Diezels at low volumes

[petereanima]

master 12 and channel 9 is on the herbert almost near rehearsal-room-volume.

 

[frantic77]

Bedroomlevel at 12? You must live in the woods with no one around you for miles...

He uses the channel volumes to adjust the overall volume You shoud try this yourserlf, just for fun. At least with the VH4 the sound is different when using high master and low ch. volumes compared to the other way round.

I understood that, but that's still way too loud to be considered bedroom level...

+1

i can't play my VH4 at home with the those settings

 

[scottph]

master 12 and channel 9 is on the herbert almost near rehearsal-room-volume.

I know - I tried it after reading it in here, and there's just now way at home...was fun though...

 

[i.ak]

I use THD Hot Plate and crank both !

In both, bedroom (at where my amp never is) as well as in the rehearsal room with full loud band.


I think that the Diezel-tone is rather OK with low volumes (as described in the conversation above), but personally I have not yet experienced a single tube amp (no matter if they were 2W or 300W) that would have sounded more or less the same as when cranked. The major difference seems to be in the feel of dynamics.

For individual bedroom-level practising the Diezels' master section is more than suitable in order to get decent sound. I would not record that sound, but maybe one should not record guitar playing at bedroom anyways .

 

[Lexicon Devil]

Bedroomlevel at 12? You must live in the woods with no one around you for miles...

Although other people have responded to this, yes, my MV is as 12, and I live in a residential neighborhood with the next neighboring house is approximately 5 meters from my bedroom. As far as the noise level is concerned, I can keep the volume low by fine tuning the Channel volume pots to around 8, just below the point where the amp starts to get loud. I have played this way very late at night/ early AM with absolutely no complaints whatsoever from any of my neighbors, and no citations from the police. During the daytime, I can crank the channel volumes a bit higher. --Luckily I don't live in an apartment building, because I'm sure there would be problems.

My rationale behind this is to get the sound of the power amp which is where the real tonality of any tube amp actually is. Anything else is just fizz with no real tone.

 

[Eddie]

do hotplates kill your tone? i've heard that from a few people and i haven't tried one so idk.

 

[scottph]

Bedroomlevel at 12? You must live in the woods with no one around you for miles...

Although other people have responded to this, yes, my MV is as 12, and I live in a residential neighborhood with the next neighboring house is approximately 5 meters from my bedroom. As far as the noise level is concerned, I can keep the volume low by fine tuning the Channel volume pots to around 8, just below the point where the amp starts to get loud. I have played this way very late at night/ early AM with absolutely no complaints whatsoever from any of my neighbors, and no citations from the police. During the daytime, I can crank the channel volumes a bit higher. --Luckily I don't live in an apartment building, because I'm sure there would be problems.

My rationale behind this is to get the sound of the power amp which is where the real tonality of any tube amp actually is. Anything else is just fizz with no real tone.

Maybe the first part works with the VH4, but it doesn't work with the Herbert.

The second part, to me, is just plain ol' rubbish to my knowledge, because all Diezels get most of their tone out of the preamp section, Peter has said so many times, and anybody that has played one should agree, because if that weren't the case the amps would sound as shitty as a Mesa Rectifier at low volumes, and they don't.


As for a THD: It sucks tone, especially when you use it at a resistance level which allows you to crank the Herbert.

 

[Jaymz82]

The second part, to me, is just plain ol' rubbish to my knowledge, because all Diezels get most of their tone out of the preamp section, Peter has said so many times, and anybody that has played one should agree, because if that weren't the case the amps would sound as shitty as a Mesa Rectifier at low volumes, and they don't.

I can't really say if this is true or not from a technical perfective, but I can tell you from personal experience that the VH4 sounds very different when you raise the master and drop the channel volume compared to setting the channels at normal volume and control the overall volume with the master. So at least for the VH4 the amount of power amp really makes a difference.

 

[scottph]

I'm not saying that it doesn't make a difference, but I am saying that the bulk of the tone comes from the preamp stage, and not the poweramp. I also know that it sounds different when you crank the master1 and / or 2 on the Herbert. All I'm saying is that you can not crank the master to 12 and the ch. to 9-ish in a bedroom playing environment on the Herbert. It's not doable.

