From goffmac747@aol.com Mon Aug 04 01:19:08 2008
Subject:Re: VK8/8m - what you might have missed


I realize you are using headphones and when tweaking my 8M, Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones, the cheaper of all the references, is what I use. And I think using headphones to tweak the 8M is a good thing. After dialing in your sound, then we tweak the amps, leslie, what have you... Since you are playing yours through a 900 cab and not recording, I take it, you will hear different needs. I must preface this and add that the 222 is not in the control room, as it shouldn't be, and the final result is coming through the studio monitors so those are the judge for my recording apps.

But if we are to take a step back and realize that most of the things that involved a B was always the amplification, either multi leslies or franken leslies, it was always something done to the amp, either a Marshall guitar amp (which btw is based on a Fender Bassman circuitry AFIK) attached to a Hammond as in the case of Jon Lord, or a detached top rotor and a "bassman?" amp, so the story goes in the case of Goldie,? (and I saw Goldie play live with Steppenwolf at a small club in LA) and never the AO-28 preamp INSIDE the organ. There was never anything that could be done or was done, short of Bill Beer... to be fair, to that part of the B set up and all the songs that we gravitated towards were the ones that had magic coming from the amp end.

The reason I say the overdrive "must come" from the pre and the amp is because as in guitar amplification, putting an overdrive pedal between the guitar and the amp and maxing out the pedal, wastes the tonal potential of the amp and preamp of the guitar amp, by making the pedal the total supplier of the tone... The pedal (in this case the OVERDRIVE knob on the 8M) in my opinion would serve a better purpose if it enhances the natural sonics of an overdriven amp and preamp rather than be the main ingredient. Thus, turning up the amp/preamp and then adding a little of the pedal gets the two working together. That's why it's called OVERDRIVE and not DISTORTION. It's to overdrive an already overdriven amp and preamp.

All I know is if I floored the expression pedal on my B3, you could hear the leakage...and btw the 122 volume knob was maxed out..always...never blew a driver..it still has the same parts in it since it was made in the late 60's except for a new SS relay which i don't really like.

Obviously everyone has their approach and either being on a budget or running a pro studio which in this case, the STT-1 is a multi purpose preamp. it's used to track vocals, bass guitar etc... it just happens to be part of the studio equipment.

But taking into consideration what was mentioned above that it was always the amp that got the tweak, in most cases a leslie or in certain cases another amp altogether, this is where the similarity lies. Not in budget constraints or lack of it.

Watch Jon tweak the preamp on a Marshall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YJIgyJFIo0





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From: mrk7421