stevil935

These are some nice recommendations. I did already buy an amp, but I may keep some of these in mind if I ever need one in the future. That Randall one you mentioned in specific looks pretty dope. I like the way Randall heads sound.

I ended up going with a Marshall vs100 valvestate head with a 4x12 cab and it's beastly. The thing pushes out enough distortion to melt ones face off. Particularly with the addition of a vintage tube overdrive, an eq pedal with the mids boosted, and a jackson guitar with emg pickups. I've always been more of a industrial musician, but having the ability to get some really nice metal tones is very nice. I've always wanted to casually do the occasional black metal song (who doesn't like casual black metal?) and it's very nice to have that option.

Valvestate is also nice because I can get very nice distortion at lower levels while still getting some tube warmth when cranking it.

I'll have to check out that Digitech 2101 too. I have a few Digitech pedals already, but I've never really gotten too far into the rack mounts. I've heard they can be pretty sick though if you know what you're doing.

2 hours ago, Tim37 said:

I wouldn't say a 100 watt amp is over kill by any means, it's just not what people think it is.  Most people think (and it's easy to understand why) that double the wattage double the volume and thats not how it works.   You shouldn't have any volume problems with the new rig. 

Cool deal. And yeah, I would have probably assumed the same thing. I like doing my research before getting new gear though. Definitely nice to have a forum like this for such occasions.

All good man. I probably asked about 20 different questions so that's my bad.

But actually I think that about answers everything. I have the new cab. It's a marshall mx412a 4x12 16ohm (in total,so I think 4 4ohm speakers) 240w cab. Absolutely beautiful. And the head (marshall valvestate vs100 @ 4ohms/100w) is on it's way. Should have that in a couple of days. Thanks to you guys I know more about amps and speakers than ever before lol. So thank you guys!

7 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Power conditioners and surge protectors are not the same. Generally a PC provides cleaner, less noisy or more consistent AC supply. A surge protector prevents spikes or overvoltage conditions from damaging equipment.

Cool. I'm familiar with surge protectors but not power conditioners. But you don't think either would help the issues listed above?

I've also read that a 16ohms cab can be rewired in parallel to become a 4ohms cab. This is something I may consider doing (assuming I have a 16ohms cab. Which I'll find out in a few hours)

42 minutes ago, Tim37 said:

A few things to chew on here 

It takes approximately 10x wattage to double the volume from a given driver.  Currently your running 60w into a single 12 you would need to 600w to double your volume or 6w to half it.

There are different classes of amps you will see class a, b, ab, d ect. This describes the basic circuitry in the amp and how it delivers power it's also why amps with the same wattage rating have different volume levels usually solid state amps arnt as loud as a tube amp.

More speakers more volume.  The easiest way to increase volume is add speakers.  The average guitar speaker needs about 2 watts for it to start coloring the sound (usually a bad thing but for guitar speakers it's good).  So 4x12 cab needs about 8 watts to start to sound good 

 

What I'm getting at is a 15 watt amp into your (I'm assuming) 4*12 should be plenty loud.

Alright, so 100w is probably overkill then. I've been trying to look up the impedance levels for the both of these. Looks like it's about 4 ohms for the head then.:

Quote

For connection to external loudspeakers. The

minimum operating impedance for the VS100R, VS100H

& VS102R is 4 Ohms. The internal speaker on the

VS100R/VS102R is rated at 8 Ohms, therefore if using an

external speaker in conjunction with the internal speaker,

the external speaker should be rated at 8 Ohms

Not sure what it is for the cab though. I'll have to ask when I go to pick it up tomorrow.

Manual for the head:
http://medias.audiofanzine.com/files/vs100r-vs102r-vs100rh-manual-479345.pdf

Apologies for the delay but I wanted to say thank you again for all the helpful tips. You guys have been extremely helpful!

In regards to the power issues, would either a power conditioner or surge protector help with that? Are these clipping noises pretty obvious? And would about 80% volume be okay or would you go lower?

22 hours ago, curtisa said:

Hey thank you for the response!

If a limited budget is something you have to work woth, what about checking out the second hand market? I'm not familiar with those bands, but perhaps a google search may reveal what gear they use, and then see if anything is being sold in your area that fits the bill?

Yeah, I decided to go with a Marshall Valvestate VS100. I got it used on ebay for about $200 which I believe is a very good price for such an amp. I had checked out some local stores first but everything was way outside my budget or just not what I was looking for, and I didn't see anything listed on craigslist. However, after viewing some of the vids on ebay I believe this is the right choice for me. Has exactly the sound I'm looking for.

Not if you don't want to. There's nothing that says Marshall amps must be coupled with Marshall cabs. Mix and match to your hearts content.