 

[Jaymz82]

I'm not saying that it doesn't make a difference, but I am saying that the bulk of the tone comes from the preamp stage, and not the poweramp. I also know that it sounds different when you crank the master1 and / or 2 on the Herbert.

Of course it sounds different when you crank the amp BUT what I wanted to say is, that with the VH4 there is quite a big difference in tone at the SAME volume when you either use master high and channel volume low or channel volume high and master low.

All I'm saying is that you can not crank the master to 12 and the ch. to 9-ish in a bedroom playing environment on the Herbert. It's not doable.

I don't doubt that

 

[i.ak]

Bedroomlevel at 12? You must live in the woods with no one around you for miles...

Although other people have responded to this, yes, my MV is as 12, and I live in a residential neighborhood with the next neighboring house is approximately 5 meters from my bedroom. As far as the noise level is concerned, I can keep the volume low by fine tuning the Channel volume pots to around 8, just below the point where the amp starts to get loud. I have played this way very late at night/ early AM with absolutely no complaints whatsoever from any of my neighbors, and no citations from the police. During the daytime, I can crank the channel volumes a bit higher. --Luckily I don't live in an apartment building, because I'm sure there would be problems.

My rationale behind this is to get the sound of the power amp which is where the real tonality of any tube amp actually is. Anything else is just fizz with no real tone.

Maybe the first part works with the VH4, but it doesn't work with the Herbert.

The second part, to me, is just plain ol' rubbish to my knowledge, because all Diezels get most of their tone out of the preamp section, Peter has said so many times, and anybody that has played one should agree, because if that weren't the case the amps would sound as shitty as a Mesa Rectifier at low volumes, and they don't.


As for a THD: It sucks tone, especially when you use it at a resistance level which allows you to crank the Herbert.

According to my experiences with a VH4 made in 2006, the tone IS different when playing at very low volumes and when opened up well over 12.00 o'clock. Please remember that also the speakers and law of physics has a huge role here.

About the THD:
There is NO such a device that would degrease i.e. 96dB to 2dB without have an impact to the sound wave. It simpply is impossible. However, do you claim that the tone of your Herbert is identical when volumes at 9.00 or 12.00? Thus, in order that you can play your beloved Diezel at bedroom-level you need to lower the volumes significantly and due to this it will have an significant impact to your tone and unfortunately the impact is degradation of tone. My point being here, either you will suck your tone by yourself or by the THD or similar attenuator.

Also, another topic what I want to point out here is that, the reason why I use the THD. VH4 is a freaking loud amp when pushed. Thus, it is impossible to use it at bearable levels without any attenuator, etc. About a month ago we recorded a three song EP and the only amp I used was the VH4. We recorded the amp without the THD (extremely loud) and surprise surprise the sound was no different from the sound with slight attenuation. I never -- except for the bedroom-level training purposes where the sound of a 100W tube amp will never the less be anything else than a preampish beehive-chainsaw sizzle and buzz -- use the THD for over -8dB attenuation.

To sum it up:
- YES your tone will be affected wether you dramatically lower your amps volumes or you use an attenuator
- YES the attenuators suck your tone if "over used"
- Buy a solid state amp or POD (or similar) for bedroom-level training
- OR buy a small cabinet...I strongly believe that a 4x12" cabinet is an overkill for bedroom decoration
- OR buy a isolation cabinet and enjoy your huge tube amp tone through computer and headphones
- There is no right or wrong way to enjoy your amp. I have heard some using their tube amps as a door stoppers as well.


Take care my fellow guitar maniacs!
And please do take my opinions as my personal opinions not as a declaration of a e-war. Thank You.

 

[scottph]

No one was talking about the VH4 though, until someone brought it up...here's the original question agin:

Im going to be selling my current 40 watt tube amp to cover the cost of my herbert but i was wondering if id be able to play this inside my house. Can you still get amazing tone at pretty low volumes? thanks.

Eddie

Yes you can, but keep the ch. vol. below 09:30-ish and the masters too.

 

[supersonic]

Im going to be selling my current 40 watt tube amp to cover the cost of my herbert but i was wondering if id be able to play this inside my house. Can you still get amazing tone at pretty low volumes? thanks.

