/drop D tuning. When the money is available I'll invest in maybe a Carvin seven string.

Their's plenty of low end on a 5150. Its called a Resonance control!

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Ahh yes well I have the internal speakers disconnected (obviously).

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Goddamnit, my 5150 is a day late

damn ive got GAS! i just got a new/used amp and i want a 5150 more than anything now.

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I'm pining for my 85 pounds of pure vitriol to arrive on my front door. It had better be tomorrow, or someone at FedEx will die in an inexplicable accident.

"Man found crushed dead by obscenely heavy guitar amplifier after delivering it two weeks late ... "

The older combo BV had auto bias. The heads did not.
Jerry

the famous JerryP has graced us with his presence?

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The outputs are in parallel according to the 5150 manual so it won't make a difference. I've never heard of an internal power splitter on any tube amp. If it's putting out 60 watts, it doesn't matter how many speakers you connect or disconnect. As long as the impedance is matched between the output transformer and your speaker network it will still be 60 watts. If the impedance is not matched (you disconnected/connected speakers and didn't change the output transformer setting, etc...) then you are going to fuck up your amp with reflected power or excessive current depending on what you did.

If you want to reduce the volume safely and don't want to spend the money on a Marshall Power Brake or similar calibrated attenuator, then you can put a resistor in parallel with your speaker network. The resistor should be rated for at least as much power the amp can generate to be safe (double the power is smart). Resistors like this can be found at local salvage yards and electronics stores or online and may require a heatsink. (I bought a 100W 4-ohm resistor for $20 a while back)

Examples for 5150 amp head for guy who started thread:

Four 4 ohm speakers in series total 16 ohms (cabinet set to 16 ohms):
Half power = 16 ohm resistor in parallel and set amp output to 8 ohms
1/4 power = 5.3 ohm resistor in parallel and set amp output to 4 ohms

You can use series resistors as well and take it even further down, but they might negatively affect your tone because coil interactions between the output transformer and the speaker are an important part of tube amp sound. That is why the power attenuators use reactive coils, but there is still a negative affect on sound quality as most people have noticed.


Example for 5150 combo:

This amp is much less flexible. The external speaker network must be 16 ohms. When a plug is inserted in this jack it will switch the output transformer from 16 ohms to 8 ohms because you're external 16 ohm network is expected to be in parallel with the internal 16 ohm network. If you disconnect the internal speakers or leave a cable in the back with no speaker attached your transformer will be mismatched. Basically all you can do to this amp without making modifications is plug a 16 ohm resistive dummy load into the external speaker jack. This will reduce the power by half.


Power notes: every time you reduce the power by half you cut the sound level by 3dB. If you cut it to 1/4 the normal power, that would only be a 6dB drop. Every 6dB drop reduces the range of the cabinet by one half. That means if neighbors could hear you from 200 feet away before, after cutting the power to 1/4 maximum they will only be able to hear you from 100 feet away.