What is the most useful feature on your amp?

[nonoman]

Fixed bias.

[spookstrickland]

What ever knob allows me to turn off the most treble is my fave.

That's called the tone knob Leroy, you'll find it on your instrument

That one is already rolled down and I still need an extra treble knob on the amp to turn down

Now that John the Hermit is doing guitar duties for us, it's nice that I don't need to pretend to be a guitar as well anymore. What you need is a crossover, but you only use the low pass side of it, or a decent low pass shelving filter with a good 16-24dB cutoff. I have a little jumper cable on the back of my T-Max that feeds the low out of the crossover into the power amp, so all that nasty HF stuff is just thrown away. I have it rolled all the way down to 300Hz now

I've been working on something like that.  I breadboarded a little circuit that was a 500HZ boost with a real heavy cut above and a gradual taper below.  I need to fine tune that and box it.

[Hemisaurus]

shelving or peaking?

[Metal and Beer]

The Sanct. Tank. (it totally makes me think and act like I sound better than everyone else)

[RacerX]

The "club setting" switch that turns my Mesa 50/50 into two 15-watt amps instead of two 50s.

[Hemisaurus]

The "club setting" switch that turns my Mesa 50/50 into two 15-watt amps instead of two 50s.

Is that a triode mode switch, or a cathode resistance?

[grimniggzy]

Beta's = Both Input (and to a lesser extent the way you can feed A into B)

Concert Bass = Using the Power Amp In as an Input

Coliseum Bass = Hi/Lo Switches

[RacerX]

The "club setting" switch that turns my Mesa 50/50 into two 15-watt amps instead of two 50s.

Is that a triode mode switch, or a cathode resistance?

As I understand it, it cuts out one of two 6L6 tubes on each side.

[justinhedrick]

the most useful feature on my amp (vtm 60) is the fact that it is rugged as hell: a speaker cable wiggled loose from my cab last thursday during a soundcheck. didn't even blow the amp. and loud.

[Hemisaurus]

The "club setting" switch that turns my Mesa 50/50 into two 15-watt amps instead of two 50s.

Is that a triode mode switch, or a cathode resistance?

As I understand it, it cuts out one of two 6L6 tubes on each side.

Hmm, is it the Hi/Lo switch? That's what is marked on the schematic. What it does is drop the plate voltage of the phase splitter from 436V to 112V, basically turns down the gain of the phase splitter, so the power tubes still run full tilt, but the signal getting to them will never be big enough to drive them to full swing. Neat

The Stage/Studio switch on Matamp/Orange works on the first gain stage, which I imagine would lose you the overdriven tone of the preamp stages, sounds like a better idea.

[RacerX]

The "club setting" switch that turns my Mesa 50/50 into two 15-watt amps instead of two 50s.

Is that a triode mode switch, or a cathode resistance?

As I understand it, it cuts out one of two 6L6 tubes on each side.

Hmm, is it the Hi/Lo switch? That's what is marked on the schematic. What it does is drop the plate voltage of the phase splitter from 436V to 112V, basically turns down the gain of the phase splitter, so the power tubes still run full tilt, but the signal getting to them will never be big enough to drive them to full swing. Neat

The Stage/Studio switch on Matamp/Orange works on the first gain stage, which I imagine would lose you the overdriven tone of the preamp stages, sounds like a better idea.

Yeah, that's it. Hi Power/Low Power...

[Chovie D]

I didnt read others responses so i hope this hasnt been said yet, but the most useful feature of any amp is its ability to take low impedance electrical signal, amplify it, and broadcast it thru a speaker. Without that feature its a doorstop.

In general I like amps with as few other electronic features as possible.
The less circuitry the better, the fewer knobs the better.
Some features I like in an amplifier, electronic and non electronic are:

Keeping the weight down.
Reverb.
Channel switching
Tremolo

the 'bright' switche's usefulness depends on the amps design. ON fenders its very useful.

[Wesogkan]

The badass spring reverb...

[EddieMullet]

It goes to 11

[LogicalFrank]

My favorite feature on my Sunn is the mid boost switch as turning it on makes it sound more awesome. I also like that the bass and treble knobs don't do hardly anything and the contour knob is best set at ten. Makes it really easy to remember my settings. One day, I am going to get a custom made version w/ all the settings I like hardwired and only a volume knob.

[justinhedrick]

My favorite feature on my Sunn is the mid boost switch as turning it on makes it sound more awesome. I also like that the bass and treble knobs don't do hardly anything and the contour knob is best set at ten. Makes it really easy to remember my settings. One day, I am going to get a custom made version w/ all the settings I like hardwired and only a volume knob.

TAD did this back in the day. i don't know what kind of amps they were though.

[I,Galactus]

The ass-load of knobs and switches.   

[tossom]

My favourite amp is my Marshall JCM 800 2204 (50w, single chan).  Its best feature is it sounds how a Marshall should, fat and loud

[LogicalFrank]

My favorite feature on my Sunn is the mid boost switch as turning it on makes it sound more awesome. I also like that the bass and treble knobs don't do hardly anything and the contour knob is best set at ten. Makes it really easy to remember my settings. One day, I am going to get a custom made version w/ all the settings I like hardwired and only a volume knob.

TAD did this back in the day. i don't know what kind of amps they were though.

Now I am definitely sold on the idea. I also remember they showed a heavily souped up silverface Champ in that documentary they did on them a while back. It had an effects loop and stuff built in.

Edit: Wait, do you mean TAD as in Tube Amp Doctor or Tad as in motherfucking TAD?

[justinhedrick]

My favorite feature on my Sunn is the mid boost switch as turning it on makes it sound more awesome. I also like that the bass and treble knobs don't do hardly anything and the contour knob is best set at ten. Makes it really easy to remember my settings. One day, I am going to get a custom made version w/ all the settings I like hardwired and only a volume knob.

TAD did this back in the day. i don't know what kind of amps they were though.

Now I am definitely sold on the idea. I also remember they showed a heavily souped up silverface Champ in that documentary they did on them a while back. It had an effects loop and stuff built in.

Edit: Wait, do you mean TAD as in Tube Amp Doctor or Tad as in motherfucking TAD?

i meant TAD as in Tad Doyle. what is this documentary you speak of?

[Hemisaurus]

Ask Erik, he's a TAD fan. I just like this:



I read an interview where he was talking about having to explain why 4 distortion  pedals is his sound to some producer (maybe Albini, though Albini is pretty accepting of whatever)

[LogicalFrank]

i meant TAD as in Tad Doyle. what is this documentary you speak of?

MOTHERFUCKING TAD! It's called Busted Circuits And Ringing Ears. I think you can watch it on YouTube in these troubled times.

[justinhedrick]

i meant TAD as in Tad Doyle. what is this documentary you speak of?

MOTHERFUCKING TAD! It's called Busted Circuits And Ringing Ears. I think you can watch it on YouTube in these troubled times.

i shall watch it tonight at work.

[LogicalFrank]

I'm watching it right now at work!

[Hemisaurus]

is it on vimeo, so I can download it and watch it later? Found it all in one part, no annoying searching for the parts.