Eddie

Hi Eddie, I just posted a topic, 'short 'n' sweet, Herbert. Recorded in my longeroom a little loder than T.V. volume. A couple of other tracks there include Bogner XTC and Soldano X99/SM100 which were recorded at ear bleeding levels.

 

[VilleDZL]

Herbert sounds better at low volumes than VH4 to me. But you can get pretty good sounds out of VH4 too just using the recipe descriped earlier.

I have to disagree for what i.ak was saying about attenuators and cabs. Even 8 db setting eats sound and it doesn´t do a lot for overall volume so at least for me the amp has to sound great without one. I have tried Hotplate with several different amps and I was always dissappointed. With 4 or 8 db settings it was quite ok but like I said then it just don´t do that much of difference on volume. It made the sound also less organic to me. It would have to work on much bigger attenuation levels so that you could get a profit out of it. I have also found that I can get the best sound at home too by using 4x12 cab.

But getting a good sound at low volumes has also several other important parts. To me everything that effects on gig volume levels is just as important if not even more on bedroom levels. Guitars, mics, elements and even cables and pics can make a huge difference on your sound.

I have found the importance of turning the power amp up a long time ago when trying to get the best possible sound also on low volume levels. Turning the preamp volume up adds a lot of compression and to me Diezels have enough of that already and if you want the real thud and midrange punch you can only get that by opening the power amp.

I think the power amp changes the character of the amp more than changing the actual tone. By turning it up you can get the best out of valve amp and most of it even levels that are suitable for apartments. Obviously the sound gets bigger and thicker but the actual tone doesn´t change that much for me when talking about Herbert.

 

[VH4_BigRig]

Lexicon Devil wrote:
I keep the Master Volume at about 12 o'clock and use the channel volume controls as individual master volumes, that way I'm able to get good tone out of my VH-4 at bedroom levels.


I do the same when I'm using my VH4. Having the master up really helps with headroom for clean sounds on the first two channels, though I know most people are more interested in channels 3/4. I prefer those this way too, though it's different for everyone. I turn my channel volumes up until about 10pm, and then after that I lower them to "reasonable" (a very loose term ) levels. You lose tone no matter which volume you turn down, so I just "set it and forget it" when it comes to the master. Sounds like this might not work with the Herbert though from the previous posts, thanks to its extra wattage.

However, the VH4 is in my jam/recording space in my friend's garage, I've never actually brought it home and played it in my apartment. It's a pain to haul it, and I know I'd get noise complaints no matter in my apartment building! I was ratted on for playing Nintendo with a friend at 10:30pm on a Friday night once...though I was hammered and swearing quite a bit I use a little Kustom solid state 15 watt bass amp and a Sansamp GT2 or Damage Control Demonizer at home.

 

[FriedChickenBandit]

I haven't tried the Herb or VH4 at bedroom/whisper volumes but the Einstein (which I own) , yes..all the time. I play it nightly from 0000 to 0200 hrs sometimes past 0300 and I never wake anyone up even my dogs don't get nosey and come in to investigate.

I also have a Modena60 and after a couple of weeks of experimenting between the 2, the Einstein wins hands down. The Modena might be the 2nd or 3rd best as far as MV controls go. I thought at first that the Modena was better at it than the Einstein but not even close. What I do is set the channel volume to 1:00 or 1300 and use the Master 2 for volume. It really sounds incredible at that level, at least mine does.

The Voodoo V-Rock is great too for that.

I have no idea how Diezel does it but it's amazing how well it works. Sure you're not going to push any air at those volumes but just hear it and you'll see that it's more than enough tone for anyone. Anyone that can play that is. This must ALWAYS be brought up.

 

[nbarts]

I also have a Modena60 and after a couple of weeks of experimenting between the 2, the Einstein wins hands down. The Modena might be the 2nd or 3rd best as far as MV controls go. I thought at first that the Modena was better at it than the Einstein but not even close. What I do is set the channel volume to 1:00 or 1300 and use the Master 2 for volume. It really sounds incredible at that level, at least mine does.

HAHA! Changed your mind, brother?

I have a question for you; where did you mod your dsl?