Marshall MA settings

MA Heads and Combos

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jagermike66
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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby jagermike66 » 09 Aug 2011, 04:58

Hey Paul,

I like any 808 style tube screamer in the front end of the MA. I found a TS9 a lil too bright. As a general rule I tend to keep the pedal as simple as possible (the less nobs the better!). That way it remains very transparent and doesnt spoil the tube warmth of the amp. I run my amp with the amps boost on (OD2), and gain set to about 11-12 o clock (you can also run it without the boost, but with the gain and crunch balance on max, I found this to be more dynamic and less compressed). Then use an OD pedal with relatively moderate settings, IE all nobs at about 12 o clock or slightly higher. Some folks wack the pedals volume right up to get maximum preamp tube saturation but I prefer to balance between tube and diode distortion. Some of the pedals I really like in front of an MA are....

Ibanez TS808
Maxon OD808
Digitech bad monkey (bargain!)
Danelectro cool drive
Danelecto transparent overdrive (another bargain!)
Boss SD-1

There are many more out there, and its all down to personal taste in the end! Hope this helps you out.

Mike

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby ArtyPaul » 09 Aug 2011, 12:48

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the info - my MXR GT-OD should cover that use then. It's not identical to a Tube Screamer, but it's certainly in that sort of territory, and it's even green! So far I've only used it in conjunction with the clean channel or with the boost off on the overdrive, but I'll have a play with it and see how it works out with the boost on. I was thinking of playing with the preamp tubes too, but to be honest I'm happy with the sound so why tinker?

Thanks again for all the good advice.

Paul.

Crunchifyable
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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Crunchifyable » 18 Aug 2011, 19:55

Had a pre-revoicing MA50H for about 6 months now. Volumes are usually kept somewhere between 1.5 and 4, which is probably louder than "bedroom" and quieter than "stage."

These are my settings

CLEAN
Treble, mids, and Bass all at 3/10. Guess I find the OD channel to be too dark compared to a traditional marshall and I raise the presence to fix it, but have to dial down the clean channel to avoid ice-pickyness. But rehearsing and recording with a straight 412 in relatively confined places may have something to do with it :cowbell or putting a JJ tube in V2.

Sounds great overdriven with a clean boost out in front. Maybe even better than the OD channel.

OD
Used to use treble at 10, mids at 9, and bass at 3.
Now, after reading about how the marshall style treble and bass controls affect the upper and lower mids, I've changed to
treble at 8, mids at 7, and bass at .5 to 1.5



Gain at 3-4, crunch balance somewhere between 5 and 10 based on the style of music.
If I engage the boost, I think I get a decent 80s hot rodded sound.

The boost makes the tone brighter to my ears, so I can't really use it for high gain metal stuff. For high gain, I just set the crunch balance to 10 on OD and use a clean boost of some kind in front of the amp, with an eq (danelectro fish and chips - $30 US) in the loop to massage the mids and low end.

MASTER Section
Presence at 6 or 7.
Resonance 0-6 based on amp volume. I tried going from 0-10 today and found that I didn't really care what it was set at - the effect is subtle
Reverb at 6.

If I were gonna mod it (I'd rather not) I'd add/ change a bright cap or something to the OD channel and fix the boost so its more like a dark high gain 3rd channel.

Oh an I gave the "OD pedal in the fx loop trick" a try today. granted I was using a digitech RP multifx version of a TS and a few other OD pedals, but I didnt notice any difference on very very low pedal gain settings (2/100, or low enough to add a faint amt of distortion). Granted I don't really hear any unflattering fizz normally unless I have the volume below say 1.5 or the gain and crunch balance up to like 9 or 10. But in the second case I think most pre-amps over-over-saturate at extreme settings - its why amp makers keep adding more and more tubes for high gain users.

With a bit more OD pedal gain, it definitely got more textured and gritty and lost some of the high end fizzle that overdriven Marshalls tend to have (I'm thinking bright fizzly Page live vs middy Billy Gibbons Fandango OD). I like OD in the fx, def makes the mids more pronounced/ aggressive, like an amp thats being pushed hard.

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Zube » 19 Aug 2011, 03:10

hi Crunchifyable,
did you replace all the preamp tubes with JJ's ? im running tung-sols in mine and i like the sound, thinking of trying something else in the PI or maybe trying a NOS in v1.. I need to re-visit the the OD in the loop, ive been driving it from the front cause i didnt like the sound from the loop but i think i need to try it more, ive been running a ge-7 thru the loop instead. as been said on here before, driving this amp with a clean boost really changed the sound..
"Excellence is not a skill, It is an attitude"

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Kh-602 » 19 Aug 2011, 03:35

I don't like too my OD pedal in the Loop Fx... If you have a Boss GE-7 put it on the Fx it will chance your sound... I have an MXR 10 band EQ Kerry King and it makes sound my MA100C Really awesome from Metal!!