This was tricky for me because on the one hand I really like Marshalls sound, but on the other hand I know there are some pretty amazing Peavey and Randall heads still within my price range (though to be fair they're double what I payed for the Marshall one). But yeah I wasn't sure if there was a reason to stick with same brand cabs/heads. Good to know though.

100W upwards should be more than ample. There's actually a case for not going less than the rating of the cabinet if the amp you use has a solid state power section, due to the way the amp clips when overdriven.

I believe the one I got was a solid state amp with a tube preamp. At 100W I'm thinking it should definitely be loud enough. I'm not sure what you mean by this second part though. Are you saying I should aim for the same wattage head/cab? Or are you saying I should get less wattage for the heads? I suppose it's a bit late now lol, but it would still be good to know for future reference.

Another question too if it's cool. Is it a bad idea to plug the head into a Boss RC-300 Loop Station and then plug that into the Cab? I ask because I'd like to loop a track with distortion already in it rather than feeding the loop station into a distorted amp (this way the drums and such don't get distortion on them). I'm pretty sure there's a way to separate different tracks to different outputs on it, but I haven't figured it out yet. Putting the head into the loop station into the cab would be easiest, but I don't want to risk harming any of my gear.

And thank you for the tips! You guys have been super helpful on this forum so far, and I definitely appreciate it.

Hello again everyone. I recently decided to upgrade my amp. I currently have a Behringer GTX60 (60 watt) guitar amp that is about as loud as I need it to be (slightly louder wouldn't hurt), and although if I'm just playing some grunge/rock music it sounds mostly good enough, as soon as I switch to metal music it just gives me that wasps in a tin can sound and it kills any notion of playing metal songs in my band.

Now, I decided what I really want is to get something more suited for extreme metal (Dethklok, Dimmu Borgir, The Kovenant, etc.). However, I am on a semi-limited budget, so I don't know how close I'm really going to be able to emulate their sound.

I just bought a Marshall 250 watt cabinet and I'm looking for a head to go with it. My budget is preferably around $350-400. I would like to go with a tube amp if possible, but I realize that might be unreasonable. I've been to a few different local stores and haven't found anything above 15 watts in my price-range.

What would you guys recommend? I know wattage doesn't necessarily equal volume, but I need something that can at least keep up with my current amp and when I start seeing 15 watts being sold for $500, it leads me to believe that either I'm never going to be able to afford the distortion sound I'm looking for at a loud enough volume to match that cabinet, or I know nothing about cab/head wattage and maybe a 15 watt head is perfect for a 250 watt cab. I don't know.

So I'd like to know:
-What would be the best amp head around my price-range ($350-400)that would be able to duplicate some Dimmu Borgir/Dethklok style distortion (if any)?
-Should I stick with a Marshall head since I have a Marshall cabinet?
-If I have a 250 watt cab, what wattage head should I get?
-Should I just save up for longer and hold off for the time being, or is there a way to get what I'm looking for in my price range?

My band has some shows coming up in about 2 months, so if I could have something before then that'd be nice, but I do have grown up shit to pay for (y'know unimportant shit like car payments, student loans, rent, internet, food, etc.). So I gotta keep it within reason.

Any input is highly appreciated. Thank you.

And it works! It works perfectly! Thank you, Curtisa! You seriously rock. I can't wait to show the guys I jam with.

And I threw an extra thank you into my blog:
http://stevil.org/2017/01/01/toggle-switch/

10 hours ago, curtisa said:

Wire your kill switch to the pale wire (grey? white?) -the top lug - and the middle black wire -the middle lug - and you'll be grand.

So the white one and the middle black one? Alright. Thank you. I'll let you know how it goes.

And so you can tell where everything's going on the volume pot:

And here's the guitar one.

Thanks for the prompt response. And alright, I got one. It's a little fuzzy so I can try to take another one if you want.

Sorry for the double post. Can't figure out how to edit the last one. But here is a diagram of what I'd be doing. Is this correct? And is this an acceptable approach to use with active pickups? Lastly, I still am not sure which spots on the output jack to solder to since there are 3.

Hello. I apologize for the blunt first post, but I'm trying to install a killswitch in my guitar and need some help. I have a Jackson Dinky guitar with custom installed EMG 81 and 85 active pickups, 1 volume pot, 1 tone pot, and a flip-switch (Tom Morello style) killswitch with two wires. My output jack has 3 spots where wires are currently soldered to it, and I'm told the best way to install a killswitch is to solder both the wires to the output jack, but since there are 3 spots where I can solder it to, I'm not entirely sure which ones to solder it to. I'm also not sure if this is exactly the right way to install it in the first place. This is just what I read on yahoo answers. Can anyone help me out here? Am I going about this the right way? And if so, how can I tell which spots to solder the switch to on the output jack?
Thank you for your help.