Amp volume curiosity

Gassage

Here's a thing. Out of my three amps, the one I struggle to tame most of all is the 12w Princeton.

Now, I have no idea why but I'd analogise this to a hot hatch versus a 5 litre Merc.

The Merc is a lot easier to drive at slow speeds than a Gti Turbo Twion Cam doo dah....it's long legged...

And that's the same with my other two amps- the Hiwatt and the Twin. Both are very long legged amps in a car sense, whereas the princeton, for all its wonderfullness, is an eager hot hatch wanted to go at 100 mph all the time.

Does this make sense or, as usual, am I talking utter tripe?

jellyroll

Gassage said:

Here's a thing. Out of my three amps, the one I struggle to tame most of all is the 12w Princeton.

Now, I have no idea why but I'd analogise this to a hot hatch versus a 5 litre Merc.

The Merc is a lot easier to drive at slow speeds than a Gti Turbo Twion Cam doo dah....it's long legged...

And that's the same with my other two amps- the Hiwatt and the Twin. Both are very long legged amps in a car sense, whereas the princeton, for all its wonderfullness, is an eager hot hatch wanted to go at 100 mph all the time.

Does this make sense or, as usual, am I talking utter tripe?

Very clear.  Two Rocks are for boy racers while Laneys are for lounge lizards. 

koss59

I take it your freind knows about the other master volume on the back of two rocks?

57Deluxe

exactly why does he need more volume?? Just get a better drummer...

beed84

koss59 said:

I take it your freind knows about the other master volume on the back of two rocks?

I'd like to think so. However, it's worth asking.

57Deluxe said:

exactly why does he need more volume?? Just get a better drummer...

Hopefully it won't come to the latter.  But I agree, he really shouldn't need more volume.

Cabicular

I have one of these combos and it will slaughter a drummer in anything but a massive stage
However the volume stage is very odd
There is a reverb send and return control and a pure return on the back which seems to control the master volume
I've never seen anything like it. Unless you turn the return up the amp is very quiet
I'm sure your mate knows what he is doing I'm just pointing it out because it's unusual and I have gigged that exact combo in a vocal pa only pub plenty of times and nearly killed people with it
It is incredibly loud for its size and wattage

Cabicular

Sorry Koss as you said

It's labelled return and not to be confused with the master volume on the front. I understand what they've done I'm not exactly clear why they did it that way. I'm sure some of the amp gurus will pipe in but I made the mistake initially of thinking that was just an FX return rather than the volume for the entire power amp section (which is stupid in hindsight)

thisisguitar

I use a 50w Two Rock Studio Pro with 2x12 on stage. When we play festival stages (1500+) I find my volume(s) need to be up at around 12-1pm. My old Mesa 5:50 Express rarely went passed 10am at these same gigs. Hadn't really thought much about that until I read the OP.

When I tested the 35w TR at Andertons I did turn it up loud and it seemed like plenty for a stage, the 50w came up at the right price to tempt me though, and headroom is important. 

Some drummers are fucking useless mind, and hammering their cymbals is a massive pain in the arse... especially in the studio. 

hywelg

Cabicular said:

Sorry Koss as you said

It's labelled return and not to be confused with the master volume on the front. I understand what they've done I'm not exactly clear why they did it that way. I'm sure some of the amp gurus will pipe in but I made the mistake initially of thinking that was just an FX return rather than the volume for the entire power amp section (which is stupid in hindsight)

It has arisen out of the Dumble thing. TR started cloning Dumbles and then making variants. Most Dumbles were run with a rack Dumbleator FX buffer. When in the amp FX loop the return of the Dumbleator becomes the Master volume for the amp and reportedly works better than the master on the amp front as it is later in the circuit.