Crunchifyable
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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Crunchifyable » 21 Aug 2011, 19:51

Zube wrote:hi Crunchifyable,
did you replace all the preamp tubes with JJ's ? im running tung-sols in mine and i like the sound, thinking of trying something else in the PI or maybe trying a NOS in v1.. I need to re-visit the the OD in the loop, ive been driving it from the front cause i didnt like the sound from the loop but i think i need to try it more, ive been running a ge-7 thru the loop instead. as been said on here before, driving this amp with a clean boost really changed the sound..
I only had one JJ 12ax7, so I tried putting it in V2 to warm up gainier side of the OD ( I think). The rest are still stock. I honestly didn't notice a difference when I rotated the JJ into the different sockets (trying see if I could isolate an occasional pre-amp crackle). I did put JJ El34s in and boxed up the Winged Cs that came with it - there was a slight difference, but hard to describe - maybe warmer and slightly more mid-rangey.

I mostly fixed my "too much bass / dark coloring on the OD" issue by keeping my cab 2+ feet from walls :laugher . An eq could help, but if I used eqs to give me everything I wanted, I would probably be tap dancing on at least 3 eqs, maybe four :D. Maybe having only 1 eq pedal is the issue. I use a Danelectro Fish n Chips - it was cheap, and seems study enough, but really easy to brush and mess up the settings.

jagermike66
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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby jagermike66 » 22 Aug 2011, 05:00

I used to use JJs for Pre-amp valves, theyre pretty good. Certainly darken the amp somewhat, but they lack a bit of detail in the mids. I've just put a sovtek 12ax7lps in the PI position and it works great, much better than the JJs. I reckon V2 is the best place for a JJ as it tames the OD boost nicely.

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby SteveD » 22 Aug 2011, 13:24

Welcome to the forum Crunchifyable. :Thumbs
Still my guitar gently weeps

Crunchifyable
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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Crunchifyable » 11 Oct 2011, 14:11

SteveD wrote:Welcome to the forum Crunchifyable. :Thumbs
A belated Thanks for the welcome, Steve :).

The amp sounds good too with slightly scooped mids on the OD channel too :jam from say 2/10 or 3/10 on the control

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby arppe001 » 11 Dec 2013, 10:31

Very old thread but it's time to talk marshall :yea

I have been making small modifications to ma100c and still more to come but I hope the direction is right...

what I have:

-preamp tubes are JJecc83S
-power tubes are JJel34 biased to 37mA
-reverb tank removed
-cooling fan :Thumbs
-guitar gibson les paul standard with burstbucker pro's
-in front of amp is bad monkey for boost (full level, 12 o'clock tones, zero gain)
-fx loop: metal zone drive pedal for volume control (level depends how loud you want to play, lot of treble &bass, mild middle, zero gain), delay/chorus pedal for solo usage
-amp settings OD : balance 8, gain 4, bass 5, mid 10, treble 10, volume 7,reverb 0, resonance 2, presence 8

more to come:

-changing stock speakers to wgs eh-65+veteran 30

Amp sounds pretty good, no fizz, loud as hell...most important thing is metal zone in fx loop. It has enough bass, mid, treble adjustment to change the sound dramatically in what direction you like. sd-1 didn't boost jj preamp tubes enough but with metal pedal the tubes really go over board and les paul screams :Finland

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby thephantum » 13 Dec 2013, 17:36

Welcome to the forum. :howdy

I'm curious why you set the bias to 37mV instead of closer to the factory default of 76mV?

I'm asking because 37mV is cold for the 100C. The cold bias won't hurt the power tubes, in fact they will most likely last longer. However, the tubes won't break up as fast and the amps overall dynamic range will be reduced...especially on the lows. Marshall's typically sound better with a hotter bias than a cold bias.

If you biased it by ear and that's where the JJ's sound good with your setup, that's cool. If not, I would set the bias to default and see what it sounds like. My guess is you'll like the growling and snarling results. :bgrin

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby arppe001 » 17 Dec 2013, 12:14

Hi and thanks :howdy

Sorry, I did mean the bias is 37mV per tube so total 74mV per side. :Thumbs

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Re: Marshall MA settings

Postby Muziekschuur » 18 Jun 2015, 07:51

Hot rodded it with a marker....

DUDE IT NOW GOES TO ELEVEN!!!

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